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Game News, Game Secrets, Hacking

Sonic 3D Director’s Cut ROM Hack Announced by Traveller’s Tales Founder


How’s this for a little role reversal? Where Sonic Mania features fan game developers work in a commercial Sonic game, a Sonic game developer makes works on a ROM hack?
GameHut is the YouTube channel run by Traveller’s Tales founder Jon Burton which recently celebrated his achievement of 25,000 subscribers. The channel provides a constant stream of video material showcasing old prototypes, special builds and insight on coding techniques of Traveller’s Tales’ work over the years. There’s a greater focus on Mega Drive material and more recently a focus on their work on Sonic R and Sonic 3D Blast / Sonic 3D Flickies’ Island. As an example I reported on videos on SEGAbits that covered a prototype for Sonic R and unseen footage of an unannounced sequel to Mickey Mania. 
In a surprise announcement for achieving 25,000 subscribers on the channel Jon announced that he is working on releasing an unofficial patch for Sonic 3D titled Sonic 3D Director’s Cut that focuses on restoring content and adding enhancements to the game. This has no involvement with SEGA or any other company and is only being developed by Jon himself in his spare time. Details about the hack can be seen in the jump.
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Fan Works

Sonic 2 HD Returns With a New Trailer, New Demo Soon


Boy, it’s been quite awhile since we’ve seen this project hasn’t it? You’ll recall Sonic 2 HD as one of the featured projects on this very website up until the project disbanded in 2012. When the project was dead in it’s tracks, it did give us PagodaWest Games who’s talent eventually led to the amazing Sonic Mania and the Sonic 2 HD team got some fresh talent in 2014 to resurface the project from it’s ashes. You can read a summary of the project’s troubled history from Guess Who’s editorial.
Now the project is back with a new trailer showcasing the smooth artwork, zones, remastered soundtrack and gameplay with new material not seen since it’s first public demo in 2012. Sonic and Tails are shown running together through the previously featured Emerald Hill Zone and the similarly colored Hill Top Zone that was originally hidden in the first demo. The bigger highlights include Chemical Plant Zone being shown off for the first time, new character artwork and the video’s closing teaser for the game’s second demo set to release later this month on the 30th. The team also relaunched their website simplified to feature screenshots, wallpaper and social media links.
The project continues it’s long trek but certainly shows a lot of promise. We can’t wait to see what’s in store in the project’s second demo after so long. Over time they have been showcasing new assets and even positions for those who want to put their talent up to honor the original 1992 game. Be sure to check out their website and social media links for more information.

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Community, Fan Works

SAGE 2017 Update: Booth Update and the Trailer!


Woah, hey, it’s been a bit, right?! We’ve got a couple quick updates regarding SAGE so let’s get right into it!
Just like last year, we’ll have another SAGE trailer to show off the exciting games coming this year! If you’d like your game featured, please send a 10 second clip of gameplay to [email protected] by 11:59 pm Central Time, September 14th. For examples of clips and what to expect, take a peek at last year’s trailer here!
Off-Site Booths are now optional. That’s right! Now that the new SFGHQ site is up and running in beta, instead of worrying about if you can make your own booth, or you lack the resources or what have you, then go ahead and create your booth using the site’s built in submission system! Awww yeah! It’s easy and gives you an better than ever method to get set up for SAGE! A lot of folks were, worried about creating their own site for their entry as well as archival of SAGE’s content. This will effectively accomplish both, while also wrapping everything up in an easy to use form set up!
Hit the jump to find out about on own hosting and how you can get yours up today! Continue Reading

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Fan Works, Music

“Zoned,” A Sonic the Hedgehog Tribute Album

A little late, but better than never!

Back at the end of 2016, Opus Science Collective released their album “Zoned,” which debuted on RadioSEGA. Taken from the Bandcamp page for the album:

Zoned – a nostalgic trip (at the speed of sound) down Sonic The Hedgehog’s memory lane. Zoned aims to pay homage to the creativity and impact of Sonic The Hedgehog’s legacy by reimagining a selection of OSC’s favourite compositions from the golden age of 90s Sonic The Hedgehog games. The musical style is OSC’s signature blend of Electro-Funk and Retrowave with sprinklings of Chiptune. Included on this album are tracks from both 8 and 16 bit versions of Sonic The Hedgehog 1 and 2, Sonic The Hedgehog 3 and Sonic Chaos. Also interweaved into this album are soundbites from the games themselves, excerpts from 90s SEGA TV commercials, and dialogue from various video game documentaries that discuss both the significance of SEGA and Sonic The Hedgehog in the history and develop of video games and video game music.

