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SAGE 2022 - Demo Sonic Encore

General Information

Sonic Encore is a fan-game that re-imagines the some of the classic levels from Sonic 2D era into a more modern 3D environmental setting. Not only taking visual cues from the classics, It is the an intended design goal that the playstyle of the game also feels reminiscent of the classic games 2D as well. which should provide a unique experience to other 3D sonic games.

The completed project consists of 10 levels, across 5 zones each with a boss fight
With this being my first project ever, I personally don’t call this a game as such more of a proof of concept
and the result of many hours of love and trial, error and lessons learned.
As such it will serve as foundation to build my skills from.

Because of this the Project lacks any sort of story or plot and is more of a greatest hits of some of my favorite levels.
Read the Update section below for what's new and what to be aware of.


Click HERE for the download link.
Due to the unexpected download amount triggering a quota limit I was unaware of, i have now got my Game Jolt link working.
Click HERE to get it from GameJolt

if there is still any download issues let me know below.




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Explore classic inspired levels from the 2D games

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Does Eggman have any new tricks?

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Explore a new simple tutorial level, learn controls and traversal options with a variety of characters.

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Its not just the levels that poke at nostalgia.

Latest reviews

It crashed on press any button screen.
Strike
Strike
On the any button screen.
Strike
Strike
I will try again
This is what 3D sonic should be in every sense, I genuinely mean that, I've had more fun with this game and its mechanics, momentum, characters and levels than I ever had on most Sega official modern 3D sonic games. The speed is great and I was able to just start this game up and go! the game looks beautiful and all the levels are translated amazingly to 3D not to mention the music is fantastic! The controls felt top notch and were real easy to get down. Every character is fun and some are definitely OP which is actually kind of cool because it let me break the game in some interesting ways and gives me an excuse to play this game more! The weight of sonic feels perfect and he is so dang snappy, I'm able to blitz away and gain so much speed and the momentum that I'm able to carry is awesome! Though this is not meant to become a super in depth experience and will be more of a greatest hits type game, let it be known that Sonic Encore has so much potential and I would love a full blown experience with a story and more stages! but if that never comes to pass then that's alright, Sonic Encore as it is now is all I could ever ask for in a 3D sonic game, its fast, its beautiful, its fun, its 3D sonic done right and I stand by that whole heartily!
I've been following this game since 2020, and it's amazing to see this game improving so much every year. Sonic Encore already had vast, immersive level design back in 2020, but we have more, overhauled levels, more characters, and better optimization now. I'm honestly very impressed. Although I still like the Boost formula very much, I can comfortably say this game and Sonic GT are my two favorite Sonic games. I get my Steam Deck this week, and I can't wait to try this game out on it.


Some of my feedback:

Graphics:
- Sorry I'm starting with negative feedback, but Sonic looks very weird because of his texture. Whenever I play as Sonic, everything looks vibrant and nice except Sonic. Perhaps he should be bluer. Other characters like Tails and Knuckles look fine, though.
- Speaking of colors, Some levels might need more saturation. Emerald Hill and Ice Cap look good currently, but I can't help but wonder how better they'd look with more vibrant colors, especially after playing colorful stages like Mystic Ruin and Oil Ocean.
- As I mentioned, Mystic Ruin and Oil Ocean look absolutely fantastic. I love crystals in Mystic Ruin and Oil in Oil Ocean. Reflections in these stages look cool too.

Sounds:
- SFX volumes are all over the place. Some SFX has good volume (like Spin Dash), some SFX are too loud (like enemy popping sound), some SFX are very quiet (like collecting ring), and some SFX are impossible to hear (like footsteps). This is the biggest problem of this game imop.
- Character SFX are so quiet compared to enemy/environmental SFX. I thought footstep sounds are not in the game until I reached Mystic Ruins. Other SFX like jump, bounce, stomp are also too quiet. Adjusting their volume will improve the game feel a lot.
- My earbuds hurt so much whenever I enter water :(

Controls:
- Sonic having Drop Dash and Additive Homing Attack (AKA Homing Attack+) is a perfect decision. 10/10
- Shadow's new turn animation and Blaze's new sprint animation look very smooth. Nice work!
- Characters' ground acceleration needs to be much higher. This causes both control issues and animation issues.
- It's nice to have both bounce and stomp, but bounce should restore homing attack since some of the platforming sections could've been very smooth if we could homing attack, bounce, and then homing attack.
- What happened to Homing Attack? Homing Attack sometimes changes its trajectory multiple times in midair. It's not problematic or anything, but I'm curious since this didn't happen in previous builds.

