(Fan game) Sonic the Hedgehog - Nintendo Edition (Early WIP)

[miyabi95_]

**PLEASE READ THIS FIRST**
NINTENDO, SEGA, AND SONIC TEAM DID NOT MAKE THIS, AND ARE NOT WORKING ON IT. THESE THREE COMPANIES DID NOT MAKE THIS. NO BIG VIDEO GAME COMPANIES TOOK PART IN CREATING THIS. YOU ARE GIVEN THREE WAYS TO EXPLAIN IT, SO DON'T BOTHER CALLING ME OUT ON SOMETHING SO OBVIOUS.

Hey everybody. I figured I'd start a project as simple as this; I have another Sonic game in the works, but it really has no direction at the moment.
This is kinda a hoax, "What if Nintendo and SEGA teamed up and ported Sonic the Hedgehog to the Game Boy?." I'm working on it in Clickteam Fusion 2.5. Basically, it's gonna be very similar to the original Game Gear game, just some visual/audio differences. This is a very early work in progress, but feel free to let me know what you think about it.

Here's a video of the intro sequence. I feel Nintendo would really use their intellect on visuals like they do in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.



PS: I used Synthfont, a Gameboy soundfont, and some MIDIs to make the music.

[E-Man]

Well, if you're going to make a Sonic game that looks as though that it is ported to the Game Boy, some visuals need to be tweaked. For example, the scaling of Robotnik in the intro is too clean and could only be achieved with either a Super FX Chip or the advanced hardware of the Game Boy Advance. As far as scaling goes, try to fake the effect.



If you take a look at the 12th row down, you'll see sprites of Link falling into a hole. You should take those sprites as inspiration as you create the frames to manually scale Robotnik down.

[miyabi95_]

Well, if you're going to make a Sonic game that looks as though that it is ported to the Game Boy, some visuals need to be tweaked. For example, the scaling of Robotnik in the intro is too clean and could only be achieved with either a Super FX Chip or the advanced hardware of the Game Boy Advance. As far as scaling goes, try to fake the effect.



If you take a look at the 12th row down, you'll see sprites of Link falling into a hole. You should take those sprites as inspiration as you create the frames to manually scale Robotnik down.

Okay. Does that apply with the fading in and out and the parallax scrolling as well?

[Neweegee]

I think the fading and parallax scrolling(Game Boy is capable of this) is OK, but I think you should give Sonic and any enemies outlines, so it'd be easier to see them, since the background is white.

[miyabi95_]

I think the fading and parallax scrolling(Game Boy is capable of this) is OK, but I think you should give Sonic and any enemies outlines, so it'd be easier to see them, since the background is white.

Alright, thanks .

[Vipershark]

It sounds like you made that music using only Square waves, which makes it sound like a Game Gear (aka terrible) and not like a GameBoy at all.
You should use something like Famitracker or LSDJ to accurately get the GB sound.

[miyabi95_]

It sounds like you made that music using only Square waves, which makes it sound like a Game Gear (aka terrible) and not like a GameBoy at all.
You should use something like Famitracker or LSDJ to accurately get the GB sound.

That's strange...I remember a lot of native Nintendo games using mostly square. But okay, thanks . Also, I have a thing for a modulated square, so I did purposely set them all to the same sound .

I did some changes to the soundtrack. Just brought the melody down a few levels from square wave, changed the bass to an actual base setting, and kept the "backup vocal" track at modulating full square wave. Here are some samples:

[Vipershark]

The Gameboy uses square waves but not only square waves.
It's also got a triangle wave, noise generator, and DCPM but as far as I know the Game Gear uses square waves only so all of its music (the sonic games in particular) has this distinct "doot doot doot" sound to them because everything is just squares all the time.
I think most gameboy games generally had the main melody and accompaniment be squares while the bass and percussion were triangles and noise/DCPM respectively (but that doesn't apply to every game of course)

You'd probably be best asking Gorsal or someone more familiar with chiptunes how to give it the most authentic sound (particularly if this would have been a first party Nintendo collaboration, the music would have been really good).

On the intro in your OP for example, when the title screen comes up the first three beats you use an ugly buzzing sound when noise or DCPM would have worked much better.

