#sonic stagger

[ray-fantasia]

i reformatted all the ideas for the stagger engine project again, and its all completely different to literally every previous post ive made about it, but also somehow more faithful to the original vision i had. no promises that it'll actually go anywhere though, but it has a story and a really fun setting, so i made some concept art anyway :]

also yes, that is shade the echidna, shes awesome and i put her in the story and shes cool and awesome and green now

sketches under the cut, and an old drawing of the new shade design if you havent seen it:

[ray-fantasia]

angel island 95% repaired under the blocked city opening for the stagger engine game

[ray-fantasia]

another Stagger thing

have fun looking at this on mobile lol

her name isn't going to be shade in this story because of kenpenderisms, but the idea of another echidna clan is taken directly from sonic chronicles for this.

also instead of having weird sci-fi armor, I'm making this echidna clan have a cultural style that parallels the knuckles clan style. which is Maori, because it's ocean based, and this game takes place in an underwater ruin, and it's criminal that the only bit of Polynesian culture is Jungle Joyride, considering how much the Sonic cast just finds little islands. (also I'm from New Zealand)

I think it parallels Knuckles well, with the Knuckles clan being the Mountains, and the (rename nocturnus) clan being the ocean

I'm having fun with this story, and Knuckles gets alot of spotlight. and I like adding onto echidna lore. I do have to redesign (and rename) 2 more main characters. Imparitor Ix, and Nestor the Wise, who is a woman now and canonically dead lmao, I'll give more context when I make those pieces, but don't expect them to be put soon, wifi still being stupid.

[ray-fantasia]

WIP that probably wont be finished, but the Sonic Stagger Engine takes place in an abandoned ancient mega city that was built underwater, similar to atlantis, the game starts off on an egg fleet in space, that sonic and team destroys and it falls onto earth, the destruction of it opened up an entrance to the ancient city, also activating a core that explodes and shoots a beam into angel island, shattering it and sending the pieces into the city aswell,

the destruction of the core means that the entire city will begin to flood, team sonic has to try and save whatever is in the city, while also keeping eggman away from the magic stuff inside, they save the wisps that eggman was transporting, they find the chaos emeralds and master emerald fragments (that also fell in) as they also unlock more secrets and lore to the lost civilization. the city is the main world, and the game is structured kinda like a 3d hollow knight

[ray-fantasia]

Idea for the Stagger Engine

the game is a 3d platformer metroidvania, there are warp rings that take you to stages, in the stage, there are wisps, you can only use a wisp in the main world when you have freed a wisp in a stage. and the wisp can then give you the ability to get to the special stage rings hidden in the main world. entering a special ring would then give you the emerald and a new ability, the special stages are all about escaping quickly, the only thing that's scored is time. the emerald challenge level is entirely focused on the new ability.

also every time you free a new wisp, it'll let you know that you can now find and use that wisp power by showing a little popup on every wisp you haven't used before

retrying a special stage costs rings that you earn by completing a stage, every retry costs more and more rings until you get kicked out, and you lose the emerald. you get kicked back out to the last saved checkpoint with 0 rings. you either have to search around the open world for rings in the platforming areas, or redo a stage to earn more rings as a backup for failing. but either way, you have to do the platforming challenge again just to get back to the emerald ring.

also enemies in the main world that are close to a special ring will have that ability. with there being enemies that try to stomp onto you and crush you when near a blue emerald (I haven't actually decided on what emerald gives you what ability yet, this is just a random example)

you can make combos with emerald abilities, like using a bounce on an enemy in the air will kick them downwards. every combo is recorded in the Miles Electric, or Miles Mini, but you have to experiment and discover each new combo and ability, when you do that, the combo will be recorded so you can see how to do it again, and you can try it out in the training room. you can also spend rings to discover combos for you, filling out the miles electric's combo tree unlocks a special thing (keeping it a secret lmao) also with the miles electric, you can spend rings to charge up a collected chaos emerald, leveling it up (you can do this 3 times, but its very expensive) for example, the blue emerald bounce lets you do it 3 times- each bounce getting higher- before you uncurl and you lose access to some other arial actions (like srb2 max control sonic) but upgrading the emerald will increase the amount of bounces you can do, from 3 bounces to 5 to 7, and it'll increase the speed and power for the slam

[ray-fantasia]

seaside hill will be the first level in the Stagger engine!

(edit): no it wont

I really like when water in Sonic is fun, so of course I want to mess around with water stuff asap, and seaside hill has always been my favourite stage because nostalgia, Heroes always my favorite (only) Sonic game as a kid, it's the best Generations level, the music is SO GOOD and it is a completely blank slate with lore, so I get to do some Sonic world building!! :D

also the inside of the temple is water palace from sonic rush, so I get to do some fun indoor level design like hydrocity has!! :D

edit: it will be... kinda, you actuall start off inside water palace, you then get a kinda tutorial, and then you escape water palace out into ocean palace, then you fight metal sonic as an introduction to the combat mechanics, and then act 2 starts you off in seaside hill, which you then run on water across the ocean to the wreckage of an egg fleet and you go underground into a new area that will be the hub world for the rest of the game

[ray-fantasia]

designing the concept of a 3D Sonic Engine called the Sonic Stagger Engine

3 gameplay styles, with 8 characters, they fit into these 3 gameplay styles with slight variations

Gameplay styles:

Momentum

Combat

Sling (awaiting a better name)

all gameplay styles will be based around momentum and keeping it, but momentum characters gain speed easier and their movesets are based around keeping momentum and doing tricks and fun skips like a speedrunner, as opposed to Combat, which is like Sonic Frontiers but fast, focusing on tough combos and battling difficult enemies)

characters:

Sonic (momentum)

Shadow (combat)

Silver (sling)

Amy (a mix of momentum and combat)

Blaze (momentum)

Surge (momentum)

Whisper (combat)

Tangle (sling)

every character will have a special action after charging a chaos emerald (Sonic gets Boost and Homing attack, Shadow gets Chaos Control, ect...), all characters have one emerald each except Whisper, who uses wisps, the emeralds colors match the color of the holder

I will be posting stuff about this, but until I get a computer (or partner with someone willing to code this), it will definitely stay in concept territory

[ray-fantasia]

playstyle chart for Sonic Stagger Engine

the vertical playstyle is alot more about climbing high, tails' moveset allows him to go up significantly moe than knuckles, and amy has much higher jumps, and a hammer spin slowfall. amy's wallspin lets her move upwards, instead of forwards like sonic's. vertical levels are less about speed, and more about discovery

the horizontal playstyle is alot more about going forward, sonic's run keeps him charging through a stage at high speeds. and knuckles' glide (functioning like ray's glide) gets him across gaps, more than it does get him up to high skips.

both playstyles allow for both fast vertical and horizontal platforming, but one moveset will always be better for one than the other. for bigger levels, maybe there could be a tag team system, where you switch from sonic to may mid level, to get to someplace high, fast, before you switch back to sonic.

also Vertical - Ground is better at combat, while Horizontal - Ground is better at platforming and speed. the opposite is for sky. with Horizontal - Sky being better for combat than speed, and Vertical - Sky being better for speed than combat. both versions are still good for and combat, but fighting robots with knuckles will be noticeably easier than with tails, even though tails can still destroy them at about the same pace (its hard to explain bc I don't really have examples yet)