Levels:
- Easily the best level design I've seen in any 3D platformer. Sonic, whether 2D or 3D, needs expansive-level design, and this game certainly delivers.
- All levels are great, but I think my favorite ones are Ice Cap. Some Frozen Plant placements are rage-inducing and penguin badniks often completely ignore Spin Attack, but I enjoyed the overall level design so much.
- I like how bosses are implemented in the game. Especially how some Act 2 bosses include Act 1 bosses as minions.
- Mystic Ruins Act 2 and Aqua Lake Act 1 bosses are currently broken :O

etc:
- UI is not quite bug-free, but it has improved a lot since 2020 and 2021 build. Awesome!

Again, Sonic Encore is already a very fantastic game. I thought so back in 2020 and 2021. I'm just very happy this game is still being updated, and I think the dev should be very proud of their work.
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Comments

Holy moly, what can I say. This is phenomenal. 6 different environments to play and enjoy and it's only a demo! Pure fun from start to finish, absolute respect to the dev for making this game. Honestly feels like a complete game as it is! Also a bonus that my favorite character Blaze the Cat is playable too, as well as my 2nd fave Mighty the Armadillo.

The level design is good, particularly in the tutorial zone/Emerald Hill, very good at teaching new players how to work. I played it on Steam Deck and it worked brilliantly on it, other than occasionally needing to select items in menus using the trackpad/virtual mouse and unexpected menu selection mechanics (direction is reversed in the pause menu). This is an easy issue for the dev to fix though and is paled by the actual greatness of the game. And the music is also just so good. Oil Ocean Act 2 goes hard no cap.

In terms of things that can be improved on I can't really think of much since the actual gameplay is really fun and that's what really matters. The following things are minor and don't really impact the game much. The animations for Blaze could be tidied up a little bit, like her boost animation - she faces diagonally which is slightly misleading when aiming. Also her float could be tidied up a little bit also as it seems a bit rigid. The only other things are just generally when it comes presentation and tidying up some of the rough edges (e.g. visual design, font choices), but to be honest those aren't as important and are only the cherry on top.

Credit to the dev for everything you've done on this game, I know I'll be playing this regularly and trying to beat my times :) now excuse me while I speedrun Ice Cap hehe

EDIT: just realised this was your first attempt at making a game also, well done, this is better than a lot of professionals!
 
Quota expired, you guys should be using something other than Google Drive.
Dam i didn't know there was such a thing as a quota, normally I would have it on Game Jolt but I was having issues, I will upload to Dropbox as a backup to the back up thanks for bringing this to my attention
I now have my GameJolt version working.
 
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Holy moly, what can I say. This is phenomenal. 6 different environments to play and enjoy and it's only a demo! Pure fun from start to finish, absolute respect to the dev for making this game. Honestly feels like a complete game as it is! Also a bonus that my favorite character Blaze the Cat is playable too, as well as my 2nd fave Mighty the Armadillo.

The level design is good, particularly in the tutorial zone/Emerald Hill, very good at teaching new players how to work. I played it on Steam Deck and it worked brilliantly on it, other than occasionally needing to select items in menus using the trackpad/virtual mouse and unexpected menu selection mechanics (direction is reversed in the pause menu). This is an easy issue for the dev to fix though and is paled by the actual greatness of the game. And the music is also just so good. Oil Ocean Act 2 goes hard no cap.

