Originally posted by 2Tie

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I always found it interesting that, while Mario has had some pretty faithful clones for decades, Sonic took so long for non-SEGA groups (which some groups *cough*DIMPS*cough* still can't) get feeling at least close...

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The main difference between writing a Mario engine compared to a Sonic engine is that if you need to do a good Sonic Engine, you need to take in consideration many things: Good collision detection, an engine supporting fast movement, good programming of sloped surfaces and how those affect the speed, different speeds for different actions, which is paired up with correct understanding of physics and MOMENTUM, "skidding" time, responsive controls, and the list goes on.

Then comes the level design, which is nothing like a Mario level should be. You can't just put a maze level forcing you to stop all the time (or if the designer wants it should at least take a cue from Labyrinth/Marble Zone).

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Originally posted by Lunaria

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I don't know, while I agree that Sonic fan games are bad I don't think mario ones are any better. The thing is, it's just a whole lot more obvious in the sonic ones due to the mechanics attempted, as Kak64 pointed out. There's a lot to making a competent platformer in general though, and that's where most fan games fail. (And SMW hacks. :> )

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Oh yes, while making Mario games is generally easy, making an actual good game requires knowledge of how to make a good level.

Because:

Mario Level ≠ Super Meat Boy Level

Mario Level ≠ Sonic Level

Mario Level ≠ x^n Munchers

Why?

Super Meat Boy has different rules, like a slightly different wall jump, instant level restart and levels that last less than 30 seconds, so this shouldn't be considered an inspiration at all.

Sonic levels have a different look and feel; it's the same reason why making a Sonic game with Mario-like levels is a bad idea.

A level needs to have enough balance. Generally it comes as a question: "Does this level look like a level Nintendo would make?".
Especially with how the spike/mucher collision and the PHYSICS work, making a level where you need to jump from small (1 block) platforms, or full of spikes is a bad idea. If it was a Wario game (with instant turn and no momentum) it would have been acceptable, but for a Mario game it can only cause frustation.
Yet, way too many levels do this, and the authors don't believe they've made a crap level.
A good example would be the lowest rated (sometimes even the higher ones) levels from the SMWC level design contest. On a related note "Good Background ≠ Good Level Design". Nobody can say someone made a good level just by looking at the BG, with the level full of frustration. Just no.

Anyway, while a good Mario game doesn't need an engine as good as one to make a Sonic game, it still needs good collision detection and GOOD CONTROLS. Just look up on Yoyo Games (or even on a Flash Games site, like Newgrounds) how many "Mario" fan games fail to do so. Some even fail in both categories (See this).

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Originally posted by Tamkis

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Well, there are some fan game made with fan-game engines which take care of the mechanics aspect for developers, so that they can focus on level design aspects, instead of reinventing the wheel and coding an engine from scratch. Specifically, I am mentioning Sonic Worlds for 2D games and SonicGDK for 3D games.

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Still, what I've said about level design for Mario levels also counts for Sonic levels. No matter how good an engine is, poor level design choice will ruin it and viceversa.

Related to a 3D world, one of the biggest challenges is to make non-scripted loops work not in 2.5D. If my memory serves me right, a couple of public fan game ever did that without making the player dizzy.
I'd be surprised if somebody count replicate that or improve upon it - it's for sure not an easy task.
Sure, it's not necessary, but it can count as an "achievement".

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Originally posted by Inuyasha

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I want to hurt all of you talking shit about Sonic 4. Can I do that?

There's this nice, wonderful game called "Sonic Generations" that doesn't even try to do proper physics but still manages to be treated like a gift from god.

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It's because Classic Sonic makes all the hate go away (and onto Dimps games).

Originally posted by Inuyasha

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Mario physics are more complex than it seems, especially if you try to do things like NSMBW or beyond. The level architecture in Sonic games is mostly static and it's easy to pre-compute the proper angles beforehand, but... NSMBW especially has a whole bunch of levels where the entire level consists of jumping around on rotating, moving blocks, with the engine having to handle what it should do if the player lands (or even worse, stomps) on the huge rotating block.

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True, but the examples were made with SMW in mind, which (along with SMB 3) has much simpler physics.

As I said before, while it's generally easier to make an engine like the one that powers SMW (due to not having to cope with speed)... and that is. You still have to take care of everything else, good controls, momentum (and again skid time), and I'd be just repeating the list.

There are some good Mario engines out there too.
Although these days you can just write a piss poor engine, slap a poorly edited Mario sprite from SMW and call it a good game.

Then I could just talk about a good 3D Mario engine... but I'd be only going offtopic.


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Originally posted by Zero One

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Originally posted by Inuyasha

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There's this nice, wonderful game called "Sonic Generations" that doesn't even try to do proper physics but still manages to be treated like a gift from god.

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Bearing in mind that I didn't grow up with any of the classic Sonic games (seriously, I played all of Green Hill Zone of Sonic 1 and that's about it), why is Generations terrible? I mean, I freely admit that Adventure, Heroes, '06 and the rest of them are pretty terrible (especially that Secret Rings one. Couldn't stand that.), but I just can't see what's bad about Generations. The fact that it actually works is an odd little bonus.

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Also, there is ONE particular game I've grown up: Sonic Chaos (kill me). The physics for that game are to be seen to be delivered. This, along with 8-bit Sonic 2 with its controls on ice (at least in a spin), there you go with the controls.

For whatever reason 8-bit Sonic 1 (even them mostly the GG version) had better controls, but for obvious reasons the Genesis games still beat them.

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