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Retro

Fan Works, Hacking

Sonic Hacking Contest 2022 Results Announcement

Ed. note: The following is provided by the staff of Sonic Hacking Contest for the year of 2022.

Before we begin…

Twenty years ago, the Sonic Hacking Contest started, run by Ayla for many years. The winner of that first contest in 2002 was Sonic 2 Delta…20 years later, the hack is still going, as Sonic Delta 40mb.

Things have massively changed over these 20 years (and 19 contests), we have gone from binary ROM editing with a hex editor and a few tools, to split disassemblies and bringing more flexibility to game modification. But we also have 3D entries too, on many consoles and PC, and for the last few years, mods based on the Retro Engine Sonic games, with decompilations available and tools in the works, offering another way to mod games, rather than just the traditional 16-bit method. There are more people making entries than ever before, no matter when they first started playing Sonic.

The contest itself has changed in these last 20 years. We have gone from private entries being shown behind closed doors to judges only, to fully public entries where everyone can access them. We went from deadlines being missed out and late results at times, to guaranteed set dates.

We went from only offering a contest, to having an expo option where people can choose not for them to be judged. We used to have judges look at everything possible – now they are split between three categories, for judging to be easily managed, and looked at in finer detail than ever before. The introduction of the Evaluations, gave detailed explanations and opinions on each enrty.

We have gone from just being promoted on a few Sonic hacking sites (some still around, some no longer with us) to wider exposure through its own website and the interactive Contest Week, with entries easily accessible, streams during the week on YouTube and Twitch, and of course, allowing the public to vote for their own trophies, something people would not have expected decades ago.

And whilst it all used to happen on forums and IRC channels, these days there are other places to discuss hacks and mods too, such as Twitter and the many various Discord servers out there that cater to different types of games and so on, for people to learn the craft and make their own.

I do not want to thank just this year’s participants, judges, streamers and of course those who played the entries this week. But every single person over the last twenty years who, at some point of their time on the internet, took part in the Sonic Hacking Contest. I hope in twenty years later, we will still have the SHC, in some form or another, and the same applies for fangames with SAGE.

People come and go, their interests and their lives change, but these entries are eternal, especially with the SHC Vault for the last ten years, keeping these entries available for years to come. Without the people who participate, there is no Sonic Hacking Contest. To keep this up for two decades is remarkable and impressive. Who could think in 2002 that the SHC would still be here in 2022.

That being said, for all the pushing about it being SHC’s 20th Anniversary, we weren’t able to celebrate it this week and we are truly sorry about it. We have a few ideas in mind to do something about that, although we have shown many old entries before through the previous pre shows.

And now, here are the results for this year’s Sonic Hacking Contest! (Ed. Note: after the jump!)

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Fan Works, Hacking

SHC 2021: The Results Are In

2021’s Sonic Hacking Contest has officially come to a close. For those who’ve been playing, or even those just watching others, its clear there’s been some great games this year. Sonic 1 Definitive, Hellfire Saga, Shivery Mountainside, and Sonic 2 Mania SHC2021 Demo have shone out as the overall favorites of the competition, but they’re certainly not the only games worthy of praise (or worthy of an award!)

Continue on after the jump to check out the overall top three’s plus the winners of every award handed out this year.

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Fan Works, Hacking

Sonic Hacking Contest Announces 2021 Dates

The 30th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog is upon us. Among the celebration of three decades of the blue blur comes the annual Sonic Hacking Contest. This year the contest has revealed the deadlines for entries as well as the date for the contest week which you can see below.

CONTEST DEADLINE – End of Sunday 5th September
UPDATES DEADLINE – End of Sunday 12th September
EXPO DEADLINE – End of Sunday 26th September
CONTEST WEEK – Monday 11th to Sunday 17th October

This year includes a change to the judging process including additional judges separated between the three categories, Retro (For hacks based on vintage Sonic titles), 3D (For mods based on 3D titles and 2DPC which includes mods for 2D titles such as Sonic Mania including the RSDK decompilation projects.

For further information regarding the contest you can check out additional details, such as contest judges and categories, from the Sonic Hacking Contest website here. You can also join the discussion on our forums regarding the contest on the dedicated thread for 2021 here.