In terms of things that can be improved on I can't really think of much since the actual gameplay is really fun and that's what really matters. The following things are minor and don't really impact the game much. The animations for Blaze could be tidied up a little bit, like her boost animation - she faces diagonally which is slightly misleading when aiming. Also her float could be tidied up a little bit also as it seems a bit rigid. The only other things are just generally when it comes presentation and tidying up some of the rough edges (e.g. visual design, font choices), but to be honest those aren't as important and are only the cherry on top.

Credit to the dev for everything you've done on this game, I know I'll be playing this regularly and trying to beat my times :) now excuse me while I speedrun Ice Cap hehe

EDIT: just realized this was your first attempt at making a game also, well done, this is better than a lot of professionals!
Glad you Like it so far, Blaze Shadow and Tails still need their animations cleaned up, Blaze so far has the most attention as I am tempted to do as Blaze Focused game next, so you can think of me testing ideas in this project, she has a lot of extra details added like her flame effects change when she is underwater for example. Tails swims also but yeah her peel out and hover special are on the list for improvement.
Yeah its my first project. 3 years ago I was but a babe in the woods, grabbed unity without a clue, and in that time I've learned a bit make a ton of mistakes and even learned Blender now replacing borrowed assets with ones of my own creation i don't expect Encore to be perfect but a example of lessons learned
 
Never left a comment before but I had to, this has been one of the standouts for me this SAGE! all the levels have a really good sense of flow and are just generally fun to run through, it plays a lot like sonic GT which is super impressive for one person! I really like the right bumper ability idea for each character. It's also super pretty especially from Mystic Cave zone onward, though because of that my computer struggled a lot in Oil Ocean zone. Genuinely super fun and very impressive!

Only real complaints are that Sonic's homing attack is really slow for me, especially in comparison to Mighty's.
And I found the enemies abit overwhelming in some stages,but that could just be me. Those are mostly nitpicks though. Great work!
 
Never left a comment before but I had to, this has been one of the standouts for me this SAGE! all the levels have a really good sense of flow and are just generally fun to run through, it plays a lot like sonic GT which is super impressive for one person! I really like the right bumper ability idea for each character. It's also super pretty especially from Mystic Cave zone onward, though because of that my computer struggled a lot in Oil Ocean zone. Genuinely super fun and very impressive!

Only real complaints are that Sonic's homing attack is really slow for me, especially in comparison to Mighty's.
And I found the enemies abit overwhelming in some stages,but that could just be me. Those are mostly nitpicks though. Great work!
Glad you like it, thanks for your feedback it helps me heaps. I am still tuning the characters stats. with homing im running a knifes edge as due to the momentum it has a flow on effect. i hopefully will nail it in the end
 
Overall looks very good and very faithful to 2d counterparts. Speed feels good and scale is juuuust right for a 3D Sonic.

However small gripes I've had while watching trailer:


These elements (steps?) could use some rounding and volume


- Ice cap walls could have a little bit more elements and overall randomness on the walls.

Thats basically goes for every straightly vertical wallls? Needs cavities and mild visual irregularities here and there
Like this wall -
This one from previous act looks much nicer -

And then there is oil ocean. Holy moly, as fan of this zone from sonic 2 you nailed it, it is perfect!
I really wish you will keep working on this project, gonna be cheering for its progress!
 
Overall looks very good and very faithful to 2d counterparts. Speed feels good and scale is juuuust right for a 3D Sonic.

However small gripes I've had while watching trailer:


These elements (steps?) could use some rounding and volume


- Ice cap walls could have a little bit more elements and overall randomness on the walls.

Thats basically goes for every straightly vertical wallls? Needs cavities and mild visual irregularities here and there
Like this wall -
This one from previous act looks much nicer -

And then there is oil ocean. Holy moly, as fan of this zone from sonic 2 you nailed it, it is perfect!
I really wish you will keep working on this project, gonna be cheering for its progress!

