30 Days of Sonic DAY 28 - Fan Game Favourites Week 4: 'First Fan Games' [30DOS22]

[Dreadknux]

We're nearly at the end of the road! Day 28 of 30 Days of Sonic! And it's out final Fan Game Favourites activity.

   

You can earn up to a GOLD Badge for this activity if you participate in all four weeks of Fan Game Favourites. If you only take part in one, you get a Blue Badge. Two weeks, a Bronze badge and a Silver Badge for three weeks' participated.

Fan Game Favourites

First Fan Games

Bit of a conversational one this time. We'd like to know what your first fan game was - and what your experience/impressions were of it. Did you love it at the time? Did it turn you off fan games in general? It'd be really interesting to hear your stories.

For me, being in the fanbase for as long as I have, of course one of the first fan games I ever played was Sonic Robo Blast 2. But honestly, I can't really truly remember what my first fan game was, so I will point to the first ever fan game review I wrote, back in 2001 - an Arkanoid-style game created by a good online friend of mine called (inventively enough) 'Sonanoid'.

The review is here: https://www.sonicstadium.org/2001/01/fan-game-review-sonanoid/

 

Even though I reviewed it in 2001, I'm pretty sure I played it back in 2000, predating any of the Sonic Amateur Game Expos at the time. During this time, the idea of playing Sonic games on a PC was pretty much widespread across my age group thanks to emulators, but Sonanoid was the first time I played a 'Sonic' game that wasn't official, and it opened my eyes to how creative some people could be if they had the tools to build their own game.

The game itself was super short and incredibly basic, as you can see in the screenshots, but you know... it was 2000/2001. It was a very different time. Basically the equivalent of silent movies in fan game terms. Shortly after I played this game for the first time, the first SAGE event was taking place and I was very interested in seeing what kind of fan games would appear at the showcase. So, while I've not always been able to play fan games (due to my computer being a Mac and lack of time etc etc), I've always had a fondness for it based on this little game and the first SAGE event that followed.

What was the first fan game you ever played, and what was your experience like?

[castell-neath]

My first fan game was Ultimate Sonic Flash, and tbh It took me a while to realise it was not a port! The advance era graphics, the sound and the smooth controls, tricky bosses, character options....it gave me hours of fun playing it on the pc back in 2006/07. 

Since then, things have really moved on and some of the games listed in the fan game threads over the last 4 weeks has really shown me what a great range of talent is out there, and how skillful people can be in creating some truely awsome Sonic games in both 2d and 3d. I will have to get a pc to try a few more midern ones I think!!!!

 

[Indigo Rush]

Dread, you're making us date ourselves here

My first Sonic fan game was....

...the first Sonic fan game. Sonic Boom. Where Sonic's ultimate attack is throwing apples.

 

[Winston]

The first one that I ever played was Ultimate Flash Sonic, and I kinda went over this a bit in my post about my favorite 2D fan game, but I'd usually always play it whenever I was in the library or in the computer lab at my schools and I finished with my work. It was pretty nice having such a fun and easy to access Sonic game at school, especially when I wasn't allowed to have my GameBoy Advance or DS come along with me. It's a good game though, even today I enjoy it, even if I don't go back to it as often as I used to. It's a very impressive fan game, and one I'll always treasure, and I'm glad that it was the first one that I played because it left a good impression... even if I don't play Sonic fan games all that often. Still, I'd say even people that haven't played it yet should check it out. 

[Eggman Fan]

Y'all ever heard of Ultimate Flash Sonic?

[Dr. Mechano]

The first Sonic fangame I ever played was Sonic Robo Blast 2, way back in the early 2000s.

It was much less far along than it is now, but man, just the concept of playing this fan-made 3D Sonic game on my computer blew my mind at the time. I was (and am still, honestly) so impressed.

[Cosmos Rogue]

My first fan game is that remake of Sonic Chaos. It's buggy, the physics aren't quite right, and it's just a single zone, but the game singlehandedly convinced me that fangames can be great fun.

[Adamabba]

I'm not too sure... Could've been SRB2, or Ultimate Flash Sonic, or some other random flash game. 

1 hour ago, Indigo Rush said:

Dread, you're making us date ourselves here

My first Sonic fan game was....

...the first Sonic fan game. Sonic Boom. Where Sonic's ultimate attack is throwing apples.

