[Update 5] Mystic Realm v6 (one week belated) Halloween Demo - & Mystic Realm v5.1

It's such a relief to finally get this over with.
Happy Halloween!... one week late. Yeaaahhhh this one's a bit overdue.

Spoiler: Some Context

Mystic Realm v6 development and Mystic Realm 5.1 development started at roughly the same time.
I had originally pitched a retextured Verdant Forest to Prime 2.0 back in late June or so, asking if would work for a potential Mystic Realm v5.1

His response went beyond what I was hoping for. He said it was too much for a v5.1, but that he'd work directly with me for a v6. Unfortunately I had to leave for a two week vacation around that time. But that didn't stop me. I decided to bring a shitty laptop with me.

I got a dev team set up of respected artists, mappers, and coders. Dave, Zipper, Krabs, So2ro, Zolton. At the same time we were all working on v6. We were also going back to v5 to do some polish work for a v5.1

It was by far the most productive I've ever seen a project in the span of 2 weeks. We had managed to make new enemies, new sprites for enemies, a revamp of Jade Coast 1, 2, 3, and Tempest Valley 1 to match the quality standard of 2.2. We had gotten full redesign of Mystic Shrines, new textures for stages. New emerald gathering system for v5.1. We had big plans to rework movement and abilities.

And it all fell apart in a day.
Some drama went down. People didn't want to work with Prime out of fear of their reputation. Most of the dev server left. Prime got banned.

Almost symbolically this was the day I left home from vacation.

Months later after development stopped, with anticipation still high. I decided I would release everything we had made for it. I figured Halloween would be a good date. I could give it a festive twist for its campaign and package all the normal stages as unlockables. I ran into quite a few hurdles, which was why it wasn't released on Halloween. But oh my god this is better than I could ever hope it would be.
Setting the Halloween demo up brought some new faces to the dev team, as well as some new contributions from original members. Seaballer helped finish and polish the Jade Coast revamp. RalphJeremy65 contributed these really clean HUD elements. Dave contributed new title cards and helped me with the Halloween conversion process. Apollyon contributed new recolored GFZ textures for Jade Coast.

Mystic Realm v6 Demo features:
* -Slopes!
* -Halloween Versions of Jade Coast Zone and Tempest Valley 1 and 3.
* -An all emerald final boss! (The emeralds are scattered around the Halloween stages, Master System style)
* -Every updated non-Halloween stage as emblem unlockables
* -Jade Coast (4)
* -Tempest Valley (8)
* -Verdant Forest (12)
* -Flame Rift (16)
* -New Title Cards by Dave Lite
* -New HUD by RalphJeremy65
* -New custom enemies by Zolton and Dave
* -Most of the SOC by Zolton
* -Final Demo homage voiced by CrystalCore

I also figured I'd attach a near complete version of Mystic Realm v5.1. A few quality of life changes over Mystic Realm v5.

Mystic Realm v5.1 Beta features:
* -You have to get the emeralds in the Emerald Stages now. No longer accidentally skipping them
* -New texture patches for Tempest Valley.
* -Too many minor changes to count.

Also attached with this is a short mishmash of reusable mods that I tested with titled Styles. I figured I'd put it because this is how I tested and designed the maps for. It includes
* -Rebound Dash and Uncurl, by Krabs,
* -Spring Frontflip by Crum,
* -Sloperollangle by Golden,
* -Classic physics by Rumia (I had set it up when Classic was reusable. Don't worry, I've gotten her permission.).
I made this pk3 initially because I was tired of having to go to the addons menu and load all of them at once during dev. It also served as a guiding prototype because we had wanted to make reworked physics and abilities. I had set up something that worked and was fun to play.
Just a fun tidbit, Styles at its core was one of the reasons for XMomentum, which also happens to be made for use in level packs.

I can't believe I finally get this over with. I've been stressing over this for a long time. It's a lot to get off my chest finally getting it out to the public.

I will do small bugfix updates. Please report bugs to me. I will probably not add new features, sorry. I'm done with this for now.

I hope you all enjoy this!

And a shout out to all of my playtesters!
* Slow
* Sylve
* DaJumpJump
* Inazuma
* Logan8r
* Frostiikin
* PencilVoid
* Tatsuru
* Appleblurt
* RalphJeremy65
* Starlight

Spoiler: changelog

MRv6HalloweenDemo-v1:
* -Release

MRv6HalloweenDemo-v2:
* -Amy now playable (lol)
* -Fixed a typo in the emblem unlockables
* -Fixed brightness issues in Jade Coast
* -Fixed a missing texture in JCZ1
* -Ending credit now works in green resolutions

MRv6HalloweenDemo-v3:
* -New capsule at the end of Tempest Valley 3
* -Knuckles can beat Mystic Realm Zone
* -Updated the unlockables list to reflect the actual emblem unlock amount
* -Raised the brightness in Jade Coast again

MRv6HalloweenDemo-v4:
* -Fang now playable (lol)
* -Fixed credits flowing off the screen in green resolutions
* -Fixed some untextured walls
* -

MRv6HalloweenDemo-v5:
* -All emblems are now collectible (lol)
* -Fixed line overflow in Extras Checklist
* -Blue Emerald is now more easily accessible
* -New ending artwork by DaJumpJump
* -Loads of polish and bugfixing
-Emerald Key when starting the campaign
-Edits to the custom capsule at the end of TVZ3
-Inner Sanctum is accessible through Record Attack and Level Select

[BravenwolfTFS]

Dammit, I got excited because of the stuff on the credits.