OK so without goin into too much detail about what i aimed to so with this project, I will at least explain some of these as there is a method to my madness, with some of these,
first 2 images are intentionally sharp not because i wanted to but had to. due to how the framework physics reacts to geometry edges, i agree it does not look the best, however while you can argue that Angel island lacks this issue if anyone who tried the very first demo back in sage 2020 the character would stick to the surface, so instead of just flying off the edge you would run over and down the face if the cliff. square edges eliminated the result, Angel island is different in that it was the first level i ever made and ALOT of lessons learned and at that time I had painstakingly added separate box colliders to every edge to trick the physics to behave, and i still missed most of them and you can go over at some points. I could try something with Emeral hill with the grass trim to feign a curve depends on how time consuming it pans out.

Ice Cap is a result of Performance optimization. in that I Had things there originally but had to Compromise a ton of things to keep it playable. even at one point all the little purple prisms on the fences and other stage details rotated but hat to turn them off.
when reducing geometry i tried to remove as much as i could that would not be normally be seen unless you stopped and looked up. then focused in areas that i hoped would draw the players attention to immediate threats etc again smoke and mirrors.

most of the cases its to keep the poly count down etc. Aqua lake Act 2 im still adding things to to make things more interesting one of which is what you have pointed out here as thank fully the count on that level is low so have alot of wriggle room.

yeah I love Oil Ocean. and its the most recent level ive made so it stands as a testament on how i have improved it uses completely new methods not employed on the older zones..
 
It seems you have a lot of work already done and you're near completion, so I won't bother you with any major suggestions. Overall this is a pretty good game, great work. The one big complaint I have is that the homing attack, at least Shadow's, does not seem to work well at close range. It had a habit of jolting all over the place and occasionally launching me into the stratosphere if I tried using it on something too close to me. Also, using it on bosses would have me sit inside them for a second or two, which was off-putting (Shadow's special wouldn't do that and would bounce me off like I would expect).
Additionally, I don't know what specifically was causing this, but in both Ice Cap acts I kept hearing this squeaking sound that was driving me absolutely nuts. I stopped playing in the middle of act 2 I was so aggravated by it. It sounded environmental, but I couldn't be sure. I don't know if anyone else has noticed or mentioned it, but it definitely annoyed me. Speaking of Ice Cap, I did come across a rather notable visual bug in Act 1. There's a particular corner where objects in a certain direction just stop rendering. I recorded a video of it starting from the closest checkpoint, which I'm linking here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/fvfvykifm2ietnm/Sonicencore_Sage22_2022.09.04_-_21.53.16.03.mp4/file (the squeaking I mentioned also happens about 9 seconds into the video, if you weren't sure what I was talking about.
 
It seems you have a lot of work already done and you're near completion, so I won't bother you with any major suggestions. Overall this is a pretty good game, great work. The one big complaint I have is that the homing attack, at least Shadow's, does not seem to work well at close range. It had a habit of jolting all over the place and occasionally launching me into the stratosphere if I tried using it on something too close to me. Also, using it on bosses would have me sit inside them for a second or two, which was off-putting (Shadow's special wouldn't do that and would bounce me off like I would expect).
Additionally, I don't know what specifically was causing this, but in both Ice Cap acts I kept hearing this squeaking sound that was driving me absolutely nuts. I stopped playing in the middle of act 2 I was so aggravated by it. It sounded environmental, but I couldn't be sure. I don't know if anyone else has noticed or mentioned it, but it definitely annoyed me. Speaking of Ice Cap, I did come across a rather notable visual bug in Act 1. There's a particular corner where objects in a certain direction just stop rendering. I recorded a video of it starting from the closest checkpoint, which I'm linking here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/fvfvykifm2ietnm/Sonicencore_Sage22_2022.09.04_-_21.53.16.03.mp4/file (the squeaking I mentioned also happens about 9 seconds into the video, if you weren't sure what I was talking about.

the characters are still in the testing and testing stage so not much more to say on that.

