Development Images & Concept Art

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Freedom Planet.

Freedom Planet was first revealed on September 29th 2011 in a general screenshots thread on the Sonic Fangames HQ forums, with these posts now archived on the SoaH City Message Boards.¹ Strife would post concepts and screenshots regularly for feedback in the thread until enough progress had been made to open a thread dedicated to the project itself on October 3rd 2011.² While many of these images that were posted are now lost, quite a few have survived the passage of time and give a look into the game's earliest development as it transitioned from a Sonic the Hedgehog fangame to its own franchise.

October 2011#

The oldest surviving image, showcasing the corkscrew gimmick for Dragon Valley.

Here's an idea I had for a gimmick in Dragon Valley:

What's it called again? A half-corkscrew, maybe? In any case, I would imagine it'd be a little easier to code into Worlds than a full corkscrew, since you wouldn't have to keep the player in a spiraling motion. Plus, if the horizontal segment is long enough, I could put a wall on top of it and enable the player to race underneath said wall to the other side.

Perhaps I could get away with putting an invisible collision mask underneath where the player is supposed to be, which would only keep the player up if their speed is above a certain point. Then I'd just change their animation, and the current layer they're on, depending on where they're positioned.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 3rd, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Images of Dragon Valley in-game. The game, unnamed at the time, was a Sonic the Hedgehog fangame.

I'm still in a limbo about keeping rings in the game, since the player can already take a decent beating without them. Maybe I could make rings into the actual form of health (like in Tails Adventure), though that would mean I'd need to remove the crystals' ability to heal when the Energy meter is maxed out (else every crystal collected would also give you a ring).

I also need to give the Energy meter a purpose. The only thing I can come up with so far that would be remotely useful would be some sort of aerial boost, similar to Sparkster's jetpack or Ristar when he flies off a handlebar. It would certainly avoid the player getting stuck in deep pits/half-pipes due to lack of a Spin Dash. xD;

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 5th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Conceptual sprite art for Dr. Brevon, who would later become Lord Brevon in the final game.

Working on a main villain for my Worlds project. :3 Which of these color palettes looks the best?

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 6th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Feedback was given including a suggestion to use all three of them, changing as his health varies. Strife then presented another set of options.

As much as I'd like to have bosses change pallettes when damaged, I'm afraid MMF2 makes the process of palette swapping too complicated for my liking. I would want to avoid having multiple copies of the same boss object just for palette changes, if possible. ^^;

Anyway, the first one got the most positive feedback, I think. Here's round 2:

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 7th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Alrighty then, green skin/metal it is. ^_^ I may have to tweak the red a little bit more so that he doesn't come off too much like The Grinch, but that should be pretty simple. Thanks for the feedback guys!

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 7th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Lilac's boost mode is shown off. The HUD has received an overhaul, with the red meter removed and collected rings now visible.

When the player's energy is full, they can press Jump in the air to enter a Boost mode where they curl into a ball for a split second (as though they were about to spindash in midair) and then zoom forward at maximum speed. I tried modeling it after Ristar, but the way it's charged and used reminds me more of Sparkster. Definitely makes up for Lilac's overall lack of speed compared to Sonic.

Though, I'm having trouble getting her to face the right angle based on what direction she's travelling in. I've tried SubAnimationAngle, which is what is normally used for Tails' tails, but it doesn't always produce accurate angles.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 7th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

The game was officially given the title Freedom Planet at this point.

Freedom Planet is now the codename for this project, just so that people know what to call it other than "that untitled thing Strife is making." xD Sounds kinda corny, but it's surprisingly not taken by anything yet.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 9th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Ladder and hang bar gimmicks for Dragon Valley. A blue Dragonfly enemy can be seen that would go unused in the final game.

Added a ladder gimmick. If you attempt to climb a ladder while travelling at a high speed, Lilac will twirl around the edge of it before grabbing hold. Ladders will be one of the most common gimmicks in the game. As you can see from the screenshot, I also want to add Flying Battery-style hanging bars that can be swung across horizontally, though I'm not exactly sure how I can animate it yet.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 11th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Concept art of Sash Lilac. Originally a hedgehog, she would later be redesigned as a water dragon for the final game.