Oh wow that is a memory unlocked. Even this could've been my first. No idea when I played it

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Oof, I already mentioned this one back on a previous day - but yeah lol - Ultimate Flash Sonic was my very first fan-game I'd ever played, with it being one of the hot games in my primary school at the time that everyone would try to find sites not being flagged by the educational site blocker. Despite how short the game is, only with four levels to it's name, it pulled off such a really damn good recreation of Sonic Advance 1 and Advance 2 that I didn't even know it was a fangame as a kid, I assumed it was just another Sonic game like all the others I'd played. As someone who had Heroes and Mega Collection Plus as their first games, Ultimate Flash Sonic was a great intro to the DIMPS platformers in general.

Again, it was also just neat how they had their own elements to this game as well. Not only was Sonic, Tails and Cream playable, but so was Amy and even Shadow - which was always a glaring exclusion from the other Advance titles. Couldn't tell you how well the game holds up nowadays at least, but back then? It was great fun. 

[Iko]

I think it was Ultimate Flash Sonic for me as well, but I'm not completely sure... I also played some of those very old BlitzSonic demos... I remember what then became Sonic World, and Sonic Freerunner.

I especially liked this one because of the nice rolling physics. This very test stage influenced me in making that Green Hill racetrack for Re-Volt.

I believe that the person who worked on this is occasionally still around this very site these days

[NikoS]

The oldest fan-game I recall playing is definetely Ultimate Flash Sonic, like @castell-neath, I didn't knew it was fan-made until some years later. and I didn't knew the Advance games existed at all, at the time I played only Sonic 1, 2 and 3&K, it was my first contact with the modern sonic design as well. I wasn't good at the game though, so I didn't unlocked the other characters, and didn't finished all the stages too; but I loved the game, and was always playing it over and over again.

[WanderingBleats]

Hmm... What on Earth was it? I think it might have been EggBound, an EarthBound ROM hack by @Dr. Mechano back around 2003. I can't remember too many details about what it was about. There was something about Eggman having to power up or find the missing pieces of a Crystal Egg, while his even eviler doppelganger Dr. Baconman (this was before Eggman-Nega, see) did... something bad. Dr. Mechano may remember the details better than I do.

What I do distinctly remember is that the game got progressively more corrupted every time he sent it to me. EarthBound hacking was hard, especially with the tools at the time. First the enemy sprites got garbled beyond repair, like a screen full of Missingno. Then the text got weirdly corrupted. I remember going to the library, telling the librarian I didn't want a map, and her saying "u girls! Do you want one now?" in an endless loop. Eventually, Mario (who replaced Lier X Agerate) started appearing in the top left corner of the screen, and the "The End...?" text appeared repeatedly. It could be closed, but only for a few seconds, and then it would reappear. Mechano couldn't fix it. And that was the end of that project! It was kind of hilarious.

The project may have failed in the end, but it left me with precious memories that I cherish to this day. Also, I can't provide any screenshots because the only extant copy is stuck on an old computer that I need to put the time aside to revive.

...The Eggman Empire fansite, where I spent most of my time, was a fairly insular place and it was... very different from the Sonic fandom at large. Because of that, most of the early fangames I played were just made by regulars there, and regrettably few of them have survived to the present. I think the first more widely available Sonic fangame I played was Sonic Robo Blast 2... more specifically, Sonic Robo Blast 2 with an Eggman mod applied. But it was so long ago I don't know if I'd even recognize it if I saw it nowadays.

[Celestia]

The earliest fan game I distinctly remember playing is SRB2 of course, so I'll go with that as my answer, but I'm 100% sure before or at the same time as that I was playing like...basically every single fan game I saw that looked remotely interesting on fan sites like SFGHQ.

Not that things have changed that much in that regard actually. SAGE is kinda like Christmas for me, lol.

[Tornado]

I joined SSMB right before SAGE 7, so it's almost certainly one of the games in that event would have been the first ones I played. And it's a lame answer since it is the same as I gave for the 2D and the 3D questions on this topic earlier, but looking over the list of games on display at that event, the answer would either be Time Attacked or SRB2.

[Sean]

Yeah count me in as someone who probably first played SRB2, Sonic Time Attacked, or like some random other thing like Sonic Chaos Revolution 2. Time Attack was pretty great but I'm pretty sure I never finished it since I was so bad at it. SRB2 though I played to death (it was beta v4.35) because having an actual 3D Sonic fangame was the COOLEST shit at the time, like I discovered it at some point after SA2 came out but before Sonic Heroes and there were only like three acts but it was great fun anyway.

