Retronauts - 756: Sonic Fangames Pt. II

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

This time delving into the Sonic fangame > official game pipeline, Ryan Langley (Rlan), and Lewis Clark (SonicYoda) return to educate host Stuart Gipp!Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts

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Okay, but what if I don't have an accident? Well, just keep on, keeping on. Bell Air Direct, insurance, simplified. Conditions apply. This week in Retronauts, who better to talk about Sonic Hacks than the biggest Sonic hack on Retronauts? Yeah, that's me, by the way, Stuart Jep. Hello, I'm hosting, once again. This is actually part two of the Sonic Fan Games chat.

so not strictly speaking just about hacks that he will factor into it. The through line for this one, or at least the sort of intended through line, is the way that the fan game world intersects with the official game world, ultimately, though of course still leaning into the fan games themselves for discussion. And joining me once again, the same people, who here is, oh, how should we do this? who's got a car Has anyone got a car?

No, I do have a car. You have got a car? There we have a car. There we go, you've got a car. So you go first, to introduce yourself first. Yes. Hello, my name is Ryan Langley, also known as Arlan. I am the guy who runs Sonic the Hedge blog online.

And 25 years ago, I started Sonic Fan Games Hsq. you and now I'm a game designer looking for a job so please hire me I'll do that at the front of the one this time hopefully by the time this comes out I will have a full-time job but we'll find out I hope so too and I also do have a car I live in Atlanta

who doesn't have a car is anyone here not have a car I don't have a car hello I'm Lewis Clark I otherwise know the Sonic Yoda I run SegaDriven.com and do extensive fan game and hack coverage on the Sega driven YouTube channel.

See, now I feel like I've created an atmosphere where people are going to be going, oh my God, this guy hasn't even got a car. But that's not my intention at all. There's no need for a car in this world. No, no, no, it very much depends on your situations, respective situations. I myself don't have a car. Even I don't have a car. Even me, Big Stew.

But so, where should we start from? Because where we left off last time was talk of Sonic. to Sonic Roblox 2 and Sonic ring races, right? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, so Dr. Robot is right. So, yeah. That's the one. Yeah, I guess maybe we should carry through

with a bit of, like, history on Sonic Mania. I think that's a great start, because everybody that involved in that, obviously came from the fan game scene or hacking scene. So, yeah, Ryan, you've got detailed history here that we can run through. For sure. Yeah, for sure.

So, I mean, with Sonic Mania, like, it's well known as now, you know, sort of being made by fans as part of this. As well as, I mean, before that as well, they made the Sonic CD port and Sonic 1 and 2 ports on the Xbox 360 and PS3 days as well, and mobile. But, yeah, all these guys are sort of hung out on Sonic fan game. The Sonic Stuff Research Group, to be more accurate. but they were sort of part of this community in the early, in the late 90s, early 2000s, where we were just trying to figure out everything about Sonic and it's sort of how they came up with like,

okay, I want to perfectly accurately, like figure out what these games run on. Yeah. So was there like a breakthrough for this, like, for the Sonic widescreen? Like, was there like a breakthrough environment where like the code turned up or something? Or I just wondered how this,

really kicked up. It's just these guys were just like real deep in this and it's like we're just going to figure this stuff out. Part of it really was from the prototypes of Sonic 2 and

stuff like that that had come out. So stuff like the I remember I mean it was called the Simon Y Sonic 2 beta. Basically someone found a Sonic 2 beta prototype with Hidden Palace zone and Wood Zone and all this sort of stuff. I think it was just on like a server somewhere and someone found it and Simon Y was

the guy I guess who made a webpage about it and so it was just known as that one. But from that people were like, oh man, this is amazing. All these levels that were not in the final game, what the hell's going on? And so they ended up, a lot of people were then trying to figure out what was inside the ROMs in order to actually find that stuff in the first place. Some of this stuff was originally seen in sort of grainy magazine screenshots from really early, like maybe like even pre-alpha versions of it. Like there was dust. Yeah.

There was like the desert zone that I forget the name of that I think they used in Sonic Mania. Yeah. So widely sort of remembered as Dust Hill, but I think it was technically going to be called Sand Shower. But yeah, I know that Taxman, Christian Whitehead in particular, was very sort of infatuated with Dust Hill. and he would recreate a version of it in his fan game Retrosonic, which I think is one of the earliest ones I remember having very accurate sonic physics. It felt, you know, not one for one, but at least you had correct implementation of slopes and momentum, and you could go around loops and things, and you didn't get stuck to surfaces like you did in old TGF fan games and things like that.

It was a damn sight better than what would have come prior to it, and it really should. showed. Yeah. And a lot of like these sorts of things like trying to make accurate physics in things like multimedia fusion at the time was basically like to just not actually use multimedia fusion the way that it's meant to run where it was like it's instead using like ball physics but then somehow rather than like the platform of physics so that you then had to basically like recode everything to make a ball more accurately go. up slopes and stuff like that and that's the only way you could sort of do it and guys like taxman aka christian whitehead were some of the first people to sort of look into that uh more accurately

so who else was uh at the sort of forefront of what eventually became mania as well there's there's uh stealth that's another name yes so simon thomley thomley so simon simon thomley right i was not sure if that was thornly or thomley no i think it's tomley as well is it tombed now says yeah well That's all the same differently to the duration of the podcast for a laugh. Yeah. This is what happens when you're like only online and never actually like meet these people in person. And then you're like, oh yeah, that's right. But yeah, Self, he was one of the first people.

He was like one of the core elements of the emulation zone and the Sonic Stuff Research Group. He had a sort of website within the website called Organized Chaos. That was a sort of a lot of collection of his. various different things. But one of the things that he did was sort of, he created the hacking tool of Son Ed in 1999. So Son Ed is basically like he was able to like figure out how the level structure works in the original Sonic games.

And so you could load up Sonic Ed, sonned and then like be able to make your own levels. Yeah. This is a Windows tool where you sort of open a Sonic ROM in it and then it will show you the stages that you can then sort of reconstruct. Is that right? I think I've used this before. Failed completely to make anything, but it's not as easy as it looks,

which it doesn't look at all, to be honest. No, early hacking was an interesting time because it was very much just sort of like changing the colour of the colour palette or changing the music or you might get some brave soul. Yeah, some brave soul had maybe. tried to change the level designs, but it was very primitive at this point. I remember

like early hacks, like things like Sonic 2 Aluminium Edition, which was basically just they kind of flat shaded all the colours to make it look sort of like cell shaded in a graphical style. So nothing else was done to the game. It was just a visual sort of like tweak, but I always remember

being quite infatuated with stuff like that. I just remember opening NASTical and changing the colors and thinking, I'm like, I'm a hacker. Yeah. Well, I mean, Yeah, early editions of like the Sonic Hacking Contest, those were sort of like the brackets that you used to have. Like, it would be like whether you were changing the presentation, whether you were changing music, whether you were changing the actual stage designs. Whereas nowadays it feels like everybody is always kind of working to like a total transformation, like new graphics, new stage designs, new music, everything. I think, sorry to interject, but like with Sonic, and this is just something I want to sort of nail down real quickly, even though it's a bit of a tangent.

is like, I think that creating a Sonic level is obviously exponentially more difficult than creating, say, a Mario level. And that's not me knocking Mario. It's just that Mario is very much, they're the building bricks, you know. Put the building bricks where you like. But Sonic is something where you've got to consider things like momentum and player expression a lot more. Absolutely, absolutely. So there's that, which to me is one of the reasons why, and I'm really sorry about saying this, because, you know, I don't mean it in an actual broad sense, is why so many of the Sonic fan games

don't work for me because it's just like it's not there you know it's there's some jenna se qua that isn't there and a part of me and I mean with the rise of like the retro engine I think a lot of

that has been eliminated because now it works exactly the way it's supposed to yeah yeah and it's a lot easier to visualize this stuff I think it's one of the things that I always pick up on when I'm trying to you know give people helpful criticism on their on their fan games or hacks or whatever is trying to get that nice balance between

platforming and speed and not just doing one or the other because if it's just raw platforming, that's not really what you come to Sonic 4. But if you make it too much emphasis on speed, then you get things like Sonic Advance 2, which is just hold right to win, essentially. That is the closest in the official series that comes to that. I mean, I love that game, but for sure, for sure. It's nice of you that you give positive criticism, because I've not mastered that yet. I'm very mean and rude to people.

It's easy to forget sometimes when I used to be on Twitter or something it would just be like playing some brand new game and just being like, why is this part so shit? And then you remember, oh, hang on a minute, everyone can see this. I'm pretty sure I've had that before. I've criticized something.

Then like the developer turns up in the comments. You're like, oh shit, I didn't think an actual human would be affected by the things I've said. This is awful. Awful. Anyway, sorry, yeah, a bit of a tangent there. I apologize, but I just thought it would be worth mentioning. I mean, there's a game we'll mention a bit later that I've alluded to a few times

that I think is the closest that anyone's ever come to making a perfect Sonic game, as in a perfect fan-made Sonic game, but I'm going to leave everyone in suspense as to what that is. That's all good. So, sorry, where were we before I went off on one like I always do? So, like, so self, like, I mean, in the end, in this group, like, was one of the few people who was like, oh, I can actually code and, like, do actual, like coding at the time, like, and not just use a multimedia fusion and stuff like that. So

he was trying to recreate, like, accurate sonic physics on DOS at the time. So he was making a game. He made like some prototypes like a knuckles ring rush. That's like just a very simple, like run around a little room as knuckles. He was also developing something called Project Metrics that was also developed in C++. And so, you know, he was, A lot of these sort of little bits and pieces that he was sort of working on. Some of the things that he was also well known for at the time was that he made a hack for knuckles in Sonic 1. And so at the time, like, because when you did lock on with Sonic 1 and 2, so with Sonic 2 and 3, you could play as Knuckles, but in Sonic 1 you couldn't.

