SAGE Advice: Part 1

One of my first posts here was a rundown of my thoughts on the crop of Sonic fangames at SAGE 2009. Well, it's been another year, and here we are at SAGE 2010. Of course I can't resist spilling what I think about this year's offerings, so here goes.

I'll be covering the games INPO, and I won't be covering them all (some aren't related to Sonic, so I didn't bother trying them out). I also won't be fitting them all into this post, so check back each day for the latest reviews if you're interested.

Lazy Sonic

Game made by Sad Hedgehog in Game Maker

Visit the Lazy Sonic Booth

I started with Lazy Sonic, because, to be honest, I thought it didn't look like much and I figured I should get it out of the way quickly. I can be excused for not expecting anything amazing because the game advertises itself as being lazily made.

As I started playing, my suspicions seemed to be confirmed. It's very basic graphically and artistically, its physics are sluggish, and there aren't any loops or anything of the sort in sight. The levels are made entirely of repeating blocks and floating platforms.

However, instead of immediately scoffing I continued to play and found that it wasn't actually so bad. The physics, while slow, aren't plagued with glitches and are quite solid. There's no Spindash, and the jump doesn't have variable height, though, and that kinda sucks.

I have to give props for using the Pocket Adventure sprites, which I really like, rather than the overused Sonic Advance sprites. It gives off a certain charm. I was also pleased to discover that progressing through the first level and fighting the boss wasn't riddled with poor hit detection or other sloppy glitches you might expect.

The first boss is actually very reminiscent of the Great Turquoise Zone boss from Sonic Triple Trouble. Although one wonders how many of those Badniks Robotnik can fit inside his Egg-o-matic....

The second Zone, though, is where Lazy Sonic really started to shine. When I saw Sonic riding on the Tornado, I thought, 'Oh, no, not another boring Sky Chase rip-off' but I was completely surprised by the "Sky Ruins" idea.

Instead of a Zone consisting entirely of the Tornado and Badniks, there are floating ruins and platforms for Sonic to interact with. By jumping, you can even steer the Tornado backward, making the auto-scrolling aspect less restricting.

Maybe I'm easily blown away, but I found this idea both simple and simply amazing. It's very humbling to boot up a game called "Lazy Sonic" expecting a glitchy amateurish mess, and be met with a totally original level concept like this. Sky Chase has always been a one-off in Sonic, an oddity that didn't really mesh. Sure, it's been rehashed several times (in Sonic Adventure, and Sonic Unleashed), but never properly expanded upon or integrated into the normal Sonic gameplay like this before. Sky Ruins Zone has made me think, 'Hey, yeah... why hasn't there been another Tornado-bound Zone in Sonic?' The concept has some mileage left in it, it seems.

So, thank you Lazy Sonic, for injecting a little something fresh into my Sonic world. That's why I love fangames! =)

It's not all good, though. The next Zones have some areas that are poorly thought through. Some areas in the second Zone are very similar to those in the first, and that just seems... well, lazy! Also there are some textbook examples of bad level design. Take these platforms for example:

They are further apart than Sonic's jump height, and they move in perfect unison. This makes it extraordinarily difficult to jump from one to the other. In cases like these, the platforms should be offset so that one carries the player toward the other. Games that don't think things like this through tend to have unforgiving bottleneck areas in the levels that frustrate players until they stop playing. Challenge in games should be intentional.

Or maybe I'm just a lazy player.... Anyway I did enjoy what I played, and I'll probably return to it to play more after I finish trying out the rest of the SAGE submissions.

My Advice: It's not an absolute must-see, but I'd recommend it, especially to fans of Sonic's earlier handheld titles.

The Rose of Longevity

Game made by DarkJedi188 in Game Maker

Visit the Rose of Longevity Booth

I've seen this game in passing before, perhaps at previous SAGEs, but I've just now given it a try. I should have trusted my prior judgement - playing this game is a mistake.

