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Sandbox sonic?


Sonic The Badass

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A sandbox Sonic could play very well with physics similar to Sonic Adventure's or even better the classics'. Rolling down slopes and flying off at the perfect moment to reach a higher route and having open freedom is something I'd adore to see compared to the hallways we've received recently (although Generations and Lost World are lowering that, you need to take that big step someday).

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A sandbox Sonic could play very well with physics similar to Sonic Adventure's or even better the classics'. Rolling down slopes and flying off at the perfect moment to reach a higher route and having open freedom is something I'd adore to see compared to the hallways we've received recently (although Generations and Lost World are lowering that, you need to take that big step someday).

I'm pretty sure "that big step", would best not be an open-world game in terms of the main series as the notion is entirely anti-Sonic, I think open-world would be better suited for a spinoff where it doesn't matter so much. 

Edited by Chaos Warp
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I'm pretty sure "that big step", would best not be an open-world game in terms of the main series as the notion is entirely anti-Sonic, I think open-world would be better suited for a spinoff where it doesn't matter so much. 

 

Why would an open world be anti-sonic? I would think that would be something that would be rather neat to be able to run around a massive world as Sonic or any of his friends. The level to level method of getting around just seems sort of dull. Yes its easier to get right to the action, but it speeds up the game alot. Sonic games are too short lately and they do need to do something to lengthen up the games a bit. Completing them in under 8 or 10 hours and having nothing much else to do other than achievements or little side things just doesn't seem worth it. Rayman may have gotten away with the level to level format, but there were so many levels i the game that I didn't really matter that there is no freeroaming around between the levels.

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It can work if you don't make it completely open-world.

 

Need me to explain? Huzzah! Azoo draws a visual aid!

 

BfXrUHB.jpg

 

Basically, you're given a simple task: Sonic has to stop Eggman's nefarious scheme to dominate this wonderful "God-Knows-Where Island" and you start from down southwest on a journey northeast (due to Tails' plane crashing there while on the way.. or something). Yeah. 

 

Sonic controls are simple, and like a mixture between Sonic Adventure and Lost World, having the accelerational mechanics for running (and rolling) as in from SA1, but the general feel of movement from SLW. As the game begins you are on the beach, with a compass in the bottom-left corner..

 

So.. how do we handle a big, open Sonic game? Well.. Lets just not and say we did. I know that sounds kind of dumb, but just imagine if we would just take the amount of effort the developers would use to make several acts of one stage, and just fit it all into one big environment that connects to each other (with convenient boss arenas / brief stopping points along the way to allow loading times). Basically, imagine a stage in Sonic Adventure or Sonic Unleashed that doesn't have as much boundaries, instead filling what would normally be empty spaces with alternate paths.

 

But what would the use be of alternate paths? Well, alternate stage patterns of course. Being in full control of how Sonic takes the journey, you can take all kinds of detours, shortcuts, or just lollygag and spiral through every environment.

 

Lets say, as shown for instance, you start in Green Hill Boogaloo and can either take the straightaway to the forest/jungle level, or go the fairly more difficult way that leads to the water stage, making a straight cut to near the end of the desert stage. You could go through all three parts of the city, one or two parts of the city, or just go through the mountains on the long-cut and dodge them all completely.  

 

Along the way you could possibly talk to random NPCs and do missions or sidequests, obtain powerups that you could equip to use as you please, use the starposts as save-points to resume your game at (and possibly teleport to and from ala Shadow the Hedgehog), go to special stages, et cetera, there's a lot to think about.

 

Really this could take ages to completely think up everything for and develop because it'd take some massive bending and twisting to get the idea of an "open-world" Sonic game to work.. so much in fact that its really just a normal Sonic game without seperated acts or hubworlds. 

 

But yeah, it was a thought that sort of spiraled out of control. LOL

Edited by Master Azonkonion
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Okay, something like that would be pretty neat actually. I like the idea of having some choice of which stage you progress to next on your journey, although I find it humorous that it seems you have no choice whatsoever but to go through the ice area. Considering it'd be the second-to-last section of the game no matter what it'd probably be difficult... + ice physics. *shudder*

 

I'm imagining a final boss that involves such a massive battle that you chase Eggman throughout the entire island, although perhaps that'd be a bit much. :V It'd be awesome tho'.

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It can work if you don't make it completely open-world.

 

Need me to explain? Huzzah! Azoo draws a visual aid!

 

BfXrUHB.jpg

 

Basically, you're given a simple task: Sonic has to stop Eggman's nefarious scheme to dominate this wonderful "God-Knows-Where Island" and you start from down southwest on a journey northeast (due to Tails' plane crashing there while on the way.. or something). Yeah. 

