TSSZ @ SAGE 5: Day 1 Coverage

The first day of the unique Sonic Amateur Games Expo 5 has brought some interesting developments - some good and some not quite so good. While there has been a whole load of positive news from Gregorsoft and his multiple projects, for example, Sonic MAdventure 2 is a no-show and some other booths are delayed. We'll keep an eye on things as the day progresses - stay tuned to our coverage!

Sonic Team Junior

First confirmed on tssz|news on Seven yesterday, Sonic Team Junior will not be releasing a new demo of Sonic Robo Blast 2 at SAGE this year. Instead, the team has decided to re-release all previous demos of SRB2, and the original SRB2 demo video. Also included are the infamous White Glove Diaries, a staple of the original STJR website on Emulation Zone.

While there is no new demo, fans will appreciate catching up on old demos they might have missed.

Blaze Says TFH Demo Tomorrow

Blaze Hedgehog noted at his booth that after hours of hard work on trying to get a new TFH demo online, sleep has taken over his system:

Quote

I've gotten most of the stuff working in TFH, but there's still a hiccup or two and I'm beat. I'm hitting the hay. With luck, I'll have it ready tomorrow. Sorry for the delays, folks.

We'll follow it for you here at tssz|news.

No MAdventure 2 from Ayame

Ayame has announced at his SAGE booth that, due to a ton of work being put on ThirdScape 2 to get it ready for SAGE, there sadly wasn't enough time to work on a new version of the sequel to Sonic MAdventure. Ayame says to potentially expect something new later in the fall, and to expect good boss levels and "excellent" mini-games.

Another note - we're not sure if ThirdScape 2 is up or not; while a main image says "3rd Scape" on the main page, it links to a file called "ts2.zip"... hmmm. We'll follow it up for you.

Oodles of Sonic Ultra News

News and notes from Gregorsoft's SAGE Booth:

Sonic Ultra 3 is coming along very nicely, even with two years of development behind its back. The single player engine is complete. What is still in the works, however, are multiplayer online competitions and SU3's linkup with Chaomega, a joint venture between Gregorsoft and Magicgrafx.

Sonic Ultra X, dubbed Sonic Ultra 4 initially, has moved over to a C engine after failed attempts to get an engine running in MMF. This time, however, level design will be passed on to fans willing to write using the joint C/Allegro tools for SUX. Both the unfinished MMF engine and the unfinished Allegro engine are available for download.

MegaChao is coming along nicely, with the Chao Battle mechanism at 80% completion and the user interface at 75% completion.

Sonic Ultra: The Return has been unprotected and released as a download for new developers to see.

Showoff Team/Sonic Ki

A demo for Sonic-Ki is at Showoff Team's booth. The developers themselves aren't really hyping this title as much as the general public is, however.

For the full version, sixteen levels are expected, along with a trial and save game feature. A two player battle mode might be in the works as well.

We'll keep close watch on Sonic-Ki.

Program Navigation Update?

tssz|news is told that an updated version of the SAGE Navigation program is in the cards to be released this week. The new version will have "promo items" for each booth as well as an IRC client built into the program (a big help for the non-IRC client users.)

More information soon.

Tentative SAGECast Schedule

There's only one firm program schedule for Tuesday's SAGE Stream, that is Luckett X broadcasting live again at 6.40 PM Eastern time (11.40 PM in Britain.)

That's all we know at the moment.