In case y'all are wondering what she's supposed to look like up close.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 11th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

When asked if Lilac was a hedgehog:

Indeed, she's a hedgehog. ^_^ According to her author, those two long strands of hair are actually her bottom quills, so I figured they'd be hard enough to attack enemies with.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 12th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Title card for Dragon Valley. The HUD rings have been changed to face sideways, rather than at an angle.

Both Lilac and her life icon blinked at the same time. xD What are the odds?

Anyway, I can't decide if this cursive font is too stylish to read. Does it look alright? I'm also planning to add the game's logo to the bottom of the banner when I come up with one.

I've got the Game Over and Act Clear sequences finished, and I think I've pretty much tweaked everything necessary in the base engine. I'm still a bit nervous about going ahead and adding more frames, though, because if I make any future changes, I have to copy-paste them in every frame. Not much I can do to change how MMF2 works, so I might as well just go for it.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 17th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Conceptual sprite art for the characters that would become Serpentine, Torque, and Spade in the final game.

Some sprites of OCs that I'm making for Project Freedomplanet. I plan on making quite a few more so that I have a decent selection to choose from when deciding who the heroes and villains are.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 18th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Concept art of Spade. Originally a cavy, he would later be redesigned as a panda for the final game.

Spade the Cavy. He'll either be an anti-hero fighting against the main villain or one of his strongest mercenaries, but either way, he's Sash Lilac's rival. He'd attack using a deck of playing cards, which provide different effects depending on how the suits are combined.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 18th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

When asked how Spade's cards would be visible in-game:

I'll probably have a special HUD that appears during the boss fight, or just have the card display a large icon when it strikes/is about to strike.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 19th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

The Wretchnid, a mini-boss for Dragon Valley.

This isn't an actual boss - just a larger and more complex badnik. Its main purpose is to test the player's understanding of Sash's melee attacks.

Trigonometry is fun. <3 And if you understand the basic idea behind it, you can do some pretty cool things that are actually quite simple. For simplicity's sake, each leg segment on this spider is its own unique object (12 objects in total), so I simply snap each successive segment to the previous one's action point, then set their angle based on the current movement step (out of 360). After about an hour of tweaking, I've got myself a pretty convincing climbing animation.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 20th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

First gameplay footage of Freedom Planet was shown off. Unfortunately, this footage is now lost.

Careful, it's loud. But yeah, this shows about half of Dragon Valley Act 1. ^^ I recorded this before I started work on the spider badnik, so you won't get to see that just yet unfortunately.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), October 22nd, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

November 2011#

Concept art of Dr. Brevon.

Concept art of the main villain, Dr. Brevon. His nature contrasts sharply with the other villains, though I haven't decided how yet.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), November 5th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Another forum user said he'd fit better in a MegaMan game:

xD Win.

Anyway, yeah, my characters often end up with Megaman-esque gear, though I usually don't do it on purpose. I'm thinking I could tweak his body in the final design to look more organic.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), November 6th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Concept art for Dragon Valley Act 2.

Dragon Valley Act 2, which takes place underneath Act 1. I'm mainly trying to work out the colors now, but I like how it's coming out.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), November 6th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Concept art of an unnamed character, who would later be known as Serpentine. Originally a slug, he would be redesigned as a snake for the final game.

Larger concept art of the character at the beginning of the video I posted. One of the easier bosses.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), November 15th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Another forum user mistook him for a snake:

As for the snake character, he's actually supposed to be a slug. xD; Then again, I could use some detail down there to balance out the heavy armor on the top.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), November 16th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Conceptual sprite art for the characters that would become Carol, Torque, and Neera in the final game. A mustache has been added to Torque from the previous image.

Three more character designs - two heroes and one villainess.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), November 15th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Concept art for the game's logo.

A logo idea I had earlier today. Could use a bit of polish, but I think the font works pretty well.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), November 15th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

It was partly inspired by the NiGHTS logo.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), November 18th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

December 2011#

Work began on the game's second stage, with Strife asking for feedback on which tiles to go with.

Which edging looks better? (Dark moss, no edging, some moss, and light moss.)

