Super Schoolhouse zone (Baldi's Basics but as a Sonic stage)

[Aquavine]

Looks like Baldi's Basics Plus Is finally back from the year lasting update gap. And the game as a whole is becoming popular again, so as a BB's veteran (Since 2018) I knew I had to do something for this moment. So I decided to try making a whole sonic stage from all the content this game offers at the moment. This is what I made for now:
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I started building this stage earlier today so it might be a bit bare-bones, but you can quite see what I'm going for with this project. I have much more things planned like:
-Implementing events into the stage as gimmicks (I'm sure about adding flood and gravity flip, but I might think about the rest)
-Custom graphics made in BB's style (If there's actual need for them)
-And actual platforming sections (Yes, there are going to be slopes in this stage it's just not the right moment for them)
And other smaller things.
I realise that this stage might be a bit hard to navigate around due to tight corridors. But I'm doing my best to make this stage less annoying to move around in.
This is a side project for me so there might be less updates over time because of me shifting to my main one instead.​

 

[Aquavine]

I got some more sections and ideas done, here's what I added:
-Outside section
-Platforming in a platforming based game (WOW!)
-Conveyor belts (It's pretty rough in terms of level design at the moment.)
Here's the footage of the new sections:

(For some reason when I lowered the game's window size, the camera's sensivity got wierdly high and that's why I bump a few walls.)
The stage is a bit empty and that's because I will add more detail when I finish the level design. (And because there's too many wall textures and it's variants to import.)
This stage reminds me of that one Sonic Schoolhouse addon for some reason. And it's not because BB's is directly inspired by this game, it's just has this odd vibe to it.

 

[Riolucariolu]

I never played Baldi because it's not the kinda game I like to play and because it's a bit flat. It was more of a meme to me.
But I think this looks really cool. I think the gameplay being a bit rough definitely fits the thematic you're going for. I do however like the slopes and platforming sections, they don't take away from the Baldi setting too much and the way you showcase it in that video, it seems like it could be fun.

Are you going for something maze like or do you want to make people find the right way from the beginning? I doubt I'd find the way myself, but Baldi has also been about memorization if I'm not mistaken, so a maze would be fine, at least to me.

 

[Aquavine]

I never played Baldi because it's not the kinda game I like to play and because it's a bit flat. It was more of a meme to me.
But I think this looks really cool. I think the gameplay being a bit rough definitely fits the thematic you're going for. I do however like the slopes and platforming sections, they don't take away from the Baldi setting too much and the way you showcase it in that video, it seems like it could be fun.

Are you going for something maze like or do you want to make people find the right way from the beginning? I doubt I'd find the way myself, but Baldi has also been about memorization if I'm not mistaken, so a maze would be fine, at least to me.

I thought about making this stage in a specific way. It would work based on precision and not raw speed.
If you would play this stage as modern sonic or junio sonic you would simply bonk all the walls possible, actually being slower than players that can precisly navigate around the halls of the school with full accuracy.
And I don’t like the maze idea, I think about giving player a option to enter a classroom or faculty room that’s slower but rewards them with shields or rings. And this stage is pretty straight forward so a even a small variety in paths is cool to me.
And I’m sure I will make a custom poster that will say something like ”Precision beats speed” or something along these lines to communicate to player that they should hit the brakes a bit.
And yeah you can see these tens of hours in BB’s just from level design.
It’s pretty fun to design the schoolhouse, because in the full game each schoolhouse is randomly generated with seeds (like in minecraft) so even the most disgusting rooms would look completely normal if you encountered it in original game.
And there’s more to come than just simple hallways. You can even see it in the second video on this project with the conveyor belt.
Also there are going to be more visual variety, its just way too much textures too add for the moment.

 

[Aquavine]

In this update I made more visual changes by making custom textures, adding tables, and changing the faculty rooms walls. And making more progress on the stage layout too. And adding a new gimmick, the lockdown door. I will probably add another door earlier in the stage that opens with the one seen in the video. And if you back track to it there will be some kind of bonus room available. Like a room full of rings for example.

I really like this tile based lighting system in BB+. I think I recreated it pretty faithfully to the original, but it might be just a bit too dark sometimes.

 

[Aquavine]

Made another custom poster. I'm surprised that this poster somehow looks better in SRB2 pallete than the original.

There's not much new content looking past the posters. For now I'm adding more BB's scenery to make this stage look less like a WIN95 maze with rings and enemies.

With the minor details out of the way, I will start making more of the level again. After I'm done with the lockdown doors I will start adding events, but I'm not sure about what event I should do first, but probably the gravity flip event.

 

[Aquavine]

I'm done with the lockdown doors, now I will try to add the flood event.