And there was a whole lot of stuff about like, why didn't happen? You know, there was talk about like, oh, it must be because it would crash at a certain point. I think people were like on the scrap rain zone treadmills, it would crash or something like that. This is all just the hearsay. But, I mean, realistically, it was mainly because Sonic 2 and 3 used pretty much the same engine. Sonic 1 is probably a little bit too different. As well as the way that Sonic and Knuckles actually locks onto Sonic 2 is it actually just has a whole copy of Sonic 2 within itself that it just kind of unlocks. And that's how that sort of actually works.

Yeah. But so he was able to just recreate knuckles in Sonic 1, change all the pallets to make it sort of work, and then you can just play the whole thing through. And that was, you know, that was a very early development at that point. I was like, oh man, this is actually like really cool. That was like a standout thing of something that.

The dream come true. Exactly. So he was doing all that sort of stuff. Like another hack that he did, which was very fun, was he did a level demo of Sonic 1 on the Game Boy Advance. because Sonic Genesis on the Game Boy Advance, which was released for, I think, the 15th anniversary of Sonic just releasing the original game on the Game Boy Advance is terrible.

It is shockingly awful. All the physics are wrong with it. All the sound is wrong with it. The screen's too small for really how to play Sonic 1. Yeah, I've never understood exactly how that happened. Like, the... From what I've heard, I think they downported like a Java port of Sonic 1, which is why it is not...

Yeah, very strange, very strange choice. But yeah. There are other megadrive games on the GBA, right? Like, smash... There are. Smashpack also isn't great. Is it not? Okay, I have to admit, I wasn't sure.

In those ones, it seems like more emulation, I think. I'm not sure. I don't want as a layman to be the guy who says, like, why is the... this so bad, you know, because I don't know a damn thing about GBA development. It just, it really seems like it should have been doable. But, yeah, I mean, it's all dependent on development of the

skill of the team, unfortunately. Like, there's, there is some really good ports on the GBA, like Sega RK Gallery, but like those have been completely built from the ground up. They're not using source code, which you can emulate on GBA, but it's not,

it's not very good for Megadrive because the resolution is higher than the actual GBA screen. even the DS version isn't great, the classic collection version. It's a little better than what you could achieve on a GBA, but at the same time, like, yeah, it's not the correct resolution.

There's some sort of squashing, squash and scratch. The stealth went, nah, and created this, more less spot-on version. We can pretty much make a spot-on version of this. And that sort of,

I think really started the whole, like, oh, we can actually, like, port this stuff more accurately and try, and probably started where, you know, where they could go, let's try to pitch Sonic CD at a certain point. Yeah.

Where, like, hey, you guys clearly are having, struggling here at certain points. Like, early iPhone games, like, they would port, like, Streets of H2 and Sonic 1, I think, to mobile. And it was just like, it's a wrong. The rotary thing on the old iPod, right? That was, like, one really early iPhone. Yeah. There was an early iPod version of it as well. I thought that was incredible.

I remember that not being too bad actually that one used emulation it felt you know correct I was thinking about the sort of the control scheme when you're with the sort of dial the old iPod had but then I think well Sonic only really needs to go

left and right and down and jump so yeah they've kind of mapped a D-pad to the dial essentially and then the middle being jump essentially so yeah that led to like the Android versions of Sonic 1 and 2 right the Android and iPhone versions

so I think they're home later actually. I think CD was the first thing. So, yeah, yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, at the time, they had, I guess, tried to pitch it, tried to pitch Sonic CD to Sega. And then at a certain point, they released on YouTube, like a little video of them showing off, like a port of Sonic CD on an iPhone. And that got people really riled up. And it's like, oh, man, this would be absolutely perfect. And so eventually they actually did actually make that. And that. And that, That was a collection of both, I think, stealth and Taxman, okay, Christian Whitehead to develop this sort of stuff together and started that process. Yeah. Yeah.

So they started working together because they collaborated previously on Retrosonic XG, I think, which was... So that was like a combination of Retrosonic, which was Tachman's fan game. Sonic XG, which was another fan game. fan game being developed by Sehuan and a nightmare, which was very popular at the time. You know, that was making real headway and seemed to be the one that was progressing faster than an awful lot of others at the time.

It's still not like the most accurate Sonic Physics, but it was pretty good, like, for a fan game of that era. And Sonic Nexus as well, which was being developed by Brad Flick and Hunter Bridges, which again used the retro engine, which felt very accurate, felt very good for a Sonic fan game. Brad would obviously end up being level designer on Sonic Mania. And yeah, so, like, those three projects basically gave those guys their first sort of taste of working together, I guess. And, yeah, I think they initially pitched that Sonic CD demo to Sega, got the go-ahead to do it,

and allowed that collaboration to continue and flourish into something else. So, yeah, really cool start. It feels like the end game for the fan game community, right? Pretty much. Everybody was making, you know, their little projects and hoping that, like, it would, it would lead to something, something bigger, and these guys,

these guys basically got the call-up, essentially. Yeah. It was loving to see. So, like, now, nowadays, like, Tex-Man and Brad Flick and Hunter Bridges and all those guys who may, like, sort of, everyone but stealth, basically, who made Sonic Mania, went off to sort of develop Evening Star Studios. Stealth went off.

He had, he was already, he was always sort of separate. has his company called Head Cannon. And he was trying to develop some of his own stuff as well. But Stealth was sort of in charge of the port of Sonic 3 and Knuckles in the Sonic Origins collection that sort of came up. So, self was able to do, he was sort of in charge of that of the porting process of all that stuff. So bringing Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic CD, Sonic 3 and Knuckles all to new consoles,

being able to add knuckles into Sonic CD because he was not in there before in the previous ports. They did some really cool stuff with that too because in Sonic 2 I think in some of those games they actually added new paths for some of the characters as well.

They added Amy in the plus versions as well. Sonic 2 they added like a proper hidden palace that you can play and access to wire a secret exit from Mystic Cave Zone, if I remember correctly. Yeah. Yeah. Down the infamous pit of death. Yeah.

And I love that. That's like the stupidest way to put it. And it's the perfect way to put it too. Of like only stupid Sonic people like us are the people who would know that this thing exists. I think it sort of preempts their, um, what Sonic Mania trades a lot in, which is things that only stupid Sonic people will get. Yes. Like the, you know, things like the,

the particular tone that plays when you beat the first boss of Studioopolis zone, which is a reference to a live stream that went wrong. Yeah. Stuff like that. That buzzing noise. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, of all the things that could be a reference, it's like, goodness me. Yeah. It was, I mean, yeah, Sonic Mania is, is this sort of that culmination of everything. It's brand new levels. It's old levels. They do some really cool stuff with it.

Yeah. Bringing Ray and Mighty back from the Sega Sonic Arcade game. Like, you know, it's everything, you know, the only reason why that exists is because these guys were crazy enough to go, we want to add in these characters that have not existed since 1990. In anything, and trying to bring those guys back. And so it's really, it was really exciting to see these guys. Like, I actually caught up with Christian on at Pax Australia when I was there just to see, just to say hello. in person. And it's just really cool that, like, you know, we've just known,

everyone's just known each other for so long now, and we're still, you know, talking to each other pretty regularly. No, absolutely. I mean, like, the Retro Engine in particular is just one of those tools, which has been so versatile, allowing to get Sonic games into so many different systems. It's a fantastic piece of kit. I remember in particular Retrosonic, his early fan game,

there was a version that he'd managed to port to the Dreamcast that ran on that as well, which is also a really, like, fascinating little project. Just lovely to say, like, how versatile that engine is and how how it can be in support in different systems. Is the retro engine, like, out there for anyone to use? It's not open source, as far as I'm aware, no. Right. No, but now, I mean, people have now, you know, ported back through the,

like, they've decompilite, decomplize the at least Sonic 1 and 2 and mania so that you can so people can make mods and stuff like that for those games yeah but that's about it but yeah

I mean there are definitely games that sort of use some of that I mean there's also like the thing now is that there's actually a lot of different engines that people have made for these things to basically like you can make a Sonic game yourself there's like the Sonic World's engine

which is in multimedia fusion that's pretty accurate and lots of like not so simple or simple Sonic Advance 2 type ones where people have like recreated various different elements of certain Sonic games to like

you can just make your own if you just want to make a Sonic Advance 2 you can just make levels in this and release that as your I don't know your your own fan game yeah there's like Sonic Dash I think for the game maker

There's Sonic GDK, which is for Unreal, which is a very good sort of 3D momentum-based engine for making 3D Sonic fan games. Yeah, there's amazing stuff out there. It's now a lot easier to be able to just sort of like pick an engine and just go, okay, right, if I want to make a 2D fan game, then this is probably the best shot I can do with that.

The more contemporary fan games, of which we've many to discuss, a lot of those would, I mean, because if you want to, the way I see, I mean, again, I'm not informed about this, so I'm just speculating here, but like, were you to want to make a 2D Sonic game that felt like the Mega Drive games, you could really just jump on any of these things. Yeah, yeah, it would be a really easy pick. That works with Click Team, and, yeah, off you go, basically. As we've now witnessed with Click Team, you know, like that, that's, that whole ecosystem can now run on, like, the Switch and things like that. I've been recently playing, like, Crip Stalker, which is made in Click.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. Great, great, great game there. Was it? Sinclair Strange. Just like a shout out Sinclair Strange now. Hell yeah. Great, all game. Yeah. But yeah, no, there's been some outstanding developments in recent years. It seems like now we've really hit that peak of, like, making very accurate 2D momentum-based Sonic games. It seems like a lot of people have really run with the whole Sonic Mania style.