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), December 8th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Concept art of Relic Maze Act 1.

Dragon Valley is now complete. ^_^ One zone down, four more to go.

Next up is Relic Maze. I've been whittling away at Act 1's graphics.

I really want to get some tall trees into that background to contrast with the sunset, and to make it feel less like DV's background. I haven't made any gimicks yet, but I know exactly what I want to build; A lot of my scrapped ideas for DV will be used here.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), December 11th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Second footage of the game is shown, featuring the completed Dragon Valley.

New beta video of Dragon Valley. This is a full playthrough with both acts. The only thing that's left to do, really, is replace the Robotnik signpost.

The video also shows something odd that happens when I push blocks/logs while the game is lagging - for some reason, pushable objects move far slower than they should during lag, but if there's no lag, they move just fine (1 pixel per frame). I honestly have no idea why it's doing this unless it has something to do with the Value-Add object, but in any case, it's quite bothersome and could potentially mess up speedruns.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), December 14th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Progress began on Relic Maze's stage gimmicks.


A moving platform gimmick was causing problems, leading to Strife reaching out for a solution.³

I've got a bit of a snag with one of my gimmicks for Relic Maze. If any MMF2 gurus can offer me advice, I would be eternally grateful.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), December 16th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

So here's the situation - I'm trying to make a moving platform in my stage that moves in a circle, like so:

I've set all of the appropriate group flags, and it works perfectly fine other than the fact that it seems to lag with updating the player's position by 1 frame, which means that when it's moving upwards, the player's position wonks up because they've sunken into the floor.

The group "[Damizean] Moving Platforms" handles the repositioning of the player, and I haven't changed it a bit - it still runs the fastloop that repositions all of the player's sensor objects. Yet, no matter how I try and change the order of the events, it just doesn't seem to fix the issue.

Does anyone have a clue as to what might be causing it?

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), December 16th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Concept art of Team Lilac. Carol's previous design, an unnamed black cat, has been changed to her wildcat design following permission from character creator Ziyo Ling.

I touched up Lilac's concept art a bit and drew two of the newest characters, courtesy of Ziyo Ling. The one in the middle is Carol, a wildcat. The one on the right is Milla, a basset hound (from what I can gather, at least). This should hopefully balance out the hero/villain ratio a bit. xD Once I've come up with a male hero and a female villain, then I think I'll have all of the dramatis personae I need for the plot.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), December 28th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Strife mentioned how Team Lilac's original creator, Ziyo Ling, gave permission:

I showed Ziyo Ling (the girl who made Sash Lilac) the beta video of Dragon Valley on DeviantArt, and she was completely thrilled! She was even kind enough to put it on the front of her DA page so that I could get some extra publicity. I took the opportunity to ask her if I could use some more of her Sonic OCs to balance out the hero/villain ratio.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), December 22nd, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

Conceptual sprite art for shield item boxes.

Some shield ideas for Freedom Planet. From left to right: Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, and Metal. Wood would stop you from falling into bottomless pits, Earth would reflect projectiles, Water would let you breathe underwater, Fire would make you immune to lava and flame attacks, and Metal would pull items towards you.

I tried to make the Wood icon look like a rose, but it kinda looks like a brain. xD; Not to mention, making attractive shield animations is a pain in the neck.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), December 30th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

As for metal/electricity, I'm only calling it Metal so that it fits in with the Wu Xing phases (which is a traditional system of elements in China that's used in things like feng shui). If I'm not mistaken, lightning falls under their classification of Metal. I could deviate from Sonic 3 a little bit by making the Metal shield look more like a sci-fi force field, though.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), December 30th, 2011, on soahcity.com/forums

January 2012#

Images of Relic Maze in-game.

Act 1's background is now complete. I've also finished the Wood, Earth, and Water shields (Wood is shown in the screenshots). Since I don't plan on adding bottomless pits to the game, I'll have to make another perk for Wood.

My idea with the shields is that they could be summoned in Adventure Fields with the round keystones that robots drop when they explode. I'm still a little fuzzy on how I'll handle it as this point, though.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), January 3rd, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Freedom Planet began replacing its Sonic the Hedgehog elements at this point.