I was literally so excited to play this that I ended up skipping the title screen to host a server with some friends.

...Rats.

[RalphJeremy65]

That final demo homage was meant to be a joke

[Gray21oh]

Huge pity that this will never be finished and I honestly believed that this was going to carry over the original incredibly well.


Ahh well. Hopefully what's here can be injected into something better without much bad will carried on it.

[time gear]

Seeing as how this project is apparently canceled, I suppose it would be best not to think of this as a proper criticism post, as no further progress will come of this level pack anyway. Instead, just think of this as a thoughts and impressions post. Specifically, I am referring to v6 in this post, and not v5.1.

With that out of the way, here are my said thoughts and impressions:
Visually aesthetically, this level pack is absolutely beautiful. Moreso in my opinion than the vanilla campaign. These levels feel more alive and vibrant than ever before. So much so that I would comfortably say that it is the main campaign levels that are in dire need of living up to these levels visually rather than the other way around. I especially like the new emerald alters, and wouldn't at all mind something similar being implemented into the vanilla campaign someday, perhaps as a method of obtaining some secret unlockable if all of them are found and activated.

In terms of level design, I generally feel as though these levels are a step up from their older counterparts, though the tendency of levels to be more uphill than downhill is still quite prevalent and noticeable, causing Sonic to still feel rather sluggish in many of these levels compared to the more vertically gifted characters. Nonetheless, the addition of slopes is a massive plus, and the general reimagined feel to the levels is utterly fantastic.

The boss levels on the other hand, at least after the first one, feel rather lacking. SRB2 has come a long way since the old days, and there are many new bosses in the game. I would very much have preferred to see some of those get used in some creative new way rather than just the Eggmobile getting reused several times over. This was something of a disappointment.

Overall, this generally tickles my nostalgia in a more positive light than a negative one, and I even somewhat find myself sad that we will probably never get to see the other levels get likewise reimagined. I can only hope that in the future sometime, the vanilla campaign can borrow a little bit from this visually.

[GamerLuna2020]

Originally Posted by Apollyon Woman

As stated right at the start of the game, it is cancelled.

All because Mystic did something bad.

[Daviroll_Limit]

i'm still bitter of what Mystic did and what eventually caused in the entire Forum from begin with.
now that this is over, you guys must be happy that this huge weight full of shame and regret (trust me, i went into this type of situation before) is officially over.
hope for something better to come (especially the possible Sugoi 4)

[RomioTheBadass]

Oh wow, definitely giving this a whirl

[Kwiin]

Originally Posted by GamerLuna2020

All because Mystic did something bad.

Ironically enough this project was started after he had been removed from the community.

[Zeno]

it's good to see this mod finally get the update it deserves, even if it won't ever be finished

[Mr.Siphon]

I didnt realise it at first but those monitores are from sonic 1 and sonic CD! Really Cool!

[The Real Inferno]

Originally Posted by Mr.Siphon

I didnt realise it at first but those monitores are from sonic 1 and sonic CD! Really Cool!

... aren't they just the vanilla SRB2 monitors, though?

[Kwiin]

Nope, Dave made new monitor textures. As sorta a homage to how they used to be.

[The Real Inferno]

Originally Posted by Kwiin

Nope, Dave made new monitor textures. As sorta a homage to how they used to be.

Ah, my bad, then. Thanks for the correction.

[U.Flame]

Aww, sad that it's canceled. Hope it gets picked up again someday, either by the same team or others. Mystic Realm has gotten pretty complicated in its dev cycle over the years hasn't it.

[Simon_T]

I won't ask for this to be completed but...
Could you at least release a non-Halloween version of the v6.0 demo?
Those levels are way too dark and pretty discouraging to explore, but I would like to play the normal ones without having to spend +10 minutes in that dark mess, hunting for emblems and smashing my face against every wall while trying to Time Attack them :u

[time gear]

Originally Posted by Simon_T

I won't ask for this to be completed but...
Could you at least release a non-Halloween version of the v6.0 demo?
Those levels are way too dark and pretty discouraging to explore, but I would like to play the normal ones without having to spend +10 minutes in that dark mess, hunting for emblems and smashing my face against every wall while trying to Time Attack them :u

If you use the custom gamedata mod and load it after the level pack, you can bypass having to play the halloween versions at all assuming your custom gamedata has at least one cleared save slot.

[Jaco Boy]

I played the first zone, honestly im not a big fan of the level design. I kept seeing myself getting lost. Especially in act 2. I didnt really like the use of the pumcodedemon. The emerald shrines were pretty cool though. It sucks that the project got fucked over due to the stuff with Prime. At the very least, hopefully working this project gave you some practice and knowledge that you can put into other projects.

[Kwiin]

woop woop

update time.

MRv6HalloweenDemo-v5:
* -All emblems are now collectible (lol)
* -Fixed line overflow in Extras Checklist
* -Blue Emerald is now more easily accessible
* -New ending artwork by DaJumpJump
* -Loads of polish and bugfixing
-Emerald Key when starting the campaign
-Edits to the custom capsule at the end of TVZ3
-Inner Sanctum is accessible through Record Attack and Level Select

[Green The Hedgedog]

1.09.4 First Released

---------- Post added at 08:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:39 PM ----------

First Release the created sonic team junior

[little guy*]

Oh wait it's already out?
Jeez, I need to check MB more often