Sonic Maker
From Sonic Retro
Sonic Maker is an PC game creation application being made by Sonica as his response to Play SEGA's level editor. It is designed to be a user-friendly 'point and click' level editor offering common objects, including platforms, rings, boxes, and loops. Its easy-to-use interface allows users to simply choose and place items in a level grid, as every object fills a set number of squares. Currently, there are functions to save or test layouts, but these are still in a testing phase.
Contents
First appearance
Sonic Maker was first mentioned on this thread on the Sonic Retro message board, to spark attention and see what the community thought of the idea. After a good response, development was intensified.
Programming
Sonic Maker's editor is developed using Visual Basic 2010 (initially Visual Basic 2008). Playing the levels will be possible with a variety of engines, ranging from Game Maker to Visual Basic.
Runners
The 'runners' in Sonic Maker are the engines that will play the users' games/levels. They will be implemented using many different engines and programs. The only runner at the moment is one made in Game Maker, an edited version of Sonic Dash, but in the future more will be implemented, with different exporting methods. Other engines may include Multimedia Fusion's Sonic Worlds, an engine made in Visual Basic, and any others the community suggest that will be suitable and adaptable to Sonic Maker's features.
Unreleased Progress on the Game Maker Runner
The current Game Maker runner is undergoing a 'face lift', in order to give it an official feel, using the Sonic Physics Guide to fix the physics and camera movement, and the entire feel of the movement.
The engine may well be changed from the Sonic Dash base to an entirely new one, but until this time, the Dash engine will be perfected.
Current Features
Sonic Maker currently allows the user to create levels by point and click, save levels, export levels and play levels. The load feature doesn't work, but has been implemented for the next build.
Future versions
Future versions of Sonic Maker will include more features and access to many different ways of creating Sonic games. The next version will include the load feature, a downgraded .NET 3 framework (so more people can use it without having to update their framework), access to more common objects and accelerators such as springs and boosters, and possibly a click and drag function.
There is also an addition called Boss Maker that will be announced before the release of v3.
After Sonic Maker is prepared, with all the needed objects to construct a complete level, there might be a tile editor where you can import your own tiles and draw collision triangles onto them, but this will mean zip/folder saves with images and more data for each image, to let the runner know what to do about the custom tiles; that is, if no better way of handling the saved files has been established by then.
Planned additions
- Maker:
- Game Maker Runner:
- Physics fix: (Sonic Physics Guide)
- Camera fix: (Sonic Physics Guide)
- Debug Mode: Shows camera freedom borders, Sonic's Mask and other data
- Object additions: Bumper, Springs, Starpost, Signpost
Videos
Updates Sonic Maker can now be easily seen on its own Youtube channel: SonicaMaker's Youtube channel It currently contains 2 videos:
- A preview of Sonic Maker v3 beta, including a preview of the upgraded runner Link.
- A preview of the brand new TileEditor, that will allow you to import 256x256 images, and draw collision shapes over them Link.
Downloads
|
Download Sonic Maker
File: Sonic Maker V2.7z (5.28 MB) (info)
Current version: 2.5 |
Remember this is the testing demo, but you can play your games using the GM Runner.
Prior versions
- Sonic Maker v1 (info) (91 kB) (91KB)