You know, it's very much like the most popular thing around 2D Sonic fan game nowadays is like, what if Sonic continued this way onto the Saturn? So we have, you know, widescreen displays and higher color palettes and things like that. So we get things like, I mean, we've got a big old list here, but like things like Sonic and the Fallen Star,

Emerald Ties, you know, like they're very much, you know, let's carry on that traditional 16-bit style Sonic action, but like add a little bit more of that 32-bit color depth to it and just make something a little bit more of that era. Before we get to those, I want to mention, I think, because I'm not sure if it was mentioned yet, if it was, I apologise for glossing over, but stealth was part of

a team Megamix, which, this is a hack that I remember, Sonic Megamix, I think which started as a Mega Drive thing and ultimately it became a Mega CD thing. Yeah, yeah, there is a really good... So I was wondering what the story is behind that, if it's just a storage space thing, or... I'm not entirely sure why they decided to expand to Mega CD, but it did

it's an interesting thing because like you can again you can run that that's one of the strangest hacks in that like you don't like you can run it on real hardware like and everybody can do this

via flashcards but you could actually burn that game to a disc and as long as it matched the region code of your mega CD you could play it via the actual disc drive itself and I think there are some like

sound samples that probably make use of the mega CDs audio playback but I can't remember if there's anything in particular. It doesn't seem to have a CD audio soundtrack or a Red Book audio soundtrack. I remember playing it back in the day, and what it essentially was is it's Sonic 1 on the Roids, on the Jus. It's like ridiculously fast. You've got your homing attack in there.

You've got tons of new concert enemies, playable characters, all sorts of things. I think you can play as like Shadow. So hence the Megamix. Yeah. Hence Megam, just the amount of stuff that they've crammed in there. there, it's just, it's wild. You can play it today and still be surprised and impressed by it, I think, it's, it's really something. I think there's like a, as part of one of the bosses, there's like, it starts off with like a sample from like a, from a, like, Marvelverse Capcom or something like

that. Like, get rid of the break. Yeah, yeah. And so that would be pretty much the only thing it's really using for the CD-centric, I think. So, yeah, I think from them, talking about some rum hacks, we've got some interesting ones that I think we should talk about, because I was debating before we started if these were, if we should talk about these today. But I think that they are pretty much intimately linked with the fan community. Of course they are.

You know, we should absolutely talk about them. I'm going to mention one that impressed the hell out of me that's not on here. And the annoying thing is I've forgotten what it's called, and you'll know it because I think it was quite a well-known one. but there was a Sonic 1 Rom hack I played that was like Sonic 1 VR missions or something and it was like you would do these tasks that were along the lines of like bot sort of 10 enemies sort of like the missions from Sonic Origins actually and it would even have the kind of wireframe boot up you're in a scrap brain zone you've got to do this

you finish that if you do it fast enough you'll get like the higher rank or whatever and then eventually it would start going into teaching engine tricks, really. And I thought that was a really clever way of creating something unique with that engine. Everyone can, like, I'm going to look this up, because I know it was brilliant. I wish I could remember what it was called. Yeah, that does sound familiar, but I'm not quite like, like, it's on the tip of my tongue, but I can't quite remember it, unfortunately. But yeah, no.

I think it's Sonic VR, actually. I think it's just called Sonic VR. Okay. But that's what rings about. But it was just such a cool idea and so different to anything else I'd played in a Sonic hack where it was still essentially the same thing, but presented in such a different way that it would just make you think about the way that you interacted with the world even more than in a, I guess, enormous kind of bespoke level.

Rather than more momentum, it was more about precision. But in a way that made sense. Like, it wasn't just like, now in this enormous stage, you're going to do some really difficult platforming because that doesn't even work in the mainline Sonic games sometimes. Like Metropolis Zone, for example. Yeah, that's a tough one. Yeah, but I was just very impressed by that. I believe it is just called Sonic VR, and I think that's quite old, so I'd recommend

seeking that one out. Where would people find these ROM hacks these days? Sonic Retro or something? So a lot of them you can find on the Sonic Hacking contest. Yes. So, sh-c. dot zone is the website for that as well as Sonic Retro like if you go on to Sonic Retro a lot of like the big ones will have its own link and sort of a chat about it and stuff like that with

screenshots and like just the ability to download it but yeah the Sonic Hacking Contest we sort of we briefly went on it last time but it's basically like every year people will show up and show all these like sort of hacks and mods that they've done to classic games and modern games and either adding new characters and stuff like that. And so it's really exciting to see that it's relatively easy to hack some stuff nowadays. And so people are going pretty wild on figuring out new ways to sort of to basically make the Genesis Mega Drive do some crazy stuff that it was not really not meant to do. Yeah. I'm always impressed with the achievements of the house.

hacking community now. It's just absolutely insane what you can do. Like I said earlier, like early hacking contests were very very simple. It was like, okay, if you're going to change the graphics, then that's in one category. If you're going to change the music, that's in another category. Nowadays, all hacks seem to be, we're going to change all the

graphics, we're going to create new zones, we're going to have new playable characters. It's like almost total conversions of the original game to the point that some of them are just almost unrecognizable as the original Sonic the Hedgehog. It's so impressive as to what that community has achieved now.

And, yeah, obviously, it's not just limited to ROM hacks. There are, you know, modifications to modern 3D Sonic games as well, which you can load in through the Hedgehog Manager, which is always fascinating to see people just dropping stages from other games into a different game, and somehow it works really bizarrely well. I remember playing the Sonic Unleashed stages in Sonic Generations a while back project Unleashed. That's of course slightly, I mean, it's great.

It's slightly redundant now because Sonic Unleashed has been decompiled. Absolutely. And it requires you, of course, to own the original files in order to run it. Wink, wink. Because I'm sure everybody did that.

I'm sure everybody transferred them from their disc over to their PC. Unleashed Project still has its place, I think. If you just want to play daytime Sonic stages, it's still a really good way of playing them. Yeah, that's not to dismiss. the efforts of Project Unleashed, because I was impressed as hell with that.

And of course, Sonic Unleashed feels different. It's tighter than Sonic Generations. Sorry, Sonic Generations is tighter to control than Sonic Unleashed anyway. Again, not to dismiss that game. But there's definitely a place for it. I also, I don't think it's really the same thing, but I did play Project 06 recently, which ports all of the Sonic Silver Room and Shadows Stages into. I mean, I've got to say, I've only played them through that.

and you play them through that, you'd be hard-pressed to think, why does this, why does everyone hate this game? Because they're pretty good. Like, when the thing's not falling to pieces in front of you, it's genuinely quite good. Yeah. But before we get to that, obviously,

we should talk about some of the Vam Hacks that are worth checking out, just a little, like, preceasing for people who don't know about them. So, I mean, where do we begin with these? Yeah, well, let's start with the Metal Sonic Hyperdrive and Metal Sonic rebooted. These were, like, developed in,

by someone called Lone Devil in 2014 and 2018. These are like full ROM hacks where you instead play as Metal Sonic instead of Sonic. So he's got like the ability to like boost through, you know, when he's charged up. All sorts of like different stuff like that. And the thing with these really is that like there's some of the really the most beautiful ROM hacks, I would say. Like the person who did all the art for these is just really. good at like figuring out that sprite art system and using the limited color palettes of stuff. It looks, you know, I mean, it does actually take a few bits and pieces from chaotic, I think,

but it's definitely like heavily inspired by chaotics as well just in terms of like aesthetics, where it's like just nice and bright and everything like that and just intense like that. But it's like really cool. It's, you know, got a few different like weird little power-ups that you've got like, you know, you spawn bombs and stuff as well. But if basically like if you end up finding

some, you know, a weird pirate cart somewhere that someone's trying to sell you at a retro expo. Yeah, this one gets reprored a lot, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I forgot about that. The scourge of eBay. Absolutely.

Those games are really awesome. And another one that's another like sort of real like part of that also it's like it's a complete total conversion like it's very little to do with the actual like original games it's not just you're playing through green hill again or something along those lines it is like no this is a completely original sonic game where you play as metal sonic instead and have completely new characters and all that sort of stuff maybe the bosses are very similar bosses are the hardest thing really to try to develop uh in a in a rom hack because they're all like custom uh stuff uh code in there for those things, but otherwise, really, really good. I think it's worth mentioning as well that, like, you know, complete hacks are a rarity, similar to fan games, you know, like, it's not something that happens very frequently. So when something like that does happen, I think it's worth celebrating for sure,

then the Meltlod on Hybrid Drive and rebooted are definitely worth looking at because they are a complete full game that you can run through from start to end. There's no, like, it's not a partial project. Like a lot of these projects have ended up being. Yeah, these things take time. and you know when you actually have doing it all for nothing yeah yeah you're doing it all for nothing just for clout with a small small group of people online um and and stuff like that not like he's making money they're making money from these pirate cards out there of a no no no of course

but it just goes goes to show the passion of the fan game and and the hacking community as well it just that they care so much to to completely convert a game like that and do do so much work and have to release it for nothing i think it's incredible Yeah. Another big one is like the S Factor, which has by Aqua Slash. So this is a really big ROM hack where you play not as Sonic, not as Metal Sonic, but as Sonia from Sonic Underground, the TV show from the 90s. And Silver, the Hedgehog, who was in Sonic 2006. And it's just like, you know, this is very much like, this doesn't, you know,

I'm not sure who is the person who likes both these things. These are both particularly not good things. to actually like make something on. But it's a really solid game. And you can play as those two characters, you know, and use some of their abilities. Like Silver can, like, sort of float

and everything like that as well. And you play against Eggman Neger, which was the bad guy from the Sonic Rush games, like the alternate Eggman from that game. So it's a bit of a mishmash of kind of everything. But it's got, you know, a lot of, like, unique level. The whole level is, completely unique.

Enemies are sort of unique in there. And you can sort of play through the whole thing and do everything you can in there. And so it's it. It's really, really exciting to see another game like that that is not what you would expect, but it is fully there. Some of the throws me off about the S factor. It's like being so named because, you know, Sonia and Silver, you know.

Yeah. But like Sonic is also S. Like you can just, it's just an, unusual thing to pull up, I think. Maybe there's an important story reason. Why? I think it's just one of those things with the fan community is just like sometimes it's like, I like these characters, why not?

