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SRB2: The Solar Quest

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742mph

My work is never done yet
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I swear, this one isn't going to die like The Rift and Silver the Hedgehog.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, this is the topic for my in-progress full-length modification The Solar Quest. Basically, this is my attempt to pick up the pieces (just the concepts, not the actual content, except for the things I made) of the recently deceased level collab project and put them together with my own ideas to create a complete level pack for SRB2 akin to Mystic Realm and Tortured Planet (and possibly of slightly lower quality). Before I begin to explain what exactly this pack will be like, I would like to give credit to Whackjood, Charybdizs, and everyone else who contributed to the level collab whose level ideas I sto-uh, borrowed.

After his most recent defeat in Vanilla SRB2 and the destruction of his base on the Black Rock, Eggman was distraught. He really and truly believed that he would succeed in conquering the world that time. Then, however, he hit upon an idea for a magnificently malicious scheme! He used the remaining mining machinery inside the Black Rock over a period of months to shred it into tiny pieces of rock and metal. He then processed the pieces in his factories and began to assemble them into a Dyson Sphere around Mobius' sun. (For those of you who don't know, a Dyson Sphere is a fictional structure composed of a mechanical shell around a star that is either designed as a residential area or to collect solar energy.) When it was completed, it would allow him to harvest vast amounts of solar energy--enough to easily take over Mobius--as well as completely blocking out the sun within, leaving the planet dark, cold, and powerless to stop him as a result!

Meanwhile, back on Mobius (specifically Storm Swamp Zone), Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles were getting concerned about the ever-growing dark splotch on the sun that now covered half of its visible surface. Tails sets up his portable telescope to invesigate, only to find out about the Dyson Sphere and quickly deduce who's behind it (considering it has a Death Egg face). The three of them locate Eggman's largest ground base and reason that Eggman has to have some way to transport badniks and materials to and from the sphere, and that's where it's most likely located. Perhaps they could use it to sneak onto the Dyson Sphere and shut it down!

Unfortunately, Eggman was aware of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles' presence in Storm Swamp and sent a swarm of robots to stop the group from leaving alive! Can the three heroes escape the swamp, infiltrate the ground base, travel to the "Dyson Egg", and foil Eggman's nefarious plot?
Zone 1--Storm Swamp
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This forested area is constantly plagued by torrential rains, and its low-lying regions are mostly flooded as a result. Flora and fungi thrive here in the form of lily pads, vines, and enormous bouncy mushrooms--at least in the areas where Eggman's processing plant isn't poisoning the water.
Difficulty--Easy
Progress--Acts 1-3 complete (100%)
Concept Credits--Whackjood, Chrome

Zone 2--Crystalline Caverns
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Inside of a towering mountain close to Storm Swamp lies a vast network of river-eroded caves sparkling with jewels waiting to be mined--which they are by Eggman, and that mining is causing the entire system to crumble apart, so watch out for ledges that break on contact and lava rising from deeper inside the planet.
Difficulty--Easy
Progress--None (0%)
Concept Credits--N/A

Zone 3--Parched Processing
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Eggman has set up a solar power plant in the middle of a scorchingly hot desert to provide energy for his badniks, and it's up to you to disable it. It isn't spewing toxic chemicals like the last one was, but you should still be wary of the earthquakes emerging from the nearby Crystalline Caverns, the dangerously powerful guard lasers, and the exposed wires that send thousands of volts through any object that touches them.
Difficulty--Easy/Medium
Progress--Act 3 complete (10%)
Concept Credits--N/A

Zone 4--Tectonic Temple
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In order to reach Eggman's ground base, you'll have to climb a treacherous active volcano and navigate through the ancient ruins sitting atop it. Not only will there be plenty of molten rock, fireballs, and lava geysers, but the ruins are crammed full of traps such as flame jets and falling cages. It'll take quite a bit of skill to not get scorched into oblivion here.
Difficulty--Medium
Progress--Act 3 complete (10%)
Concept Credits--Charybdizs