This time I made some really unique enviroments with just these limited textures, I especially like the small outside area with the brick walls instead of the fences, it really gives me this liminal space vibe. I kinda got directly inspired by it.
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I'm 100% sure that Baldi would pull of this kind of thing in game. It's in character for him to do this silly and wacky stuff.

I also realised that I really don't know how to add these events into the stage. With the flood I had an idea that you would have to keep jumping between lockers or vending machines to not fall in water. But how I can make a fog machine fun, like what I can do with it :/

Spoiler: Out of topic thingy

It's my birthday today :D and I got sick with above 37°C fever D: You can say that this is a birthday bash update (The confusion part of being sick is starting to kick in)

 

[Aquavine]

There's a small chance that I will make a custom track for this stage. (maybe 10% at most)
Because I have to tools to do so :> (I got a bit distracted at the end, try to guess the extremly specific reference.)

It was a bit hard for me to find a safe way to download a program that existed since 1 9 9 3. (The name of this program is music maker, and it comes bundled with adventure maker.)
If you didn't noticed already I have completely zero idea about music production, but atleast the program is pretty easy and simple to work with.

Post automatically merged: May 30, 2024

#SMOL UPDATE#
After I found all the instruments used in the OST, I made a recreation of the school theme but with cymbals from the elevator music.

My main inspiration for the yet non-existent track is schoolhouse escape from the remaster of the original game.

 

[Aquavine]

WE ARE GETTING OUT WHILE WE STILL CAN WITH THIS ONE (I couldn't miss out on such a opportunity to say this)

For real now, I have fully understood how to use this program, and as I said earlier I based the main melody on schoolhouse escape. I randomly decided to make my own music for this stage with absolutely no prior music experience, and this lead me to making few other versions of this song, mainly different instruments and placement of the notes. And in terms of notes or instruments this might be the final version of this song.
I will maybe make this song longer without letting it loop just after 30 seconds. I also have no title for this song yet.
And I will change the cuica placement a bit, because it sounds kinda odd now. (Cuicas make these oh/ah sounds)

 

[Aquavine]

This time I made a map update. After having completely zero ideas on how to add the events I decided to add field trip minigames instead. The first one that I added is the farm field trip (aka corn maze) there's the footage:

And two screenshots:

It's just a normal maze, but instead of wandering aimlessly you get hints in shape of arrows painted on ground and trails of rings. (As the sign says)
And I also have more stuff planned ahead, after you get past the maze, you go to camping minigame. (aka forest) and that's just a random idea I got → [You're in a large open area like in the original minigame, where you have to find some kind of switches that will open a new path so you can progress further into forest] and after that you return to the schoolhouse, but this time it's night. (I've chosen the minigames in such order so there can be realistic passage of time :>) It's probably going to be one of the last sections in this map, the plan is that you will have to run around barely lit schoolhouse, while closing all the fake exits so you can go to the real one, just like in the og game. I will also make custom ambience for this moment.

 

[Aquavine]

Before building the camping field trip, I decided to make a small intermission section in schoolhouse at sunset, it's pretty short but it doesn't stop me from making it look completely f a b u l o u s. (It looks pretty chill and even comfortable at times.)

And I already made a small placeholder for camping area too.

I also started optimazing this stage. I'm building this stage with 256x256 sectors and I connect them like blocks so I can edit their propities more easily, like adding BB's shaded lighting for example. But it's kinda unoptimized because there is way more sectors than there's need for. (Around 2000 invidiual sectors at the highest) So I started merging them and now I'm around 1400 sectors, and it's also making the WAD file itself lighter,
and I pretty much want it to be as small as possible because now it's at 5.30 mb's (Which is quite large for a single stage...)

 

[Aquavine]

I made some updates and they are all over the place so I will just make a list:
-I fully merged all of grid-made sectors and dropped the sector count from 2200 to only 400
-After merging them I also deleted all of the verticies that were left after the grid sectors, which made the WAD file a bit lighter and the stage more optimazed.
-I added 20 more seconds to the (I think I can call it an) OST, which comically made the WAD file larger again :/ (Here is it btw)

-The stage as of writing this is about 3 minutes in length if you're just running without any speed boosts. This may be a bit of a problem because I still have the camping minigame to do and a whole section based on the closing exits mechanic from base game. (and also BB+) It seems that I'm just forever cursed to consistently making lengthy maps :< (atleast for base srb2 standards)
-I also plan to add some sorts of credits room or some thing along those lines, I would want to make my own BB's styled music detached from the vibe of the main stage.

Post automatically merged: Jun 7, 2024

I decided that the best way to make the stage atleast a bit shorter is to hide speed shoes all over the stage, it's not much but atleast I won't have to delete any sections. And now non-Sonic characters can actually move faster than thier normal running speed.