Why isn't there a game for them? So it's just like, yeah, we'll run with it. Go with the idea. Like if that's something that you're passionate about, go for it. Something good came out of Sonic Underground and that's wonderful. Other than this song, no one's attacking the song here. Maybe we could get the song on

if the editor could put the song in, that would be great. I appreciate that a lot. Thank you very much. Triplets born The throne awaits A seal warns of a deadly bait Give up your children Separate Fight your time

Lying Weight Sonic underground Um Yes, S Factor is one that I see Around everywhere It's a very popular one I also see this Hellfire saga Because I've seen this

And it's absolutely insane Yes, absolutely insane Hellfire Saga by Red Missau Studios. It's like Sonic meets ghouls and ghosts. And so it's the game where like it's not that same, you know, when you think of that, it's like, oh, it's going to be the, you know, what was it Sonic EXC sort of stuff. Yes. Oh, horror stuff. Yeah.

Copy pasty. Yeah. But it's, it's its own thing. Like, it's, but it's, you know, you've got hit points. You're, like, fighting against all these, like, sort of otherly things. Like, you actually do fight against. like the ghouls and ghost guy at the beginning of the game and stuff as well. It's all like dark and moody and has some really great like sprite artwork and stuff as well.

That's like doing some pretty crazy things. Like the bosses are just huge. You're like, you're fighting against like the Grim Reaper at certain aspects of the game. Lots of like really cool like background like artwork especially. I think one of the things I really liked was there was a part in the game where you are running through it and then you hit a certain element

and then you go back the same way you came but now it's completely different and so like the entire level changed by just like you know clicking this switch and then going back this way so you know part of trying to find about these Sonic fan games is really not just like what how exactly you know how it's an exact perfect version

of a Sonic game before but like what's new? Like what's the new cool thing that they've tried doing here? Hellfire Saga is definitely one of those that just has full of like really unique ideas that have never really been in Sonic games before and trying out

some really cool stuff. It's got some mechanical changes as well, hasn't it? You don't have like a ring gauge anymore. You have a health gauge like a Castlevania game or something like that. So yeah, like lots of sort of Gothic fantasy artwork going on in this. It's just, it's nice when people,

people do stuff like this where it's a little bit more outside of the normal wheelhouse for Sonic games. It's just like, let's just try some weird stuff, you know, like, maybe it doesn't work. Maybe it does work, but like I just, I really, I'd like to celebrate games like this a little bit more where it's just like, oh, we've, we've had, we've had an idea to introduce some different gimmicks and try and mix up the gameplay a little bit. And I think that that should be commended because it's, again, it's just not your standard traditional Sonic, but it's built on traditional Sonic. you know, it's fascinating. I get that. I feel like that extends in a way to, even outside of fan games,

is this kind of strive for like, this is what Sonic should be like. Yeah, I don't think. And even I am guilty of that. I'm guilty of that too. I know I have been. But it's one of the things that came through when I was playing Unleashed actually is

at the time being sort of very resistant to I don't want Sonic in this real world. I don't like it. and playing it recently because it helps that the edges have been fared off by the decompilation and you can run it in ridiculous frame rates and it looks amazing but then I found myself thinking like I mean experimentation is kind of the soul of Sonic Adventure and that's like one of my favourite Sonic games

and that's really nothing like the old Sonic games really it translates that sort of feel in a way but unleashed I think is to be celebrated for being so different if it was the same kind of gameplay in a world that was so sort of semi-generic, it wouldn't work. I mean, I think Sonic Lost World feels guilty to that a fair bit. Yeah, absolutely. Where you've got the sort of slightly old experimental gameplay,

but it just all looks so familiar that it just feels like, it just feels like incorrect, if that makes sense. Yeah. There's got to be a cohesion there. So I think that these ROM hacks do a good job of making it work in that respect. And where else are you going to find this experimentation and artistic expression except they're in these kind of fan projects, these passion projects, you know? Absolutely, absolutely, yeah.

I agree completely. But having said that, sometimes you do get hacks that are quasi-official, like the Sonic 3D directors cut. Obviously not official, really, but the story behind that one is pretty interesting. I remember when that was being sort of teased on YouTube and stuff, which was John Burton, who worked on Sonic 3D back in the day

and worked on many of Travelers Tales. I think the founder or one of the founders of Travelers Tales on all these games, Mickey Mania, Pugsy, all these games that I love, decided that he was going to come back and fix Sonic 3D, which is a game that, love and respect, big fan of Sonic 3D,

quite a few things needed tweaking, I think. And quite a lot of them turned up in Directors' cut. he really did the work on this one. Yeah, it's so, yeah, he basically, as part of his, like, uh, YouTube channel that he was doing where he was talking about Sonic 3D and Sonic R and like all these, like, how do we, how did we do this sort of stuff? Part of it was him going through and like going, actually I have pretty much had like a development build for Sonic 3D that he still had.

And was sort of showing off like the level editor and stuff that he, he was sort of messing around with. And at some point, you decide, you know, I'm, going to create like a director's cut version of this, where it sort of included a new map, a world map in the game, like so you could select the level. It included a like a password system in the game as well, which the original game did not have anything like that. Instead, you had a level select which was, you could actually activate the level select by just jiggling the cart back and forth. Yeah, because it was like the crash handler, wasn't it?

It was like, if the game hit an arrow had crashed, it would have. It would immediately boot the level select. You found the level select. It's a feature. Yeah. The password system was actually from the Sega channel version of the game because the Sega channel version was too big. The game is too big to actually fit onto like just the one downloaded game. So you had to split it into two parts. So you had to use a password to like sort of continue from the second part of it. But he did stuff like in the game there's like medals that you could collect and you

I think if you collect 10 of them you get a continue but now it's like oh you get points for them you get and you get a percentage completion then like you can also collect supersonic as well which means he had to like change all the pallets to make that sort of work like I remember he was talking about

the making supersonic go super in the first level which has like a waterfall would make that the waterfall would turn yellow as well so it just looked like a piss color for any kind of waterfall. Sorry, I talked to you.

Exactly. Same joke. I apologize. Yep. And that's what I said. So he had to do a bunch of edits there. But he also added the crab badnik back into the game as well. This was a badnik that only existed in like a screenshot from an early version of the game.

But it was still part of his development build. So he was like, yep, okay, I'll just put this into the rusty ruin zone and stuff like that. If I can be vaguely critical of this, because I think it's a very cool hack, don't get me wrong. I didn't like the decision that he made to remove the necessity to collect the flickies

because on the one hand, I get it, but on the other hand, that's the game. Yeah, it kind of changes the mechanics a bit, as it. The levels, you can pretty much just stroll through the levels,

you know, get the emeralds easily and just leave, whereas it's very obviously designed around finding and retaining these flickies with you. Yeah. So that felt like an odd decision to me that felt more like kind of listening to people whinging rather than just like making the right decision for the game.

But on the other hand, again, hands up here. I get it. I do. I can see why people would want that. I just don't want it myself. It's giving people options at least, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. I'm not sure if there's the option to have the hack and not have that.

But then again, I could always just get them anyway, couldn't I? It's not like I'm being physically made not to. It also makes it easier as well. It now has like if you lose them, like it'll have a little point to like, hey, this is that flicky went. I forgot about that. That's such a cool idea. And like makes them sort of makes the little icons jump when you're like trying to figure out where they actually are and stuff like that. It's a really cool one.

Some other hacks that we've got. There's one called Sonic Classics Classic Heroes. This allows you to play through Sonic 1 and 2, but like as three characters like Sonic heroes. So, like, all three are running around at once and you can flip them around. You can play as the chaotic as well. And so, like, that is a bit chaotic generally. But also, like, you can make them, like, jump and, like, fly and hold on to tails and then hold on to knuckles and hold on to Sonic. And stuff like Sonic Heroes as well, which, admittedly, I mean, having all three characters run around at the same time is, like, that's usually makes a game run real slow. But they've

seem to have done a pretty good job of actually making it run well in this instance. I think that's a very cool idea for a hack in general. Even if it amounts to a novelty, it's a good novelty, I think. Absolutely. A lot of the hacks that pop up over the years are novelties. But it's just fun. It's like it's experimentation. It shows you how versatile that really old Sonic the Hedgehog engine is when you work

around with it. I love things like that, where it's just. just like, just stick a new character in it. Why not? Like, it's changing mechanics. Wasn't there one where every time you got a ring, Sonic would get like fatter or something? Oh, Sonic 2XL, yeah.

Yeah. And eventually he would just get slower and slower. Another repro classic. Yeah, you would eventually slow down and you would eventually stop and then die. Basically, you would just have a heart attack, I think, in that case. There's not a charmless fat phobia there, but on the other hand, it is quite funny. Yeah, yeah. Again, like, but it's, again, one of those silly little, like, joke hacks that just,

it mechanically changes the game in a way that's actually kind of interesting in a way. Like, it's, it's still worth exploring things that are just very simple sort of like, okay, well, what if the rings kill you instead, you know? Like, there's loads of hacks like that, but it's just like, it does make the game a lot more. It's a very, it's a simple way to change the mechanics in a way, in an interesting way, that makes it play differently. So, yeah. There's a one called a tails splice.

I think where like you have to run away from tails and if he touches you then oh yes yeah yeah yeah I remember that yeah uh so you have to like keep away from him for 20 seconds or something like that and then and then you get to go to the next stage but yeah it just means that like you'll just like start exploding if you're not too careful it's very basic but I used to like one called Robotics Revenge that was just a boss rush of all the Sonic one and two bosses I believe yeah um but with a full timer and everything I thought that was very cool. There's one I didn't put on the list But there's one where you play as Robotnik And like have to go around catching animals Dr. Dr. Robotnik's something wasn't it? Dr. Robotnik's something rescue maybe? It's been a while. I remember the one you mean though.

Yeah. So some of the things with like a lot of these hacks is actually just adding new characters to the games in some other way. So there's a person called E1-22-Sai who has made a lot of really fun hacks for all the different, for Sonic 1, 2 and 3 ones where you can play as Sally Acorn

from the, as Bunny Rabbit from the Sonic cartoons. And in those ones, like, they have like a little, you can use, you'll like shoot a little bullet out or there's a button which you can like go up to a monitor and then you can click it and it will switch what is actually on the monitor. Oh, that's great. And stuff like that.

