Expo-sition

SAGE, a.k.a. the Sonic Amateur Games Expo, is now in full swing. Unfortunately it's coinciding with a particularly busy and tumultuous time in my life, but that seems increasingly to be the case with me. Nevertheless, I'm going to try and review most of this year's offerings as I did last year, while they're still relevant.

I'm also going to review the Hacking Contest entries, but since I'm a judge this year I'm going to do that once the results have been comfortably revealed through the proper channels. Anything else would be bad form, doncha know.

This year, for the first time, I'm actually involved with one of the games on display (Sonic Fan Remix didn't make it to SAGE last year thanks to a poorly timed illness on my end). So do a bloke a favour and visit the Sonic Time Twisted booth. Said bloke being you, of course, because there's sum good eatin's t'be had thar.

I think the showing this year is phenomenal, and I can't wait to get started.

Code of the Ninja Moves House

Just a heads up: all future "Code of the Ninja" posts can be found at its new dedicated blog, Code of the Ninja. Please update your following procedures accordingly. And, er... go there now, 'cos there's a new post. =)

AeStHete

Here and there I've coyly mentioned that I'm working on a Sonic game engine in Game Maker, for instance in this old thread (in which I unwisely muddied the issue by illustrating the engine with a remake of the 8-bit Sonic 1, which is now indefinitely shelved) or in a now-out-of-date YouTube video or two.

But I realise that nowhere have I really officially announced it. Time to fix that!

Announcing AeStHete, "An Excellent Sonic The Hedgehog Engine That's Editable"! (After much struggle I managed to find a name that was obscure, immodest, and annoying to type! Am I cool or am I cool?) It's made in Game Maker, but there's a possibility it will be ported in the future.

Screenies:

'What's wrong with the HUD?' I hear you asking. Well, how else would you know it wasn't a screenshot of the real game? It's just that good, folks!

Waaaa! What's all this about? Yes, you can enter Edit Mode at any time and create or modify levels as you play - there's no need for a separate level editor. The interface can be customised, and there are several resolution options for Edit Mode.

Though I began making AeStHete expressly for my own Sonic fangame project, I've decided to make it totally Open Source - so, in addition to being able to edit levels and so on using the interface, you'll also be able to modify the interface and engine yourself in whatever way you see fit (that is, if you know Game Maker's scripting language). Think of it like hacking a ROM, only instead you're hacking a fangame.

Because of this, Sonic Time Twisted will be the first game to use AeStHete once it's finished. When will that be? I can't really say (I've as much as promised demos before and missed the deadline, and I'm not interested in doing that again). The thing is I keep finding bugs - and then discovering that these bugs actually exist in the original Yuji Naka engine, and that means I can't simply do more research into the originals in order to solve them. I have to work out how to improve on the engine myself, and this takes some time. (Why not settle for "as good as the original?" I'm a perfectionist, dammit!)

But rest assured that progress (and a lot of it) is being made. On that note, I made a semi-mysterious tweet a couple days ago saying I was happy about some obstacle I had overcome. I was referring to having successfully implemented palette cycling, an effect which classic consoles could do in their sleep, but that Game Maker doesn't natively support (scroll to the bottom of the page for Mark Overmars' list of things he'll never add). In the end, pixel shaders, specifically this shader extension, came to the rescue. Now I can confidently say that AeStHete can do everything the original 16-bit games do, just as well and often better.

Now that the hedgehog's properly and officially out of the bag, I'll probably be blogging and tweeting about AeStHete's progress more often, like this:

 I just typed a line of code.
 
 Oops - made a mistake. Hit backspace a few times.
 
 Compiling and testing now...
 
 Damn, omitted a semicolon.
 
 Okay, that's got it. It works now, but I think I should increase this value a bit...
 
 Pausing for snack. BRB

What, not that often? Whatever.

Ingrates.

A Place for Misfits to Fit In

Wow, it's been about a month since I've posted here. I've been juggling a few secret projects (dun dun dun), but I should be back to posting more often soon.

In the meantime, there's two bits of good news for fans of Misfits of Science (you know, that show I like?) I want to share.

ThirdBass, fearless leader of Science of Misfits, has added a new forum to the site, and you should totally check it out.

(I'm a mod there, too, so get over there where I can have power over you! =P)

Also, Friday @ 8/7 Central, a great blog about short-lived TV shows, has a nice in-depth article on MoS that you owe it to yourself to read. If you're like me and tend to prefer short, sweet shows with a lot of character over unwieldy 19-season monsters that run off the rails and lose all respectability, you'll want to keep it on your blogroll and see what other overlooked gems might be brought to your attention.