 

Sonic controls are simple, and like a mixture between Sonic Adventure and Lost World, having the accelerational mechanics for running (and rolling) as in from SA1, but the general feel of movement from SLW. As the game begins you are on the beach, with a compass in the bottom-left corner..

 

So.. how do we handle a big, open Sonic game? Well.. Lets just not and say we did. I know that sounds kind of dumb, but just imagine if we would just take the amount of effort the developers would use to make several acts of one stage, and just fit it all into one big environment that connects to each other (with convenient boss arenas / brief stopping points along the way to allow loading times). Basically, imagine a stage in Sonic Adventure or Sonic Unleashed that doesn't have as much boundaries, instead filling what would normally be empty spaces with alternate paths.

 

But what would the use be of alternate paths? Well, alternate stage patterns of course. Being in full control of how Sonic takes the journey, you can take all kinds of detours, shortcuts, or just lollygag and spiral through every environment.

 

Lets say, as shown for instance, you start in Green Hill Boogaloo and can either take the straightaway to the forest/jungle level, or go the fairly more difficult way that leads to the water stage, making a straight cut to near the end of the desert stage. You could go through all three parts of the city, one or two parts of the city, or just go through the mountains on the long-cut and dodge them all completely.  

 

Along the way you could possibly talk to random NPCs and do missions or sidequests, obtain powerups that you could equip to use as you please, use the starposts as save-points to resume your game at (and possibly teleport to and from ala Shadow the Hedgehog), go to special stages, et cetera, there's a lot to think about.

 

Really this could take ages to completely think up everything for and develop because it'd take some massive bending and twisting to get the idea of an "open-world" Sonic game to work.. so much in fact that its really just a normal Sonic game without seperated acts or hubworlds. 

 

But yeah, it was a thought that sort of spiraled out of control. LOL

 

So in short, basically like Metal Gear Solid Peacewalker, Metroid, or Castlevania where you have specific sections to go to, but with total freedom where to travel and what to do in the segments as long as you have the abilities to reach the other areas safely.

 

Just customized to fit Sonic...

 

Would work great to have other characters accustomed to it, as it would be a great template for a 3D S3&K.

 

EDIT: Although while customized to fit Sonic, bringing in other characters requires greater time and investment into finding out how they could work. Characters like Shadow, Metal Sonic, Amy, Espio and Blaze being similar to Sonic could have their own unique quirks that allow them access to their own areas few others can reach.

 

-Shadow can teleport, slow faster moving objects to a crawl, shoot from a distance, or blow them up

-Amy can pound on more solidly built objects and foes, hammer jump to higher ledges, and given how she's one of the more "normal" characters you could theoretically give her any other tool that could aid her so long as you don't shatter the suspension of belief (like they did with Amy's sudden invisibility in Sonic 06)

-Espio can be sneakier, phasing in and out of view to enemies, or laser barricades that other characters would need to activate switches to deactivate, as well as shooting from a distance with shurikens

-And Blaze is an even more offense oriented character than Shadow, using her pyrokinesis to dispel flames in certain areas or create devastating attacks

 

Other characters would need some greater fine tunning:

-Depending on how large the areas are, flight characters like Tails, Rouge, or Cream could break much of the level design unless you put certain obstacles that impeded travel in the air be it terrain like skyscrapers or enemies

-Same with characters that can climb and glide, like Rouge or Knuckles, as they can climb over theoretically anything blocking their way and fly over large swaths of terrain over to the next

 

Then there are more unique characters like Silver who is probably even more capable of breaking everything in the game by using his telekinesis to achieve what every character listed is capable of doing. Making use of him needs some serious adjustments.

 

It's a fun thing to think about nonetheless.

Edited by ChaosSupremeSonîc
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Yeah, thats moreso what I was meaning to point towards. 

 

Maybe there should be results screens after all and things to seperate each area of the stage (especially since fighting bosses and saving animal capsules without them would seem too awkward), so there could be a sense of progression, but at the same time you're given this map to figure out where you are on the island, to also help you guide out your path you wanna take through the game. 

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Wow, that is a wonderful idea. You did a great job on that map, though likely could always be changed up more for even more paths in the end. This is sort of what I would think of as a good open world Sonic game. One that allows so many alternate paths to get to the ending instead of just straight stage order that never changes. In that idea, the path to the final stage could take any number of paths that range from quick, difficult, easy, or just all over the place. It would add a ton of replay value that the series needs big time when it comes to the games lately. I would love if this kind of idea would be made. It would take a long time to make I'm sure, but being so open world I think would definately fit Sonic. He is all about going where he wants to go and when he wants to go there, so I feel this would fit him so well.

