It's the little things that matter.

[akb778]

The thing is, there's a much better solution to this, that solves the user choice problem easily and fixes every conceivable problem that the date-based setup caused. Even better, it's a feature the entire community already knows and is quite familiar with: a third-party WAD file. You can use glaber's aforementioned (and awful) mod, or if you want you can make your own that isn't as sucky. Either way you get everything that we mentioned before with none of the complicated problems that the built-in, system clock setup created.

^This. Anybody can make a WAD that can replace the graphics of the official levels to be snow/Christmas-themed. The best part is the fact that it's not triggered via the system clock; it can be added at any time of the year. In fact, I suggest that if somebody were to make a Christmas mode WAD, make the Christmas mode maps be on a separate rotation from the rest of the game and maybe make it an unlockable.

I realize this opens an entirely different can of worms, but more than a Christmas-themed level or level-recolor, I'd like one "official" single-player snow-themed level, even if it were short and/or unlockable. I would think that there'd be enough inherent platforming material in such a level (slippery surfaces, traversing under ice floes, maybe an SRB2 Riders-esque boarding section, etc, etc) that one wouldn't be forced to simply make a Midnight Freeze-clone. I honestly thought the original idea with Blue Mountain Zone was to combine lava and ice elements and I loved it.

IIRC, there was a snow/Christmas-themed level that was an unlockable in 1.09.4 days, the Christmas Hunt Zone. In that level you had to hunt down three emeralds that were scattered throughout the map a la Knuckles's stages in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2.

 

[glaber]

that stage dates back to demo 4 where instead of emeralds, it was Santa's clothes

 

[Autosaver]

I realize this opens an entirely different can of worms, but more than a Christmas-themed level or level-recolor, I'd like one "official" single-player snow-themed level, even if it were short and/or unlockable.

Blue Mountain Zone.

Anyways, a Christmas unlockable level would be nice.

 

[MascaraSnake]

Blue Mountain Zone.

Was scrapped.

 

[Eliwood]

Was scrapped.

This might be slightly off topic, but why was it scrapped? I thought it was the level that came right after Red Volcano Zone.

 

[akb778]

This might be slightly off topic, but why was it scrapped? I thought it was the level that came right after Red Volcano Zone.

Blue Mountain Zone was a placeholder for what's going to be Red Volcano Zone Act 2.

 

[Senku Niola]

SnowFlower Zone is 2/3 done, just gotta work on SFZ3.

 

[Violo]

Needs Brak Eggman in a Santa Hat on GFZ3.

 

[MascaraSnake]

This might be slightly off topic, but why was it scrapped? I thought it was the level that came right after Red Volcano Zone.

There had been problems with coming up with gimmicks for RVZ2, so somebody toyed with the idea of having a snow-themed second act instead. Then they decided against it, presumably because it would have made the theming inconsistent and because they eventually got enough ideas for RVZ2.

 

[Shadow Hog]

Actually, IIRC the idea was we included BMZ2 so somebody would go "hey this looks cool" and finish the map for us. Nobody did.

 

[D00D64]

Oh, someone finished it alright.

It just wasn't any good.

 

[SSNTails]

Just spit it out. You removed christmas mode, Easter Eggs, openGL(as you planned at first) and all those extra things simply because you're too lazy to bother keeping it up, and it's much too hard for you to think of a proper way to do it.

Bingo. I was under immense pressure to remove Christmas mode from 2.0, but I was going to keep it in if it wasn't for the task of updating it properly to the 2.x format and extra zones. I also ran out of time (as it was, 2.0 was 2+ months late).

I'm a big fan of the Christmas mode. It used to be a ritual in STJr to play SRB2 Christmas (v0.96) every year. I think someone creating an addon with a new take on the existing levels centered around a Christmas theme could be really interesting.

I think every single zone in the game could work just fine in this motif. Egg Rock could be adapted to be a 'Santa's Workshop' theme. Then you find the giant Brak-Claus who lobs presents, shoots snow, and fires candy cane missiles.

 

[Fred]

I think every single zone in the game could work just fine in this motif. Egg Rock could be adapted to be a 'Santa's Workshop' theme. Then you find the giant Brak-Claus who lobs presents, shoots snow, and fires candy cane missiles.

See this right here? Fuck Miyamoto, give this man an award. (Except don't fuck Miyamoto because he deserves like 20)

 

[Sergeant Brown]

What about me and my idea of adding xmas decorations to Egg Rock?

:<

 

[MascaraSnake]

I don't know, what should be about it?