It’s contest season again, boys and girls! This time, there’s a creative twist. The challenge: transcribe and arrange one of Nexus’s released Zone songs into a MIDI. Simple enough… check out the contest page for all the rules. The prizes this time are a little bigger than the Time Attack’s were. Let’s get crackin’, boys and girls.

Also, because of the contest, I’ve added Sunset Shore, Magma Monoliths, Dusky Deposit, and Pristine Palisade back to the player. Enjoy!

Hello, everyone.  I hope you’re having a good day. Maybe this will make it even better. I just changed out the music player’s playlist to 5 all new songs. I’ll briefly describe each:

• Title Screen - This one was a remaster of a track I did for Nexus back in 2007. It’s essentially the same as the first, just with a different array of instruments and a better overall mix.
• Cosmic Chaos Zone - This was probably the most difficult track to compose so far. It’s starts off with some soft, improv-style jazz, and slowly moves to a more rockin’ blues style.
• Wicked Works Zone - It’s a factory level, so I tried pretty hard to make it sound very industrial without falling into the lame techno feel that always seems to be in the final level of Sonic games. Sort of a heavy funky rock groove.
• Sunset Shore (Retro Mode) - This was the subject of an earlier blog post, actually, but I feel like not many people got a chance to listen to it. This is an arrangement of Hydrocity Act 2 from Sonic 3, with a very bright Samba flair.
• Pristine Palisade (Retro Mode) - My most recent piece. This is an arrangement of Hidden Palace from Sonic 2. It is notable for being much slower than the other pieces, and much longer too. I arranged it the way I did to try and portray a sense of majesty and grandeur.

If the playlist is still playing the old songs, clear your browser’s cache.  That should do the trick. Also, to turn off shuffle mode on the player, click the (S) on the right side.

I’m interested to hear what you all have to think. Enjoy!

-Hunter

This update is not really that cool, but I thought that I would let you know that I have updated “The Team” section of the “About” page.  I added our newly acquired spriter, Neostalker, to the list and wrote a short blurb on him.  Secondly, we are well past the Sonic Amateur Games Expo and I decided to take down the inside-joke biographies for each team member.  I re-wrote them to be more professional, as we are starting to branch out of the Sonic community a bit more.  If you did not get the original biographies, sorry.  There was no harm meant in them whatsoever.

Now, if you haven’t already, listen to Hunter’s new music in the player!

-Flick

(Artwork by resident badass, Prof-J)

It has been a hellacious past two weeks at school, but now, the tough stretch is over and Halloween is upon us.  The Nexus Team will be either kicking back or partaking in some much deserved partying tonight and we hope you do the same.  Jon is currently moving out of the state, so he’ll celebrate in a car.  Happy Halloween!

Brad is going as Snake from MGS3.  What a rad dude.

As mentioned in the “Gameplan for September” news post, we originally wanted to do an updated Sunset Shore demo, but we have decided to scrap that and just wait for the planned winter demo with an overhaul of playable content.  Pristine Palisade is making a smooth transition into the Retro-Sonic Development and Cosmic Chaos is undergoing its final graphical tweaks.  On the boss front, the first boss of Sunset Shore is going through testing and perfecting and the second one is in the early stages.  There is also another surprise in this upcoming build, so hang tight.  Your patience will be well rewarded.

-Nexus Team

After drawing out my maps on grid paper and making the tiles, I start placing them accordingly.  Then, I extensively play out sections of a level, especially if I want it to have a particular type of flow.  A trait of Sonic games that I wanted to take full advantage of was the boost of speed Sonic gains after landing on a slope while running or walking.  Sonic is a platformer, but he is advertised to be speedy after all.  When designing a “green zone” like Sunset Shore, there is usually a bit more running than there is platforming, so its flow has to be quicker than most. Using slopes will kick Sonic into high gear with ease.

My favorite moment in Sunset Shore is in act 2, because of the insane amount of speed caused by the slopes and the general flow of the section.  It was not originally in act 2’s grid paper layout, but I stumbled across it from just messing around.  The section starts after you take two loops on the top path and fall off a cliff onto a steep slope.  Sonic lands right on this slope and immediately takes off upon hitting the ground (left image).  Then, Sonic is thrusted over two humps, across a bridge and into some item monitors.  Alternatively, for you time attackers, if you time your jump correctly, you can leap from an upward slope and bypass the springs (middle image).

…..…..

If you don’t leap over everything, you will probably stop to get the shield and ring boxes, then do a little platforming.  Once you fall into the pit and hit the springs, holding right will place you directly above the diagonal slope (right image).  Upon landing, you will be at full speed and, if you continue to hold right, Sonic will hit the halfpipe so fast that he will land on the zipline gimmick without fail.  After all this speed, there is some more platforming with the end of the level in sight.

I thought that section was the most fun, in my opinion, so I thought I’d share my thought process to you guys on it.

Stay golden.

-Flick

Designin’ & Profilin’ Archives

I hate watermarks, but it was a necessary evil.  Why?  Nexus has had its resources stolen before and it is not pretty.  From songs, to graphics, to gimmicks, Nexus elements have appeared unauthorized in many a YouTube video.  Resident SFG moron, Blazefire, is responsible for about 98% of these indiscretions.  Today, I’d like to share some of the funniest moments.

Tails Pursuit Revenge - Featuring all of Pristine Palisade’s gimmicks.  Haha…

The only crime here is the name.  Sonic Nexus Adventure?  Really?

