The rebirth of Tikal the Echidna

The title of the topic has probably got many answers buzzing inside your head as we speak. Before I discuss this project, allow me to cover many of the basic questions.

Hey, don't you need the original author's permission?
The author for this WAD is the MB's Angelus_the_echidna (A.K.A Me about 2 years ago)

You're the author? I converted the WAD already... 0_0'
I know. And I'm personally not going to fuss about it. It functions, and from what I've seen in fawfulfan's 4shared, it got quite a few downloads. So it can stay...at least until the end of this.

Why get back to it after all this time?
Quite simply, I felt kind of bad about not finishing what I started.

Why did you not finish in the first place?
That one is actually a multi-reasoned answer. A lot of it was due to lack of will. At some point, when I should have been finishing up, I got carried away with playing as the beta version with my netgame friend at the time John, A.K.A Dr.Pepper (not that I was overly disheartened by the distraction, as the netgames always proved to be a lot of fun ) It also didnt help that at the time I was juggling college and 2 different jobs, one being a paper route that dragged me out of bed at 4:00 A.M my time and made me have to finish by 6:00 A.M. (nice, huh?) Add in my social obligations, such as girlfriend, regular friends, and family, and it's no wonder I just never felt up to doing it.

Now with all that said, I do feel the need to finish this project. And since I'm going to have a lot of free-time this summer, sounds almost like there's no better opportunity, right? And, because I'm Angelus, I think it goes without saying that I do not need my own approval. With that out of the way, it's time to give the general idea behind my project.

-First thing is going to be giving her proper jump frames, ones that aren't a quick edit to release a beta.
-The second thing is to edit that hotspot on her forehead. Currently, the color for it is set to peach, so it becomes very obvious when a player switches her colors.
-The third thing is just going to be anything petty. Any improvements I believe need to be made or even improvements that other point out in constructive criticism.
-The fourth and final point is something I am hoping people will include in their discussion: I personally like the visuals of Tikal having a blue spin trail, and to do that, I could easily set the color changing to be her jewels and bracelets. To this affect, I was thinking of releasing much like Dr.Pepper did: one that can be used for ordinary play, and one that changes color all over so that it's more recognizable in net games. Thoughts? Opinions? Please do share.

Next thing that is important is going to be screenies to prove that I have indeed been working and therefore validating that this topic can exist:



Lastly, I would like to give the credit where it is due. Obviously, several have worked on this WAD aside from myself. As always, my thanks goes to Dr.Pepper, for giving me a helping hand (especially with those annoying diagonal walking sprites). I also thank whoever converted the WAD, otherwise I would probably not have been able to continue work on this project. Finally, to whoever added in the exit sign picture, it was very nice and I quite liked it. And with those two points, I would like to humbly request that you tell me who you are so that I may properly give you credit (Even if either of you don't come forward by the next release, you will still be recognized by your specific work)

Alright, that about does it for this post. Pleae look at the pics, think about my idea for releases, and please give me any input you think necessary.

Nice. I look forward to playing as this version when it is finished. However, you don't need to make the color changing her jewels and bracelets, nor do you need to create two different versions. Just recolor the THOKA0 sprite in srb2.srb to blue, rename it to a freeslot sprite, and put it in the Tikal WAD between S_START and S_END markers with it as her spinitem and ghostspinitem = 1. Then create a Thing SOC and a single frame for it and put it in the OBJECTCFG. That should give Tikal a blue spintrail, but still let her main colors be changed for easy recognition in netgames.

Thank you for being the first one to offer feedback. I did actually consider a spin trail when I first started the WAD. It was going to be light blue with sparkles (a lot like senku's 1.09.4 spin trail, but hey, I had a clear visual image of how it would add to her appearance.) My thing is i got most of the WAD and how to draw it, but I could never get the trail to work. I'll give it another shot, but if I can't get it to work, I may just decide to live with the fact that her trail is orange.

Also, I forgot at the time of posting, but is there a need for a download link to the beta version? If so, I may find a way to post it.

I don't believe you need a link, but people would probably appreciate it if you had one. And I can help you more with the spintrail if you want, I've done it before.

You are required to have sprites, screenshots, and/or download links to make this kind of announcement. You have posted sprites, so you haven't violated any rules at all.

Looks fairly promising, I might add.

Thank you Fawfulfan. I actually have been working on this quite faithfully, minus one or two nights of going to work. I've done at least one sprite every night (even though the first night I did 2).
Anyways, I have all the L sprites finished. Pictures of new sprites coming soon. For now, here is a download link for those who would like one.

http://www.mediafire.com/?8ijhk454x7e2s0j

743mph wrote:And I can help you more with the spintrail if you want, I've done it before.

I suppose it wouldn't hurt. Just show me your best one, and if I put it in the WAD, I will be sure to give you proper credit.

EDIT/UPDATE:
I promised more pics, and now here they are!


Although I'm quite confident in most of these sprites, the M4M6 and M5 sprites however came from two models: Amy for the general shape, and knux because I wasn't entirely sure how to design her dreads. It actually surprised me that neither sprites display the design for their spikes/dreads, but I suppose it does kinda make sense, since nine times out of ten the character is spinning too fast for anyone to see. Any thoughts?

EDIT/UPDATE 2:
Wow, that took less time than I thought it would. all the jumps sprites have been completed sucessfully. So with that logic, one step is out of the way. Now onto the second part: recoloring parts of the WAD. Currently, since the WAD is still going off of 1.09.4's pallete, where the range of orange was a lot lighter and mixed with peach, now certain colors need to be changed so that she doesn't have peach spots on her head, feet, and arms. I've currently finished retouching about 3 sets of sprites.

Alright, I'll give you an example.
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This is Kilo. He's not much more than a recolor, but he does have a custom bright blue spintrail. Feel free to base your spintrail after his.

kilo.wad