Sonic P-06

Sonic P-06 is a platform game developed by Argentinian programmer Ian Moris (ChaosX) for Windows. It is an unofficial remake of the 2006 video game Sonic the Hedgehog, originally developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. As of August 2020, three demos have been released.

Sonic P-06
Developer(s)Ian Moris (ChaosX)
Publisher(s)Ian Moris
SeriesSonic the Hedgehog (unofficial)
EngineUnity
Platform(s)Windows
Genre(s)Platform

Gameplay
Further information: Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 video game)

Sonic P-06, as a remake of the 2006 video game Sonic the Hedgehog, is a 3D platformer.[1] As of November 2019, there are four playable characters: Sonic the Hedgehog, Silver the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower, and Knuckles the Echidna.[2]

Although a faithful recreation,[1] P-06 features various changes designed to improve the experience. The time spent on loading screens has been significantly reduced, while the graphics are more detailed. Character attributes have been altered: Sonic and Silver move faster, while Tails and Knuckles' moves from Sonic Adventure (1998) and Sonic Adventure 2 (2001) have been reintroduced.[2] Players can also choose between Sonic's animations from the final game or his animations from a 2005 prerelease showing.[2]

Development

Background

Sonic the Hedgehog (commonly referred to as Sonic '06) is a 2006 platform game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (PS3). It was intended to be a reboot of the Sonic franchise,[2] with a more realistic setting than previous games.[3] The game faced serious behind-the-scenes problems that forced Sonic Team to rush development,[4] and upon release it was panned for its story, controls, camera, bugs, and long load times. According to Engadget: "many consider Sonic '06 to be the lowest point in the franchise... Most Sonic fans want to forget the game was ever released."[2] The game was never released on Windows personal computers, so some Sonic fans have made unofficial efforts to develop a port.[2] Beginning in 2015,[5] a group led by developers Gistix and Mefiresu worked on a port of Sonic the Hedgehog using the Unity game engine, and released a number of demos between 2017 and 2018.[2][6] Although development on the project has continued, progress has slowed, and Gistix is no longer involved.[2]

Production

Sonic P-06 is being developed by Argentinian programmer Ian Moris (known on the internet as "ChaosX"). Moris had been a Sonic fan since childhood, when he received a Sega Genesis with a copy of the original Sonic the Hedgehog (1991).[2] He played through the Genesis Sonic library. When he got a PlayStation 2 (PS2) in 2010, he played its Sonic releases, as he was "addicted to Sonic the Hedgehog and gaming overall by that point," and when he got a computer, he played more Sonic titles like the Sonic Adventure games.[2] It was after getting the computer that Moris learned of the 2006 game, and it immediately fascinated him. "Its advertisements, atmosphere, tone and sound, CGI, graphics... everything resonated with me... It grabbed my attention like crazy."[2] Moris unsuccessfully attempted to get a copy of the game despite being aware it had been poorly received; this did not matter to him.[2]

It was during this time that Moris began to dabble in game development, having learned of the Sonic fangame community. He began working in Blitz3D before switching to Unity in 2014. His first project in Unity was the World Adventure Project, an effort to port the 2008 game Sonic Unleashed—which, similar to the 2006 game, he had no way of playing—to Windows.[2] He abandoned the World Adventure Project after realizing he had the ability to remake Sonic the Hedgehog in Unity and thus be able to experience it. He also saw the opportunity to fix its problems and restore content that had been scrapped during development, "[giving] it a second chance."[2] Although he had never played the game, Moris, from analyzing gameplay footage, had a strong sense of what he needed to recreate. He made a folder housing gigabytes of reference material, including footage from both prerelease and post-release.[2]

Moris started with the few pieces of the original code that are accessible, and began by remaking each level while ignoring or hiding the problems that are present in the official game.[2] However, he has had to develop much of P-06 from scratch, such as the animations, textures, shaders, and typefaces, and gathered some assets from Unity. Moris recruited numerous individuals to help development. Scottish developer "Gotta Play Fast" used Autodesk 3ds Max to combine the separate model files for Sonic so he would work better in Unity, while "BeatZ" assisted Moris in creating textures, model rigging, and polishing collision detection. Other contributors include "Daguar", "Volcano the Bat", "Wiz Genesis", "Hero", "Sajid", "LuRodSil", "HyperPolygon64", "KnuxFan24", Thomas James Baker, and "BrianuuuSonic".[2] Many contributors consider their work minor, as much of the actual development is handled by Moris.[2]

Release

Moris released the first demo of P-06—containing two levels, "Wave Ocean" and "Kingdom Valley"—in April 2019.[2][7] An update containing bug fixes, improved widescreen support, and other minor improvements, was released the following month. The second demo, which added the three levels "Dusty Desert", "Flame Core", and "Radical Train", was released in October 2019, and a bug-fix update was released in November. Following the November update, Moris took a break to focus on other projects. He is unsure when the remake will be complete: "A wild guess would probably be in two years, but I'm very unsure about that."[2] A third demo was released in July 2020 and added the rest of the stages in Sonic's story,[8] followed by an update in August 2020 that addressed several bugs in the previous build.[9]

gollark: I had a stupidly high view count with some AR testing.
gollark: On the plus side, the viewbombing of AoND is convenient due to my strategy of just forgetting about eggs for a few days then sticking them in.
gollark: It would fix viewbombing forever!
gollark: Just remove sickness already, o great TJ09.
gollark: Or cut it into 33!

See also

References
  1. Grayson, Nathan (April 22, 2019). "Fans Are Trying To Fix The Notoriously Bad Sonic 2006 With A Remake". Kotaku. Archived from the original on July 18, 2019. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  2. Summers, Nick (December 11, 2019). "One fan's struggle to fix the worst game in Sonic history". Engadget. Archived from the original on December 12, 2019. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  3. Eddy, Andy (May 24, 2006). "E3 2006: Sonic Team Interview". TeamXbox. pp. 1–3. Archived from the original on October 22, 2013. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  4. Shea, Brian (November 14, 2016). "Where Sonic Went Wrong". Game Informer. Archived from the original on August 8, 2017. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  5. Johnson, Leif (January 8, 2017). "Some Modders Have Spent Over a Year Remaking the Worst 'Sonic' Game for PC". Motherboard. Archived from the original on January 9, 2017. Retrieved March 21, 2020.
  6. Miller, Daniel (January 10, 2017). "[Watch] Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 has been remade into a game that doesn't suck". GameZone. Archived from the original on August 8, 2017. Retrieved August 8, 2017.
  7. Co, Franz (April 23, 2019). "Sonic 2006 fan remake tries to fix the games flaws". GameRevolution. Archived from the original on April 26, 2019. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  8. https://twitter.com/ChaosX2006/status/1283192602913902592
  9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2Lz3IGw-h0

Further reading
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.