My attempt at a replacement for the rings. They're supposed to be crystal flower petals. If I should stick with this, I could replace the ring monitors with large flowers that would drop all of their petals when struck.

I'm still figuring out the best way to tweak the HUD to accommodate them. I'm wondering if I should make the life bank into a circular ring with the petals lining the outer edge, though I don't see how it could be done without cluttering the screen too much.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), January 7th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

When asked why flower petals:

They're the only item I can think of that hasn't been overused in games but could still reasonably provide magical protection. Feathers are another idea, but beyond that I'm not sure.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), January 8th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

A suggestion was made to change the HUD design to a stylized flower.

Hey, that's working pretty good. The HUD actually looks less cluttered now. xD

I would probably have to rethink my petal placement in each level, since the player now only has room for 6 instead of 20. It should still be a good amount of HP, considering that shields are now implemented.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), January 8th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Another forum user expressed concern that 6 HP was too low:

That's a valid point, actually. I could try and put another layer of petals on top of the first 6 and bring the total cap up to 12. (I'm thinking I would just put make the second layer have larger or different-colored petals.) I should also note that the way the current system works, the player can never die from an attack if they have at least 1 petal, so if the player has 3 petals and is hit for 5 damage, they'll just be reduced to their final hit point (i.e. no petals). It remains to be seen if this will create balancing issues, but I kinda like the idea of making bosses as powerful as I want them to be without worrying about them 1-hit KOing the player.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), January 8th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Not sure on sticking with the petals, Strife reached out for feedback on potential redesigns of the game's rings.

Which do you think is better? I'm leaning towards either the center petal or the yin-yang.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), January 9th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

The 3rd option (the petal) was generally agreed upon as the best.

Here's take 2:

I can make rotating animations for the first two easily.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), January 9th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

A mix of the 3rd and 1st options for the petal was chosen and the ring item box was changed to match.

To be honest, the first reason I changed the rings was because I was spooked by that SOPA anti-piracy bill and how it might impact Sega's attitude towards fangames. While they probably wouldn't pay attention to Freedom Planet if they don't pay attention to other Sonic fangames, I'd prefer to be on the safe side since I've spent so much effort on the game so far. Basically, I'm trying to do the same thing that Epic Megagames did with Jazz Jackrabbit - pay homage to Sonic without plagiarizing him.

As for marketability, I never planned on selling the game for money. If I did, I wouldn't have used another person's original characters or hired people to help me with the music. I would like to sell games someday, but I would prefer to start with something that is 100% my own.

That being said, here's the current version of the petals, along with a new item box for them:

The item box "blooms" open when struck. I'll leave both of these as they are for now, since I've already spent a great deal of time on them. ^^;

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), January 11th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

When asked how players would know what's inside these new item boxes:

At the moment, you'll know what's in the flower because they'll only ever contain petals. I could add a purple version for extra lives in areas where it wouldn't make sense for the 1up fairy to be in a cage.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), January 12th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

A thread for Freedom Planet was opened January 12th, 2012 on the TIGSource Forums.⁴ With the project becoming more original, Strife wanted to expand the game's potential audience.

Concept art for Lilac's Treehouse.

This is supposed to be a treehouse. My main concern is that it may not look curvy enough, but I like where it's going.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), January 21st, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

February 2012#

Feedback was sought out in regards to changing the palette of the unnamed slug character.

Thinking about palette swapping one of my characters. I kinda like the center one, though I don't know if it's suitable for a villain.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), February 9th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Another forum user said he looked more like a grunt rather than the main villain:

The main villain? Not in this lifetime. xD He's just a scout.

Since I haven't gotten any suggestions, though, I'll just keep his original green palette. Maybe adding a light stripe on his stomach area will make him look more snake-like.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), February 9th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

The first title screen for Freedom Planet.

I've got the title screen and Game Over screens built now. I'd also like to expand the game's controller features so that the player can map actions to any keyboard key or joystick button. I'd like to do it with as few extensions as possible, but I'll probably need the Joypad and Control X objects, neither of which is Flash compatible. Ah well, I could always remove them if I ever decide to do a port, since they won't be needed anyway.