Zone 5--Honey Hive
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You've finally reached Eggman's ground base, and it's... a giant beehive. This fortress of honey is nothing to chuckle at, however. Its insectoid inhabitants are armed with deadly weapons, the hive is partially submerged in quicksand-like honey, and even reaching the hive is a challenge due to the treacherous, half-dead forest outside.
Difficulty--Medium
Progress--Act 3 complete (10%)
Concept Credits/Special Guest--Charybdizs

Zone 6--Greenhouse Globe
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After successfully locating and using the teleporter that would hopefully lead you to the Dyson Egg, you instead find yourself on an an alien planet suffering from the greenhouse effect that Eggman is excavating and polluting the *spring noise* out of. You'll have to climb your way out from the bottom of the ocean (yes, you have infinite breath here), navigate through the massive castles that have been set up on what little dry land there is left, and invade the enormous fortress city in the center of the largest island. Be prepared to screw up at one point or another.
Difficulty--Hard
Progress--None (0%)
Concept Credits--Chaybdizs, Katmint

Zone 7--Maniacal Metropolis Act 1/Apocalyptic Airship Acts 2-3
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Inside the eerie fortress city lurk a myriad of deadly badniks, including Orbinauts that throw their shield in all directions, as well as grind rails, dash rings (what is this, a modern game?), conveyor belts, plenty of 2D sections, and horizontal Thing-based moving platforms. Act 2 of this hectic zone is spent on board Eggman's Dyson Egg-bound spaceship, complete with "smart" crushers, Space Countdown areas, and a confrontation with a silver-armored Metal Sonic.
Difficulty--Hard
Progress--Act 3 complete (10%)
Concept Credits--Zipper

Zone 8--Dyson Doom
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Here it is: Eggman's massive headquarters at the very center of the solar system. Act 1 is the only full-length level of this zone, and it's a crazy one indeed. Scattered throughout it are devices that increase or decrease your gravity and/or size, trap teleporters, crushers, lasers, and solar flares rocketing up in intervals from the sun's surface. The second act is a furious race to the finish against Metal Sonic, who uses his Maximum Overdrive Attack and energy missiles to speed himself up and send you plunging into the sun if you're not careful.
Difficulty--Very Hard
Progress--None (0%)
Concept Credits--N/A

Zone 9 (All Emeralds, 1 Act)--???
???
Difficulty--Very Hard
Progress--None (0%)
Concept Credits--N/A

(Credit to Blade for some sprites.)
Besides the secret one-act final zone, there will most likely be emblems hidden throughout the levels in accordance with the 2.0.6 method of collection, if that will even be possible after 2.1 comes out (because believe me, this level pack will not be finished before that). There may also be missions for each act akin to the ones in Sonic Generations, except not as numerous and hopefully not as repetitive. These missions will most likely be limited to a certain character (so you can't cheese your way through all of them with Tails) and award you with an emblem upon completion. I'm not sure what collecting all emblems will unlock yet, if it will unlock anything besides bragging rights.
I know ~8.25 zones is a lot to deal with, but this is not a project I'm going to try to rush like some of my previous failures. Plus, I have a plan for exactly how I'm going to release this pack: Every time I finish the first act of a zone, I'll submit it to the OLDC, then use the feedback I get for both it and Act 2 and officially release them in a one-zone installment of sorts after I'm done with the latter (although the extra content will most likely be limited to the full version). Feel free to comment and give suggestions anytime you want, and hopefully this will stay active enough to succeed where the level collab failed. If it doesn't, I suppose I'll just keep reanimating it again and again in different forms until I have enough content to make an actual full-length pack. :P Anyway, what do you think of this?

(Current version: 0.1 (SSZ, PPZ3, TTZ3, HHZ3, AAZ3): http://www.sendspace.com/file/oxryfr)

NOTE: THIS PROJECT IS ON HOLD INDEFINITELY FOR VARIOUS REASONS.
 