The Bunny Rabbit one, you to like, she would, like, fly around and she has, like, an extendo arm and stuff. Yeah, it's megal attacks and stuff, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So did they make the Amy, the Amy hacks that make her play, like, in advance one with the hammer world and the, uh, sort of standard? Yeah. I think that's great.

Really great. Yeah. There's a. Amy and Sonic one. And then there's like an Amy and Cream. It's like Sonic 2 Pink Edition, I think is what it's called. Um, where you play as Amy. And in those ones, I think it's actually like the more modern style of.

Amy and cream. But there's other ones where you can play as Amy with her ability to use her hammer in like a twisty fashion. There's also like a lot of that sort of came from a lot of those came from like mods of Sonic Mania to add her into it

and stuff as well. I was a little disappointed when in Origins Origins Plus Amy was based on Sonic Superstars rather than on Sonic Advance. Although it was a bit of a tall order I know but I thought that the way Amy played in Sonic Advance was a really interesting challenge because it almost made her into like the hard mode character because you couldn't

you weren't invincible when you were jumping anymore and you know you had to think in time and make use of this whole new move sir and i loved that they ported that into sonic one it just made the game feel so different yeah yeah um and you can also play as like big the cat in the pink edition as well like you uh so i mean to even add a even add a big character like that into a sonic into a Genesis game is already pretty hard and to actually make them accurately the right purple is probably pretty wild to try to do

but he can he'll wander around you can hit people with his thing and I think you have to go and collect Froggy as well so he have to like run around the levels and try to find him there no fishing sadly there is a fishing Biggs Fishing Derby is another one which is

Oh yeah based on the 2600 game yeah yeah yeah yeah So it's just a fishing game, but it's on the Genesis and you play as big. And you're like trying to put your rod down and try to get the lowest fish as much as possible and get points. Yep. That's a really cool little game. Yeah. It's just, you know, just the craziest things that people have done to try to make stuff onto the Sega Genesis through a Sonic 1 hack in some way.

It's pretty wild. Again, yeah, just shows the versatility of that rob, isn't it? It's just crazy. Yeah, people have really just completely taken it apart. this point. Yeah. Like, some other ones here,

like we've got is a, you can play as Gex the Gecko in Sonic one. This was a recent one, wasn't it? Yeah, I remember seeing this at the other contest recently.

This was by Joe Nick. And in this case, you can, you know, it's tail time, so you have to like, you can whip your tail, you can jump,

you can spring tail onto things. But also, in order to actually finish levels, you have to collect TV remotes, which is sort of what you did in the original game as well. Yeah. And mechanically making it more like gex

as well, yeah, Yeah. So there's like one for the special stage and one for the regular stage. So it just changes up what Sonica is in that way. And the thing I also love about all of these is that they have to change all the sprites for the title screen as well. So like, you know, Gex pops up in the little emblem and like flicks up his sunglasses and stuff like that. Like he's real cool. You know. Did they get any sample speech in there? I think it does. Oh, wow. It's terrible. Or something like that, probably.

This is like a party. Oh, stuff. And another one is like, you can play as Mega Man X in Sonic 2, which is pretty wild. And it plays like Mega Man X does. That's hilarious. And like, there's actually like areas where you go and like, you click this and then you've now got like the, the, uh, you know, speed boots and stuff like that. You can like wall climb, like everything that you can think of in there.

One thing I actually didn't add on here, which is pretty well, it sort of was in development and then got released without his intention. But there's a Yoshi in Sonic 2, where you basically play as Yoshi's Island, Yoshi, with little baby Sonic on his back. And you can just sort of run around Sonic doing that, shooting eggs. It also even does like the touch fuzzy get dizzy stuff on the Genesis, which is kind of insane to even attempt to do without like a Mode 7. Yeah, that is wild. Impressive stuff, man.

And stuff like that. I'll just see if I can find whoever did that. Oh, whatever. It's fine. That person, you did a really good job, whoever that was. Google everyone, Yoshi Insight too. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think the last sort of ROM hack we've got here I mean there are thousands of Sonic ROM hacks They're all really good These are just like a real small section of it But one of them is called Sonic Delta It includes every single level From Sonic 1, 2, 3 in Knuckles Like you can just play them all in order

From the start as any character Yeah But they've also added so many other levels in there There's like levels based off of like Robotnik Winter Zone Which is like the game gear Triple Trouble Level stages that they re yeah like remake in 16 bit style yeah that's cool yeah and so there's all those

things to get through and it's just like it's just like it's just one of those things now it's just getting bigger and bigger where it's like and part of this is like look we're not limited by like being only able to have one megabyte of storage on a on a Sega genesis cartridge uh it's now just as big as you want it to be um and so as long as that's and so as long as it can just run on that then it's fine. Yeah. One of the things they recently

added to it is, so I'm sure we've all seen it like the video game history foundation like,

released the like map for CyberCity Zone from Sonic 2, the deleted stage. And they've put that map now into Sonic Delta

as a playable as well, which is incredible. Oh well. So yeah, you can actually experience the original CyberCity

as intended working within the, you know, the confines of well I say the confines because Sonic Delta is massive but yeah within the Mega Drive con the Sonic game now

yeah really cool to see it's amazing that like going back to those days and like you know they actually just drew this up on a map on paper and for the most part like it they just did that and then and then I went yep no that's about right and like didn't really change much after that

is pretty wild like yeah to get it like on your first shot basically of putting it in it's like yeah that's that seems right It's like, like, same with like the Sonic R stages where it's like, yeah, here's just a map that I made. I drew up what this should be. And they went, yep, okay, cool, we'll just do that. Like, no iteration really. It seems like, yeah.

It's like, all right. And as a game designer, it's like, that doesn't, that's not how that works usually. Usually. But again, I suppose, like, if you're familiar with, you know, developing stages at that point, then maybe it's just experience. But yeah. So, further fan games, newer fan games, fan games, we didn't. talk about last time

that are absolutely important to discuss superior and supremely important to discuss and I'm going to come in with one because I've been sitting on it the whole time because I want to talk about

for my favorite Sonic fan game ever which is Sonic Triple Triple 16 bit which is Noah Copeland's game and it's the only time I can think of where I've ever played a Sonic fan game where I've

found myself at no point thinking, well, this sucks about any specific part of the game. Now, let me rephrase that. There was one part of the game that sucked, but he fixed it. Oh, I think I don't even remember about it. The elevator towards the end. That sucked, but then he fixed it. So good on him.

And I want to stress enough, that's not me playing these fan games, going these games suck. I mean little specific bits of them. Like bits of level design. bits that made me go, that sucks. But something triple-trouble 16-bit, I thought, was just, like, majestic as a fan game. I would have paid for that, easily paid for that. And the fact that it's free, I mean, it has to be free, really, doesn't it?

Because it's a fan game. But I think it was absolutely awesome. I had a great time with that. Even the new sort of special stages were cool. Everything about it was just this beautiful. I mean, so like Triple Trouble is a pretty cool game, but it is kind of hamstrung for obvious reasons. Yeah. has some issues, and I think what he did here is he made something that is just like

eminently superior while also caping the heart of it in a really beautifully designed way. I would recommend anyone download and play this. I mean, there's a bunch of cool games here to play, and I'm sure you're going to be very busy, but this is my pick of the lot. I had a great time with this one. Really brilliant, and so much to see as well. But it doesn't necessarily it's welcome either. It's just a perfect game.

One of the best Sonic games, as far as I'm concerned. it's just that good. No, it's a real highlight for sure. And you can play it on so many formats as well. You can side load it onto Android phones and stuff like that now. It's incredible. Oh, right. So, yeah, yeah.

So supported by lots of different things. It's not just a Windows game now. Right, right. I didn't know that. Yeah, no, it's really impressive. Yeah, I've played it on Android and you can, you know, wire up a Bluetooth controller and play it with that, and it's just really comfortable and just a lovely way to play it.

So if you're looking for a bit of handheld, Sonic fan gaming action. You can do it that way as well. It's really fun. That's awesome. But yeah, no, a real highlight for sure. Noah Copeland was also developing a, like, 16-bit-style port of Sonic Drift as well, which unfortunately has made it to demo.

So there is a version you can play out as a demo, which is really cool to check out. But unfortunately, he's not going to be continuing that project to completion. But, yeah, another thing worth checking out. Noah Copeland, and another amazing talent in Sonic Fan Gaming recently. I can't imagine how good his Sonic Drift would have been considering that when I did the Game Gear Directory a couple of years ago I came to Sonic Drift dreading it and I came out of Sonic Drift going

Wow, that's really good That's really, really, really good I can't believe how good that is Yeah, it's a great little fan game It doesn't overcomplicate things like ring races And it's got like a sort of Mode 7 style track Which is really fun So yeah, nice and nice and smooth

plays really nicely Very easy to pick up and play Nice yeah and like yeah sonny triple trouble 16b is like one of the few i've actually played through in its entirety and i enjoyed the whole lot of it i enjoyed like taking what was part of those original levels and then like really like just upping the ante on those things like people remember the music from triple trouble people remember fang the sniper from uh triple trouble so like having new ways for all that sort of stuff to actually like

fang the hunter i guess now is sort of knack of hunter I'm sorry, but I'm a knack the weasel, Stan. I'm really, I'm just, I don't like this revisionism. Was it his original name in the first place, maybe? But I also call him Dr. Robotic, so here we are. Yeah. Well, the movie's called him Dr. Robotic as well, so don't worry about it. Dr. Nack, the Robotnik Weasel.

Yeah, there you go. Just go back to that one magazine article that called him Jet at some point, and it's like, no, this is the... Oh, wow, yeah. preempting an actual jet character by many years. Oh, God, him, yeah. So shall we work our way down the list? Yes, let's actually do that. I apologize for jumping ahead.

I got excited. No, no, no, no, let's go through it. Absolutely. It's definitely like a positive one. I recommend everyone downloading that one. Definitely. Some of these ones are just like, I mean, they're pretty crazy in different ways.