I should also get around to making a new way to pause the game, since it currently uses MMF2's default "Pause application" action which can only use a specific keyboard key. The sooner I can get that out of the way, the better.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), February 11th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

It would probably be a good time to mention that the "DEMO" doesn't mean anything as far as releasing a demo soon; I still plan on waiting until SAGE for the first public release, but I need to get one ready sooner for NGIN. If you'd like to try it sooner, though, feel free to volunteer as a tester. ^^

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), February 12th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

The first Hub Area, Lilac's Treehouse. Hub Areas were ultimately dropped in the final game.

Lilac's Treehouse, which is the first hub/Adventure Field. While in adventure fields, the timer is replaced with a crystal count.

I don't really like the idea of the background being a palette swap of Relic Maze, but on the other hand, I like how natural it looks...

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), February 15th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Several of the game's cutscenes will take place inside the treehouse. If I have some extra time after everything else in the game is done, I'd also like to add the ability to customize the furniture inside of it (i.e. rearrange and recolor stuff, and buy new stuff with crystals).

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), February 25th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

March 2012#

The interior of Lilac's Treehouse.

Still working on more furniture, of course. If I have time, I'd like to make it so that players can customize it by moving things around and/or buying new furniture pieces. Some of them would have specific functions, like a jukebox being able to change the bgm.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), March 3rd, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

I've been working on some of the locations where cutscenes take place, such as the inside of Lilac's treehouse:

If you lurk around the Screenshots thread, you might have seen this already. x3

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), March 11th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

The picture behind the sofa was disliked:

Also, I don't like the picture much either, so it's just a placeholder for now.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), March 13th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Concept art of Neera. She has been changed to a panda, discarding the previous design.

Lastly, new villain:

She's supposed to be a panda bear. xD;

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), March 11th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Another forum user said she didn't look like a villain:

Coincidentally, that's what I was aiming for, since she relies more on deception than brute force. :3

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), March 13th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Showcasing a bug with one of Relic Maze's gimmicks.

There's a bug with one of my gimmicks that's driving me up the wall:

This floating gimmick has a high vertical speed. When it's moving upwards, the player hooks onto it just fine, but when it moves downwards, the player's sprite becomes offset. I'll have to see if it's an issue with the Worlds engine or if it's caused by my modifications... though I wouldn't be surprised if it was just Worlds since there seems to be issues with moving platforms in general.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), March 13th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Another look at Lilac's Treehouse. The interior has added a dresser in front of the the window and Carol and Milla are seen in-game for the first time.

I've been working on one of the hub areas as well: Lilac's Treehouse.

Inside the treehouse, players will be able to, among other things, save their game and look through all of the special items they've collected. Several of the game's cutscenes will also take place here, of course.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), March 16th, 2012, on forums.tigsource.com

The game's stage selection screen.

Stage select screen for Time Attack mode. I'll probably use a different method of selection for Adventure mode.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), March 19th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

A suggestion was made to change the crystals purple:

I'll try and play around with the crystals a bit. They actually show the background of whatever stage you're highlighting behind them.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), March 19th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

The Eye Golem, a mini-boss for Relic Maze.

I don't think this miniboss's weakness is intuitive enough... I'll probably make it vulnerable to normal attacks as well, with the weakness being more a of a time-saver.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), March 19th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

A large yellow gemstone seen in Relic Maze's Act 1 cutscene.

Relic Maze Act 1 is complete aside from the boss battle... which will still be quite a bit of work, I think. xD If I can pull off my idea, it'll make Dragon Valley's boss feel like a regular badnik by comparison.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), March 26th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

April 2012#

A thread for Freedom Planet was opened April 1st, 2012 on the Sonic and Sega Retro Forums.⁵ First posted in Fangaming Discussion, discussion would later be moved to the member's only General Gaming section.


Some criticism regarding contrast between the player and the background was brought up.

Trying to address the issue of Lilac blending in too much with bright backgrounds. Does darkening the blue parts of her outfit work?

