Thomp's Project: SRB2 - The Solar Egglipse

[Thompson]

Hi.

SINGLE PLAYER LEVEL PACK

Obviously this is a project that I'm working on. Some of you have been let on that I was working on this in the future. Not really going to lecture. Let's just get to the point, story, and stuff.

Spoiler: Story

Three Heroes, named Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles were informed by a mysterious creature that something wrong was going to happen with the planet and it was soon to be completely frozen. "What?!" Sonic, screams. The mysterious creature stares, then turns and vanishes. "Wait!........Who was she? This doesn't sound good. Let's find Eggman!"

Eggman, the Evil Scientist with an IQ with 300 has found a way to obtain a lot of energy, and that is to use the solar power of the sun. And with the power of the sun, Eggman believes the chaos emeralds would be no match for him if he was to obtain all that power, which is why he needs to be stopped as soon as possible.

That being said, Sonic and his friends were met up by Eggman as soon as they heard the news. Eggman had told all of them of his plans specifically detailed, and it seems what the mysterious creature had told them was true. "You won't get away with this Eggman!" Tails yelled and heads immediately for his mobile. "Ah ah ah." Eggman says calmly waving his finger, and with a press of a button, Sonic and his friends were trapped in a little force field, trapped with no escape. Knuckles is trying to bust a hole, but it seemed not to work. With a press of another button, The Heroes were chucked far far away, and crash landed leaving them unconcious.

Luckily, that mysterious creature has appeared once again and woke them all up, and found themselves in a Sanctuary with a map on the floor with 7 distinct regions. One with an Island. One with a Forest. One with a Glacier. One with a Volcano. One with Peaks. One in the Sky. and one in the Brink of Earth's atmosphere and Space that has a space craft similar to Eggman' Face. "You must save your planet little heroes, and I am the one to guide you on the right path. You must stop that evil menace with that tedious mustache, before he takes all the solar power of the sun. You must start here. This place is called Twilight Isles. This is the fastest way to get back to him." "That lady...Who are you?" Sonic asked. "Me? Oh. My name is Fy."

So that's the crazy story I came up with. Fy just plays the role of being the guide, and just sits there hoping for Sonic, Tails and Knuckles to succeed. Now, levels.

Some of you have already played 3 of my levels that's going to be in the level pack. Yes, these were contest maps. No, I haven't fixed them yet, but if you haven't played these levels, and haven't gotten a taste of the ideas in my map making, AND interested, then I suggest you try out my contest demos of the first 3 maps. I have uploaded a link to Twilight Isles, Clockwork Grove, and Sparkling Icecap. They still need ALOT of work, so this is not the final version of each level, but it will give you an idea of what my level pack will consist of, and I believe this pack will have great potential just like all the other popular great level packs.

SOUNDTRACK

Music to each act I've selected. Now, when you listen to these, close your eyes and imagine the atmosphere. The music is the essence of that beauty.

ZONES

Spoiler: Twilight Isles

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y6f2nz0a9makar6/s_twilightisles.wad This is Act 2

This level is the starting point of the levelpack. It will feature beaches and caves of mysterious puzzles and architecture along with an atmospheric sunset.

Spoiler: Clockwork Grove

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qksn01a5lnd3vve/s_clockworkgrove.wad This is Act 1

The 2nd area of the pack that will be considering the ideals of time. It takes place in a forest with the construction of a factory wrapped around.

Spoiler: Sparkling Icecap

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ec2hr69t4dukv60/s_sparklingicecap.wad This is Act 2
3rd Zone. As you can already tell this is a snow themed map that glitens in the light from it's beautiful cave walls, and ice crystals all around to complement it.

Spoiler: Molten Mountain(in progress)

Lava themed zone compared to SIZ, it's an exact polar opposite and feature bombs ready to ignite and unite to accomplish a path forward.

Spoiler: Euphonious Esplanade(not complete)

The setting takes place in the peaks of the mountain with rivers and lakes that will serve as a delicious eye candy for those who love to sight see and enjoy the fresh air and atmosphere. Along with that, you have musical elements everywhere!

Spoiler: Azure Sanctorium(not complete)

6th Zone. Anciet ruins in the sky that deals with the sand element. As you're getting closer to eggman, the stage definitely gets harder and harder.

Spoiler: Solar Egglipse(not complete)

The place you've been trying to get to this whole time that holds the name to this level pack. As you've breached Eggman's lair in the atmosphere, you've noticed that you're no longer there is no safe haven and the world depends on Sonic and his friends to stop the evil menace from launching his project "Solar Egglipse" into space blocking the sun.

 

[CoatRack]

Man, I am really digging the light and color map effects in Molten Mountain, it's nice seeing someone else love to pay so much attention to lighting details in SRB2. Although, are you going to make the bodies of the Dragon Bots sector based, or will you get sprites for them? Right new they look a bit blocky, and the flat purple color really makes it odd looking.

