Dr. Robotnik is back and this time, he is putting everything on the line! Using the scrap metal left over from his previous, failed attempts to destroy Sonic’s world, Robotnik builds a titanic clock tower in his image. Sonic the Hedgehog springs into action upon gazing at this technological monstrosity. Dr. Robotnik has been developing a paralyzing creation inside that clock tower and he vows to release it once the clock strikes a certain time. Will Robotnik stop Sonic from reaching the Egg Clock or can Sonic stop the ticking terror before the last bell tolls?

Sonic Nexus is classic Sonic in its finest form, an untarnished retro reboot without a homing attack or grind rail to be found. The classic Sonic experience is recaptured through its revolutionary new build of Retro Sonic, created by Christian Whitehead (The Taxman).

Rather than simply duplicating the classic formula, Nexus introduces a few tweaks to it. The most notable are the new level-specific gimmicks that make their Sonic debut. While still re-introducing tried and true elements of previous Sonic titles, Sonic will have new gimmicks to interact with.

Elemental shields from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 return as well, but as apart of a level-specific shields feature. In a given zone, there are a few different shields, but one will be best suited in a particular zone. These new shields are specially designed to interact with the surrounding environment and help Sonic find all the routes that a zone presents to him.

When it comes to bosses and badniks, Nexus has you covered. The project offers up some of the coolest boss concepts and badnik attack patterns that you have seen. You will deal with the usual level specific badniks, but when it comes to the boss, Robotnik will refuse to go down after the first time, launching a surprise attack with an entirely new mechanism to crush Sonic.

Sonic Nexus’ development began in August of 2006 as a one-act demo at the 2006 Sonic Amateur Game Expo. The original demo was created in Multimedia Fusion 1.5 in the 360 v2.0 Sonic engine by Damizean. It featured the second zone of the game, Cosmic Chaos, a casino paradise. Nexus was originally created by one man, Brad Flick, someone with aspirations of creating his own game akin to his all-time favorite, Sonic CD. With the help of Hector Barreiro, to fully maximize the potential of the engine, Nexus’ 2006 demo was a smashing success and, according to some, it became the face of the Sonic fangaming community.

Flick’s original intention for the 2006 demo was to wrangle a new programmer to help ease the development curve and to incorporate the more complicated concepts. Jonathan Rose joined the team during SAGE 2006 to fulfill this vacancy and they both started working immediately, adding Sunset Shore to the completed Cosmic Chaos. They released a Christmas demo, Sonic NeXmas, to show that progress was still being made. This demo was the first time Hunter Bridges, the game’s composer, worked on the project, creating Christmas remixes of Sonic 2 songs. Work in this engine continued into 2007. However, Barreiro was nearing completion of his Multimedia Fusion 2 engine, Sonic Worlds, an engine used by a majority of fangamers today, and change was on the horizon.

With the first build of Sonic Worlds in their hands, Flick, Rose, and Barreiro went to work on the SAGE 2007 demo. Due to the annoyingly large number of projects that show off their “green tropical paradise” zone, Flick decided to go an alternate route. This detour involved flexing graphical muscle and complex platforming in Nexus’ water level, Pristine Palisade. Regardless of the general consensus that the “water levels suck,” the team pushed forward. The hang-up this year was that Flick was directing SAGE that year, so pulling double duty put even more stress on the team. However, the demo was finally released and was named “Best in Show” (co-winner via tie total score) by a panel of judges at SAGE, while enduring a lot of complaining and comparisons from many players.

Pristine Palisade illustrated the shortcomings of Multimedia Fusion 2. Lack of object management, resulting in horrendous lag for low-end computers, was the main factor. Contributing was MMF2s programming, which was not satisfactory, according to the duo of Rose and Barreiro. MMF2s workspace was an issue throughout the second demo’s development. The project was too much for this Clickteam program to handle and it was announced that Nexus would move to a new engine to be written from the ground up. A few months into this new engine’s development, Barreiro asked Christan Whitehead, who is responsible for a famous, C based fangame, Retro-Sonic, for assistance. Barreiro simply wanted to use a build of Retro-Sonic (pre-XG merger) as a base and point of reference for the foundation of the new engine, but after challenges adapting to this code, Whitehead instead offered to further enhance the current XG build of the Retro-Sonic engine for Nexus. The result is Retro-Sonic 2008, a 2D engine now capable of completely custom games.