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), April 1st, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

When giving her an outline was suggested:

I've thought about that, but then I'd have to do the same thing to every other character and enemy in the game, which would take quite a bit of time. ^^; So, I'm wondering if a simple palette swap can help alleviate some of the color depth issues.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), April 1st, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Lilac's running animation was changed.
------>

I figured it was about time I swapped her (medium speed) running animation to something that's less obviously Sonic-based. GIF quality's not perfect, but you get the idea.

In this case, I should prolly record a fresh video of Relic Maze so you can see what it looks like with her hair extensions.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), April 2nd, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

This was followed up with a third gameplay video showcasing Relic Maze and Lilac's new animations.

Yeah, it's difficult to tell which one is more suitable. It might help seeing it in action:

This shows about half of Relic Maze Act 1, along with some of the changes that have taken place since the last video. Of particular note is the new shield system; Collecting 5 of the keystones that robots drop will reward you with a specific type of shield, depending on the color keystone you have the most of. There are five different shields: Wood (the pink rose one), Earth, Water, Fire, and Metal.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), April 2nd, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Concept art for Relic Maze Act 2.

This is what I've drawn so far for Relic Maze Act 2's background. From my personal experience, I've found that "ancient ruins" stages in Sonic games tend to drag out a little more than what's comfortable (S1's Marble Zone and S3's Marble Garden being two big ones for me), so Act 2 is going to feel almost like a completely different stage. It has just enough in common with Act 1 to keep them together, though.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), April 12th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

A stage gimmick for Relic Maze Act 2.


Relic Maze Act 2 in-game. A criticism was made regarding the floor tiles and how they go from the crystals to the rock.

Yeah, I tried to make it look like the crystals are embedded into the rock. xD; I could probably add some extra shading underneath them to distinguish it more. In any case, thank you so much for the compliments Chronic! I'm glad I could send an inspire beam your way. :D

I've got about 25% of the act done so far. Here's what it looks like with actual objects in place:

If the pickaxe gimmick looks familiar, I ripped it from my Spectrum Chase project since I'm not working on that anymore.

EDIT: By chance, would anyone know an effective way to change the colors of backdrop objects? I want to add a "shine" animation to the crystal floor, but if I just overlap the floor/ceiling tiles with active objects, that would obviously cause major slowdown.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), April 18th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

May 2012#

First attempt at redesigning Lilac.

Me gusta?

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), May 2nd, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Most forum users preferred her original design:

I'm disinclined to make any changes unless there's a nearly unanimous positive reaction, so I'll keep the old design. Thanks for the feedback, though! ^^

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), May 3rd, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

A "Press Start" screen was added before the title screen.

New title screen. It's only for the Press Start segment; The player is taken to the old title screen afterwards. I'm not particularly happy with it yet, but it'll do for now.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), May 8th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Lilac's attack animation was changed.
Before: After:

Doing a bit of touchup here...

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), May 12th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Feedback was given preferring the new animation, claiming the old one didn't really look like a threat:

Exactly why I changed it. Though I'm thinking of giving her some sort of combo attack so that she doesn't use the same hair whip each time.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), May 13th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

On the Sonic and Sega Retro Forums, a user stated that it would be a shame to see the old animation discarded.

I've gotten a few comments about that, actually. Her air attack is exactly the same except for her legs being outstretched instead of on the ground, so at least it won't be completely gone. I could bring it back in order to make it part of a combo attack, though.

Let's try merging the two:

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), May 13th, 2012, on forums.sonicretro.org

The Mantalith, Relic Maze's boss.

Just a mockup for now. If I can get it to behave exactly like I want it to, then it's going to take more work to program than the rest of the stage put together. <_<;;

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), May 14th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Various character sprite concepts, including the first appearance of Zao, the Bird Guard, and The Royal Magister, who appears as a large blue bird vs his hooded figure appearance seen in the final. Carol's black cat design has been repurposed as a miner and Torque has been changed to his "shell-duck" design, with many of Torque's original design elements given to Shang Mu Mercenary, an enemy that piloted planes in one of Dragon Valley's early openings before being cut from the final game.

Character dump. Some of them are important; Others are just practice.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), May 15th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Redesigns for the game's springs.

In keeping with the gemstone theme, I've replaced the game's springs with these jump pads. They give off an aura of light when you hit them.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), May 23rd, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Second attempt at redesigning Lilac.

