What if Chao got the Sonic Mania treatment? (serious/long post)

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amethystdarkchao
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What if Chao got the Sonic Mania treatment? (serious/long post)

Post by amethystdarkchao »

:darksurprise:

Hi, everyone! This is my first post, but definitely not my first visit to this website. (That said, I hope this is the right subforum to post in - felt most relevant.) I liked Sonic all my life, but as soon as I played a game with a Chao garden that became my primary interest within the game. I actually ended up losing interest in newer Sonic games primarily because of the lack of Chao garden. Yeah, there's other flaws inherit to a lot of newer Sonic games, but that's a whole 'nother discussion. Basically, if they put in a Chao garden I would've at least tried to feign interest in the story, because I liked raising Chao THAT much.

So it's honestly super heartwarming to see that this website still gets occasional activity, even though it's been tragically long since Chao have been included in a Sonic game (at least, with a Chao garden and all that great stuff). To me, that's a travesty. To this day I still like raising Chao, but I could admit the experience could be improved upon in a lot of ways. Sure, mods of the Chao garden exist (which I love!) but there's still so much to be added upon. There's ways to make the experience more fun, less tedious, with more personality involved. And with Sonic Mania being a game primarily made by fans, well... maybe it's not entirely unrealistic for fans to take new Chao content into our own hands. (I don't know all the stuff about licencing, etc. Some of this is new to me.)

Okay. I admit this is a very big and lofty concept to make as my first ever post. For context, I'm 24 years old and have loved Chao since I first saw them when I was 8. I've liked Sonic as a series since I was 4. Some of my earliest memories involve playing the super early Sonic games with my dad. Nowadays I prefer Pokemon, which I admit might influence me liking to raise virtual creatures that grow and change over time. Even though I majored in psychology (got my undergrad degree in 2017), I've always been interested in the idea of making games. Within the past year or so, I've been exploring that passion more. I have ideas of my own I hope to create in rpgmaker someday. I also love to write - I'm working on a YA novel that I'm nearly done with and hope to publish. While the actual game design progress is one I'm new to, I have my own set of skills.

My idea: what if there was a game that primarily revolved around Chao? You have multiple Chao gardens, similar to the ones in DX/SA2B. We might see some updated features, but ultimately the premise is similar. There are hero/dark/neutral characters. Before you enter the Chao garden, you pick which Sonic character you wanna control. You start out with just Sonic (and maybe a couple other baseline characters), but you can unlock new characters in somewhat of a story mode. I imagine there'd be hero and dark characters like SA2B, but also neutral characters. You know, the ones that aren't evil, but don't really care about what the the heroes are doing either. If these characters pet/feed a baby Chao they go closer to neutrality, removing the annoying need to constantly change characters if you want a neutral Chao. (Since I never liked ignoring my Chao.) Making a Chao unhappy with a neutral character could possibly make it go more towards hero OR dark, 50/50 chance? I won't get too much into the little details I have in my head, since this is just me presenting a general concept.

There'd be a story mode, too. This is where you can get rings, unlock Sonic characters, and get animals. It's a work in progress in my head, but it's something I'd happily work on if such a project were remotely feasible. I picture that you go through the story playing as a Chao. You can name it and make decisions about what stats you want to focus on, alongside what alignment. You can use animals you find in the levels on your story mode Chao, or send the animals to a Chao garden for later use. Maybe there'd be a gallery detailing all the different evolutions you got in story mode (like hero/swim, dark/fly, neutral/run, etc.) At the end of the story, the Chao you play as goes into a pink cocoon and reincarnates. Like it works in the game, you keep some of your stats from your last playthrough. Then you have the option to go through again and maybe try different stats, or different paths in the story. Again, work in progress.

I hope I'm not rambling too much. Admittedly, I was kind of inspired to write this from sleep deprivation, but it's an idea I've been tossing around in my head for a little while now. I admit it's a bit fanciful of a concept, but I'm sure many of the people who especially loved Chao are now adults, especially since it's been SO long since the last proper Chao installment. Surely SOME of those people have relevant talents to game design, and a passion to bring Chao back to life? Sure, Sega would have to be on board, but the fact that Sonic Mania even exists reassures me. With people making all these tweaks to the Chao Garden via mods, I'm sure there's people out there who could breathe new life into the gardens we know and love. But for now, I merely wanted to present the idea.

