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Sonic Robo Blast 2: 25 year old continuously developed DOOM engine-based fangame

297 points| __grob | 5 months ago |srb2.org

45 comments

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kevinfiol|4 months ago

I LOVE Sonic Robo Blast 2. Please also check out the amazing kart racer spinoff, SRB2Kart! It is one of my favorite kart racers.

https://hyuu.cc/

https://wiki.srb2.org/wiki/SRB2Kart

lawrencejgd|4 months ago

And don't forget its sequel, Dr. Robotnik Ring Racers! Since I discovered it became one of my favorite video games, it's pretty technical and hard to dominate, but it's so exciting each time that I play it that I can't stop recommending it to everyone.

https://kartkrew.org/

smrq|4 months ago

It's incredible that this project is still alive and kicking. I love that they have a whole archive of old builds and descriptions. Based on the descriptions I must have played this around March 2001 (a few months before the release of Sonic Adventure 2!)--my memory exactly matches up with the description of Demo 2. I doubt at the time that I thought it would even make it to a Demo 3! Kudos to everyone involved.

gcr|4 months ago

Working on SRB2 mods kickstarted my computer science career about twenty years ago. It's a really good game and, incidentally enough, an amazing learning tool for springboarding level into level design and practical C/C++ knowledge.

I owe my career to this community.

linehedonist|4 months ago

Playable in browser here: https://vinmannie.github.io/srb2web/

recursive|4 months ago

Looks interesting, but I can't pass the camera control tutorial level. As I move the mouse to control the camera, eventually, the mouse moves outside the browser window, and the camera direction gradually aligns with Sonic's POV before I can move the cursor around the window to re-enter the opposite side to continue moving. Continuous mouse movement seems necessary to keep the camera aligned differently from Sonic's movement direction.

I don't think this is how it's supposed to work.

ecshafer|4 months ago

very hard to play on a double monitor set up.

KolmogorovComp|4 months ago

Another unplayable game on non-QWERTY keyboard

tombert|4 months ago

SRB2 is easily my favorite 3D Sonic game, and judging by the recent ports to stuff like the Sega 32x, it makes me wonder the “what if?” Universe where Sega had made a competent 3D Sonic game to compete with Mario 64.

AdmiralAsshat|4 months ago

The fact that the next-console's Sonic Adventure 1 still felt like an also-ran Mario 64 makes me think that it probably wouldn't have made a difference.

Much ink has been spilled and fingers pointed over the failures of Sonic Xtreme and other attempts to make a fully-3D Sonic game on the Sega Saturn, but I think it fundamentally comes down to the fact that the creators didn't know how to translate the core gameplay loop into 3D.

Dwedit|4 months ago

The 32X version is incredible. Imagine if there were other genres of games running on the DOOM engine, maybe it could have even saved the 32X.

chromehearts|4 months ago

I found the game & it's spin-off "Robo Blast Kart" like 6 years ago? The Kart game is SUPER fun & honestly better than official Mario Kart games. I didn't know the original game is 25 years old?? Incredible

dmonitor|4 months ago

SRB2K is very frustrating to me for a few reasons

- it is very nearly perfect, but has some minor issues especially in regards to the strength of frontrunning (early leads tend to become unbeatable) - the development team has mostly abandoned it in favor of the sequel, which completely abandons the brilliant simplicity of SRB2K - the development team kind of take a rude approach to the GPL. They don't really accept PRs from the community, and work in secrecy rather than out in the open. They still publish their work, so they comply with the license, but it's a bit lame - The modding community is super weird about reusing other people's code and will pitch a fit if you get caught reusing someone's lua script without their permission.

olivierestsage|4 months ago

I didn't know about these Sonic games, but as a Doom fan, I have to say that the use of the Doom engine for Sonic makes good sense. The way it feels to move around in "3D" space in Doom is one of the best parts of the game, IMO; there's a weight and sense of momentum to the player that I found lacking in full 3D games like Quake. I could see this working very well in a platforming/kart racing context.

Aissen|4 months ago

RIP Mugen and Bid For Power. Don't forget to make backups of those fan games!

AdmiralAsshat|4 months ago

I've still got burned CDs of some of the Bid For Power alphas downloaded from KaZaA (I think?).

My memory was that despite the enormous time-sink required to get it working, it actually wasn't very good. Like once you get over that initial thrill of being able to levitate in 3D space and blast a crude Kamehameha at people, the rest of the experience was pretty clunky.

whywhywhywhy|4 months ago

Crazy imagining the alternate history is they'd figured out the Doom engine would be a good match for this back in the day. Although I'd never have believed it if I hadn't seen it.

kwanbix|4 months ago

I tried playing it but W key (forward) is doing nothing. Only A and D do something.

treesknees|4 months ago

This looks fantastic, but I can’t help but wonder how long before SEGA or the owners of the Sonic intellectual property take legal action against the game.

robrtsql|4 months ago

I’m not saying it could never happen, but SEGA appears to be much more tolerant of fangames than Nintendo. A cease and desist is a given for any Mario fangame of renown, but Sonic games appear to attract no attention from SEGA. Also, it’s been 25 years..

bitwize|4 months ago

This project has been going on for over 25 years. It used a Sonic Doom wad I made in the 90s as a starting point. If Sega really objected to it, they would have dropped the hammer by now.

Klonoar|4 months ago

I played this back when it first released. SEGA has absolutely known about it for the entirety of its existence; the Sonic fangame/modding/etc community has a long and storied history behind it.

They've taken action against things in the past, but they're not Nintendo. I'd be shocked if they did much about this particular effort.