[Nix]

Most definitely Ultimate Flash Sonic. Spent almost all of my computer classes in grade school just going to town with that game.

Made out like a bandit with good grades too. Teachers never caught me.

[Tornado]

11 hours ago, Dreadknux said:

The review is here: https://www.sonicstadium.org/2001/01/fan-game-review-sonanoid/

https://www.sonicstadium.org/2001/05/fan-game-preview-sonic-robo-blast-2/

 

 

I mean, it took 20 years, but...

[JezMM]

My earliest memories of well known ones would be Ultimate Flash Sonic, Sonic Time Attacked and Sonic Robo Blast 2 (which was phenomenally cool to see on my PC despite much more graphically intensive games existing at the time.  3D fangames just... weren't a thing!)

However there's a good chance that a fangame a friend of mine from Sonicanime.net made predated those.  It was just a 4 level demo or something of course, as was the style at the time, and I think they could only use the free version of The Games Factory at the time - I'm sure it had "click" in the name or something.  Either way, the primary limitation is you couldn't have a scrolling game, only single screen ones.  So my memory of this game was each level being a single screen with as much platforming as my friend could cram into such a space, snaking around the screen.  I also remember the levels encompassing two themes - one was Green Hill, naturally, and one was mechanical themed, where for whatever reason my friend made the bold artistic choice to use a midi of that one goofy techno cut-scene theme from Sonic Heroes that plays when Eggman is taunting the characters before some boss battles.  Even at the time I thought that was a weird artistic choice despite being 14 and my friend being 12, when there was a myriad of great industrial themed level music from Sonic's history that could have been used.  (For anyone who was around during those Sonicanime.net days, said friend was known by "Agent X" - they made quite a few demos like this over the years as they steadily got better game making software, but never finished anything that got a proper widespread release within the fanbase, was all just sending games to friends and such.  Good times.)

Sadly despite uncovering a couple of fangames in my old MSN Received Files folder that definitely came after, couldn't find this one!  Alas.

[Solister]

Bold of you to assume I remember.

But two of the strongest candidates are Sonic Chaos, although I can't find much info regarding it (And no, it's probably not the one you are thinking of), which I think I may have found in a CD-ROM magazine dedicated to retro gaming which included some emulators, very few ROMs and fan games. I really doubt any of those were legal and licensed.

The second is the well known Sonic Robo Blast 2 lots of people already mentioned. Can't remember if I found on that same CD-Rom or my brother already knew about it.

[Mr. Ion]

Being completely unique and not echoing anything that has been said in this thread thus far, my first Sonic fan game, and actually, my first Sonic game period, was Ultimate Flash Sonic. To this point in my young, bald-headed life, Sonic was merely a cartoon character, in the same vein as something like Ben 10 or Mickey Mouse, as I watched reruns of SatAM, Adventures of, and Sonic Underground.  I played this on one of those flash game websites, I think it was called like Friv or something. I played this pretty obsessively at my cousin's house, though the new designs (having only been used to the American Sonic to this point) and the existence of Cream was a confusing but welcome surprise. While being a fan game, it kind of taught me how a Sonic worked. It was punishing sometimes, with its unfair enemy placements, but also fast and fun, and had an emphasis on repeat playthroughs. With the knowledge I have now, of the game being basically developed off of, and heavily inspired by, Sonic Advance 2, I can kind of put the game into the context of its time. I can still appreciate the game, and honestly it was a really happy time for me at the end of 2020 going through this game once again (along with many other flash games) during a time period that genuinely kinda sucked for me. So, if anything, the game holds a lot of sentimental value, and for a fan game, has kind of define how/why I like this franchise as a whole.

[Strickerx5]

Ultimate Flash Sonic. Remember loading that up on the home Dell computer and just going to town for an hour now and then. Hell, I think this even pre-dated me becoming a full on fan of the series now that I think about it.

Glad to see I'm not the only one on this either lol. Probably helps that the game didn't require a download or anything. Feel like anyone who's ever spent more than a minute looking for games online has played it.

[Sonictrainer]

...I honestly don't remember...

Maybe it was one of the Tails' Nightmare games?

Or that one that was an RPG and Sonic had a Buster Sword?

I don't know...