I hope you all like my idea. Guess I just wanted to get it out somewhere, to a crowd who might properly appreciate it. Sorry if this is the wrong place, since it's my first post and all. Thanks for reading this far, and I hope you all (and your Chao, too) are doing good!

:darkhappy:
Last edited by Roaxes on Sun May 26, 2019 1:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Post moved to correct section.
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Re: What if Chao got the Sonic Mania treatment? (serious/long post)

Post by FrankT »

Seems like a good idea. I'd be on board for it.
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Re: What if Chao got the Sonic Mania treatment? (serious/long post)

Post by Mooncow »

Your post gave me an idea for the "story mode" Chao, like a Story only Chao - you give the Chao what you find from the levels, so 10 things per level, and no repeating stages - you get to go to the Chao Garden when you end the stage with a Chao Key. And at the end you have Chao Time Trial or something and your time/trophy etc gets recorded as your "Chao Story" result. Could be fun maybe (for me anyway haha)

Always good to see new ideas! And welcome to the site :herosway:
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Re: What if Chao got the Sonic Mania treatment? (serious/long post)

Post by amethystdarkchao »

I'm glad a couple people like the idea! I do realize this isn't the most active forum, but it was nice to get it out there.

:darkblink:

I'm not entirely what to DO with this idea, though. Like, where to even begin? I have lots of ideas for the possible game, but I'd probably need help with a lot of the logistics of actually designing it. Plus, any project would need the ok from Sega. I actually DID find a form online where you can submit a request form for use for Sega related licensing stuff, albeit on a Japanese website. The website said it's more likely to grant permission to corporations than individuals, but maybe with a team submitting a request form would be plausible. I don't really know, to be honest.

All I know is that Chao have a lot of potential and it's a crying shame new Sonic games have neglected this feature. I just wonder how such a project could be arranged, or if it's feasible. If anyone has any sort of idea, about any of this, feel free to comment. It's cool to talk about this idea with like minded individuals.
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Re: What if Chao got the Sonic Mania treatment? (serious/long post)

Post by Jeffery Mewtamer »

Well, as I understand it, some god-tier members of the Sonic Hacking community were working on unofficial ports of the Genesis games to smart devices when they got snatched up by Sega and their work went into the official iOS and Android versions of Sonic 1 16-bit, Sonic 2 16-bit, and Sonic CD and Mania was the outcome when the teams behind those ports were given the opportunity to make something original.

Realistically, I wouldn't expect a repeat of that to happen with Chao, and I doubt even more that Sega would green light a Chao project brought to them by an unproven team(hell, if the rumors are true, Sega's executives won't even green light people who have been with them since the Adventure games revisiting the Chao Raising mechanic).

That said, Sega has a reputation as one of the most laid back Game Companies when it comes to hacking and fan games short of openly encouraging people to hack their games and make fan stuff. In the more than 15 years I've been an observer to the Sonic Hacking Community(my registration on Sonic Retro is dated in 2003), I can't recall a single project related to a Sega property that recieved a cease and desist, but can think of multiple instances just in the last 2-3 years for projects based on properties from other companies.

And yeah, ideas are easy, actual implementation is hard. Micro Chao Garden, my own effort at a Chao fangame, only really implements evolution, visible stats, and breed with the ability to generate both store bought and bred eggs, but it's already the longest, most complicated thing I've ever coded, currently has a borked text-only interface from a failed attempt to shift from a cout/cin based interface to a curses-based one(my fault for trying to learn curses by tacking it onto an existing program of mine), and I don't even know the first thing about adding sound or graphics to my programs(unless you want to count the ascii art experience bars and evolution sliders I made for MCG).

Note to self: get off my metaphorical arse and at least get MCG into a playable state and put in a git repository. Find some tutorials on SFML and try to make the jump from terminal applications to simple graphical apps.
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