In the meantime you can check out my new website: IndieGamesCollective.com In addition to having a few Sonic fan games on there you can read Game Maker tutorials by Mercury, a Pixel Art Guide by me, and some original games by Aural Automaton.

IGC is also unique in that it lets users post their own pages to the site instantly. These pages are for engines, tutorials, or games, and can include files, video, image galleries, and articles.

Check it out. There is even some new art for Time Twisted if you look around.

I thought it was a cool idea, so I made some STT-inspired art of my own:

A laptop which can comfortably run AeStHete contemporaneously with Camtasia Studio 7, I might add, so expect some progress videos like this one:

Snippets are a feature in AeStHete that lets you add bits of GML code to a window. Clicking them will run them once, and using the RMB will bring up a menu that lets you Loop them, which will run them every step until stopped by using the same menu. A terribly useful debugging feature, if you ask me.

I know a lot of folks are waiting patiently for AeStHete to be made public, but it won’t be released until after Sonic Time Twisted is finished.

Ideally when Time Twisted is done the levels can be worked on further and released as a sort of sister game to Time Twisted.

On top of that I plan on making several posts throughout SAGE, detailing the three new shields, the many badniks designed thus far, and descriptions and screenshots of some more zones. It’s all happening after I get some sleep of course. Until then, enjoy these screenshots.

Viridian Valley

Viridian Valley Future is a sea side tropical setting. It’s a popular site for boating and various beach activities. The past sees Viridian Valley as it was before the touch of man. Sonic and friends will run into a few boats and shifting earth in the future and past respectively. 

Attraction Attack

In the future Attraction Attack is an amusement park under the watchful eye of Dr. Robotnik from his pyramid base. In the past see the construction of the park before it fell into the clutches of Robotnik. Either way the level is filled with lots of bumps, flippers, and more unique gimmicks too. Ball pit, anyone?

Metro Madness 

Metro Madness is a large city built for crazy speed and an emphasis on transportation. The future is filled with blimps and various platforming gimmicks to help break up sections of great speed. The past is set in the old city expect to see trains, clothes lines, and smoke stacks. Special thanks to Phoebius and Rika Chou for providing us with the base tiles to design this level.

Frigid Fortress

Frigid Fortress Future is a toxic arctic setting partially melted by Robotnik’s doings in a near by cave which you can expect to visit within this zone. Given that Robotnik is around Sonic will no doubt run into a lot of his contraptions such as electric snow blowers, rocket elevators, and ice bombs. The past is set around a frozen castle which Sonic will weave in and out of throughout the level. To make it through the past Sonic will have to solve chess puzzles, and ride a speed powered ski lift.

More to come this week!

That background you see is the REAL parallax background from the first level, Viridian Valley Zone. (If you have gone back far enough on the project to remember “Disport Drive”, that turned into this.) Aw, what the heck, have a couple new mockups:

(left: Viridian Valley Zone Future, right: Viridian Valley Zone Past)

Those have all been polished and updated (anyone who played the SAGE demo last year should really check out the new mix of Perplex Puzzle!) and now we also have Viridian Valley Future and Past, Attraction Attack Past, Invincibility/Clear jingles, a boss battle theme.

We also have revealed entirely new levels like the massive cityscape of Metro Madness (Past song is complete, Future song is work in progress) and Dr. Robotnik’s diabolical airship powerplant, Drifting Dynamo (Future song is complete, Past is work in progress).

Time Twisted has gotten a lot of cool new stuff since the last time most of you have heard about it. The new stuff to show off in terms of the gameplay itself is still not quite ready for prime time yet, but it’ll be soon. In the mean time, take a listen to the new tunes!