“I have a lot of affection for the Shuffle Mollusk.  I employed these robots to staff my casino.  Nothing guarantees that people act the way they should in my high class establishment like a bouncer who spends most of his time sleeping with a cannon thats a little too close for comfort.”

-Dr. Robotnik’s Journals

Robotnik apologizes for the lack of a blueprint.  The sketching robots are currently out of commission.

The Shuffle Mollusk is among the laziest of badniks. Its natural purpose is to provide security for the Cosmic Chaos Casino.  Even knowing that a figure as frightfully dangerous and affably evil as Doctor Robotnik runs the casino, you’ll still find shady clients trying to cheat at the slot machines and even playing when they don’t have any golden rings to make a wager with.  For this purpose, Robotnik employed a small force of shuffle mollusks.  Unfortunately, the snails that they are created from are frightfully lazy and spend most of their time sleeping.  No worries though, if they sense an undesirable character, they’ll quickly wake up and take a shot at them.  The staff of Cosmic Chaos Casino is pleased to say that since the deployment of these machines, ill behaved guests have been at a minimum.

Shuffle Mollusk sleeps as Sonic is out of range

Shuffle Mollusk takes its shot

Oops!  Looks like we accidentally dropped one of these outside.  Don’t worry about that, we’ll pick him up later.

Of course, while a guard robot that shoots might be a worthy match for an ill-mannered Casino patron, that alone wouldn’t be enough to stop Sonic.  So to compensate for this problem, Robotnik gave these snails an extra sneaky move.  If you try to approach from the sides, you won’t get far.

Sonic gets bounced away when the Mollusk pushes him with the front plate

Mission accomplished. I'm just going to rest my eyes for a second...

If you are particularly unlucky, he might even bounce you into a bullet you rolled under.

This was the last thing I programmed for Sonic Nexus.  It’s not a particularly amazing badnik, but I like how it turned out.  Whether or not this particular rendition of it will actually be used remains to be seen.  Sorry this guy isn’t in his actual environment.  I had to use a copy of SSZ for my test bed.  In any event, I hope you’ve enjoyed Meet that Badnik.  I’m not sure if these articles will be picked up by another author or not, but I enjoyed writing them.  Good luck Nexus Team.

-Jonathan

Meet That Badnik Archives

Hi, I’m Jonathan Rose, better known to some as DimensionWarped or DW.  Since Tuesday, February 23rd, I’ve been formally off the development staff of this fan game.  I can’t honestly pretend to be leaving under the most favorable circumstances.  Since a lot of you probably don’t know me, I’ll just say that I did some of the programming on the pre-RetroSonic builds of Sonic Nexus.  I’ve also spent a little bit of my time writing for this blog (some of you may remember the segment “Meet That Badnik”) and working on some of the designs that have been planned for Nexus.  That said, I’ve been struggling to adapt to the new engine for some time now and frankly haven’t been able to keep up.  Very little of what I have made using Retro engine has been up to either my standards or the standards of this project, and yes, both of those sets of standards are very high.  I’d say equally so.  In light of the displeasure my faults are causing among some of this crew, I’ll no longer work on Sonic Nexus or this blog.

I have nothing but the highest hopes for this project.  I always have.  The fact that there is now a Sonic the Hedgehog 4 in development has only strengthened my reliance on it.  There is little that could pain me more than leaving this project behind, but frankly them’s the breaks and I can either move on gracefully or get stuck in a rut.  With the blessings of my host, I will be writing one last Meet That Badnik article on the first weekend of March and then terminating my involvement with this project.  Thank you all for your support and comments.

~Jonathan Rose, Sonic Nexus Staff – former programmer and concept guy

I know we’ve been pretty quiet on developments. Considering this project’s involvement with a certain individual, I’m sure you can understand. But let me assure you, your patience will not be in vain. Developments on this project are happening. Hang in there!

UPDATE (1-17) – Don’t worry. We’re not having to start from scratch.

-Hunter

If you are a musician skilled in any of the following, please comment on this post with the best possible relevant example of your work:

• MIDI Transcription
• XG/Mod tracking
• Sequencing/Arranging/Remixing

I am looking for a collaborator for certain aspects of this project. Details will be given to anyone selected.

Don’t send me to your website or your myspace page. Just post links to MP3s, MIDIs, or XMs/MODs.

Hope everyone is having a fun time getting back into school and all. Got a new track for you, the Retro Remix for Dusky Deposit Zone. I noticed in the comments for the last entry that Blue Emerald had suggested a rock remix of Death Egg Zone from Sonic & Knuckles. Well, because Blue is really good about leaving feedback on the music-related posts, I decided to take his idea into consideration. But, of course, a rock remix of a rock song would be a little easy…

So, what I have concocted is a real funky version of said track, featuring an extended solo section for the first time in the soundtrack. I’m throwin’ thicker synths than you could ever hope. Also, check out my brand new drum samples.