Aside from having the worst plot ever (Amy Rose, afraid that by the time she finally wins Sonic's heart she'll be old and (more) hideous, seeks the Rose of Longevity, which has the power to keep her youthful), this game's physics are also atrocious. And by that I mean fall-through-the-floor-for-no-reason, appear-half-a-screen-above-springs-when-you-hit-them, camera-jerks-uncontrollably atrocious.

Whatever buried charms this game may have, they cannot be appreciated through the fog of the horrible game engine. Having worked in Game Maker for years, even in the Free version, I can tell you that there's no excuse for failure on this level. Modifying the provided platformer tutorial would result in a better game than this.

My Advice: Avoid at all costs, unless you're a slavering Amy Rose fanatic. If you are, avoid me at all costs - please!

Techno: The Gamma Project

Game made by Techno Superguy in Game Maker

Visit the Techno: The Gamma Project Booth

Yes, this isn't strictly a Sonic the Hedgehog fangame, but I've played a game by the same creator before called "Techno the Hedgehog", which I thought was very entertaining. There wasn't much to the gameplay, but the writing was tongue-in-cheek, and I enjoyed the experience. So I figured I'd give this a chance, too.

The writing is up to the standard I was expecting. But I was also pleasantly surprised by the gameplay. While repetitive and not very original, it's smooth, fast, and feels very playable. It's the type of game that doesn't fight you, and compels you to keep breezing through the levels in order to watch the story unfold.

My Advice: If you liked Techno the Hedgehog and its style, check this out. If you prefer your games to be a bit more than mindless fun, give it a pass.

Next Time...

So that's three appetisers for you. Next time I post there will be some heavier hitters, including what might well be my favourite fangame ever, so stay tuned.

Visit SAGE!

Alternate, Unreleased SatAM Theme Songs

I found these unreleased alternate title themes for SatAM Sonic over at Saturday Morning Sonic and I wanted to share them here so that more people could hear them.

I've set them to the footage from the normal title theme, just so you'll have something to look at while listening.

For more info and MP3 downloads, go here.

Thanks to Michael Tavera for donating these to the Sonic Community!

Note: The titles are of my own device, because none were listed.

"Seriously mondo". That is all. =P

Lyrics:

Sonic hits the ground, feet spinnin' around
Nobody can rocket as fast as he can

Supersonic guy, Sally by his side
Freedom Fighters, too - he's a Sonic hedgehog!

When Robotnik tries to catch him
Sonic just turns on his speed

Juice it to the top, never gonna stop
Way past cool - he's a Sonic hedgehog!

Sonic's havin' fun, Robotnik's on the run
Seriously mondo - a Sonic hedgehog!

Nobody can stop Sonic the Hedgehog!

This one's sung from Sonic's PoV, and the voice actually sort of fits him. I prefer it to the guy they got for Sonic Underground's music vids, at least. (shudder)

Lyrics:

Ah, yeah, yeah!

Gotta rocket, gotta juice it
I'm hypersonic, ultra-cool

Gotta blast off, gotta move it
I'm burnin' way past cool

Technotronic Freedom Fighter
Ultraphonic super-cool

I got talents, way amazing
I ain't nobody's fool

Gotta rocket, gotta juice it
I'm hypersonic, ultra-cool

Gotta blast off, keep on movin'
Keep on burnin' way past cool

You know I'm burnin' way past cool!

I think this one's my least favourite.

At around 0:20 the singer sounds like Weird Al. =)

The lyrics on this one are just about as ass as it's possible to get, but I do like the reference to "Final Zone".

Lyrics:

Listen, everybody
Gonna have a party
I'm the baddest dude around

Brother, let's get started
It's an all night, alright,
Super Sonic Jam!

Don't you know there's nobody faster
Baby, I'm the real master blaster
Goin' all the way to the final zone

Talking hotshot, too rad, I'm bad to the bone

Listen, everybody
Gonna have a party
I'm the baddest dude around

Brother, let's get started
We're Super Sonic Jammin' tonight

Super Sonic - Super Sonic Jam!