Another attempt at an alternate head style for Lilac. I tried to make it look more like hair while still keeping the same "flow".

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), May 25th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Most forum users still preferred her original design, with one user even mistaking the old one as the new design.

The one on the left is actually the original. xD; Here's a silhouette comparison between the old one, the new one, and Sonic:

Now that I've looked at this, the new edit actually makes her resemble Sonic even more due to the presence of 3 vertical spikes.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), May 26th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

A black outline was added to parts of the HUD.

A few graphical touchups here. I added a solid black border around the HUD numbers to make them easier to read, but I don't know if it clashes with the art style too much. If it works well enough, though, then I could probably do the same to the other HUD elements.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), May 29th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

June 2012#

An early widescreen test.

From what I can tell, some of the graphics get borked when I increase the width, such as the stage intro, fadeout effects, etc. Another thing that must be considered is that some enemies will react sooner to the player's proximity with the new width. I also need to figure out if there's a way I can change the screen width during runtime without using a third-party extension. And, in any case, if I commission any animated cutscenes, they will most likely keep the old aspect ratio. (Oh, and I also updated the shading on the HUD to make it easier to distinguish, as you can see.)

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), June 1st, 2012, on forums.sonicretro.org

Another HUD update. The keystone bar has been moved to the bottom of the screen, next to the lives counter.

The shield system has been at the back of my mind lately, and I think it needs to change. At the moment, collecting 5 keystones will immediately give you a new shield based on the type of keystone you have the most of - so, for example, if you have 3 Earth keystones and 2 Fire keystones, you'll get an Earth shield. This can cause problems if the player wants to keep the shield they already have, which means they'd have to avoid keystones or else risk changing elements. Not a fun thing to do if you're underwater and you're relying on a water shield to make things easier.

I have a few ideas about how I could tweak this to be more fair:

1. The player needs to press a hotkey in order to summon a shield. If they don't summon a shield and collect another keystone, it'll replace their oldest keystone. I happen to like the simplistic 2-button control scheme, so it seems a bit wasteful to dedicate a third button just for shield summoning.

2. Instead of getting the shield right away, a "balloon" is summoned right beside the player, and they can choose whether or not to break it and get the shield. There would be major issues with this if the player is moving at a high speed, since they'll have to hit the brakes immediately if they want to grab it. And I think it'd be a little annoying if the balloon follows the player around, even if temporarily.

3. Shields are no longer summoned automatically during stages. Instead, there are runestones scattered around each stage, and if the player stands next to them with a full set of keystones, they can summon the shield right then and there. Seems a bit restricting that the player can only do this in specific places, though.

4. Implement shield monitors like in Sonic 3, and give keystones a new purpose. Perhaps they can be "cashed in" at the end of a stage to give the player a new shield at the start of the next stage. Or, I could make them all one color and use them to completely fill the player's energy meter.

I'm thinking #3 would be my best bet. While it's more restrictive, it all really depends on where I place runestones, and how often. It might even give more of a purpose to some of the dead ends in each stage that I've only filled out with spare crystals and such.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), June 3rd, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

I might have solved my shield dilemma. I'm trying out the same kind of system that Super Mario World has with its powerups, where you can keep a single shield in reserve and swap between them at will.

I might eliminate extra lives from the game (i.e. infinite lives) and put the reserve shield icon in place of the lives counter. For now, though, it's right above it.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), June 5th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Official artwork for the game was commissioned by artist R-No.

Character artwork ahoy! Courtesy of R-No from DeviantART.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), June 19th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Dr. Brevon's sprite was given an update, matching closely with the R-No artwork.

I updated Dr. Brevon's sprite to reflect the changes in his design. Not quite perfect yet, but definitely an improvement:

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), June 20th, 2012, on forums.sonicretro.org

Some more of R-No's concept art. Milla would be re-commissioned, as Strife thought the art made her look too old.

More sketches! I've put them all on the front page for easy reference.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), June 21st, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

A promotional image was created for the game, showcasing R-No's artwork.


Milla's re-done concept art plus Serpentine.

Anyway, more character art!