 

[VelocitOni]

Making them sprites would ruin their entire point, as it's meant to be easy to platform and land on their backs. What he instead needs is dedicated textures for those.

 

[Thompson]

Man, I am really digging the light and color map effects in Molten Mountain, it's nice seeing someone else love to pay so much attention to lighting details in SRB2. Although, are you going to make the bodies of the Dragon Bots sector based, or will you get sprites for them? Right new they look a bit blocky, and the flat purple color really makes it odd looking.

Oh yes, I'm in love with it! Takes a lot of work going under fofs and effects, but's totally worth it. Sector base works better cause not only does it just complement the enemy, it's a part of the gameplay I set up, as there's bonuses on some, I plan on making them platforms later in the stage. The purple texture was a placeholder. I don't know how to design it though. I have some ideas but it might turn out odd.

 

[clairebun]

> thompson making a level pack

all of my yes. It's been a while, but I remember thoroughly enjoying your Twilight Isles level back when. You should really find a better background image for that zone, though.

 

[Chromatian]

Reeeeaallly limiting a lot of replayability if it is completely incompatible for co-op.

 

[Metal-Rawr]

I don't really care about not having co-op that much, I live in an area where most SRB2 servers lag anyway, so I rather singleplayer :P

I really like all of those levels, and look forward to see what you can do next.

 

[VelocitOni]

I usually play most maps in coop, so it sort of is a big hinderance for people like me. Shitty mode or not, I just don't enjoy playing alone if company is an option.

 

[Thompson]

Reeeeaallly limiting a lot of replayability if it is completely incompatible for co-op.

I usually play most maps in coop, so it sort of is a big hinderance for people like me. Shitty mode or not, I just don't enjoy playing alone if company is an option.

Hmm. Well, obviously the difference between SP and Coop is just more people right? But the thing is, your not enjoying the level pack because people are there. You enjoy the level pack because you enjoy the level pack regardless if people are there. If that wouldn't be the case, hangout maps would be the most popular wads here. Though I'm not even sure if they're allowed to be released in these forums.

Most games out of SRB2 are single player, and 99% sure people have enjoyed at least one single player game, and pretty sure players stumble upon that game again and play it again, just because they just enjoy the game. The story. There isn't a limit, if it's memorable. That's a vibe I would like to get out of making this for everyone and create that same idea. You could at least give it a chance. Maybe it'll turn out better for you personally.

 

[Mystic]

I'd also like to note that it's a LOT easier to design stages when you don't have to worry about multiple players. You can make one-way passages and block access to parts of the stage and it causes absolutely no problems. Considering the way Thompson's stages are designed, making them fully support coop would be a royal pain.

I'm definitely looking forward to this, regardless. I really loved most of the stages he's already made, and new content in the same style would be great.

 

[Charybdizs]

Hmm. Well, obviously the difference between SP and Coop is just more people right? But the thing is, your not enjoying the level pack because people are there. You enjoy the level pack because you enjoy the level pack regardless if people are there. If that wouldn't be the case, hangout maps would be the most popular wads here. Though I'm not even sure if they're allowed to be released in these forums.

Not true at all. There's some specific reasoning in the fact that he said "company". When you're playing with yourself, you play through a level, get impressed by what is there, enjoy it, and finish it.

But when you're playing through it with friends, you get to see others' reactions. You gawk at cool things together, have cool "look at what I can do!" moments, chat about different parts of the level, and just generally relate to each other through the level. Afterwards, you chat about the fun you had, and it remains a group memory. The best part? You can do it all afresh with new people next time! Almost every single one of those experiences is relivable, as long as you have a new group to do it with.

And as for hangout maps, those doesn't count, because they aren't fun platforming levels to begin with.

The fact of the matter is, unless it's your deliberate purpose to make the player feel very alone (as if in a horror game or something), co-op is always going to be more lastingly enjoyable. SRB2 doesn't exactly have the resources to make it super smooth, as it doesn't have any sort of bubbling or anything for people who get left behind closed doors, but it still might be a good idea to put Red Volcano Zone style passes through anything that would break in co-op. The only other issue is Each Time linedef executor bugs (which I can't believe wasn't fixed in the 2.0 patch, ugh), but there really aren't a ton of places where you shouldn't just be using continuous instead.

(by the way, it might be useful to say that a good number of people that have posted in the topic, including me, really never play srb2 anymore unless it's with friends. It's so much more appealing to enjoy something socially, as a group.

 

[DrTapeworm]

I like how surreal Twilight Isles looks; it's a very interesting take on the "green hill" level theme, though the background seems hastily resized and could be improved a bit.