the squeaking is from the ambient bird noises and a doppler effect don't stress they annoy me to i though i had already removed them from this build fer not ill turn the birds into badniks next chance I get. :)

as for the other issue that is occlusion culling issue, fixable and just needing a re-bake of the stage, thanks for catching that for me to fix
 
This game breaks my heart... I've been following it idly for a good while now, and it always looks so wonderful in action, the zones are so big and detailed and graphically opulent, there's so much cool stuff... but when I play I inevitably get lost and run around in circles with no idea which way is forwards and which is back. And then a bunch of homing enemies that run faster than I do converge on me while I'm getting lost, or else I rush off a cliff and spend a minute or two underwater trying to find a way back up. So I think I'll stick to videos of people who know what they're doing, because when you do know what you're doing, this game has always looked so great, and I really like all the work that's gone into it and the 2D-to-3D redesign decisions, but my brain can't handle the space.
 
This game breaks my heart... I've been following it idly for a good while now, and it always looks so wonderful in action, the zones are so big and detailed and graphically opulent, there's so much cool stuff... but when I play I inevitably get lost and run around in circles with no idea which way is forwards and which is back. And then a bunch of homing enemies that run faster than I do converge on me while I'm getting lost, or else I rush off a cliff and spend a minute or two underwater trying to find a way back up. So I think I'll stick to videos of people who know what they're doing, because when you do know what you're doing, this game has always looked so great, and I really like all the work that's gone into it and the 2D-to-3D redesign decisions, but my brain can't handle the space.
Its a shame but don't give up, I think the best way for me to try and explain its to move forward and don't stop. the level flow has a forward direction in mind. most direction changes are often just a left or right, once becoming more familiar with the levels you can be adventurous. its been designed so there is no cross roads or intersections, most of the levels have subtle visual aids on the ground showing some worm in paths, not just for show but actually show the road.

the chasing enemies in hindsight are can be a bit much if you decide to run around like a slower platformer and are ment to be a hindrance to speed players that blast past enemies and will chase to make it more interesting.
an alternative if the enemies are being an issue you could try either spindash reving on the spot and let them hit you. or repeatedly bounce on the spot until the threat is gone.

also they don't like water and will die on contact.
 
This game breaks my heart... I've been following it idly for a good while now, and it always looks so wonderful in action, the zones are so big and detailed and graphically opulent, there's so much cool stuff... but when I play I inevitably get lost and run around in circles with no idea which way is forwards and which is back. And then a bunch of homing enemies that run faster than I do converge on me while I'm getting lost, or else I rush off a cliff and spend a minute or two underwater trying to find a way back up. So I think I'll stick to videos of people who know what they're doing, because when you do know what you're doing, this game has always looked so great, and I really like all the work that's gone into it and the 2D-to-3D redesign decisions, but my brain can't handle the space.
I don't really like open-world games, but do you struggle with them also? I like open level games though and I feel that's what Sonic Encore is, maybe the dev could implement a guided mode/tip window for anyone who needs it.
 
So I enjoyed this game enough to play through all the levels and try out multiple characters, but I do have some complaints. First of all like some people have said, the enemy tracking and speed is way too high. They should not be following so closely and for so long. Most of the time, they ended up hitting me while running at full speed which interrupts the game's flow and ruins the experience.

About the level design, it's not bad but like others have said, sometimes it's easy to get lost and you end up going backwards, which was kind of annoying. Maybe put some arrows around the levels to indicate the correct direction? Also, I felt like the levels were too repetitive and long. What I like about Sonic games is when they have variety like automated springs, homing attacks onto springs/enemies, rail grinding, ziplines, etc. Now there were some but not enough imo and the sections that did have multiple enemies to homing attack were pointless because you could just homing attack one and then propel yourself past all the rest with such a far jumping/air distance. Your best level was the last one as it felt more like a real Sonic game. Also each act didn't feel different enough. It just felt like the same level again. Finally, why is there no boost when the levels are really made for it? It would be nice to have it...

