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[Open Assets] (v1.2) Shifting Seasons Zone 2021-07-29

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EeveeEuphoria

EeveeEuphoria

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Welcome to...Shifting Seasons Zone!

This is the first level I've made, been working on it since February 2020! This is an entire level based around a weather-switching gimmick, where you press a button (or hit a monitor!) to change the seasons around! This is planned to be a 2-act level, but for now act 1 is complete, and act 2 is hidden away as a bonus unlockable, as a sneak peek to what it will look like.

Features
This level features hidden emblems, time/ring-based emblems, and a few unlockables (including an unlockable in-development act 2!). Act 1's gimmick is switching from summer to winter, and vice versa. Utilize the seasons to your advantage to traverse the map by overcoming obstacles that get in your way via weather switching. There are quite a few hidden secrets in this level, see if you can find them all!
There are also unique objects to these maps, the most prominent being Seasonal Rings! These rings can only be collected when it is a certain season, otherwise you phase right through them!

Future Plans
Future plans include finishing off Act 2, potentially adding a couple more unlockables, and perhaps expanding a bit of Act 1 to include more secrets. Ideas currently in mind are getting brand new sprites for stuff like winter scenery, new sprites to help distinguish seasonal rings from each other, and other decorational stuff.

Personal Best Time
40.62 as Sonic in Act 1.
See if you can find the speedrun strat I used in my own level~

Known issues
  • When the 2P Tails Bot collects a seasonal ring, it does not play the sparkle jingle.
  • Captions aren't set correctly.
Credits

Changelog
v1.2
  • Fixed snow appearing in the 3D Skybox.
  • Updated the final cave area just a lil bit, because I felt like it needed a bit of changing.
  • Fixed a few errors in terms of object placement and sector heights, caused from the last update.
  • Replaced the giant ice wall with melting icicles, makes it look a bit more natural.
  • Fixed issue where snow either doesn't start or stop when it should.
  • Added new skybox texture used when changing to winter!
  • Seasonal Rings no longer get out of sync with regular rings when switching seasons, thanks to the power of FF_GLOBALANIM.
  • Given the ice actual ice physics, because...people actually wanted that? It's only a slight amount, but it's noticeable.
  • A new secret room has been added. Will you accept their offering?
    Act 2 has been updated:
  • Given a new skybox texture when in autumn!
  • Extended the stage a little bit.
  • The leaves on the Big Tree now fall when it's...fall. God there's so many linedefs to manage just to do this effect.
  • Added new leaves on ground texture used for the tree objects.
  • Season is now stored when hitting a checkpoint!
  • The ring emblems are now no longer just out there to collect, you gotta collect all the rings this time around.

v1.1
  • Created new textures to change out the sand and walls to be more "icy" when it's winter time.
  • Fixed the water not looking right at the starting cave of the level (still looks just a smige bit weird, dunno how to fix it)
  • Added rails to the sides of bridges.
  • Fixed bridges not having water under them.
  • Added various subtle slopes to make the terrian a bit more varied.
  • Added a lot more scenery to the level.
  • Added signs to The Pit, indicating Amy and Fang can not enter there.
  • Added ice spring to starting area to reach the ice rings on-top of the tiny lil waterfall thing.
  • Created a slope to get into that tiny lil cave near the checkpoint.
  • Fixed the unlockable Act 2's ring emblem being uncollectable, because it required 100 rings. The level had 99 rings. I've just set the requirement to 80 for now. You can get all the emblems now if you so desire!
v1.0.1
  • Fixed an issue where the summer rings emblem wasn't given properly, because....I commented out the code. Oops.
  • Gave an actual description to an emblem found in Act 2.

IMPORTANT NOTICES, READ BEFORE USING
This will create new data used to store stuff such as emblems and whatnot, do keep that in mind! The 3 unlockable characters SRB2 has will be unlocked from the start for this reason. The files are labelled as "shiftingseason.*"
This will not work well in multiplayer. In netgames, it acts very weird, for local multiplayer it's not that bad, but it's very much not recommended due to the way the level gimmick plays out.
Act 2 will not work properly in OpenGL, due to various bugs related to rendering. It will also not render the custom monitors properly if you use models in either act.
 

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Okay, let's get started!

I love the idea of this level. I have wanted to create a level with the same mechanics for a very long time. But only a puzzle. I'll think about it.
I like tricks. To pass the level further, you must switch to a different season. Perhaps not everyone will like this style, but definitely not me.
I also want to note the unique ring mechanics. I don't know what to say about her. I am personally neutral.

Snow in 3D skyblock looks strange. It (snow) is too big.

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Small mistake.

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A classic mistake. The texture of the water at the bottom.

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What is it? what for?

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Why is this pit needed?

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Well, now let's get down to the cons.

There are too few decorations on the level. No really. I didn't like that this level is empty.

The walls are too low. Almost throughout the entire level, the wall is well too low. Maybe only I don't like it.

Strange enemies. They don't really fit into the theme of the level. Why is there so much enemy type on the level? I don’t know, maybe this is not a mistake, but I didn't like the types of enemies.

The summer / winter system is not fully developed. I liked this gameplay, but it looks strange. When you switch to winter, the environment is still sand, a beach. I would like the locations to change dramatically, but I understand that this is difficult to do.
I would like the 3D skyblock and sky to also switch to winter theme after pressing the button.

I have not looked for emblems yet and I may supplement my message.
I really liked it and I hope it gets better. I will follow the content. Good luck!