If you’d like to grab a download of the album and throw some support their way, check out the bandcamp page @ https://opussciencecollective.bandcamp.com/album/zoned

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Fan Works, Hacking

SEGA Channel Retro: Retro Community Day Featuring Sonic Bash!


Retro Community Day is upon us as we play by our own rules. By that I mean Red Hot Sonic’s rules. We’re playing Sonic Bash with the community. Join your ol’ pal Bart, NeoHazard and special guest Red Hot Sonic, Overlord and others as we see who fights Robotnik best.
SEGA Channel Retro is the SEGA themed variety channel covering anything and everything related to Sonic the Hedgehog, SEGA and the community that supports it. We stream SEGA games, games on SEGA consoles, hacks, mods and more!
You can now watch our live streams on YouTube or Twitch! Also please consider donating to SEGA Channel Retro!

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Community, Fan Works, Hacking, Site News

Retro Community Day: Sonic Bash Edition


This Sunday at 8PM GMT (3PM Central), we’ll be playing games together with house rules. I’m hosting another Retro Community Day on SEGA Channel Retro. The channel reached over 1,000 subscribers on YouTube and over 400 subscribers on Twitch! To celebrate this, we’re going to be showcasing Sonic Bash, a hack where two players compete to defeat bosses by landing the most hits. Joining me (Bartman) on the horn is Neo Hazard as well as Red Hot Sonic the author of the hack.
You will need to download the hack along with Kega Fusion to get yourself ready for Sunday. Luckily you can find this from the hack’s old entry page from the 2016 Sonic Hacking Contest. This also features instructions on how to set up Kega Fusion for netplay which will be useful on Sunday. This is going to work differently since there’s no dedicated online infrastructure or friend list to work with, so we’re going to make use of the Sonic Retro Discord channel to help us out. Fill out this form here with your Discord handle and join the Sonic Retro Discord here so that we can keep track of you. Do this before 7:30 PM GMT Sunday to ensure your chance to play with us. (You can use that time to meet with us!)
We’ll have more information on how you’ll be able to play with us this Sunday at 8PM GMT. (3PM Central) But here’s a checklist to make sure you can join the celebration.

  • Download Kega Fusion and Sonic Bash V2
  • Fill out the entry form with your Discord handle
  • Join the Sonic Retro Discord
  • Join us at Sunday 8PM GMT on SEGA Channel Retro on YouTube and Twitch. Subscribing is encouraged!

Note about the Sonic Retro Discord: A bot is in place that allows us to see who joins in. You will need to wait for approval before you can post messages in the Discord channel. Keep in mind that it’s a matter of when mods are around to approve you. All participants will be approved before the community day starts!

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Community, Fan Works

Unleashed Project 2.0 Cancelled


Those looking forward to the Unleashed Project will be disheartened to hear that the project is no more. In a statement released by the Project’s head, S0LV0, she’s stated that it was time to call it quits. From the Twitlonger post:

So, here it is. I can’t begin to express how sorry I am about this, but I’m cancelling Unleashed Project 2.0. For a long time I was really passionate about it, and I felt I had something special to share with people by working on it, but that passion is gone. I know of no one I could pass the workload onto, nor do I plan to release my “completed” work as none of it is fully polished. I’m sincerely sorry to those who were looking forward to it, but I hope you’ll understand by this far into my post that it was extremely unhealthy for me.

S0LV0 goes on to talk about what she’ll be doing from this point and more in her full Twitlonger post which can be read here. For those holding onto hope, S0LV0 tweeted that DarioFF, the person in charge of the Unleashed Project prior to her, may be interested in taking the project over. We at Retro wish S0LV0 all the best in what she does and look forward to her projects in the future.

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Fan Works, Hacking

Morph’s Lighting Mod for Sonic Adventure DX Restores Dreamcast Lighting Effects


Sonic Retro user Morph and several others have gone through Sonic Adventure DX and created a mod that restores the lighting effects that were previously seen in the original Sonic Adventure into the PC version. The difference gives off more vibrant colors in the environment that also reacts to objects and characters. You can download the mod from the discussion thread in our forums.
Lighting can be used to set a specific tone or mood in an environment. But why is it such a difficult thing to remain consistent when converting this to other game platforms? The game featured an artistic shift that occurred when the game was converted to other platforms. A combination of technical hurdles and creative liberties can dampen the original artistic intent, and Sonic Adventure is no exception. The original Dreamcast version featured a “Lantern” engine which provided impressive looking lighting effects using palettes on SEGA’s then cutting edge game console. However the dozens of ports of the game left out these lighting effects in favor of using drop shadows instead, until now. Check out additional videos, comparison screenshots and an interview with Morph on the mod after the jump!
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