That's it for me. Back to my secret projects... (shh!)

Click it! The shininess commands you!

Meme Cloud Special: Misfits of Science

I was born in the tail end of the 80's, so I missed experiencing most of them firsthand. However, through the magic of reruns and VHS, my childhood could still benefit from large doses of 80's TV, movies, cartoons, and music videos. I've come out the other side with an undying love for all things that capture that glittering 80's style.

Indiana Jones, Die Hard, Duck Tales, NES games, Phantasy Star, Men Without Hats, MacGyver, Infosoc - the whole decade was made out of awesome (which, in case you've ever wondered what unprocessed awesome looks like as it occurs in nature, it looks a lot like this).

But there is one 80's TV series in particular that I wish to discuss here - "Misfits of Science". I've just spent the last couple of months working with fellow 80's nut, ThirdBass, constructing a fansite dedicated to the show, Science of Misfits. I must hasten to add that I merely tidied up the HTML and offered a few suggestions - the brilliant retro design, content, and hours of research were Bass's hard work.

I love so many things about the show: the rocking music selections; the humour, which is often content to slip by in the background or in expertly written cross-wise conversations; the comraderie of the characters, and the coolness of their superpowers; the fact that the show remains about the characters, and not about their superpowers; and of course, Johnny B, whose red guitar, super speed, signature colour blue, and wariness of water bear a passing resemblance to another one of my favourite characters. ;P

I could go on about the show itself, but you don't need to hear my trap flapping. Bolt on down to Science of Misfits and check it out for yourself - and if it doesn't put a smile on your face, you have a cold, cold, blackened heart.

Sonic Extractor 3&K Mix Update Alert!

Just a minor update to Sonic Extractor 3&K Mix, to version 1.2. It now has the ability to view the original Sonic 3 alone object layouts.

Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were originally intended to be one epic 32 megabit cartridge (according to Yuji Naka), but the game was split in half, and the first few levels were released early as Sonic 3.

By the time Sonic & Knuckles was released, Sonic Team felt like making a few changes to the zone layouts. When Sonic & Knuckles is locked on to Sonic 3, the 6 zones from Sonic 3 are tweaked a bit - sometimes for general ease of play, other times specifically for Knuckles and his new abilities.

Unfortunately, the object layout data for these two games, locked together or not, is read directly from the ROM, not the RAM. Therefore, Sonic Extractor, which uses savestates to map the zones, has to already know the object layout data. It's built in to the programme, and can't be changed.

This was a problem, though, when trying to map Sonic 3 alone levels with the unrevised object layouts. No matter what state you used, Sonic Extractor would blithely fill the level using the modified Sonic & Knuckles object data!

Version 1.2 corrects this problem. The user is now given a choice which version of the zone to view. Now anyone with a taste for minutiae can export both versions of each zone, and get a comprehensive comparison of the changes for the first time!

Welcome

Hello, and welcome to In the Shade of a Wave, my Blog. I'm Utane Shibusawa, a.k.a. "Mercury". I'm an amateur musician, songwriter, programmer and game designer. My current project is Sonic Freedom, a Sonic the Hedgehog fan game that retells the story of the original Mega Drive titles in unprecedented detail and depth. But I have many other interests, as well. My posts in this Blog will cover a wide range of subjects, only occasionally providing updates about Sonic Freedom.

I plan on having several disparate running threads in this Blog, each one tagged so that it may be followed independently of the others. I'm not ready to reveal them all now, but they will include:

"Code of the Ninja" - Programming tutorials, primarily for, but not restricted to, Sonic and other game engines.

"The Meme Cloud" - A spotlight on a piece of my culture, selected at random. These will range from the obvious, like Sonic the Hedgehog itself, to the not-so-obvious, like the film Young Einstein, or the music of Roger Miller.

"Developer Spotlight" - Whereas film directors and rock stars garner infinite attention, some of the talented people behind classic Japanese video games remain almost completely overlooked. These posts will attempt to bring their contributions more notice.

"Pernicious Fallacies" - Posts dedicated to clearing up some of the misinformation that abounds in our lives. Mostly, they will deal with Sonic the Hedgehog rumours and theories, but will not be confined to this subject.

"Game Seeds" - My full and undivided attention is given to the completion of my most important projects, such as Sonic Freedom. However, many ideas spring from my fertile mind. These posts will set them free, to fire the imaginations of other would-be game developers. Anyone who finds them interesting enough to run with has full blessing to do so, although credit would be appreciated.