Keep up the good work; this looks very nice.

 

[clairebun]

Not true at all. There's some specific reasoning in the fact that he said "company". When you're playing with yourself, you play through a level, get impressed by what is there, enjoy it, and finish it.

But when you're playing through it with friends, you get to see others' reactions. You gawk at cool things together, have cool "look at what I can do!" moments, chat about different parts of the level, and just generally relate to each other through the level. Afterwards, you chat about the fun you had, and it remains a group memory. The best part? You can do it all afresh with new people next time! Almost every single one of those experiences is relivable, as long as you have a new group to do it with.

And as for hangout maps, those doesn't count, because they aren't fun platforming levels to begin with.

The fact of the matter is, unless it's your deliberate purpose to make the player feel very alone (as if in a horror game or something), co-op is always going to be more enjoyable. SRB2 doesn't exactly have the resources to make it super smooth, as it doesn't have any sort of bubbling or anything for people who get left behind closed doors, but it still might be a good idea to put Red Volcano Zone style passes through anything that would break in co-op. The only other issue is Each Time linedef executor bugs (which I can't believe wasn't fixed in the 2.0 patch, ugh), but there really aren't a ton of places where you shouldn't just be using continuous instead.

(by the way, it might be useful to say that a good number of people that have posted in the topic, including me, really never play srb2 anymore unless it's with friends. It's so much more appealing to enjoy something socially, as a group.

I don't like the fact that you're trying to correlate "social" to "fun".

It's totally valid to like coop because of its social element, but if you say it's better than single player solely because of that element, you're pretty much just speaking your viewpoints through the eyes of an extrovert. I personally think there is something mystical about playing a game by yourself, working at your own pace without any interruption, and many of my most memorable gameplay experiences are my experiences alone, including SRB2. This isn't to say I don't enjoy multiplayer games or that it's bad, but at the same rate I wouldn't put it on a pedestal above the single player experience.

Also, coop mode in this game is limited by several factors, including this game's poor approach to netcode, the flow of gameplay being dictated by the slowest/fastest player (depending on the settings), and the inability to save progress, among other mechanical discrepancies... and sometimes you may just not like the other people in the server, especially if they're making that gameplay experience obnoxious. Coop will never be an inherently "better" game mode so long as all of these factors are in play. In fact, I'd say from a design perspective single player is far more fleshed out.




I don't know the technicalities of what Thompson is doing. But if he has to make the SP experience worse to make coop possible, then I would say don't bother, unless coop is part of your design. In fact, if someone were to make the ultimate coop experience at the expense of single player compatibility, I would say that's fine. It's a good idea to support multiple game modes if possible, but there's no rule on it saying you need to.

 

[Thompson]

But when you're playing through it with friends, you get to see others' reactions. You gawk at cool things together, have cool "look at what I can do!" moments, chat about different parts of the level, and just generally relate to each other through the level. Afterwards, you chat about the fun you had, and it remains a group memory. The best part? You can do it all afresh with new people next time! Almost every single one of those experiences is relivable, as long as you have a new group to do it with.

The fact of the matter is, unless it's your deliberate purpose to make the player feel very alone (as if in a horror game or something), co-op is always going to be more enjoyable.

Let me say this, I do understand what you're trying to say, but you made it seem coop is far more superior than SP itself.

Coop is not always going to be more enjoyable. Blue took the words out of my mouth, with the limiting components to what coop is in SRB2. You said it your self.

When you're playing with yourself, you play through a level, get impressed by what is there, enjoy it, and finish it.

You probably know how my levels work, but I just want to clarify for anyone that my maps are solely built on executors, along with design behind it. Players do have their own pace Charybdizs.

Let's say you're a slow player, and you now come into a room everyone has completed and passed, now the next room is available, or all you do is just walk in, stuff is happening and platforms everywhere are moving around. The only thing you could say is "What is going on?" Take CGZ for example:
You remember that huge tree room? In coop, what if someone completely new to the map really was slow and now platforming on that huge stem form of the tree. Now someone hit the sunlight switch and the tree grows. Now, how the tree works is I just brought the tree built under the surface upwards. That one new person is now confused standing on top of the tree clueless to what is going on and not impressed. Not to mention the path from within the tree leads up to the top of the tree which is a different path which is contradictory. It's not an amazing experience for that slow player if he doesn't comprehend, but it is for the one that executed it because they might know what is going to happen. When executed, to them it makes sense and they understand it. And already it's hard enough to let anyone that passes that room understand what the essence of that room is.

I'm not saying it's impossible to do making this into coop, but it's for the better because turning this into coop I'd have to dumb down every single thing because just like in my example above, every room is sort of like that, but on different distinct levels. One greatly emphasized on the execution like that one, and little rooms as simple as hitting a button and moving to the next room. I do know about the reference you made to RVZ, but doing that to every single room where execution comes into play, that'd just be tedious, platitudinal, and preposterous.

