With the 2.2 release, this game really makes itself the only 3D Sonic fangame that feels truly complete with rich and varied levels with a beginning and an end. It is based on the Doom engine, but it has a lot of graphical features that Doom simply didn’t have like slopes and multi-layered geometry.
Why do I say it is the standard for this type of fangame, I’ve seen a lot of fangame attempts on Youtube, and all of them are at least one of the following…
Just a collection of levels with no story
Huge levels, but they feel very empty
One or two levels and far from completion
A test environment with no real game attached
A short engine showpiece that shows off its features
If you get done with the story, there are extra levels that can be unlocked, and they have an active community that is wasting no time creating addons that can easily be activated from within the game itself.
The site has more info, but it has everything from a full campaign to several different playable characters. It appeals to me because it plays as if you simply took the Genesis games (which I grew up with) and added a third dimension. The only weakness is no loops, but it has half-pipes and many of the other momentum-based features.
Finally, the best parts is that it is open source, is light on hardware, and does not require you to make an account to obtain a heavy launcher like Steam. Just download, unpack into a folder, and go. The project is more than 20 years old now, but in my opinion they’re finally at the point where things get interesting.
That’s probably the most impressive thing I’ve seen done with the Doom engine. I’m always amazed at people that have the perseverance to do things like this.
One thing that I’ve noticed is that the graphics of these games making use of the older rendering technology has a certain aesthetic that is completely missing in many games using early polygon-based tech. (if done right of course).
There is something about the sector-based lighting and shading that looks great when scaled up to HD resolution with higher-resolution textures. The game actually does have a means to render in OpenGL, but it’s not exposed to the user and you need to create the required .bat file using Notepad. Software is default because it works better, but they have people wanting to improve the GL component as seen in their patch tracker on GitLab.
Exactly the Sonic game we never played, it looks really good.
What I really disliked about Sonic games is that they were very speedy. I mean that sure, Sonic is fast, I get it. But my brain can handle only 30FPS no reason to go any faster to the point of not seeing the level at all or having any classic gameplay experience. This was something that the Sega game designers never understood.
Also something I said in another thread fits perfectly here as well.
I don’t mind the modern Sonic gameplay, Unleashed got pretty ridiculous with its speed but Generations toned that down a bit. The closest thing we have to a modern sonic fangame is levels made in the Infinity Engine made in Unity, but the moveset is so extensive and so fast, so floaty, and so versatile that it appears pretty hard to actually design engaging levels (because depending on how the designer used it, you don’t have to do much platforming at all).
Now with this game, I’ve been downloading user-made levels and level packs and activating them via the game’s addon menu. The quality varies a bit because they’re obviously not official, but you get faster revisions and a nice stream of new stuff to play. I also am awaiting the first patch release since they tend to also include the OpenGL additions (and gitlab shows quite a few commits in that area).
Another thing, this guy is playing all of the old versions and showing just how the game evolved. It’s surprising how low the standards were at one point, with quality not really taking leaps until version 2.1.
One other nice thing is that the software you need to create your own levels is also very lightweight as well as open-source, not like those Unity-made sonic demos which require the full engine to make content.
After getting over the learning curve in setting up their custom Zone Builder software (which requires the DirectX9 redistributable) and SLADE (for customization in things like textures). After figuring out the common tricks of making a level that really can’t be done at all in Id’s Doom. I got this.
It’s not much to look at, but I’m still at the point where I fool around (ie. started yesterday). The software renderer is still the default for graphics so 4K textures are a no-go. Since this isn’t traditional 3D modeling at all, your Blender skillset won’t help much.
I was surprised to see that they used the DOOM engine, good call, at least that way they would only need to focus on gameplay tuning and levels, pretty much have the entire infrastructure working.
It was heavily modified at least. The original Doom engine as made by Id software, could not do slopes, suspended/floating/multi-layered platforms, moving platforms, pushable platforms, and several other things. They started with a variant known as Doom Legacy and now it’s more or less specialized for the game. This is why you want to use the Zone Builder tool to make levels, because it’s the only one that can access every feature.
I will also note that the project started all the way back in 2002, the Doom engine back then was one of the few 3D solutions that were viable for hobbyists, because the rest were all API’s, very basic, or extremely expensive.
Anyway, I used to dream as a kid of making Sonic levels, and big ones at that. I even drew several in MS Paint where Sonic was a blue square, the level making abilities kind-of fulfills that and more (due to this adding a Z axis). Sure, I wrote code for game making over the years, but Sonic’s physics is a very difficult thing to pin down and takes years to perfect (so I never tried a fangame). Even the level design can be tricky if you’re making it for many different characters with different abilities. It’s a different story when you’re making levels for a game whose team did all the hard work for you.
EDIT: Meanwhile, an updated shot with a new set of custom textures.
This version comes with a bunch of OpenGL fixes, an in-game toggle to switch to OpenGL, a lot of bugfixes, drop shadows for players and other things like rings, and more. It also showcases the game’s current momentum as it is unusually large for a point release, yet it had a quick turnaround time (their Gitlab logs show quite a fair number of volunteer contributors).
In addition, the user content section of their forum now has an addon that replaces many sprites with actual 3D models (when OpenGL is enabled). The game is quickly eliminating any reminder that this was once Doom.
Bumping because the game just got a pretty beefy update with 2.2.5
Along with all of the gameplay polish, this version completely overhauls the OpenGL rendering (to the point where it is arguably superior to the software render). This means it is now like a lot of other games where the CPU takes care of the general logic and the GPU handles the graphics. One side effect is that while some of the more exotic software effects aren’t supported fully (as of yet), OpenGL means the end of the drawing quirks the game inherited from Doom’s rendering system.