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Umm, the rift died? And you know how hard it is to fuse levels? Well, that aside, this mod looks quite interesting. Looks nice. :-)
 
Umm, the rift died? And you know how hard it is to fuse levels? Well, that aside, this mod looks quite interesting. Looks nice. :-)

Yeah, I was halfway through the fifth stage when I realized that all the levels were crap, so I decided to focus my efforts elsewhere. And I'm not really "fusing" levels in the traditional sense, I'm just adapting a few ideas from each of them, like the lily pads from Blue Lagoon and the sludge pipes from Black Water. It certainly won't be easy to finish this thing, though.
 
Well, this sounds interesting. I hope you are going to make some nice levels for this mod.

Also, if you aren't going to use the textures from the new Frost Columns for the Crystalline Caverns, I'm going to be sad.

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Aw yeah, those are some nice crystals alright
 
U were just at Soul Serv, Werent you? And There are red crystal textures for Crystaline Caverns, It'd Be Cool If you put red and blue in The Level. Oh and those new rock textures in Crystaline caverns And Frost Columns. =o
 
Plus, I have a plan for exactly how I'm going to release this pack: Every time I finish a zone, I'll combine it all into one level and submit it to the OLDC, then use the feedback I get to improve the individual acts and officially release them in a one-zone installment of sorts (although the extra content will most likely be limited to the full version).
I think it would be much better to just release the acts separately (maybe attach the boss to the second act). If you screw up in act 1, you will want to learn your lesson before you start on act 2.
 
Basically, this is my attempt to pick up the pieces (just the concepts, not the actual content, except for the things I made) of the recently deceased level collab project and put them together with my own ideas to create a complete level pack for SRB2 akin to Mystic Realm and Tortured Planet (and possibly of slightly lower quality).

<SpiritCrusher> Great!
<SpiritCrusher> That's what we need
<SpiritCrusher> A level pack even more mediocre than those two
<D00D64-X> well SpiritCrusher
<D00D64-X> I sure am going to quote you on that
<D00D64-X> thanks for summing it up for me!
<SpiritCrusher> Please don't make a post saying that

And then I made a post of him saying that!

Anyways, seeing as how you appear to be reusing all those rubbish bosses of yours, I already have the bar set onto the floor. And then I read the word "hiemal" and saw another level had "poisonous honey" and then buried the bar six feet under.

But hey, it's not Window Planes in Space, so things can only get better at this point. Good luck!
 
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Not only did he quote me, he also quoted me out of context. I was referring to "and put them together with my own ideas to create a complete level pack for SRB2 akin to Mystic Realm and Tortured Planet (and possibly of slightly lower quality)" in your opening post. That doesn't mean I actually expect your level pack to be mediocre.
 
pfffft Hiemal

Use Honeyhive, please. And if there is any significant progress on this pack, I will pull a guest appearance and gladly make Honeyhive w/o poisonous honey, for you. It was my favorite idea of the whole pack, anyways.

But really, I am happy to see you doing this. But please, aim higher than Tortured Planet and Mystic Realm. It's important not to set your eyes TOO high, but if you set them that low, you're doomed for failure. Do you know what both of those packs did wrong? If you do, then learn from that, and avoid those caveats! If you don't, then take the time to really examine it.

As for those bosses, I'm sort of meh on the whole thing. Bosses are a small part of Sonic, for me, so a few mediocre bosses hardly bothers me, especially if the zones are well built.

I must say though, that idea for the last zone sounds absolutely fantastic. Like something out of Halo, in all honesty. It'd be interesting to see for sure.

Try hard, aim optimistically, but realistically, and don't get discouraged. ^_^
 
The Solar Quest version 0.1 has been released. It includes a completed SSZ and boss fights for four of the other zones.
 
So far it seems like a nice and solid wad. How did you get those extra spring jump frames though, I'd like to know. Also, is it just me or are most of the bosses from the Single Player collab? I could have sworn I've seen those Iron Sonic and Queen Bee bosses before.
 
Also, is it just me or are most of the bosses from the Single Player collab? I could have sworn I've seen those Iron Sonic and Queen Bee bosses before.

Yeah, a good bunch of the stuff here was stuff he originally made for the Single Player collab. Since the collab itself ended up dying, he decided to use them in this level pack of his own instead.
 
Storm Swamp Zone's music still doesn't fit. If I ever get bored, I'll just create one and see if it fits any better.

