Second update! I’ve added new sounds and improved physics. I also improved the web template.

I apologize for the giant GIFs, itch.io Markdown doesn’t seem to allow custom sizes. Next time, I’ll capture them at lower resolution.

Character physics

Ceiling landing

Sonic can now “land” on the ceiling after jumping directly onto a top-left or top-right corner (up to 45 degrees from the wall as in the original game). This doesn’t happen frequently in this stage, but can be done in loops:

Before (v5.3)

After (v5.4)

Ground fall-off

I fixed Sonic’s erratic behavior when approaching a steep slope from the top. He used to jitter a lot, hesitating between the slope and the flat ground. At high speed, he would run the slope down. Now he just falls at once. In the original game, he would always stick to the slope and run without rotating his sprite, as if he was flat ground; but it was easier to just fall, and I think it’s still an intuitive behavior.

Before (v5.3)

After (v5.4)

Visual

Stage intro

I fixed the darkness shading (color swap) not applying to the first frame in the stage intro scene.

Before (v5.3)

After (v5.4)

Audio

There is now an SFX accompanying the screen “swipe” fade-out transition, and a jingle when player got all emeralds on the result screen.

Web

I made the web template darker and more symmetrical vertically.

Before (v5.3)

After (v5.4)

Detailed changelog

Added

• Audio: added “got all emeralds” jingle with delay
• Audio: added menu swipe (zigzag fade-out) SFX during stage clear
• Character physics: character can land on ceiling corners up to 45 degrees
• Character physics: fixed character jittering when walking down from the top of the first curved slope to the left. Now, character falls when ground angle changes by 45 degrees or more. This is an original feature and differs from Sonic 3, which would let Sonic stick to the curved slope while running as if it was flat ground.

Changed

• Stage intro: fixed fade-in color palette swap not applied on first frame
• Stage clear: do not show “Retry (keep emeralds)” if you got 0 emeralds
• Export (web): improved HTML template to just fit the game canvas
• Export: stripped some unused code/data for smaller cartridge
• Engine: updated pico-boots and adapted API calls