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Yeah, thats moreso what I was meaning to point towards. 

 

Maybe there should be results screens after all and things to seperate each area of the stage (especially since fighting bosses and saving animal capsules without them would seem too awkward), so there could be a sense of progression, but at the same time you're given this map to figure out where you are on the island, to also help you guide out your path you wanna take through the game. 

Exactly how big would each segment be given that Sonic moves really fast? Usually MetroidVania style sandboxes are much slower in motion compared to Sonic's more speed oriented gameplay. You say like SA1 or Unleashed's worlds without boundaries, but I think it's a matter of a size just right in order to perfectly balance Sonic's speed and progression to other areas without being too small and restricted or too large and overwhelming.

 

And that's not even getting into the level design/terrain to prevent skipping over all of it if you allowed flight characters to be playable.

Edited by ChaosSupremeSonîc
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Well yeah, I take back what I said about "without boundaries", I guess its moreso of not having as many boundaries. 

 

Probably the best way to do that is to keep the boundaries, but make areas wider open and more accessible to branching and diverging from the main path, but still somehow balancing out the level design enough to where you know you're moving forward. Segment the stages by "acts" (that are held with that seperation by mini-bosses / bosses with capsules to free after defeating), but still keep them all connected as one big location. I could imagine one of these "acts" would be as large as an entire SA1 stage in length, and with as much path divergence and wide open moments as I suppose at least one of the earlier stages in Sonic Robo Blast 2 (none of the later, more  gutwrenchingly labyrinthine ones).

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Sounds good. Now what about continuing this in a sequel?

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Though you dont want to make it at the same time seem to level based or that defeats the purpose of open world and people will see it as a contradiction if you lable it open world and then seperate it into levels here and there. While I can see some of the points, it would almost defeat the purpose if there are still lots of boundaries everywhere. Also, in the case of flying characters, just make it that Eggman does control the island, so if they try and fly, like how it was mentioned that the plane may have shot down that there are antiair defences around the island to prevent such things. If you try flying too high or for too long, you might get shot at by these things to discourage massive skipping around due to flying high up into the air. At least, this would be my opinion on that part.

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Then call in similar to MetroidVania instead. I mean, that's practically how such a thing functions as a sandbox in segments.

 

And sure there should be some counters to prevent breaking the level design, but at the same time we should allow the player to be able to fight those counters the more they progress. 

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Its just a tricky concept over all, because being an open world game, you have to program and expect so many different ways of completing things to make it work. What if the player does this, what if they do that. It all has to connect in a way or things could go all screwy and the game would take alot to get working properly to where people wouldn't just break the game. The main reason metroidvania stuff works well though is yes you can explore alot, but you are often stuck to a 2D plane in some of the games, or in the 3D games, you still don't technically have an open world concept, since you are restricted to certain paths.

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Idea: Let's get 30+ people together and work on this as a fangame. Amirite, gais?

Flying would be nerfed to what it was in Adventure 1, and gliding decreases altitude as the characters glide anyway, so just don't make high hills appear to often. Blaze would have a high jump (cus she's a cat), and only be a little slower than Sonic, á la Sonic Rush, so she would be a good all-rounder.

I imagine that the final boss would take place in the Special Zone and you fight it as the Super/Burning form of your character, so either Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Silver, Shadow or Blaze would be playable, as well as any custom created characters, which I now feel should be in single player too, as there is no greater feeling to me than having the ability to play as something I've created.

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I think it'd be a heck of a challenge to work, but let us consider. With the new speed system... this is the exact same principle as Grand Theft Auto: your character can walk (slowest), sprint (faster) or get in a car (fastest). Now that Sonic has three speeds, he could actually do fairly well in an open environment, I think.

Now the issue is, how do you keep that environment entertaining? Is it urban, grassland, etc.? Sonic obviously can't commit crimes like in many open world games, so you need to find other ways to keep things entertaining. Presumably stages could be replaced by some sort of mission-esque system that assigns tasks throughout the hub.

Sonic's ability to go fast on a dime presents challenges, but given that you can do the same in most GTA games with the fastest vehicles... I don't see why an open world game couldn't work with the right application.

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Now the issue is, how do you keep that environment entertaining? Is it urban, grassland, etc.? Sonic obviously can't commit crimes like in many open world games, so you need to find other ways to keep things entertaining. Presumably stages could be replaced by some sort of mission-esque system that assigns tasks throughout the hub.

There's a big problem with using missions to keep some kind of activity no matter where you go, though - they're still essentially finite, and sooner or later you're going to just plain run out of them. Even if you take the Skyrim approach and make some of them randomly generated, it's hard to shake the feeling that you're doing the same thing over and over again. And suffice to say, literally nothing a Sonic game could do will ever be as time consuming as your typical Skyrim quest, even when accounting for fast travel.