Those are the funniest to me and there used to be more.  Other videos were pulled down to to infringing the copyrights that Nexus actually has, the key copyright being the music.  The Nexus theme was in this one video and I laughed and pulled out my paperwork.

So, yeah, sorry for all the watermarks.  I hope you had a good laugh as well.

-Flick

It has been twelve days since the last update, a rare occurence here at the Nexus blog. However, it was intentional, as the work being put into the new content has been taking quite some time. I have super cool previews for you guys to look at. Since this post is the sprites’ first public showing, and that there are well-known thieves lurking around the Sonic fangame community, I have watermarked and horribly enlarged all images. Sorry, honest folk, but that is how it is going to be. They are indeed 100% original, after all (sans MMZ’s grass, which is from Chaotix). Anyway, to begin…

Jonathan has been getting acquainted to the new Retro-Sonic language and is currently making some awesome strides. He has been working on boss implementation for Sunset Shore and, for a first zone boss, it is a doozy. The boss is called the “Egg Protector” and it was sprited by Ryan Cordel, one of our most valued team members, from scratch:

Recently, we added a new spriter to the Nexus fold. Neostalker, a guy that Damizean found at another forum (and by that, I mean not SFGHQ), has proven to be incredibly gifted at spriting and animation. As a test, we gave him the task to draw up and animate some original foliage for Sunset Shore. Then, after he passed with flying colors, he hit us with Robotnik’s latest escape vehicle, the Egg Cycle.

In the level art department, SkyLights, Rael, and I have been revamping Dusky Deposit, Magma Monoliths, and Cosmic Chaos, respectively. We have some foregrounds for you to gawk at, however, I want to hold off putting Cosmic Chaos on display. I feel that I can make more tweaks to it. Regardless, here is DDZ and MMZ:

That is what has been going on. We are certainly not dead and never will be. Some clown decided to post that in the comments over the weekend and I got rather offended. Although we want our project to have a professional end result, it is still technically a hobby for us. Even with our college schedules, we are managing to get this much done, so I think we are doing just fine. Also, this guy pointed out that I deleted his comment, because it was “negative.” I don’t mind constructive criticism at all, but I will not tolerate flaming in the comments area. I want to avoid drama at all costs. If your comments got deleted, because you were responding to him, you did nothing wrong. I was just cleaning up. All of you guys have been really cool, so I do not think that I will have to worry about it too often.

A few more notes: There is a Desigin’ & Profilin’ article coming Wednesday that will discuss tile placement and its effect on momentum. I have told Jon to hold off on Badnik articles and such in order to concentrate his focus on finishing the work on his plate. Finally, Hunter might finish a few more songs soon and a playlist can coincide with it. You never know what is going to happen at the Nexus blog.

Later, guys.

-Flick

This post mainly serves as a plug for Hunter’s music in the player and filler posts before the boss arrives, but I think it is still interesting, nonetheless.

The music for Dusky Deposit, Magma Monoliths, Pristine Palisade, Invincibility, and the title theme got revamped for 2008. For you followers of the project, did you notice a difference between the 2007 and 2008 versions of these tracks? Were these welcome changes and do you enjoy the newer versions better? Sound off in the comments box!

If you are new to the project and haven’t heard the old versions before, or have forgotten what the old versions sound like, I’m hookin’ you up with 30-second clips of the 2007 tracks:

Magma Monoliths 2007 - Dusky Deposit 2007 - Pristine Palisade 2007 - Invincibility 2007 - Title Theme 2007

Also, on a side note, the music player might get updated in the near future with more tracks. While programming chugs along, Hunter just keeps blasting out mad tunage. Stay tuned, broskis.

-Flick

DARKZELL101

Top 3 times:

darkzell101

Act 1: 0:45:43

Act 2: 0:58:55

uToobSmeElz

Act 1 : 0′45″45

Act 2 : 0′59″73

BestfanX

Act 1 : 0:58:23

Act 2: 1:34:18

We will be getting in contact with darkzell101, so that we can send him the $15 gift card.  Thank you to all who have participated.  We appreciate all the support that we receive.

As for future releases, we are currently being punched in the face by college.  We will be spilling more information about the updates Sunset Shore when more develops.  Stay tuned to the Nexus blog for more updates.

-Flick

It’s 6 PM Central Time here in Lincoln, Nebraska.  By the time the clock strikes 11:59, I will close the time attack contest.  If you have a last minute entry, you might want to do it now to make room for any technical problems that you might encounter.

Finally, as stated in our “Gameplan for September” post, I said that a demo might emerge when “all this hoopla ends.”  Well, school kicked us in the nuts the past week and a half, so no, the bosses are not done.  I’m not saying that Jon hasn’t been working on them, but rather, his time has been rather limited due to college.  I asked you all in “The Waiting Game” post about being patient and it appears there won’t be a furious uproar when the demo doesn’t ship out along side the end of the contest.  You guys are smart dudes who know all about fangaming and its delays, eh? Haha…

In other news, I shipped off graphics to Christian (Taxman) and he started importing Pristine Palisade and a revamped Cosmic Chaos into the Retro Sonic engine.  While DW works on one side, we have the other covered!  Hunter has also been busy with making new songs and retro remixes, so even though the end of this month has been hectic, there is still something to be optimistic about.

Later, broskis.

-Flick