Sonic Ability Design Contest (SADC) Discussion Thread

[clairebun]

One piece of advice I would personally give is to test your ability across multiple control schemes.

Some people use mouse and keyboard; some people use keyboard only; some people use a gamepad. Some people use simple controls, others use legacy. Mouse and Keyboard will have an easier time using abilities that require the mouse to aim them, while gamepad will have an easier time using abilities that require granular control over the character's core movement. In the same way that the thok may be too stiff to control for a gamepad user, something like the momentum flip can prove to be too sticky for a keyboard user.

As a result, it's important to make sure you are changing your control scheme regularly during testing so that you don't end up catering exclusively to one kind of setup.

 

[Princess Plushima]

While prettying up the trail for climbthok, I gave tieing it to move direction instead of camera direction a try, allowing for the cursed ｄｉａｇｏｎａｌ　ｔｈｏｋ.
Just messing around casually it honestly feels nicer this way, but surely there was a reason the devs decided to tie it to view direction instead?

 

[pastel]

Just messing around casually it honestly feels nicer this way, but surely there was a reason the devs decided to tie it to view direction instead?

With mouse/keyboard it's much easier to use the ability for quick turnarounds and also guarantees you'll have full sight on whatever you're thokking towards. Thokking to the sides or backwards is essentially blind, especially with how high speed the ability is. I think what makes it feel wrong is directionchar. Abilities firing in the direction the player isn't facing makes no sense to me so that's why I only play in legacy and simple modes and never in standard mode. One thing you could do is tie the ability direction to player.drawangle, which would cause the ability to fire where you're facing in standard and towards the camera in legacy.

Anyways, here's a preview for a partially rewritten comet dash + what I'm calling the "recurl drop dash". It's basically post-spring recurling and the drop dash merged into a single ability. The aftermath of the wall dash puts you into a spring state, so you can use it there too.

 

[Julia]

With mouse/keyboard it's much easier to use the ability for quick turnarounds and also guarantees you'll have full sight on whatever you're thokking towards. Thokking to the sides or backwards is essentially blind, especially with how high speed the ability is. I think what makes it feel wrong is directionchar. Abilities firing in the direction the player isn't facing makes no sense to me so that's why I only play in legacy and simple modes and never in standard mode. One thing you could do is tie the ability direction to player.drawangle, which would cause the ability to fire where you're facing in standard and towards the camera in legacy.

Anyways, here's a preview for a partially rewritten comet dash + what I'm calling the "recurl drop dash". It's basically post-spring recurling and the drop dash merged into a single ability. The aftermath of the wall dash puts you into a spring state, so you can use it there too.

Download of this when?

Download of this mod when?

 

[Rumia1]

Download of this mod when?

When the submissions are released on the MB!

Sorry I've been so silent most of this time, a lot has happened over the last 3 weeks but now there's only SEVEN DAYS LEFT! Now is a good time to get the final revisions of the abilities you have made submitted to me, as the ones I got most recently will be the only ones to make it into the pack!

A lot of people have been making some really cool looking abilities and I've had a lot of fun trying them out.

One thing I'd like to update everyone about is that as many people have suggested I will indeed make a new thread once the entire pack is released for a community voting space which will last a much less generous... let's say 4 days? That aught to be enough time to grab enough votes from the community! After that I will edit the opening post of THAT thread with the winners of each trophy!

 

[Julia]

Because I am bad at Lua scripting in all ways possible, I can't find a new ability for Sonic.

 

[rairai104n]

Anyways, here's a preview for a partially rewritten comet dash + what I'm calling the "recurl drop dash". It's basically post-spring recurling and the drop dash merged into a single ability. The aftermath of the wall dash puts you into a spring state, so you can use it there too.

Oh, you're actually revisiting it! This looks incredibly fun, the type of thing that makes me want to get back into mapping if it means I can build around it. I hadn't even considered recurling either, though it's something I've thought should always be a universal thing ever since it's introduction in Triple Trouble. I can kind of understand why it isn't since there'd almost never be a situation where you wouldn't want to, but it was temporary in Triple Trouble iirc to incentivize actually timing. Not to say that you should do that with this though, as I trust whatever direction you decide to go with this to be fun!

 

[Moose the Fat Cat]

Suggesting these again, would still love to play Sonic with this "best of both worlds" moveset. Maybe without Mystic they will get more consideration. Feel like both of these would be awesome.

Pitch 1

Jump x 2 = Double jump or Homing (ala Modern Mod)
Jump + Dash = Thok

Shield power overrides one or the other.

Pitch 2:

1 button gameplay.

Back + Button = Curl/Roll (Crouch if stationary)
Back + Button hold = Spin Dash (charges until release) <--- translates Sonic's pinball origin into 3D doom space

Button x 2 = Homing or Shield Power (helpful when you want to hit the spring/item/enemy you're looking at)

Button x 2 + Forward = Thok (Homing override, helpful when you just want to air-dash through the level for speed)

 

[azoo]

The idea I've always really liked is the following:

Jump + Jump = Double Jump, just as simple as that. It makes for an easy move to understand with useful purpose, and reflects the Saturn era a bit, considering Sonic R has that as Sonic's aerial move lol.

Jump + Spin = Drop Dash, but if you release the button at any point it lets out an Insta-Shield. This makes where you have to decide whether you want extra horizontal speed on landing or extended attack/bounce range in the air, and makes the insta-shield easier to understand for newcomers as now the timing is centered on releasing rather than pressing, leaving a lot more room for players to use and master it. All that, and the insta-shield animation playing as if Sonic "breaks" from the Drop Dash is a cool bit of visual flair.

 

[Rumia1]

Alright, I've given you a couple hours leniency to finish up your finalized submissions. The contest is now over. Please wait warmly while I compile all of these into a release. After the contest pack has been released, I will start a new thread for the purpose of community judging.

 

[Latius]

Can't wait to see what people have made to improve Sonic.