 

[Aquavine]

I made a working prototype of exit gate for the final section in this stage. I made it now so I won't have to bother with it later and so I have an easy way to add it into the stage when I will need it.

Spoiler: TUTORIAL THAT NOBODY ASKED FOR :DDD

If you want to know how I made it work with just some smart tag and sectors usage then be ready because I'm bad at explaining stuff...
Here's a graph so you wouldn't get lost.

So first I made these two sectors and then made two smaller sectors in such a way that midtexture would be on the middle with the rest of the linedefs.

Like this. The middle linedef between these two sectors is the one with the gate midtexture.
Then I added a trigger sector that will play the gate closing sfx and will lower the celling with the midtexture.
I want the gate to appear like it's lowering from the celling so I have to put both the supporting sectors celling height on 512 instead of 256 so the midtexture wouldn't be visible until the celling starts to lower.
If the celling is at 512 then it there will be a small hole which will break the illusion and look out of place, so I added a FOF between 256 and 512 so it will mask the hole in the celling.
And finally so the player wouldn't instinctively go to the fake exit, I added an invisible FOF so the player wouldn't get stuck after the gate closes. The problem is that SRB2 has wacky crusher detection and that means that the midtexture will crush the player even if it's extremly thin.
And that's it, now you know how to make your own midtexture based gate :D

 

[Aquavine]

I don't know if it's a good idea to share a build when I'm maybe 80% finished with the stage. But still, I should first listen to the players for any potential issues that I didn't noticed.
And I made my first original track for this stage with barely any resemblence to any of BB's ost. This track will be used after the final section of the main stage, after finding the real exit you will come out of the school at sunrise and from that point you can choose to finish the stage by interacting with the signpost or you can explore this small hub like area with credits and other extras. (You can also listen to both of the main songs in the sound test menu!)

if you find any problems with this stage or if you just want to share your opinion about it or share any ideas, then I will be happy to read them. (you can make this stage even better simply by sharing your feedback! C:)

 

[Aquavine]

A rough concept of camping minigame. You press three buttons so you can open all three the doors that block your way. The red button is a simple tutorial that shows what you need to do to progress. For blue and green buttons you will have to go through a platforming section that will go up, so you can just quickly drop down instead of having to do all of this platforming again.

 

[GingerSRB2]

This project looks really promissing so far! Can't wait to see how will the rest turn out.

 

[Aquavine]

This project looks really promissing so far! Can't wait to see how will the rest turn out.

Thank you! (This was the biggest amount of notifications I got on this forum so far. )

 

[Aquavine]

I finally got an idea for camping. I decided to scrap the platforming idea and replace it with small challange sections.
I also added beartraps so you won't just run all the time. After I'm done with camping I will start working on the "escape from the schoolhouse" theme.

Should I change the blue button section a bit? Because I feel like there's a bit of enemy spam. For context I wanted to make a combat section, but it can be a problem for players that go straight to the button and then they have to deal with army of enemies.

Post automatically merged: Jun 21, 2024

I found my new inspiration for the sunrise track I made a few posts ago. I listened to ”at dawn” from SA1 and its pretty much what effect I want to create.

 

[Aquavine]

After trying to remake the sunrise track I just decided to add one of the instrument patterns from ”at dawn” and a wind like sound at the end of the song.​

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That might be not the best idea but I’m considering adding opening effect to all doors in this stage. And with that comes even more textures, more tags (2 new tags for a door) and a lot of grind to add it to every singular door in stage.
That’s why it might no the best idea. But atleast it will look good.

 

[Aquavine]

I made a new poster hinting at monitors being hidden in plain sight behind trees. This poster will appear before and after sections with trees, or in other words, before and after outside sections. This poster doesn't count the forest trees in the camping minigame.

I also added more objects, decorations and I made all of the doors openable, so you won't just phase through them. They're silent so you don't have to worry about alerting Baldi.

And I added one more classroom, just so one section will look cooler.

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And yet another version on the sunset track, but this time as I said earlier with the cymbal pattern from "at dawn" from SA1, you can actually scroll up and hear the similarity in the pattern yourself! And the wind-like sound at the end, it almost sounds like leaves in the wind, this fact alone gives this track a peaceful summer morning vibe, which is exactly what I want this track to sound like. (and also because it will play right after the most horror-esk moment in this stage.)

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I will also try to make the submission page for this addon stylised on BB's. For example I will make a custom render of Baldi next to a chalkboard in style of the title screen and the make the info about the addon not written on the page but written on chalkboards instead. But It could be a problem if the images won't load for someone...

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