Q: The sprite work in this game is absolutely phenomenal! Is there a particular style you’re going after and is this all being done by yourself or do you have others assisting with the art as well? Lapper: So far it’s just me drawing it all! The style is originally based on Mania, the character shading methods certainly are. There aren’t many ways to prevent it either – perhaps there can be a use to it, who knows! Normal use should be fine however and the engine can handle high speeds very well in general. While I’ve created an engine that is I’d say 90%+ accurate movement-wise, it does mean that users can indeed make something that will break said engine. Users can make whatever level shapes they can think of, and as I’m sure you can imagine the original Sonic engine would easily break if you could throw any shape or corner or tight gap Sonic’s way. This is nice but also gives me a challenge. The Sonic engine is as accurate as is sensible. Was it a challenge to nail them down and do they cause any issues when designing levels? Lapper: That’s a great question because again it all comes down to slopes. Q: Sonic is notorious for having a difficult to replicate engine, namely in terms of physics. I can’t go into specifics in that regard yet as it’s all in progress. Aside from editing, there will be a sharing aspect. It’s not hard to create something unique from what’s provided. Tilt a bridge, remove that grass, rotate a spring, lengthen that palm tree. Everything is pre-made in a sense, but have various attributes you can edit at will. I see this project as a challenge of sorts! Q: Obviously creating levels is a big part of Sonic Studio, but what other features can you tell us about the game? Lapper: You can choose characters, zones, decorate, and customise. But for a style of a game such as 2D Sonic, I believe this is a fitting risk. It’s not easy to regulate what someone makes when you aren’t bound to tiles. I always knew a method for allowing people to create their own slopes was a … slippery slope. For a dedicated editor with Sonic to be truly worth while, slopes had to be the core of the creativity. I started building editors which followed the tile method. Officially, I was originally inspired by the PlaySega Level Creator from back in 2010 where you would place large pre-made tiles down in a grid. Q: There’s a lot of Sonic fan game engines out there, but never something that’s quite as easy to use as Sonic Studio? What was the driving for or inspiration behind it’s inception? Lapper: I’ve been making level editors ever since I started making anything. Enter Lapper, a Sonic Retro user who has been working diligently since 2010 to create a more thorough and consistent level creator based on previous Sonic titles on the Genesis dubbed Sonic Studio (formerly known as Sonic Maker.) We took some time to grill Lapper about his project and what we can expect in the future. While long since gone, as PlaySEGA itself has been shut down for several years now, those who played it will likely recall a less than stellar recreation of the original Sonic the Hedgehog with some new sprites thrown in for a fairly limited experience. Level creators are nothing new to video games at large, but throughout the long history of the series, Sonic the Hedgehog has only had one level editor officially released.
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