The one I first got on here is one that I sort of have been a bit of a stand for. It's called Sonic Speed Course. It's a demo. It's only in demo form, by Sharb. It's one of those things where they tried something different in, they didn't just make a Sonic game.

Yeah, again. Here's a game with Sonic in it, but in a different thing. And Sonic Speed course is Kirby's dream course, but Sonic. You cannot go wrong with that perch. Like, honestly, that is the spot. Kirby doesn't make sense in Kirby's dream course.

Sonic makes perfect sense in Kirby's dream course where he turns into a ball, you have to hit the robots, you hit all the robots, and then the ring appears. That is, That just sounds exactly what it should have been. Absolutely.

So that's like, yeah, I think, hey, Sega, you should totally make that. Like, I want to see more non-sonic Sonic games. Like, it used to be on the game gear, like puzzle games and stuff like that. Well, it used to be sort of like a year on, year off, didn't it? Like, you get a mainline Sonic game and then you get a spin-off the next year sort of thing. That was always the way. Spinball was a weird spin-off and stuff like that. Like, right now it's just Sonic and then racing and then driving games.

And I'd like to see something a bit in between just a $10 downloadable game or weird little mobile games and stuff like that. Yeah, definitely. Another one is Sonic SMS remake. So these games, there's like two of them. They play and look like the original mask system game. So they're really inspired by those games, but a full widescreen, but have gone really far beyond. Like, they say remake, but they're really not. They're just entirely original.

brand new levels. They'll sort of do demakes of levels. They'll do like, you can play as Shadow and Ray and Mighty and all that sort of stuff as well.

And similar to what you were talking about with Triple Trouble, like you can play these on like phones. You know everything. They've just got like, here's just the APK, you just download this.

I've seen them on the Vita even. Like you can play them on the Vita if you want to. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I am far too close to those games

to accept these. fan games. I'm not saying they're bad. It's the kind of thing where I remember playing the first one and being like a Sonic Master System remake. I'm well up for that. That's well up my street. And then within five seconds there's something new in it.

And I'm just like, nope. Just love those. Like that Sonic 3D and 2D game that I think we briefly talked about. But it's a bit like that for me. But I think it's cool that these sort of engines are out there. People can work on the Sonic SMS

games and give them some love, you know. Definitely. Absolutely. Another one that's like, that was very big back in like 2016, almost a decade now, was one called Sonic Utopia. God, it's weird to think that that's this old. Yeah. But like it's really sort of an open world, single level demo of Sonic running in like a

Green Hill zone. The thing I really like about it was that the thing with Sonic games, like the 2D Sonic games is that they're very vertical. We're talking about like Mario games before. Mario games are very, you know, there's like one way to play each level. But Sonic games tend to have like branching paths. There's like always a top path, a middle path and the bottom path. And that sort of pathing system just doesn't particularly work in a 3D game.

Because trying to go up and seeing what's below you, seeing what's above you is just really hard. Yeah. But the Utopia tried to go, let's go really wide. And so instead you are just using momentum. Like you can gain momentum by going down like hills and then getting up real high by going on a loop. And there's just kind of all these little weird secrets in corners and like stuff like that that just like allow you to explore.

And it's one of those, this became like a lot of like Yucatakus and stuff like, this is what a Sonic game should be. Oh yeah, it's real. Say go high this man, the game. Pretty much. And they were like, they must have made Sonic Frontiers based off of Sonic Utopia. And it's like, no. But it's something where like they're sort of both trying a similar thing there where like they're trying to use Sonic speed in a different way.

And so I think that one was pretty cool by all standards in that case. Definitely. So, yeah, I added Sonic and the Fallen Star by his Star drop team. This is just a really gorgeous, gorgeous game. like they've nailed like a visual aesthetic that's very unique they sort of hit this very specific colour palette of blues greens purples and reds like every stage seems to use that specific colour palette and it gives it a cohesion

so it feels like you're sort of actually travelling through a world essentially and not just like individual stages that don't feel thematically linked it's an incredible effort and well worth checking out this is another complete sonic fan game as well that I would highly recommend. This is out. This is finished. Yeah.

Out, completely finished. You can download it now. It's a great game. They were developing a sequel called Sonic of the Moon facility, which has unfortunately been cancelled now. But a near complete build is available to download as well. You can only play as Sonic in it. They were hoping to expand it to more characters.

And it's a little bit buggy in places, but it's still another complete Sonic campaign that you can play through in the style of Sonic and the Falled and Star. Well worth checking out as well. another a real highlight of recent years and it just seemed to just come out of nowhere what was that called again the sequel the sequel? The sequel is called Sonic and the Moon facility. Oh right, right. That's an

interesting name. Yeah, they introduced some sort of like alien life form that keeps showing up throughout the game. It's interesting. Like lastly they do they're doing some really cool stuff but similarly visual it's got like a real cohesive visual look to it that's very unique to it. It's almost kind of cell shaded I guess

is probably the closest thing, but in 2D. Yeah, no, a really, really cool one. We're worth checking out. The only downside, I'd say, is that it does, that cohesion does make it feel like you're kind of playing the same stage over and over again. Yeah. So, it does make you appreciate why Sonic stages are the way they are, where they're, like, definitively, well, here's an ice stage, here's a grass stage,

here's a lava stage, because it makes it feel like you're in a new location each time, whereas something of the Fallen Star does kind of, unfortunately, feel like you're playing through the same area over and over and over again. But I do really like its visual style. I think it's something unique among Sonic fan games for sure. Absolutely. Do you want to take us over to Emerald Ties, Ryan? Yeah, I'll quickly go through Emerald Ties.

Emerald Ties is very much like a Sonic style, Sonic game. But it's done by Arietti. And it's a neat demo. It's one of the first I sort of played when I got back into Sonic Fan games. And I was like, oh man, this is actually really cool. Just like some really unique badnicks in the levels, as well as like new shields. Like, as I was saying, like, the thing I'd like to look for is what's new to these games.

And this one had like a wind shield that sort of allowed you like to sort of hover around for a bit that I thought was like kind of neat in a new way. And Ariety now, like they've sort of not working on that anymore, but they've been working on a game called Prototype N, which is sort of a Mega Man inspired, but original game. I always felt like Emerald Tires would end up getting completed. It always showed up randomly every four years or so. It was in development for so long and then it was a random demo

would just show up at a Sage and it was always lovely to see. I always impressed by Emerald Tires. I thought it was a beautiful game. Lovely pixel art in that one. Absolutely. Another one which I really, really like, again, in that same, like,

2016 was this game which has the most emo name, but it's called Sonic versus Darkness. Um, this game is definitely like, another one's like, oh man, I would really love this as like an actual real game as well. It's a sonic, it's basically takes the Sonic Rush games, but takes unleashed element. So all these other games are usually using Sonic 1, you know, the original Genesis games. This is a Sonic Rush game, but instead of having like, you know, vertical two screens, it's just there. But like, it just plays super well.

It's got like lots of really cool elements. that like you would get from like Sonic Unleash like when you go past the post it goes like the like tick tick tick ditt all that sort of stuff that like oh yeah I know that really feels really fun and Sonic the advanced games are all sort of a bit weird in their own ways and you know sometimes you know adding the rush elements of just being able to boost through stuff

like the way that it does like action chains when you're doing stuff it just has a flow to it that usually is missing from a lot of, like even like more modern Sonic games and stuff like that. But like when you get that flow, it just looks really cool. And it's just like, yeah, I'd love to see more of this.

It also makes me go like, man, I'd love to see a Sonic Rush remake, but like in this style. Yeah, basically. The handheld sonics of relatively recent years, I'll say, I mean, they're not so much now,

but you know what I mean? Yeah. They do run the risk of not being lost, obviously, but being kind of redundant in that sense. I do like the way that this one does carry forward that sort of style. For my personal tastes, I'm trying to put this in a polite way. Too much shit all over the screen all the time for me. It makes me feel tired.

But it's the kind of game that looks like it's aimed at the people who like to be graded, and that's not me. But I do love the fact that it's like a sense of speed, but also, you know, you can see so far ahead of you. now in wide screen. Sonic's actually quite small on the screen. It removes the issue of like some of the Sonic Rush levels had, which is that they'll drop you somewhere, sort of encourage you to boost and then you'll just immediately die

because there's a bottomless pit there. I think this looks really good. It makes me feel very old. But it looks very good. So yeah, I'm definitely going to be giving this one a go. Cool stuff. Yeah, I added Sonic World to our list. So this one's been in development. a very, very long time. Very much a love letter to adventure-style 3D Sonic Van Games,

Sonic games in general. They've drawn so many different stages from different games like Sonic Heroes, Sonic Adventure, even Sonic 3D Blast, like are represented in Sonic World. And they just keep adding to it all the time. There's so many levels, so many characters. You can play online multiplayer. It's a very, very impressive little game. It's a little shonky.

as a 3D Sonic fan game unfortunately. Right. But I think just the sheer quantity of stuff that you can do with it is pretty impressive. And it's still in active development. It gets tweaked. It's now in sort of like Sonic World DX form. So they've kind of tweaked the engine to make it feel a little bit more robust and they're shonky like it used to.

But like it's still a very, very impressive development. Another one that just is constantly in development. I'm just so impressed by how much they've added to it and it's always lovely to see that it's still out there to kick you know still kicking. Yeah. It's also got like a full like multiplayer mode and stuff like that. Like you can just join like a server and then you wander around a hub and then you can

like try to just actively start a level and just like race through it. I've had like, I played a level where it was like Rainbow Road, I think from Mario Kart was in there. They kind of, they've ported every. Yeah, as you said, it's got a lot of jank to it. Like, a lot of it's like, there's just no lighting in this level, but that's fine. It's just like, sure, it's just got this level in it from this game. Now, we just pretty much just loaded the file into it and then just figure it out. It sort of works as long as the end is there and the enemies are there.