Also, it kind of bugs me that you didn't credit TeeLopes for that Splash Hill remix at all.
 
Storm Swamp Zone's music still doesn't fit. If I ever get bored, I'll just create one and see if it fits any better.

Also, it kind of bugs me that you didn't credit TeeLopes for that Splash Hill remix at all.

I believe I credited him in the MainCFG. If I didn't, then sorry about that.

EDIT: I did in fact credit him. When the mod is finished and it's time to make the credits sequence, I'll be sure to mention him in the "Music" section.
 
This pack shows promise, but there are a lot of problems. First of all, why did you modify the official characters? Temporary invincibility after being hit is reduced for no good reason, and combined with the weird pseudo-knockback this makes it very annoying to escape hazards (like slime, for example). Hitting a spring makes the console spew out an error message. Tails's flight is crippled to a ridiculous degree and instead of tiring, he falls down abruptly without any warning. These changes are annoying and seem to serve no practical purpose besides customizing the game as much as possible just because you can.

The first zone has nice ideas, but execution leaves something to be desired. Act 1 in particular is rather cramped and has very little "breathing space" for the player. This is especially apparent in the alternate path in the middle of the level with the swinging vines (which, by the way, need custom graphics). One challenge is followed immediately by another, and there's no space in-between for the player to recuperate. The player is very fast in SRB2, and the level design should acknowledge this by giving him enough room. Act 2 is better in that regard, although rooms like the first one still have too much stuff in one place.

Another problem is that you hardly explore your gimmicks. The mushroom bouncing is moderately fun, but every time it comes up, it's used in the same way. The only exception is the withered mushroom, which for some reason is a normal platform. Not a very intuitive mechanic, and neither is it introduced properly nor does it have a lot of potential; it's just a regular platform after all. Likewise, the sinking lilypads appear only twice, I think, and both times they're just lined up in a row for you to jump over. There's more to a platforming level that just spamming your gimmicks and then abandoning them. Integrate them into your level. Combine them with traditional platforming. Design rooms that incorporate the gimmick into a larger challenge. Right now your levels feel like an obstacle course.

2D transitions are admittedly a pet peeve of mine, but I still feel like you used them for no reason other than for the sake of having them. ERZ gets away with zoom tubes because it's a mechanical level. The zoom tubes in your levels have no such justification. What are they doing in a forest/swamp environment? Finally, the theme transition feels incredibly awkward. You use jungle and THZ textures in the same room, alternate green and withered grass at a whim and in general just combine the themes without any though as to whether they fit together. I don't see any reason for even having the factory theme in there at all, especially since the sinking platforms are identical to the lilypads anyway. Why don't you just stick with the swamp theme and actually make something out of it, instead of scratching the surface like you do now?

Regarding the bosses, I won't go into much detail, but the Metal Sonic boss is absolutely inappropriate for a first boss, with the turret laser and all. The act 3 boss is a nice idea in theory, but in practice it's just annoying to climb these sinking platforms over and over again and the bombs hardly hit you anyway.
 
Temporary invincibility after being hit is reduced for no good reason... Hitting a spring makes the console spew out an error message...

I'm not going to respond in great detail to your post, since that would take forever and probably lead to an argument akin to the one over the Egg Mobile ZX, which I don't want to repeat. In response to those two things, however, temporary invincibility is not actually reduced, the player just switches to their falling frames so they can actually control themselves after being hit, thus making it easier for them to stay on whatever platform they were on when they were hit. If it's really a problem, though, I'll extend invincibility time by one second or so. As for the spring thing, an error message is only produced when playing as the original skins because the new spring animation uses frames that they don't have, so I'm not going to do anything about that unless I decide to return the characters' abilities to normal.
 
I'm not going to respond in great detail to your post, since that would take forever and probably lead to an argument akin to the one over the Egg Mobile ZX, which I don't want to repeat.

You don't need to respond, just do it. It's all perfectly good advice, and I might even go so far as to say wonderful advice. Whenever you're tempted to use the same gimmick in the same way twice... just remember Tortured Planet~
 
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