For the characters, I won't say too much because as you said they are still incomplete/in testing phase, but I enjoyed Ray and Blaze the most. Mostly because some platforming sections were tedious with such far jumping distance that I decided to just use the gliding abilities which helped a lot. Also Shadow's tracking on the homing attack was really off and sometimes was severely delayed, just to let you know.

Overall, decent game but it could use some adjustments.
 
So I enjoyed this game enough to play through all the levels and try out multiple characters, but I do have some complaints. First of all like some people have said, the enemy tracking and speed is way too high. They should not be following so closely and for so long. Most of the time, they ended up hitting me while running at full speed which interrupts the game's flow and ruins the experience.

About the level design, it's not bad but like others have said, sometimes it's easy to get lost and you end up going backwards, which was kind of annoying. Maybe put some arrows around the levels to indicate the correct direction? Also, I felt like the levels were too repetitive and long. What I like about Sonic games is when they have variety like automated springs, homing attacks onto springs/enemies, rail grinding, ziplines, etc. Now there were some but not enough imo and the sections that did have multiple enemies to homing attack were pointless because you could just homing attack one and then propel yourself past all the rest with such a far jumping/air distance. Your best level was the last one as it felt more like a real Sonic game. Also each act didn't feel different enough. It just felt like the same level again. Finally, why is there no boost when the levels are really made for it? It would be nice to have it...

For the characters, I won't say too much because as you said they are still incomplete/in testing phase, but I enjoyed Ray and Blaze the most. Mostly because some platforming sections were tedious with such far jumping distance that I decided to just use the gliding abilities which helped a lot. Also Shadow's tracking on the homing attack was really off and sometimes was severely delayed, just to let you know.

Overall, decent game but it could use some adjustments.
Thanks for the feedback I do have some questions that i hope you can answer which will help me improve things'
How specifically are people getting lost?
Part of the zones redesign was to generate an overall direction flow. in that you generally just keep going forward until a choice is needed. go left, right, take a zipline or a rail etc. some areas i have even put forced camera zones that when you reach them the camera forces the view briefly in the direction you need to go to ensure to keep you on the right track.(there is one on oil ocean i need to add i forgot)
there is one possible cause which is the checkpoints. where they spawn you facing a random direction often backwards. This is an issue beyond me, its an issue in all Bumper framework games even sonic GT has this issue, like moving platforms it one of the magical unicorn issues we cant catch and kill.
I do have a workaround but its not 100% but i really like to know how people are getting lost these days.

How specifically are the levels too long?
Design intent on average play it should take 2-3 minutes to clear the level not including boss fight. which can be achieve on all characters. speed runners do it much less of course but i feel this is the sweet spot. so I'm curious to know.

las bit ill comment here tells me in the end that it comes down to your personal tastes differ from my design intent, nothing bad or wrong with it, its just the way it is.

"What I like about Sonic games is when they have variety like automated springs, homing attacks onto springs/enemies, rail grinding, ziplines, etc. Now there were some but not enough imo and the sections that did have multiple enemies to homing attack were pointless because you could just homing attack one and then propel yourself past all the rest with such a far jumping/air distance. Your best level was the last one as it felt more like a real Sonic game. Also each act didn't feel different enough. It just felt like the same level again. Finally, why is there no boost when the levels are really made for it? It would be nice to have it..."

now the main thing here with Encores design conflicts the most with what you prefer is momentum. this is something the boost games lack as well as the over use of automatics so things like speed bumpers in loops etc to essentially carry the player though sections with no effort. same applies to rails.
with momentum there is no need for boost, however its more up to the player to gain and maintain speed. using loops correctly, rolling down slopes and ramps for speed etc. if your not taking advantage of these. i can see how you can have an issue, the tutorial explains this up to the section where you use the loop to gain enough speed to clear the wall.
the other design intent was to not only recreate the visual appeal of the 2D games but the momentum and feel of play which i feel I've come pretty close to achieving. there are some things i can adjust and will do so however as nothing is perfect,

there are vids from streamers like Blue Vivacity or Sonic Overtime that play this game sometimes better than me. if you want to see how some others are playing it.
 

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