But yeah, it's just a fun goofam-up type game in there. Yeah, no, for sure. And I think a game that very much achieves what Sonic World is doing, but at a much higher quality is Sonic GT, which is, again, another 3D momentum-based platformer. But, oh, my God, like, just the... It's insane to me to think that the fan game community reached to this point where we're developing

full 3D boost-style Sonic games and putting them out there for nothing. It's a wonderful thing. Like, just the sheer feel of that, again, like that flow like you're talking about. Like, when you get a nice... rhythm where you're running down a slope and round a loop and launching off a ramp and maintaining your speed through the boost and stuff like that. It's just, it feels incredible. And Sonic GT

has a real highlight. I think it's one of the most impressive 3D developments that has come out of the fan game community. Absolutely. And like the thing with that, that game as well is that the team who made that have now gone off to make a new game. And they've had a Kickstarter for it. It's a game called Roland Rascal, which is very much... Yeah, I think it was quite successful, wasn't it? The Kickstarter. It was quite successful. I've kickstarted it.

It is very much like, this is a 3D open world Sonic type game, except you're this little, little dude. And, you know... Legally distinct. Absolutely. The best type of distinct. Exactly. That's the natural evolution for these things, though, you know? Like, you make a game like that.

And let's go and make something that we can actually, you know, sell and make some money off because I think the talent involved in that team is very apparent in Sonic GT and I'm glad that Roland Rascal has been so successful. Absolutely. Do you want to talk about Sonic 3D and 2D? Yeah, we mentioned it earlier, didn't we? So yeah, this was an attempt to get Sonic 3D blast working as a sort of Sonic 3 and Knuckles style traditional 16-bit Sonic game and it's a bit of a mixed bag, I've got to say. I really do appreciate the effort that They've gone into making this because it is a full game that you can play from front to back. And again, those are very rare in the fan game community.

So, hats off to Sotunuk for developing and release in a full game. I just think it's a little bit mixed and a little bit confused in its direction. I do find that the choice to have it in 4-3 and not widescreen really does hurt the stage design quite a lot. You often find yourself running into enemies because you can't react to them quick enough or hazards and things like that. It's just, yeah. Having a little wider view on the action would have really helped this. It can well, because I thought that Triple Trouble was in 4-3 as well, triple-trues 16, but I could be wrong about that way.

You can choose between 4-3 and widescreen. I think a default to 4x3 by 3. Because I played Sonic 3D in 2D back when it came out. Yeah. And my prevailing thought when I played it, and again, I don't want to be mean because, like, it's obviously a huge amount of efforts going into this. But, like, I just kind of find myself thinking that's that, thing of like,

there's no restraint. It's like, it's not enough that we're doing this. We've got to get all these characters in there who weren't anything to do with Sonic 3D whatsoever. That's the confusion I was talking about. It doesn't feel like Sonic 3D a lot of the time, does it? Yeah, it's just, I find myself thinking like, I mean, this is quite cool, but it's not Sonic 3D and 2D, is it?

It's just a Sonic game with some motifs from Sonic 3D. And, you know, not, again, not knocking it because that's just me being a bit. No. I mean, it's a criticism. It's not like a dismissal, obviously. It's, I just feel like that something, I think that there's something that, I've got a little pet theory about this actually. Can I get into it or would that be unnecessary? Okay, well, this is going to come off slightly too much like I'm sort of psychoanalyzing?

But it's not intention. Well, basically, I think that there's this, with the community and with many communities, particularly the crossover with furry communities, I would say, who again, I'm not dissing. I've got loads of friends who are furry. There's nothing wrong with it. And there is a space where it's like, you're going to get the encouragement that you're seeking,

and that's a good thing. People are going to say, hey, this is great, keep doing this. But you don't, I think, get in a sort of formative stages. There's not a lot of, this isn't really great. This doesn't fit it. Maybe we should. change or remove this. And I think with,

I use Freedom Planet as my example of this because Freedom Planet is a really cool game that I really like that has some things in it that make me go, what's this doing in this? Like, tonally, like this is so inappropriate

for this game. And I think it comes from that kind of be supportive of this which all the, which means don't ever say this is not good. Yeah, I can't.

Yeah. And I don't really like saying it because I, I know now that obviously with things like the fan game communities now and the spaces that exist now and the groups and the competitions, that there's very much a space to say not sure about this now. I think the culture has changed in that respect. But at the same time, I think it is a bit of a catch-22

because like full Sonic fan games don't get completed unless it's one person with one singular vision, just cracking on and getting on with it. and as a result you get things like this where it comes out as a little bit of a I don't know what you were going for here mate it's a bit of a confused focus right but that's because it was developed in isolation at the same time

these games are being developed by young people probably getting into coding for the first time and for them to put those put demos out into the public and have them criticised can be quite a put-off as well so it's also a case of Oh completely do I ask for criticism and improve my project and am able to take that and use it constructively,

or is it a case of do I just crack on, just get on with it and make it in isolation and just make the thing I want to make. I want to make it clear. I would much rather these things dropped and that actually came out and were imperfect than not come out. Like that's, you know, that's obviously the preferable thing here. And I don't want to, I didn't want to come into this and be like. No, no, but I completely understand what I'm saying. It's one of those things, isn't it? It's a strange community in that it doesn't function the same as a normal, you know, game development process,

which would have testers and people, and lots of different people are accessing the project at one point and giving feedback. These things are generally made in isolation, and obviously that's where you get all the weird quirks. And I think that adds the character to them. I think that's one of the things I really like about fan games. But at the same time, it does mean that you end up with playing. projects that are a little confused and probably needed some time in the oven or needed a little bit of testing or some feedback and stuff

to make them better. These games are being tested by your mates, aren't they? Which is obviously very different to being tested in, professionally tested, not to say these people aren't doing a good job, you get what I mean. I think it's what lends, what makes these

so interesting in some ways. But unfortunately, the critic in me cannot just ever shut up. And like you say, it's not that fan games are above criticism or anything like that. It's just a case of the location in how they're built, which is very much in isolation by a single person a lot of the time, makes, ends up with creating a lot of quirks that, you know, we would probably go, hold on a minute, maybe we should tweak this or change it or, you know,

just, yeah, they don't get the feedback that a lot of game, you know, Triple-A games or even just indie games in general, just get in general as they're being developed because there's a team supporting that. But yeah, interesting, definitely. I'm glad we had a little chat about that because, yeah, it's one of those things where it's like this is what gives Sonic fan gaming its identity,

its character, it's quirks. I like that about it, but you do have to be... The individuality is a very desperate... But you do have to be forgiving of that because it's not going to be on... You're not going to be to everybody's cup of tea like yourself, like yourself. There's something like triple trouble 16, but sorry to go back to that well again.

It's for me, I'm not sure exactly what happened, but it just turned out with none of that. Well, see, that had regular demos that were coming out and being tested, and he was probably receiving a lot of feedback off that, and he's taken that criticism on and made a good game as a result, you know? And like you said, even the bit that you didn't like was corrected in a further patch, you know? It's one of those things.

I wish I'd appreciate it, although I wish you'd pitched it before I finished the game. It happens. It happens. It gives me an excuse to replay it, so, you know, no complaints. But yeah, let's carry on with our little list here. We've got Sonic Classic 1 and 2 here, which I added. I wanted to highlight these because, again, they're very much part of the modern crop of modern 2 to the East are Sonic fan games.

What if Sonic continued on the Saturn and had a widescreen display in higher color depth? They're very well designed. I think they've got a really good stage design. And the developer Hez, who created both of these. These are both complete fan games, by the way, another two full games that you can play from front to back. He also worked with Frank Safaudi to help restore the CyberCity Zone

that was restored from maps on the original Sonic 2 development team. And you can play that within his Sonic Classic engine, and that version has been what has been sourced to be ported over to Sonic, things like Sonic Delta. So, yeah, so his initial playable version of CyberCity was within Sonic Classic and developed by Hess, but using the files and the maps sourced from Franks Fowdy. So, yeah, really cool stuff. Nice.

One more I want to talk about is Sonic Frenzy Adventure. This was another one that was in development for absolutely ages. I reckon probably 15 years and finally released in its entirety in 2020. But what I like about it is it feels like a Sonic fan game. from 15 years ago. Like, it kind of left in all the quirks. It's, it's, it's got some very weird physics. It's a very fast game.

Um, and it does have, you know, momentum and, and sort of traditional 16 bit style action. But because of the speed of it, it does, it doesn't have the same feel as a classic 16 bit sonic game. It feels very quirky and a bit, a bit strange and out there. Um, this was developed by Frenzy Kun and I think it's one of those games I'd like to highlight because it does a lot of interesting things with shields and abilities. You can level up Sonic's rings as you play through the stage, which adds further abilities

to his arsenal. Mechanically, just a very quirky, cool little game that does something a little bit different. Yeah, I would highly recommend. It gets very difficult, though. It has a boss after every single act as well, which is insane. Like, there is so much creativity in its bosses. It's like how he continued to find ideas for bosses throughout this game is insane because it's such a big game.

I also added Sonic Overture. God, I forgot I added this to here. I recently did a video on... What a beautiful game. Yeah, I recently did a video on the revival of this, which is called Sonic Overture 95. But the original 2014 demo is a wonderful thing. Like one of my favorite fan games of all time.

It's not a complete game. It's only a little one-stage demo, but it has three acts. and it's trying to reimagine Sonic 1 using its original concepts. So stuff like Sonic's original bunny design is now an antagonist. Robotnik appears in his pajamas like that piece of concept art. There's the loop with the sun face on it, which you've seen in concept artwork that gets added into the game. It's got this lovely soundtrack with like a vocal theme on it as well.

It's one of my favorite fan games. I think the stage design is fantastic. I was really sad to see it only ever existed in that one stage demo. And then all of a sudden in 2023, it's been revived by another team as Sonic OVision-95, and they've had a new stage to it. They're continuing that project forward, and I'm really excited to see that project continue.

So Sonic having his bunny-like equivalent as the antagonist, that's just Epic Mickey, isn't it? They've just done Epic Mickey there. Very much, so, yeah. It's the Oswald to Sonic for sure. Not to criticize them for doing such a thing. No, no, no. I think it's just a fun little thing that they've added in there. And yeah, I just, he shows, he continues to show up in Sonic Overt, which is 95.

