Snapshot 0.1w1

Published: 9/7/2024

Ah shit, its been a while hasn't it? Sorry about that! It's been a wild ass half a year since I last talked about this game in depth. I've been through a lot of serious life milestones that needed attention, and I'm currently actively looking for a job (if you need a Unity, C# or JS dev email me!) The game too has been through a lot of milestones under the hood, some good some bad.

What is this game again?

As the WIP name "UnityRiders" implies, it is a from-scratch clean-room spiritual successor to Sonic Riders made in Unity. My goal is not to replace Sonic Riders but to capture the frantic energetic gameplay and bring it forward in a format that is more accessible to modern players. The original games have only ever been released on now officially unsupported hardware, and aftermarket resale copies are reaching the point where there might not be enough copies on the market for the games to have a serious resurgence.

SEGA/Sonic Team haven't appeared to make any moves preserve or rerelease these games on modern hardware (that we know of, they remade Sonic Colors from scratch to rerelease). There have been a handful of fan remakes, but all of whom seem to be interested in emulating the success original rather than spinning off and taking the games in a new direction. All of them use unlicensed SEGA characters, preventing them being allowed to market the games or attempt any kind of commercial endeavor with them. They all live and die by the charity of the sonic fanbase, which is all well and good and great for nostalgia but can't actively attract new fans.

So I'm taking it into my own hands, I'm developing new title intending to be sequel in gameplay alone, featuring a new cast of original characters, and unique gameplay mechanics to set it apart from it's sources of inspiration. All of which is being developed entirely from scratch in Unity Engine.

(Why Unity? I know you're asking that after the Runtime Fee shitshow. The only reason I'm developing in unity is because I've already spent a decade using it, and I wanted to release something in it before investing another decade in learning something else. I've looked into it, and Unity got scared so shitless they walked back nearly everything about the runtime fee to the point it's just a marginal price increase now. Not to mention, for indies and small teams it only applies to "pro" users/teams who can still earn up to $1,000,000 a year before being obligated to pay anything at all. And if you don't need pro for technical reasons; you can earn up to $200,000 a year before being obligated to upgrade to pro.)

Show me the Goods

Okay here you go!

Download 0.1w1

Frankly there's a metric ass-ton of changes under the hood but not much on the surface. A lot of smaller features that still exist in code (like computer players) for example were cut out due to not being implemented fully after the refactor.

Next week I want to work on fixing up a lot of the broken features, and adding more visual effects that affect the energy of the game.

Changelog

  • PlayerController related scripts have been heavily refactored and combined to improve maintainability.
  • PlayerController script now use a standardized abstract InputFrame system that all character controlling systems (Human player, computer player, potentially ghost data replayers?) can have a standardized system of providing inputs.
  • Heavily refactored and cleaned up PlayerController to be easier to better conform to design standards and eliminate redundant and extraneous code.
  • Created CompetentAnimator, a scripted animator that access and animates values directly so that the vagueness and bugs of Unity's animation system won't slow down development. (God I'm so frustrated with it.)
  • Created a dynamic anime-style speed lines particle system to indicate high speeds.
  • Fixed fuel gauge and Speedometer.
  • Fixed logical error in ItemBoxes that prevented them from being picked up.
  • Entirely removed Cinemachine from the project.
  • Increased fuel-drain to better values.
  • Player is now assigned a camera more robustly, simplifying setup.
  • Added Robot Kyle for future humanoid animation testing. (Hi Kyle!)
  • Properly connected new input system to boosting code.
  • Fixed a bug where player could boost in any movement state. Player should only be able to boost while riding their board.
  • Cleaned up boosting code.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the slide button from registering.

Special Thanks to My Patrons

  • Freakus
  • ToyDragon
  • Teejabs

If you like my work, consider Supporting Me!