This is an alternate version of "Super Sonic Jam" that makes the music sound even more "surfy". Ugh.

This one matches the best with the footage (especially at the beginning). I wonder if the footage was final when this one was written?

This one is my personal favourite; it reminds me a little of the Sonic CD Japan soundtrack.

Lyrics:

Go, supersonic, way past the limit
Cruise supersonic speed, yeah
Faster and faster, supersonic speed

Zoomin' every place, never gonna lose the race
Come on, let's juice it, yeah

Blazin' through the air
You see, there's nothing to it

Sonic speed, no one can match it
Totally no one can catch it

Look out, everybody, here we go!

Go, supersonic, way past the limit
Cruise supersonic speed, yeah
Faster and faster, supersonic speed

Supersonic!

P.S. I think it's hilarious that YouTube chose Sally for the thumbnail frames, when SatAM detractors are always complaining that it's just the "Sally Acorn Show". =P

Aliens vs. God

At AlterNet, Greta Christina has outlined 6 (Unlikely) Developments That Could Convince [Her] To Believe in God, with the intent to show that atheists are willing to specifiy exactly what evidence would be sufficient to change their mind - something most religious folks are loath to do.

It's a great article, and I'm behind it all the way. There is, however, one thing that I think bears more thought: How would we know any given proof of God wasn't the work of godlike aliens?

Greta Christina writes,

If I saw an unambiguous message from God, I would be persuaded of his existence. If I saw writing suddenly appear in the sky, in letters a hundred feet high, saying "I Am God, I Exist, Here Is What I Want You To Do" -- and if that writing were seen by every human being, written in whatever language they understand, comprehended in the same way by everyone who saw it -- I would be persuaded that God existed. I'd be puzzled as to why he'd waited this long -- why he'd decided to do it in 2010 and not at any other time in human history -- but I'd still believe.

She then anticipates the heckler's gibe of, "Aliens!":

(And for the record: Yes, it's possible that this could happen without God. It could hypothetically, for instance, be accomplished by a highly technologically advanced alien species. But I don't think that would be the simplest explanation. If this phenomenon happened, "God" would, in my opinion, be a simpler explanation than "aliens" -- and unless I saw good evidence that the writing was done by aliens, God would be the provisional conclusion I would come to.)

She says that she thinks God would be a simpler explanation. I'm not so sure; it seems to me that aliens are a more parsimonious explanation, seeing as how - also according to the laws of parsimony* - we assume aliens extremely likely to exist, while God is extremely unlikely to exist.

*To maintain that aliens do not exist requires the extra assumption that either there is something special about Earth in particular, or that the origin of life is so unlikely that it only occured once in the universe - a proposition that is as of yet unsupported.

Think of it like this: If a human being from ancient Egypt saw a television set, they would assume it was magic. They would not know that such technology could even exist, and the idea of magic, which is commonplace to them, would seem like a much simpler explanation.

The real problem with God being a parsimonious explanation is this, as she touches on in the article:

I'd be puzzled as to why he'd waited this long -- why he'd decided to do it in 2010 and not at any other time in human history -- but I'd still believe.

This is the crux of the issue. In order for God to be a workable theory, we'd have to explain why he only seems to exist now, and not (as is claimed by believers) since the beginning of time. What could account for the absense of evidence of God up to this point? Explaining this would, it seems to me, require a bevy of assumptions and rationalisations that may equal, if not exceed, those necessary for the "aliens" hypothesis.

It's a safe bet that any aliens visiting us will be highly advanced. It's also a pretty safe bet that they would have studied humanity long enough to know that posing as God would be a great way to conquer humans, or at the very least get some yuks.