He antagonizes you before the boss battle in the second stage as well. It's a really cool game. It's super dedicated to that stuff too, because there's like lava sections in the game, which, like, look exactly like the concept for, like, Marvel Garden Zone, which is more like, you know, that was probably just drawn on like an amiga or something at the time. without like thinking about it being on a on a sprite sheet and like all the enemies

look like little little goblin dudes that were in like the original product concepts and stuff like that too so yeah those early screenshots like with the UFOs in the background of Marvel's owner in there as well I love that like never let have said they will not find a use for an idea

it's great it's fantastic I love all that stuff they even got Robotnik's little like butt crack in there it's got a really cool like special stagey sort of thing too where like you're trying to chase up over Eggman but it's all it's all 3D looking but it's also based off of like some of those early CG things I think that they did um as well yeah yeah it's got that sort of sprite scaling space harrier kind of look to it

isn't it yeah yeah that's really fun um but yeah no a lovely project I'm glad to see it back and I hope it continues to develop for sure. Do you want to take us over to Project Reignition? Yeah, I'll just do this. This is sort of our last of the fan games, but it's also more of a collective of just like lots of stuff

that people are trying to do in the Sonic World, which is, is like, you know, now that we have started, so Project Reignition is basically a remake of Sonic and the Secret Rings, which is the Wii game. It's a game which you need to use

the We moat to do everything with. It's, you know, going back to it now, it's, I mean, it was already really hard to play when I first came out. Yeah, it's a real hard to revisit. You don't want me to get started on this. No, it does look very wonky.

I remember playing this, a friend of mine, the original I mean, brought it round, and I remember at one point just sort of being like, now I'm over this, putting the pad down and just like going to the toilet.

And then when I come back, it's like stage clear. And I'm like, I don't even know how I, what's happened here. Like, I, that shouldn't be happening.

It's, I do like the idea of it getting a controller, uh, do over though, because there's definitely something here. I, I don't think that they didn't do the work with this game. I think they were probably put in an unenviable position of this has to be like this.

This has to be motion. And we have to use this. We remote. And of course, you know, the Wii eventually got, uh, like sonic colors,

which is a much more traditional kind of boost game. Yeah. Uh, but secret rings. I, I'm looking forward to project reignition. if it's content complete, so to speak, because I'd like to experience that game in its entirety

without having to pull my own neck off in sheer anger, which is what I end up doing whenever I try and play it. Of course, you can play it on Dolphin, but it's just kind of a pain. Like, it's... Yeah. There's no way to make this game not a pain,

so I'm hoping that they'll get this done and it will be transformative for its reputation, if anything, you know? Yeah. And then they can move on to doing Black Knight, I guess. Yeah, I mean, there's... Yeah, well, I'm... Yeah, part of people are doing, a part of this is really just like these different, you know, trying to recreate stuff. So I've put Project Reignition here, but there's also like the Sonic O6 remakes and stuff like that as well that people have been working on, trying to port it, you know, natively to console, but also like trying to fix stuff in those games.

Like, I would say that like trying to fix Sonic O6 in the ways that they do it, I think it just needs it, it's not really the way to do it. because I just hate the way that the characters look and play in that game already. It really needs to... I mean, it's something I want... Now that the doors have been, so to speak, kicked open by the Sonic Unleashed, and not just the doors for Sonic, the doors for 360 decomps in general. Because there's going to be so much information that they can take from this that will speed that up. I am really hoping that 06 gets done because a version of that,

which has had its roughest edges completely filed off by sheer performance grunt, if nothing else, is going to be, if nothing else, interesting. It remains one of, I'm a big old Sonic fan for my sense, and I really have never played through that game, and I would like to play through it. I want to know, I have to know, you know. Yeah. I mean, I've played through Shadow the Hedgehog. I've played through some right old toss, but that one has eroded.

It evaded me, not eroded me. It probably would erode me if I played it, but it has only evaded me so far. So I'm looking forward to that. But that's why stuff like... Same way I with Unleashed, you know, it's going to be interesting. That's why stuff like Project Reignition and Project O6 are so important because like it just, it's now offering you an alternative way to play it with some enhancements and better loading. And like, yeah, Project Reignition, even in its first demo release is an incredibly impressive little project.

Just, yeah, being able to play it with a much more comfortable traditional controller set up is, it's really lovely. And it just allows you to appreciate like the, art design in a way that like the the Wii version kind of masks it a lot like no offense to the Wii but like what would it being standard deaf and there's a there's an awful lot of like smeary I suppose they're trying to lose that hazy like hot heat like effect on a lot of the graphics of a secret rips and it really kind of masks an awful lot of the the artwork in a way that kind of makes it a bit ugly whereas project reignition is very sharp very clean looking

and it you can really appreciate just how how good the artwork is. When you try to play Sonic and the Secret Rings on an actual console, it just looks too wide. Like, yeah. He just looks weirdly just fat in a way.

And I'm not really sure what's going on there. It's like a weird resolution thing or something's going on. But like, it just looks correct. It might be that it's 4-3 and it's just being stretched for widescreen. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, for me, like, and I'm winging, I know. I know I am. But Sonic on, Sonic and the Secret Rings,

like, if I was going to do anything with that game. myself, it would be the fact that at the beginning of the game for like the first hour, every minute you're going to be hearing, make believe, re-ball. Stop it. Like, don't play that song every time you go to the menu, which is constantly... Not a fan of the soundtrack, I think, Stu. No, it's not that I hate the soundtrack, it's just that when you hear it every five seconds,

you want to kill, like, people. The same bit of the same song. over and over again. I don't know what they were thinking. But yeah, that brings us to the end of our discussion of what's currently happening with modern Sonic Fan Games. There's some really good stuff to try there. And this is just a slice of everything that's out there.

Like there are so many fan games out there. Across, you know, not just Sonic Fan Game H-Game, H-Q, they're on, like, game jolt as a whole bunch of them too. Like, there's people who are making all sorts of fun, interesting things. And it's just like, you know, if it's a programmer that doesn't know how to make art, then they can make a Sonic game and they can just put that out there and try something out. So it's a really cool thing.

It's something I wanted to, so just sort of to wrap it up really is basically this is not going to end. Like, it's never going to be an exhaustive overview because the Sonic community is never going to stop. That almost sounds like a threat, but I mean it in a positive way. So we could all, I mean, honestly, I guarantee you we could come back in even two years and then be enough for another two hours. Like it would be... Easily. And I'll say, you know, keep up with the scene and, you know, I'd say let me know as well

to anyone listening. If you come across something you think I'll like, kick me up on the blue sky or whatever. Because I do want to keep eyes on this. And this has been really educational for me. So thank you. I hope that it's been entertaining for the listeners. I mean, I'm sure it has been and informative. And I want to thank you both for doing it.

I'm really great. problem. So I guess the best thing to do would be even though they know already from the last episode where let's start with again the people who own a car. How can we find you on the internet and why should we? Yes, again, my name is Ryan Langley. I do own a car because I live in Atlanta, Georgia and you really can't get out anywhere unless you have a car. It's very much not walkable here. But yes, you can find me at Ryan on Blue Sky as Ryan.makesvidiogames.com. You can go to makesvigodogames.com and see my whole portfolio of all the different games I've worked on.

I've worked on games like Fruit Ninja, Jetpack Joroi, Doomsdeclicker, Dungeon Inc, Cluster Duck. And currently I am working with the guys at spicy gyro games who have made games like Panic Porcupine and Polyroll, who are part of the Sonic fan game community. Those games are very much Sonic-inspired. as well. I'm working with those guys on a little thing at the moment. But yeah, keep in touch with me. I am also running Sonic the Hedge blog, PlayStation Park, Sega City, Nintendo Metro, all sorts of Twitter and Tumblr, Blue Sky accounts that post gifts and videos every day. And yeah, I'm glad to have been here for the Sonic fan game podcast, and I'd love to keep doing this.

so. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I'm not sure if I should call you Sonic Yoda or if I should docks you. I've already dox you. I'm pretty sure we've said I'm called Lewis Clark on this. Oh, yeah. I think I'm pretty sure.

I have. Yeah, yeah. See, I forget everything that happens within five seconds of it happening. Sorry. It's fine. It's my name. It's not being dox. It's okay.

Good, good, good. But yeah, I'm Lewis Clark, otherwise known of Sonic Yoda. I run SegaDriven.com and it's accompanying YouTube channel, which you can find at YouTube.com, forward slash at SegaDriven. I do weekly upload. about whatever Sega gaming nonsense I'm decided to be interested in that week, and also a lot of Homebrew and Sonic Fan Gaming and Hack coverage of the Sonic Amager Games Expo and the Sonic Hacking Contest every year.

So yeah, well worth checking out. You can follow us on Blue Sky and Mastodon as at Sega Driven, and you can also follow me personally on Blue Sky and Mastodon as at Sonic Ida. And if you want to support Rutherlandauts, which I'm very grateful if you do, if you go ahead of patreon.com or Patreon, I don't know, I hate you, start on it, Patreon. Patreon. It makes sense.

Patreon.com for a mere $5 a month there are other tiers as well but this is the good one. You can get two full bonus episodes every single month for absolutely well not free for $5 but you know it may as well be free considering how good they are

and also you'll get diamond fights tremendous this month in this week in retro excuse me I've undersold their output this week in retro columns which are also recorded as podcast so you can hear from more talking and you'll also get the weekly episodes early every week so you can be the again the coolest kids on the playground.

I kind of stole that comment from Richard Herring and I want to stop using it, so hopefully he doesn't find out. But thanks very much for listening, and I have no plans to stop doing sonic episodes. I probably should. I've done lots and lots of sonic episodes. I don't want to just be the sonic guy, but I guess I've made my grave and it's time to get in it

and smooth the earth over my fallen body and just allow myself to decompose. So thank you for. very much for listening. Sorry for ending on a down note with my whole decomposing body there. But if you don't like me, it's more of an upnote. Thanks very much again, and take care and goodbye. Bye-bye.