Remember to clear your cache and refresh the page to load the new playlist. The track is located between Sunset Shore (Retro Remix) and Pristine Palisade (Genesis Mix).

-Hunter

I’m back and bronzed.  Sorry for the lack of updates post-SAGE, but I went to go enjoy the waining weeks of my summer, so there is really nothing to update anybody on… soooo… yeah, exciting.

School starts for the lot of us this coming Monday (sans Christian, but he’s off doing his own double-awesome-super-secret things), so time’s going to be slipping away from us by the day.

Right now, I’m getting the hell out of this apartment.  It’s always hot, even when the air conditioning’s set at 65, which doesn’t really encourage me to work on this project.  I can’t wait to get into better digs and hop back on this hobby again.

Oh, and a word of advice, commenters: this blog is great motivation for myself to keep working towards what I want to achieve, but I’d like to not be heckled about “lack of updates,” please.  If I ain’t got nothin’, I got nothin’.

~Flick

Hello!  If you are visiting this site for the first time, through the 2009 Sonic Amateur Games Expo, we welcome you to the homepage Sonic Nexus.

Unfortunately, as you can see in the post below, we are not unveiling any new playable content during this show.  Our planned, and awesome, three level demo was not up to our standards at this time, nor completed in some areas.  Throughout the week, we will try and post some screenshots, and maybe video, of the new stages in action.

If you would like something playable, the most recent demo that we have is from September of last year.  It features the debut of Nexus’ new engine, the Retro Engine by Christian Whitehead (The Taxman).  You can also delve further in Nexus’ long history of engine changes with the 2007 and 2006 demos.

While we hold SAGE near and dear to us as fangame developers, we just did not want to disappoint anybody with a lackluster product.  Keep visiting this site, checking for updates, and your patience will be thoroughly rewarded.

Please enjoy SAGE 2009!

-Nexus Team

With the show one week away and only one new zone out of the two planned for the next released completed, we are making an announcement that we will not be releasing anything playable during SAGE 2009.  Brad has been saying for the past few months that the SAGE demo was no guarantee.  With the bulk of the work only done during the past two months, busy personal lives throughout 2009, and SAGE starting a month earlier, Hunter, Brad and Christian will not be able to produce by next week.

Even with new content available, we will not release anything less than what we want to.  We were making concessions left and right over the past two months for a possible SAGE demo, such as cutting the music options, Tails, Knuckles, and the second boss in each zone.  Once we were cutting too much, Brad made the decision to pass on the show and focus on the original 3-zone demo plan with all the features.  Its release date will not be established nor estimated.

However, its content shall remain what it has been for the past few months.  The 2009 demo will include all three characters, three zones, six bosses, and the three soundtracks.  All of the pomp of the final product, but three zones and without special stages.

We hope that you continue to check back here for updates during the show for more information about our 2009 release.

-Nexus Team

I’m on the casino level.  What a refreshing change of pace from a water level.

Now that I’m going to post preliminary screens of the level, I might as well introduce everybody to the background artist behind the Cosmic Chaos’ new look.  It’s none other than The ParadoxX, Sonic fan game legend.  He is incredibly skilled at backgrounds, especially Sonic CD styled ones.

When I told him that I hated my rupee pattern foreground that I unveiled a few months ago, he went to work and showed me some mock-ups.  I love hexagons.  ParadoxX took the 2006 Nexus demo and made mock-ups using the new foregound.  Notice how what he made is better than ORANGE BLOCKS.  (Images not final, click to make them larger.)

The re-colored Chemical Plant buildings took a hike.  Good riddance.  When I gave him my tile set, it had that Robotnik sign in it.  It’s supposed to be a slot machine outline, but I never told him.  However, it looks pretty badass as a Collision Chaos-esque sign.

Then, I imported the palette and tiles in the RSDK, which is now an incredibly easy process with the 3.2 update that Christian talked about earlier. Patterning the hexagons is a pain in the ass.  I get so lost in the 16×16 tiles (at left) when trying to find the right one to place into the 128×128 tile.

It’s a lot of trouble, but it’s so pretty in-game.  Especially when all the “disco square” tiles become animated through palette-changing scripts.  Casino levels are always so fuckin’ cool.

Pushin’ it.

-Flick

Hey, guys.  We are just inside 2 weeks away to SAGE.  I’ve been pushing myself during the days lately, but it looks like I’ll be pulling some all-nighters this week if I hope to get this demo out during the show.  I’d hate to miss it again!

As I mentioned in the previous post, I had to re-map Pristine Palisade’s second act.  Well, it is done and will be passed off for scripting goodness!  Then, I’m off to map Cosmic Chaos.  Seriously, guys, the grid paper makes designing levels a much faster process!  Below is a trio of screens of the pre-scripted zone:

The water effects are still in-tact (and improved) from the MMF2 demo in 2007.

Trust me, I’ve made the “Atlantis area” speedier in spots.

Sonic does some platforming underwater.  It gets really tricky!

Go go, Nexus Team!

-Flick