Starshy Stages [v1.1]

[starshy]

Welcome to Starshy Stages, that's it, that's the text, go home.

In this level pack, there's no bosses to fight. Like, at all. Eggman isn't around this time, in fact, animals aren't inside the badniks now. They're full of stardust. I wonder who the villain could be this time around, if there even IS a villain.

There are 9 Zones (17 levels overall, if I don't suck at counting) and 112 emblems you can collect.
The journey starts in Varway Valley Zone.

NOW that's the text and NOW you can go home. Enjoy.

Spoiler: Changes

- Fixed level select order
- Emblem Radar and all that stuff
- Replaced the PPZ2 Easter egg
- VVZ1 Totem offset fix
- VVZ1 near the start Pity shield replaced
- SSZ Castle fix
- CCZ Red Emerald placement change
- VVZ Trees aren't solid any more
- Updated FFZ1 Select picture
- Fixed Strong Character path wall in MMZ1
- The music got compressed a bit (Thanks Man553)
- Changed SSZ and BFZ's music to Sonic 3 Prototype songs because it was requested

 

[Zipper]

Pretty cute level pack, welcome to Releases!

 

[klasky]

This level pack is a very good one. The maps are creative, cute and very ideal for speed characters like SMS. I very much enjoy playing with this with any character I want (ex. Modern Sonic).
Now that I told the pros, time to tell the cons:

- You forgot the Emerald Radar, the Level Select, Pandora's Box and the Sound Test. (sound test for if someone founds the musics jamming and wanna listen to it ingame, and etc.)

- The level select's level order is inconsistent. It's supposed to be from Varway Valley to Rustic Ruins (i think), to Plasma Peaks and blah blah blah, but the correct level order seems to go from backwards...

Other than those cons, I'm fine with this level pack and I would play with this again if there would be the time for. No doubt. Keep up the good work, my friend!

 

[ChrisHighwind]

My only complaint so far is that the jingles seem to be messed up because they don't play with this mod on.

Then again, that could just be because of the instability of the Android port, idk

 

[Othius]

Oh my god I remember this. On my old computer I have a very early beta version of this pack (iirc it was released on the discord...?). Glad to see this again.

 

[little guy*]

Aw, this little pack is nice! It's really fun to play through (Through my few minutes) and I think it's not bad. My only problem was a crash... Other than that, great job!

 

[Crum]

For some reason, I keep having my game hang after beating stages. The music will just get stuck repeating a certain part and then Windows will tell me SRB2 isn't responding. It happened twice in Plasma Peak 2 and once Cosmic Climb. I'm not sure what's happening.

 

[pastel]

The game crashes are being caused by the VGZ format music files. Seems like a bug in SRB2 rather than the mod.

Bug report here: https://mb.srb2.org/showthread.php?t=47653

 

[VILEWORX]

I'm getting a SIGSEGV every time I try to play Cosmic Climb. Ouch.

Also my game data was wiped going from v1 to v1.1, so that's something to fix for future updates.

 

[Othius]

Finally got around to playing this and oh boy, was it a treat.
I didn't expect all the new zones added since your beta.

Spoiler: Some Tips

It's obvious that these are some of your first maps, and you fall into the same traps many beginner mappers do.

-You need more variation vertically. It seems you understand this to an extent. Your levels have vertical variation, but only on a single axis.

-Your levels are too linear! The paths never seem to interweave in a way that that's very interesting, and they go very straight forward most of the time.

-Your levels are too blocky. This one's kind of odd to convey, but a lot of your map decorations feel too geometrical and less fluid than they could be.

-This one's an interesting one. A big issue I see with people's first maps, or first map packs, is that they make their levels too large. You seem to know and understand this issue, but I think you've avoided it too much. These levels are super short, to their own detriment too. On levels like Plasma Peaks and Fallen Facility I was left wanting more.

However, this also works for the current state of the pack, and the quality of the maps themselves. The short run time of each map makes it short and sweet and prevents it from getting monotonous. I enjoyed myself greatly playing this. These levels are super energetic and fun to run through.
However if these levels were polished out more, some added length to each of the zones would be a great addition.

Spoiler: Some visual criticism:

That logo really caught me off guard my first time seeing this thread and loading the mod itself. I'm going to be completely honest, it looks awful. Hand drawn fonts generally don't look too good, and it's overall really sloppy.

But then again, I'm no visual designer. Even so, I tried recreating it myself, although I don't think it's too much better. The de-scaling and palletting of it made it crusty as hell xD. I added a parallelogram because the aliasing the text had over the transparency looked super bad, and then it just ended up looking like a knockoff of Mystic Realm's logo.

However, feel free to use it if you want to.

If you want to center this on screen, set the offsets as 15 and 21 in SLADE. (21 can be variable, depending on how high you want it)

This is how it looks in game:

This screenshot shows a texture gripe I have with the pack as a whole. You don't have to change anything, these are just my own personal opinion on the textures.
Please, please, don't use the `LWATER,` `FWATER,` and `CHEMG`texture sets. They're extremely old remnants from early 2000s srb2, and look really jarring and bad by 2.2 standards. In my opinion, 2.2's new DSWATER is a much prettier alternative, and Techno Hill has it's own new goop textures for the chemical water.

 

[Othius]

I also want to add that I absolutely love the theme for Plasma Peaks and I think it has the potential to be absolutely gorgeous.

I totally want to steal it LOL

 

[Snowy]

Personally? I kinda enjoy this simplicity for most of your maps on display. This is the first map pack that, oddly enough, felt to me more like I was playing the old Sonic 1-2 levels. Granted, this is SRB2 and SRB2's styled maps do great, but I do like the feeling your maps give off- like bite-sized fun.

 

[Moose the Fat Cat]

I loved this up until Crystal Caves when for whatever reason I keep getting SIGSEV crash errors on Mac OS, most updated version.

But really what I played were some of my favorite SRB2 levels in awhile. The flow of everything is right. I dunno if the platforms are wider or if the pacing is different but it just felt very intuitive playing as Classic & Tails. Stellar music choices. Eye popping art design. Love the kind of NES Mega Man feel to it.

Not sure why the SIGSEV error. Loaded it as the only add on without anything else and opened the file to CCZ and crashed again :/

 

[Mr Beagle]

This is a cute pack, the levels aren't that long, but they are of a high quality and have a high variance in their design.

It is nice to see more packs containing emblems and even unlockables, as they give a strong incentive to go back for another round focused on exploration (after unlocking the levels).

 

[ArpeggioPegasus]

I really am enjoying this mod. However, it's not the most stable, after recording a couple of records, the game froze.
https://pastebin.com/D7er9m1u

EDIT : please ignore the part that comes before "Added file C:\Users\crost\Documents\SRB2\addons\VS_StarshyStages-v1.1.pk3 (325 lumps)", I was playing the vanilla game.

 

[desmoki]

I love this map pack! Had lots of fun playing it. I also respect you for using Sonic Classic 2's soundtrack in some of your levels, lol.

 

[tealsummernights]

I really like this map pack. It's nice to see a bunch of really solid linear levels that are fun to blast through. Also a lot of really fun slopes that are so much fun to roll down!

 

[Dima064]

This level pack is great! Really fits if you're looking for just some relaxing playthrough.
My only complaints are:

• The levels can feel too short sometimes. Probably because every level is incredibly open.
• The time and ring records almost have the same requirements. Kinda feels like it was overlooked and quickly copied and pasted.

Overall I had a great time playing this level pack! Good job!

 

[Velvet]

Getting a strange segment violation on the Cosmic stage

 

[Dying Dark]

Nice level pack.
Plenty of space to run around.