Yes, this assumes things about the aliens' intentions, but no more or less than the rationalisations of God's intentions for revealing himself suddenly. The old line, "we can't know the mind of God" can't be resorted to - that's not the kind of reasoning we infidels like to use. =P

If I see a fat man in a red suit fly overhead in a sleigh drawn by eight tiny reindeer, the first thing to assume as a proper sceptic isn't Santa Claus. I think the fact that concepts such as Santa Claus, or God, have been around a long time and are intuitive to people doesn't make them parsimonious at all. In fact, the exact opposite is true. The fact that they've existed for so long without confirmation makes them some of the most unlikely explanations possible.

And finally, their status as fiction is another - and devastating - hit against them. The likelihood of something someone came up with being real is as likely as me beginning to quote verbatim from a book I've never read - and that has yet to be written. In fact, the only way for these fictions (of God, Santa Claus, or anything else) to reflect reality at all is if there is some mechanism - such as revelation - that could relay the information of reality into the visions or writings of man. It can't just appear there - any more than monkeys can recreate Shakespeare by randomly beating on a typewriter for a trillion times the universe's age.

Of course, revelation can't be posited as the mechanism, because it can be shown - quite easily - to be bunk. If it wasn't, all religions would be the same (or at least agree on the basic facts). Of course, they don't - they can't even agree on the number of Gods there are.

With such good reasons to disbelieve the existence of God, seriously suggesting "aliens with the intent to deceive" isn't intellectually dishonest, or the shying away from proof of God by a dogmatic atheist. It would be the sound, sceptical, scientific thing to do.

Only when these other explanations were falsified would I accept God as the provisional explanation for such phenomenon as Greta Christina describes.

My Hack: 'Sonic: The One Ring'

This is what I've been working on for the last two months:

Yup, a Sonic hack.

I won't say much here; go to its page for more info and a video trailer.

Heads up, Sonic Hackers!

Over the last month or so I've been trying my hand at a little Sonic 1 hacking, the result of which I hope to reveal soon.

Along the way, I've been learning a thing or two here and there about assembly language, and I've been trying to make some of the objects in the game (platforms and blocks of different types) "Zone Agnostic": that is, they'll load the correct art and mappings no matter which Zone they're placed in.

I've made a fair start of it. Anyone interested can follow along by visiting this thread of mine at Sonic Retro.

I've gotten a few more objects working, too. They're in the pipeline - I just have to find some time to add the necessary steps to the guide.

Atheism: Weak or Strong?

If you've read my blog, you probably know by now that I'm an atheist - I display the "Scarlet A" prominently and proudly, for one thing.

I often hear discussion about the definition of the term 'atheist', usually contrasting it against a bemusing array of other terms like 'agnostic', 'non-theist', and so on. My most recent encounter with this subject was when I watched the video 3.1 Atheism: Definitions by a YouTuber called Evid3nc3. (By the way, everyone should watch his riveting series of videos, Why I am no longer a Christian.)

In the video, the distinction is made between atheism in the "weak" and "strong" senses. Put simply, an atheist in the strong sense "believes that there is/are no God(s)" while an atheist in the weak sense "lacks a belief in God(s)". In the video, Evid3nc3 also says that it's been his experience that most atheists will either readily admit or concede after a little pressing that they are atheists in the weak sense. This has been my experience, too.

So which am I? Well, I don't think that the distinction between the two senses actually exists. The whole deal smacks of sophistry to me. Of course, I'm willing to be shown that I'm mistaken, but let me make my case.

First, though, let's get some other definitions straight.

• By "God" I mean the personal, interventionist deities described by almost all of the world's religions. The deistic and pantheistic ideas of God are not to be considered, nor the fatuous "Generation, Organisation, Delivery" mumbo-jumbo spouted by Deepak Chopra. If one wishes to name their dog, "God" and then claim that "God" exists, they are begging to be expansively ignored.
• By "believe" I mean exactly what is usually implied, "to accept as true". In this sense, everyone must have beliefs; atheists are not exempt. "Believe" is not to be conflated with "take on faith".

So every atheist believes "that there is/are no God(s)", myself included, which makes us atheists in the strong sense. I can show this with an example.