This year, Nexus ups the ante with Sunset Shore, powered by Retro-Sonic. This demo also marks the debut of artist and flash cutscene animator, RgxSuperSonic, who takes the presentation of Nexus to new levels. The sorely lacking presentational value of the past two years is remedied this year to round out Nexus to a complete Sonic package.

What is in store for Nexus Team in the future? A full release, thus breaking a Sonic fangame tradition of not finishing? A definite “yes.”

CORE MEMBERS

Brad Flick

• Alias: Slingerland
• Director, Producer, Level Designer, Graphics
• Flick used to be the one-man show, but that soon changed after Nexus hit the internet in 2006.  Now, he sits atop the project, distributing the plans and work he drew up back then.  Thanks to the new members, his original designs have escalated and have taken Brad to a point where he, originally, could only dream of.  He currently sticks to what he is best at: ordering people around and designing levels.

Christian Whitehead

• Alias: The Taxman
• Programmer, Graphics
• Yeah, The Taxman, the creator of Retro-Sonic.  He helps out a lot so that we fully understand Retro-Sonic and is incredibly supportive of the project, even when he is trying to carry the weight for the Sonic XG project.  The man can do everything, as his name has appeared in just about every facet of Nexus’ credits.  He is, in our minds, the hardest working man down-under.

Hunter Bridges

• Alias(es): hRook, Sage
• Music, Webmaster, Assistant Programmer
• Hunter joined the team in 2006 during the creation of the “NeXmas” demo.  Since then, he has produced quality tunes for the project.  His ability to create original compositions seems to be unrivaled in the Sonic community and always manages to impress.  He also is a great web designer and took the time to construct the Nexus website.  In 2009, he was assigned work in the programming department.

RgxSuperSonic

• Artist and Animator
• Check out his DeviantArt page
• RgxSuperSonic was discovered in late 2007/early 2008 when he joined Sonic Fan Games HQ, offering up his animation skills.  He is a talented artist who works quickly and diligently.  He not only does the intro and outro cutscenes for the game, but he does all the artwork for the site.  Rgx is also slowly becoming a useful concept artist, sketching potential badniks and backgrounds.

CONTRIBUTORS

Hector Barreiro

• Alias: Damizean
• Programmer, Graphics
• Hector has probably done more things for the Sonic fan gaming community than anybody in existence.  His legacy lives through his countless number of engines through many different platforms, like Game Maker and Multimedia Fusion.  His final engine contribution to the community was the Sonic Worlds engine for MMF2, which has become a stand-by for all wanna-be Sonic game creators.

Jonathan Rose

• Alias: DimensionWarped
• Programmer (specializing in boss, badniks, and gimmicks)
• Originally known the community-over as the director of the “DimensionWarped” 3D fan game, Jon has since left that in favor of Nexus.  The project caught his interest after the original casino demo in 2006.  Since then, he has specialized in bosses and gimmicks, attempting to take them to new levels.  It was his idea to put two Robotnik machines back-to-back in each zone for the sheer enjoyment of working on them.

Neostalker

• Sprites (bosses, objects, enemies)
• Neostalker was introduced to the team through Damizean and has shown incredible skill in the art of spriting.  He will be used heavily in the future.

Dustin Wyatt

• Alias: Tweaker
• Head of Retro Music Mode: Genesis Mixes
• Tweaker, the admin at Sonic Retro, works on Nexus, too!  Hunter ships his MIDIs to Dustin and he works his magic to create Genesis tracks of Nexus’ original soundtrack.  Dustin has an incredible amount of experience with Genesis music, as illustrated by his famous ROM hack, Sonic 1 Megamix.