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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Pretty good! While the level design feels a bit empty and flat at times, the season changing gimmick is used in some neat ways. A fun little romp, definitely worth checking out.
 
oh neat, impressiv new trick, could have a lot of fun potential.
And for some reason I'm impressed with how small the chair legs are at the beginning. I can't get them that small.
But yeah, level does look a little flat.
 
This is your first level, and you're already doing cool stuff like this? Nice. This kind of reminds me of The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons with its season switching mechanics. Don't know if that's where you got the idea from, but if not, you could look to that game for some inspiration.

After playing around with it for a while, here's some feedback:

* When walking on the ice, I don't slip around at all.

* I didn't see any snowfall when I played, but that might be something to do with OpenGL. Dunno if that's something you can fix, or if you just have to wait for the game to get a patch.

* This is a nice start, but it is a little bit linear. Something I would like to see are paths that split depending on the season you choose to proceed with.

* I haven't found the second act. It crashed on me when I was in the middle of hunting for the Winter Rings, and I didn't feel like starting over. But I hope you expand on this with Spring and Fall seasons as well.
 
Decent level. Still, disappointed in how little the concept was played with. Turning water into ice and turning ice into water is kind of cliche, and it's all that the season gimmick is used for, gameplay-wise (I will not count the ice springs, since those are just springs but more annoying, nor the seasonal rings as their impact on a normal playthrough is super minor, though I do like them). Visuals-wise that also comprises most of the difference - the sky doesn't change, the walls don't change and while there are snowy surfaces, it's not applied consistently. It's a bit lazy-feeling, is me point.

I was actually a lot more impressed with the WIP act 2. The textures used and all the leaf visual effects work together to give Autumn a real sense of style, I quite enjoyed it even if it could and should be taken further (the walls still don't change!). The wind gimmick has a lot more potential to be interesting, and the level does touch on this briefly with how one of the wind zones doesn't actually need to be disabled to proceed. I don't get the point of the new ring monitors and Spring needs sprucing up to not just be GFZ (Summer does that already), but overall, this one was good.

Lastly, I'm confused as to why the Rock Shield was included at all? I only found one of it, it's out of the way to boot, and the level doesn't make any special use of it. I think it would only help if the Rock Shield was integrated better in the stage's layout, challenges and theme (heck, maybe make the rocks change appearance with the season!). Right now it's a weird oddity with no real purpose.
 
Hey all, I've now updated this to v1.1! There's a whole lotta changes, but the most notable (at least with everyone's replies about this) is that the sand and wall textures now change with the seasons! I've also added various subtle slopes to make the terrain a bit more varied.

Do note if you've recorded any time trials with this, it will most likely be de-synced, so v1.0.1 will still be provided for that reason.

EDIT: Also, for the record, I'm not sure if it's even possible to change out the skybox texture mid-level. If it is, then next update I'll have that be a thing that happens.
 
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Pretty unique level, feels pretty empty at times but i still think it was fun. The season specific rings are pretty cool too.
 
Alright. Since it got an update, I went through it again and unlocked Act 2. I love it. Both acts have room for improvement. I mean, duh. It'd your first level. But I really love what you have here. I'd like to see an Act 3 which makes use of all four seasons. Maybe even with a boss at the end where you have to switch to the right season to reach him.

birbhorse said:
EDIT: Also, for the record, I'm not sure if it's even possible to change out the skybox texture mid-level. If it is, then next update I'll have that be a thing that happens.
Click to expand...

I believe I have seen levels that have changed skyboxes mid-level, but I don't know how it worked. There was one level in the last OLDC that changed to reflect the time of day progressing, from mid-day to evening. If you can figure out how that works, it would be nice to see in a future update.
 
This is one of the best levels i have ever played.
It's different to the rest, and i like the idea of Seasons is really fun and interesting.

And act 2, it's really fun too lol.
Even if isn't completed at all.
 
This level is so cute! Dynamic level changes are pretty unexplored territory, and you have a really solid example here. I really enjoyed watching the scenery change, there's so much attention to detail (the snowman dgfjghdfkghdkfjghk) and a good approach to disguising secrets with the mechanics you've set up.

I do wish level progression itself required a little more thought as to when to change the season—the buttons/monitors are always conveniently placed right before you need to use them—but it's better to be simple and engaging than risk being complex and frustrating! I also thought the ring challenges were really well thought out, they're always in easy-to-see places (there were none underwater, for instance (at least as far as I could tell)) and it was super easy to feel confident in moving on from each area without fear of missing any. I did have to quit the game and reload the addon in order to collect the emblems though, I'm not sure whether I missed some rings on the first few tries but I like to think I'm a pretty thorough explorer.

Really looking forward to playing to full act 2 when it's done!! The autumn sections are SO aesthetic (and the LEAF PILES DHFJGUVIKGYFTDRE)
 
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Alright, another update is out! This should be the last update before I finish up Act 2, which will be marked as v2, unless there's something serious I need to fix.

Notable changes include a changing skybox, Act 2 being extended a little bit and with new features, and that giant ice wall being replaced with melting giant icicles because I think it looks more fitting than just...a giant wall of ice. Also there's been a few fixes that either were pointed out, or just fixes to stuff that's been there since the beginning because I didn't know how to fix it (like the seasonal rings rotating out of sync with regular rings)

As with the last update, this will desync ghosts from Act 1, so the last version is still available if you so need it.
 
Hey birbhorse i just played trough youre level. Its awesome! Cant wait for act 2 and an expandet act 1!keep up the good work!
 
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