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), June 29th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

July 2012#

A Facebook page for the game was setup, with an updated version the R-No promotional image and several new screenshots of Dragon Valley.⁶

I've just setup a Facebook page for the game, if anyone would like to Like it. ^_~

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), July 7th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

A cute image of Team Lilac, posted July 8th, 2012 on Facebook.


Carol is revealed to be a playable character, alongside a Facebook campaign to include her in the SAGE demo.

Carol is going to become a playable character in the future, with her own set of abilities that are separate from Lilac's. She's kinda glitchy right now, so I'm not sure if she can make it into the SAGE demo.

However... if the game's Facebook page receives 1000 Likes before July 24th, I will include her in the demo, glitches or not. (Though obviously I would push myself as much as possible to get her finished. xD) You can find out more by clicking the link in my last post.

I should also have a new video up around the end of the month for both characters.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), July 9th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Dragon Valley got a slight rework to add a new stage gimmick for Carol.

In some parts of Dragon Valley, there are gaps that can only be cleared with Lilac's boost, so I had to come up with something unique for Carol so that the stage wouldn't be unwinnable. In the end, I decided to place jump panels in those spots which only she can use. They work exactly like the jump panels from Sonic Adventure 1 - You jump on the first panel and then keep pressing Jump to move to the rest of the panels in the sequence.

It's actually not as automated as the SA1 panels, because if you land on a wall panel, you can choose to detach yourself from it and instead climb up the wall with wall kicks. This should give plenty of opportunities for Carol-specific routes and secrets.

Now I just need to think of a special ability for her to use when her energy is fully charged, and finish a couple animations, and she should be all set.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), July 10th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

A fourth gameplay video is shared, showing off Carol and the updated Dragon Valley.

New gameplay video:

This one shows many of the changes and adjustments that have been made since the sorely outdated beta video of Dragon Valley. It also shows Carol's gameplay in the second half.

(Yes, I know I haven't replaced the "shield gone" Sonic sound. xD Only remembered that after recording.)

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), July 12th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Sonic and Sega Retro Forum user FeliciaVal drew artwork of Lilac. Impressed, Strife asked FeliciaVal to be an official artist for the game and commissioned artwork of Spade shortly after.

FeliciaVal from Sonic Retro drew this incredible piece of artwork of Lilac! I'm speechless.

I want to use it as official artwork if she's okay with it

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), July 14th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

My voice actor for Spade really wants you to draw him next. xD I'll give you reference pictures in a private message so that we don't clutter this space up.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), July 14th, 2012, on forums.sonicretro.org

Lilac is given the ability to swim in-game.

Lilac can now swim, and her breathing time underwater has doubled. Carol still sinks like a rock.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), July 16th, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

Promotional art for the game featuring FeliciaVal's art, was posted July 20th, 2012 on Facebook. This image would be used to promote the game's first demo on various sites, including SAGE.


A Facebook Post was made promoting the ability to unlock Carol in the upcoming demo. Both the method and a code were provided in the post.

Hey folks! We said we'd let you know more about Carol, so here goes! She can be unlocked by completing the demo stage in less than 6 minutes. Alternately, you can use a special cheat code that I will only disclose here on our Facebook page, as thanks for helping us get so many Likes! Read our first comment to this post for the code.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), July 30th, 2012, on facebook.com

Unlock Carol: When the demo comes out, select OPTIONS on the main menu, and then highlight OKAY at the bottom of the Options screen. Then, press the following buttons in order: Left, Right, Left, Right, Down, Left, Down, Right. You should hear a chime if it works.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), July 30th, 2012, on facebook.com

A third attempt at redesigning Lilac is made, this time removing the spikes on her head entirely.

Do any of these look like a winning combination? (Note that in the left and right designs, her entire face is skin-colored instead of just the area around her mouth. Also, in the designs with finger gloves, her skirt is replaced with shorts.)

Admittedly, she does lose a bit of "edge" without the hair spikes, but if there's any chance of separating her from the Blue Blur, then hair spikes are out of the question. Horns are potentially a decent replacement.

— Sabrina DiDuro (Strife), July 31st, 2012, on soahcity.com/forums

References#