 

My solution? TIme trials. Lots and lots of time trials. Every trope in the sandbox is essentially its own "stage", right? So just have the game record the amount of time it takes to get between a certain two bottlenecks between areas and give grades accordingly. With that comes the incentive to improve apon times constantly even if you're doing nothing especially important at the time, and if there are a lot of routes through any given area to record times for, even better.

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Time trials really are a way to increase replay value for the more hardcore players, this is certain. An ability to replay any "mission" at whim would definitely be a great idea with this. A nice little bonus for completing the story perhaps?

Collectibles would also be a way to increase exploration value. Whereas most Sonic games have the theme of moving fast and if you miss a collectible, you need to get it next time, this one goes a different route: going fast all the time is instead inadvisable as you'll likely miss something. Naturally these collectibles should provide bonuses that are nice but not necessary to advice; think the free caches of weapons as a reward for gathering collectibles in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. We most definitely do not want the cutscene/soundtrack/medal collectables Unleashed pulled, I think.

Ultimately I think the sandbox idea has great merit however because in the wake of Lost World's three speed system, we have actually made it possible for players to play at their own pace... naturally any sandbox must make it rewarding regardless of which speed you are going at.

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I'd suggest Sonic needing to trounce all the badniks in one area and defeat the area boss when he moves into an area for the first time. Everything would respawn, but then it's optional, save for the boss. Missions would also be good. Anybody played an old Disney game called Toon Town? I'm kinda thinking of it while describing this.

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In retrospect an urban setting probably would be unwise unless it's a city built by Eggman. Cities would necessitate NPCs that could cause clutter. Of course it could always be a small section of a city serving as a safe zone or sorts, or a village... hmm. Could go multiple ways with that.

I'm predicting most areas would have respawning enemies for the sake of difficulty, naturally. Perhaps with the enemy types/difficulty shifting as the game progresses. Blowing up a factory might reduce Badnik frequency, up until Eggman reveals some sort of new line of robots that are produced much easier, to give an example.

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If we have a safe zone, I suggest using Archie canon and having New Mobotropolis. In fact, I think the whole thing should be set on Mobius. That way custom characters would be more excusable as there are many Freedom Figther groups and many threats, blah, blah, blah. Look at me, talking as if we're gonna make this. Then again, it'd be a great thing to do...

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While it would be neat for them to make use of Archie canon, I think any hope of that occurring is gone after Dark Brotherhood. Then again an open world game as a whole is unlikely but... I think it could actually happen with the new speed system. Looking at the sheer size of the worlds some games are having... it is definitely doable for SEGA to do this, considering the high speed vehicles that are often accessible in those. The stage system is maintained purely because it's the standard formula at this point.

I'd definitely suggest SEGA pulling locations from prior games and throwing them into this hub world, however. Green Hill could be the hub, if not Station Square.

Now, granted, Dark Brotherhood did this, but I think reusing locations from the game canon is probably most likely in the event of a title. Failing that you could always have the world take place on an island with its own locations...

Naturally, this means getting eaten by a Giant Chopper if you try to get off it. tongue.png

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Well of course you would likely be stuck on the island. This likely is an island that would most likely be fully controlled by Eggman, so trying to get on and off of it is going to be difficult with defenses that are likely all around it. Who knows, maybe the island is all natural, or only partly natural as there will be things he has constructed all over the island to try and make is more hazardous for anyone that may be tresspassing. If there was a city area, instead of it being a safe place, maybe its where captured people are being forced to work and make resources  for him, so its another area for Sonic to try and help out. Like, if he doesnt free the people in that area before defeating Eggman, that he may not be able to save them in time. The island may blow in the end of the game or the entire island could end up being a manmade island fortress that blows in the end. Would make an interesting final battle as well if the island took off in the end and had to chase it around as SS. There are so many possibilities here, it would just take so long to program I'm sure due to all the possibilities, and trying to keep everyone happy.

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Problem with a sandbox Sonic game, is that it probably won't have "levels" in the standard sense, seeing as the whole island will be a series of zones, a la inFamous or Just Cause. If entering a specific zone triggers a level to start, then what makes this any different to an oversized hubworld.

 

I personally reckon a large-ish hubworld is the best way to go about it, or at least a series of hubworlds like Unleashed. Of course these hub worlds would need to be designed similarly to stages, and in fact could serve as a fantastic place to have a tutorial. Let the player roam around the hubworld and generally get to grips with how Sonic moves, before even entering a level.

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