I purposely made this SP because the way everything is executed is significantly impressive to the person that executed it. I know sharing experiences is caring, but in this case of my complex level designing, there is no way every player in coop will understand the complexity of my maps without having to dumb it down.

 

[EternallyAries]

This looks amazing Thompson. Its quite nice to see more levels being made for this game. I do have my eye on your Clockwork Grove map, Looks quite interesting.

 

[Charybdizs]

I don't like the fact that you're trying to correlate "social" to "fun".

How is that not appropriate? Just like eating, drinking, sleeping, learning, or any other thing you do, socializing feels good when your body needs it.

It's totally valid to like coop because of its social element, but if you say it's better than single player solely because of that element, you're pretty much just speaking your viewpoints through the eyes of an extrovert. I personally think there is something mystical about playing a game by yourself, working at your own pace without any interruption, and many of my most memorable gameplay experiences are my experiences alone, including SRB2. This isn't to say I don't enjoy multiplayer games or that it's bad, but at the same rate I wouldn't put it on a pedestal above the single player experience.

Firstly, the subject here was multiplayer as it referring to replay value, not necessarily the initial experience. Secondly, me? An extrovert?, I can't believe you'd make this assumption about me, someone you aren't exactly super familiar with. Ask any one of my friends, and they'll tell you how quickly playing games with them exhausts me. If that doesn't scream introvert, I don't know what does. And don't get me wrong like that. I enjoy things in singleplayer too, and a good part of my memories are from that! But I'll only enjoy them once. If I am to enjoy them any more, it has to be because I show them to others, and get pleasure out of the comradery and mutual appreciation for different elements.

I get this about everything, by the way. If I think "Oh, I'd like to read Lord of the Rings again" or "Hm, I want to experience Majora's Mask again", I think "oh, but it wouldn't really be worth the time unless it was spent with someone else. I've already got what I can get out of it, but seeing someone else's reaction would help me to regain a wonder for it or see things I would have never payed attention to."

Also, coop mode in this game is limited by several factors, including this game's poor approach to netcode, the flow of gameplay being dictated by the slowest/fastest player (depending on the settings), and the inability to save progress, among other mechanical discrepancies... and sometimes you may just not like the other people in the server, especially if they're making that gameplay experience obnoxious.

[EDIT: This also applies to what you said too, Thompson.]
I dunno, I thought I was pretty clear that I was referring to playing with friends, and not random master server people. That always happens whenever the subject of co-op is brought up, people immediately assume we're referring to the Master Server type co-op, where your playerbase is a bunch of silent kids who want to rush to the finish, or spammy trolls or something. I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about getting together with some established friends to play through a level on a whim. Not only does that mean you enjoy their company, but it also means you stick together as a group, and there's likely lots of "hey, come look at this part!" or "haha look what I did here!" or "alright, everyone here? Let's hit this button!" I know for a fact that this is something not only me and my friends, but a large part of the active creative community, does all the time.

 

[Thompson]

[EDIT: This also applies to what you said too, Thompson.]
I dunno, I thought I was pretty clear that I was referring to playing with friends, and not random master server people. That always happens whenever the subject of co-op is brought up, people immediately assume we're referring to the Master Server type co-op, where your playerbase is a bunch of silent kids who want to rush to the finish, or spammy trolls or something. I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about getting together with some established friends to play through a level on a whim. Not only does that mean you enjoy their company, but it also means you stick together as a group, and there's likely lots of "hey, come look at this part!" or "haha look what I did here!" or "alright, everyone here? Let's hit this button!" I know for a fact that this is something not only me and my friends, but a large part of the active creative community, does all the time.

Okay, but understand this this. Everyone is not like you. Everyone's different. Anyone could start up a random server online. People are just there to enjoy the game.

 

[CoatRack]

What made you think he was saying everyone was him? Of course there would be online co-op servers with this mod added if it was Co-Op, and I see nothing wrong with that. He is just saying he prefers to play Co-Op with close friends, not that everyone does.

 

[Thompson]

What made you think he was saying everyone was him? Of course there would be online co-op servers with this mod added if it was Co-Op, and I see nothing wrong with that. He is just saying he prefers to play Co-Op with close friends, not that everyone does.

Don't take it the wrong way. What I meant was, not everyone is going to establish a regulated server. It's just that it was still on topic to where coop should be prefered more than SP. That reasoning does not help the fact that it's best to play in coop.

 

[Charybdizs]

I never said that. My point in the conversation was to say that co-op is what majorly establishes replay value of any sort, and I think it's a mistake to leave the option out in any level. Especially in a community with as unfrequent content as this one. I was echoing what Chrome said.