[Gors]

Just correcting Vipershark right now: The game boy uses 2 pulse wave generatos, 1 custom wave generator and 1 noise generator. This means, the bass doesn't need to be locked to trangle waves, and you can create your own waveform to make music. Some games even inserted low resolution samples in it (such as Pokemon Yellow's title theme), but usually, it's just used for musical purposes instead of samples.

The most common mistake when people try making chiptunes is pretending that all notes are 50% square waves. While this is true for the PSG (Master System, MSX, Game Gear), this is not the same for the NES and Game Boy, which could manipulate their pulses to have different timbres.

Gameboy

As you can see, there are other types of square waves embellishing the tune, particularly the bass notes.

Game Gear

Whereas Game Gear only relies on 50% square waves. The music is good, but the lack of variation can be grating (especially when you listen to the track for a long period of time).

[miyabi95_]

The Gameboy uses square waves but not only square waves.
It's also got a triangle wave, noise generator, and DCPM but as far as I know the Game Gear uses square waves only so all of its music (the sonic games in particular) has this distinct "doot doot doot" sound to them because everything is just squares all the time.
I think most gameboy games generally had the main melody and accompaniment be squares while the bass and percussion were triangles and noise/DCPM respectively (but that doesn't apply to every game of course)

You'd probably be best asking Gorsal or someone more familiar with chiptunes how to give it the most authentic sound (particularly if this would have been a first party Nintendo collaboration, the music would have been really good).

On the intro in your OP for example, when the title screen comes up the first three beats you use an ugly buzzing sound when noise or DCPM would have worked much better.

I do notice the difference between Nintendo and SEGA's sounds. I've also played MSX games where they probably use the same sounds as SEGA.
Yeah, I don't understand why that buzz is in the soundfont.
Here's the soundfont I'm using: http://asialunar.info/gbsf.html

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Just correcting Vipershark right now: The game boy uses 2 pulse wave generatos, 1 custom wave generator and 1 noise generator. This means, the bass doesn't need to be locked to trangle waves, and you can create your own waveform to make music. Some games even inserted low resolution samples in it (such as Pokemon Yellow's title theme), but usually, it's just used for musical purposes instead of samples.

The most common mistake when people try making chiptunes is pretending that all notes are 50% square waves. While this is true for the PSG (Master System, MSX, Game Gear), this is not the same for the NES and Game Boy, which could manipulate their pulses to have different timbres.

That makes so much sense to me now, thanks a lot !
I'm starting to consider whether or not I should write the music myself, because right now I'm just using MIDI's written specifically to be heard as a MIDI (written by John Weeks, etc.). It'd take a lot of time, but it would make it more convenient to mimic the 2 pulse, 1 custom, 1 wave, format you're talking about for the tracks.

[miyabi95_]

Here are some visual changes I've made:


I will probably fix Sonic. What I did was add contrast to the original sprite sheet (ripped by Technokami) and set the transparency settings in CF2.5 to monochrome. That's the result.

[Virt]

Sonic's colors in his sprite should be more like his colors on the title screen. (Darker fur, lighter skin)

Also, the clouds(?) on the top of the first screen look odd.

[Jinzo-Advance]

Sonic in Grayscale. Well, I'll have to make a note to keep an eye on this as a Sonic fan.

[miyabi95_]

Sonic's colors in his sprite should be more like his colors on the title screen. (Darker fur, lighter skin)

Also, the clouds(?) on the top of the first screen look odd.

Yeah, I'm gonna fix that . Really hard to understand how it came out like that .
The clouds wrap around the screen when they completely exit the left side. I'd like to know how to make them wrap around the screen a la Mario Bros, where you can see part of them on the other side.

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Sonic in Grayscale. Well, I'll have to make a note to keep an eye on this as a Sonic fan.

I noticed there not being any Sonic fan games here xD. But I feel something like this would appeal to a spiriting community like this.

[ronny14]

It looks like you're just setting all of your graphics to monochrome. If you're going for just a psuedo-game boy effect, then you don't have to worry. For a more authentic game boy looking pallette though, I'd suggest taking a pallette such as this one and applying it to all of your graphics. [I don't remember but I think the Game Boy could have either 4 or 5 colors, that pallette may be wrong] Of course, this is just nitpicking and I may be wrong, you may be following the pallette rule.

I attempted to make an example using that pallette, but these base sprites seem to rely on having color. It may take some more work to get them working in monochrome, but it's nothing impossible.