Community, Miscellaneous, Site News

For when we’re bored of Sonic…

Sonic Team Fortress 2 by Toughset

I know we all love Sonic the Hedgehog. But sometimes we need a different kind of fast paced frantic fun-fest. Although some of SEGA’s modern Sonic offerings haven’t quite fit the bill, Valve created a great multiplayer shooter a few years back called Team Fortress 2 that does a great job of filling our poor, empty, violated gap. Not too long ago, the Sonic Retro Steam group had a server of its own to call home, but it eventually died out when I could no longer afford to keep it running. This is a shame since according to the Sonic Retro Steam group stats, members play TF2 at least half of the time they spend on Steam! But now I have a better job and better shopping skills! What that means is we now have ourselves a new server to play TF2 on when we just need a break from break-neck speeds.

Curious what kind flavor of TF2 we play with? Well this isn’t a competitive server. It’s actually pretty customized with several mods and fun tweaks. Truth be told, Retro TF2 isn’t the server you want to join for a serious game. For now though, we still have a little bit of setup work to do. So none of our customizations are really available. Although we have setup administrative functions and the server is up and running. So if you’re feeling a little bored and want to shoot up a few friends, check out the details for joining below!

Name: Retro TF2
Game: Team Fortress 2
IP/Port: 208.43.15.123:27015
Slots: 24

Note: Post image by toughset on DeviantArt.

Game News, Site News

1up chats about Sonic prototypes.

The popular gaming news site 1up recently decided to take a dive into Sonic projects that never came to be. Of course, they just HAD to make mention of Retro within the same article and I thought it would be suiting to return the favor. This article, written by Frank Cifaldi, takes a look at some of the most interesting projects to come up over the years. These include Sonic Crackers, Sonic Edusoft, and of course Sonic X-Treme among other things. So what are you doing reading our blog! Get over to 1up and read that article! Then follow the link back here.

Game News

SEGA releasing iPhone Genesis emulator (for free)!

SEGA Ultimate Genesis Emulator for iPhone

SEGA: Ultimate Genesis for the iPhone (source: Gizmodo)

According to Gizmodo, SEGA is ready to release an iPhone/iPod Touch app called “Ultimate Genesis” which is, for all intents and purposes, a SEGA-exclusive virtual console for the iPhone. The app itself should be making its appearance on the app store in early February while being packaged with one game – Space Harrier II. It will be a free download where users will purchase what will basically be Genesis ROMs within the app to add to their collection. The offerings that should be available from day one are:

  • Sonic the Hedgehog: $5.99
  • Golden Axe: $4.99
  • Ecco the Dolphin: $2.99
  • Shining Force: $2.99

As you can see, different games will be available at different price points for the time being. It should be noted that both Sonic and Golden Axe are already available in the App Store at those price points where as Ecco and Shining Force are not. SEGA may be pricing Sonic and Golden Axe simply to be consistent with the versions available in the app store while $2.99 may be the standard price for most games from here on. It is unknown if those who purchased Sonic or Golden Axe stand alone will be able to transfer those games to Ultimate Genesis when it’s released.

Podcasts, Site News

Sonic Retro Podcast No. 2

So it’s been a while…a long while…since we’ve posted a new podcast recording. However those who pay attention to the topic post feeds for the forum might’ve noticed a topic in the staff lounge about bringing the podcast back. Well it wasn’t just a bunch of bull shit guys! We decided to actually do it!

This week we decided to look are a pretty wide range of interests in the Sonic community. In fact we hit the ground running with the discussion of Rotor’s alleged sexuality and from there, get into a pretty deep discussion about the Sonic Archie universe. We even take a look into the mind and character of Dr. Robotnik AKA Eggman to find out he might not be quite so evil and instead just a jackass.

We also talk over TSSZ News and the man who runs it, Tristan. And we say things like (EDIT – Inflamatory – T). But after all the drama, we go ahead and discuss one of the more positive aspects of the community which is the hacks! In particular, we talk about Sonic Boom and how much we both love it hate its difficulty. After that, we give Sonic 2 LD a bit of a spotlight which is a pretty cool project by Doc Eggfan.

Be sure to stick around for the next episode (within the year) where we’ll talk about Sonic 2 HD and Tom Payne’s art scans from Sonic 2’s production. And who knows what else!