• I have seen plenty of evidence that suggests Harry Potter is a fictional character.
• I am convinced by said evidence.
• I believe (accept as true) that Harry Potter is a fictional character.
• The status "fictional" is mutually exclusive with the status "factual".
• If I believe that Harry Potter is fictional, then I must believe that Harry Potter is not factual.
• Therefore I believe Harry Potter doesn't exist (waggish exceptions such as people who happen to be named Harry Potter, "Harry Potter" as a concept, et al excluded).
• To say that I don't believe "there is no Harry Potter" but instead suggest that I "lack a belief in Harry Potter" is semantic hair-splitting of the grossest category.

Replace "Harry Potter" with the name of any religion's God and you'll see the point I'm making.

The distinction between "weak" and "strong" atheism is, it seems to me, meaningless at this point. However, there is a sense in which it might still be useful, if we recast strong atheism as "knowing that there is/are no God(s)". Replace "believe" with "know", and you've got something that, on the face of it, seems a lot more unreasonable, unyielding, and much more similar to the faith of theistic thinking.

Theists, or at least most of them, will claim to "know" God is real. Atheists, who often come to their lack of faith through critical thinking, will usually be reluctant to claim to "know" anything. Many of them (such as I) also have a great love for the scientific method and logical thought, and understand that all conclusions are provisional.

Therefore it's not unusual to hear an argument proceed somewhat like this:

Theist: "Blah blah, Jesus, blah blah, God, etc."
Atheist: "God doesn't exist!"
Theist: "Oh yeah? Well, how do you know? He might!"
Atheist: "Well, I don't know. You're right; he might indeed - "
Theist: "Ah hah!" stops listening

The score is Theist: 1, Atheist: 0, at least in the theist's eyes. The atheist's allegiance to the central tenets of science, bet-hedging and open-mindedness, has totally hamstrung his or her argument from the getgo.

However, if the atheist instead responded by saying, "I know for sure that God isn't real, and I can prove it," gasps would be drawn all round, even from atheists. Even someone as "strident" as Richard Dawkins would never dream of such a rejoinder.

But would the atheist be wrong to respond in such a way? I'm not so sure that he or she would be. While I'm aware of the importance of the scientific method, and love it as much as Richard Dawkins does, we need to realise what is meant by words like "know" and "prove".

Scientists will often point out that it's impossible to truly "know" anything. They're right of course, by the strictest and most rigourous standards of science. There is an infinitude of unfalsifiable assertions, such as "we're all in the Matrix", or "the world was conjured into being five minutes ago by the Flying Spaghetti Monster".

So if we can't truly "know" anything, why have the word at all? Take "proof" for example. It's impossible to positively prove anything, except perhaps in mathematics and logic. But would it not be a grievous assault on the language to totally eschew the word apart from those contexts? I consider it fair to use these words sans caveat, because if they mean anything at all then their implicated limitations must be intrinsic to them.

This is why it is generally agreed that when we say "we know something and can prove it" that we can only do so within the realm of our limits to do so, shackled as we are to the peculiars of reality. If someone asks for your name, and after your ready answer were to ask you how you knew and if you could prove it, you wouldn't dream for a nanosecond to say, "Well, I don't really know, and it's simply impossible to prove."

Dawkins will often say that we need to stop automatically privileging religion. His cheeky quote, "But why the chaplain? Why not the gardener or the chef?" is brilliant. But as much as I admire him, I have to accuse him (and countless other atheists) of paying only lip-service to this concept (at least in some situations). Because when it comes to the question of God's existance, the crux of atheism itself, the steely resolve becomes spongey. To privilege that question so highly, that it must always be met with hems and haws and a mountain of caveats is ridiculous.

The germane thing to remember here is that most atheists are as sure about the non-existance of God(s) as they are about any other certainty in their lives. It would be nice if they could start acting like it. We have to abide by the rules of reason - not even the tiniest slip is laudable - but this self-imposed inability to claim to know doesn't seem that reasonable to me.

So... I know for sure that God isn't real. And I can prove it.

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!