Still looking for Unreleased Sonic Xtreme Builds.

Hey guys, I know a lot of Sonic X-treme builds have been released in the past.
I'm looking for any unreleased builds that not been released publicly, If anyone has any info, can you please contact me?

I've recreated most of the levels from Xtreme that I could possibly recreate for my fan project " PROJECT AXSX". But i've hit a new Brick wall, or lack of a brick wall and more like a cliff. I need further research material that is still missing. There are a few levels (.def files and .pcx map layouts), a few textures, and the Boss engine content is still missing. I have a feeling some of the missing levels will never be seen and will be lost to the sands of time forever. If we wait too long, the disks or storage media may just rot away!

 

Someone get this man a build with expanding pathways!

Ofer, I'm looking at you

 

I don't get why we need a fan project anymore. We got the real thing. Probably the only thing it lacks is a ending.

 

Because the Sonic Xtreme that is out there really isn't a game. Its a collection of test levels for an unfinished engine. But the more data points they have, the better they can try to make a game out of the scraps.

 

There's also builds of the game that are much more complete than the ones available. Still not a full on game but the levels they were making were getting really cool looking. The expanding path levels just looked so damn awesome

 

Yeah that's right , there are many builds that we have yet to get ahold of, The later PC builds with the expanding paths, Project condor levels, boss levels and I think there may have been some kind of bonus game? anyways I have a lot more levels in the Fan project than are playable in any of the releases. not just that but gameplay has been improved drastically to where it actually feels like a Sonic game.
And yes I have levels with the expanding paths playable.


Heres a video comparing the real deal with my fan game, please note however Jolly is no longer updating the gameplay for the Saturn version that was teased in this video.


Also here's an old promo video from 2013 for the fangame showing some off some of my own test levels in UDK. The udk version has since been scrapped in favor of Unreal 4 which allows more freedom on the programing side of things.

 

Really?? That's great to hear!

 

Any chance on a release soon? I wouldn't mind another "AS-IS" Build, seriously man you're hyping me up again!

 

Haha I think maybe you misunderstood, The levels with expanding paths been leaked years ago, but there is no engine to play them with. I rebuilt them for my fangame using the original data. There really isn't any more as is releases to be made, that's kind of why I made this thread so we can maybe grab the attention of someone who may have such a build, and hopfully convince them to sell or release it publicly. As for AXSX you can read up on it more here.
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=31255&st=555

 

Thanks for clearing it up! What interests me though is that there are some screenshots of the version you are describing.


Apparently, jollyroger has SonicBoom v53, which I'm pretty sure has paths. The screenshot above is from jollyroger.
I'm pretty sure you already know this, though.

 

Just read through a bunch of pages(keep forgetting about that thread). Very interesting stuff, looks like you've made quite the progress, and found some really cool stuff. Sweet find with the Jade Gully levels!

Thank you very much for your effort throughout the years! Sonic Xtreme has always felt like such a lost opportunity to me. It makes me so happy that there's a chance I could actually play Sonic Xtreme one day..

 

That build don't have any paths sadly. Jolly cleared that up awhile back. So yeah there is a later build than v53 out there somewhere.

Thx man!. XD
What I want to do with it is make a bunch of my own custom levels for the main game, and all of the original test levels as a secondary playthew selectable from the main menu. Shooting for a sort of "what xtreme could have been like if it were finished experience."

 

I really like that idea! Then you get the best of both worlds, a complete game and some xtreme bonus content

 

After playing through the various builds that have been released over the last few years, I've reached the conclusion that while the PC-based work of Chris Senn and Ofer Alon had a look most fans associate with Sonic Xtreme, their efforts were never going to run at an acceptable speed on the Saturn, plus few people would have tolerated a potentially flagship title (or at least a game featuring Sega's corporate mascot) being made available for something beyond the console market - at least not in late 1996 or mid 1997, which is when I suspect a finished version could easily have been delayed until, had management decided against pulling the plug entirely. Sure, it's possible that Ofer's engine may have improved significantly over a few months of solid development for the Saturn, but what really impressed me was the previously unseen alternative by Point Of View.

Ignoring the lingering similarities to BUG!, their vision for Xtreme had a chance at becoming something more like what you'd expect from a 32-bit sequel to the original Sonic trilogy on Mega Drive rather than an overly ambitious next generation revolution. If there really are no collectors out there in possession of further prototypes, maybe the community should assign someone to kindly approach either Ofer Alon or even Christina Coffin to ask them for anything one final time before giving up forever? Considering how long it took for playable code from the so-called "1.5" era of Resident Evil 2's development to surface, I'd rather not give up hope just yet for a further wave of Sonic Xtreme test builds, though it's sad to read that perhaps the best homebrew project to date has met something of a roadblock. If only one of the original staff was willing to share their solutions...

Forgive my ignorance, but if there really is no other option then would it honestly be that difficult to program the expanding paths using the little vintage media out there to recreate these as faithfully as possible, or is there a world of difference between this game and the aforementioned RE 1.5, where it seems Team IGAS and Loboto 3 are able to achieve a lot more from scratch? They seem to have developed a suite of custom tools especially for the purpose creating and injecting new content into the original engine, so couldn't the same be done for the most stable revision of what exists for Xtreme on the Saturn? Saying that, maybe at this point it does make greater sense to focus on this as a PC title? Even now, Saturn emulation still isn't 100% perfect, and there has only recently been significant progress in finally bypassing the console's disc protection with any certainty.

 

I think that would be an awesome idea to have someone approach Ofer Alon or Christina Coffin on behalf of Assembler. I had attempted to contact them some years back. I was able to get ahold of Ofer Alon threw Mike Wallis,(Sonic X-treme's director) and Christina from an old email address. Ofer was not interested in any correspondence. I got a positive response from Coffin with a few details on some of the Boss gameplay mechanics. If someone should do it, I think maybe it should be someone with experience in dealing with acquiring assets from individuals. I've also spoken with Chirs Senn on multiple occasions to gather inside info on Xtreme as much as possible. I don't think he has his builds any longer.

 

I think it's a good idea too. I think if we were to explain to Ofer what we're trying to do he hopefully would be more open to it. We need to tell him that we're trying to preserve his hard work from being lost to the sands of time. Yeah what Sega did to him sucks, and I could see why he never wanted to talk about it, but why let all that hard work go to waste when there are dare I say thousands out there who would love to see it. I just hope he still has it after all these years..

 

I seem to recall someone having Ofer's engine code and even a PC-based level editor as of a few years back, though nothing was released because he personally requested this. One last coordinated attempt to preserve his work might be enough to change the outcome, and Christina Coffin would definitely be worth asking based on her positive responses in the past. As someone who provided technical assistance in the development of games such as the Saturn version of Quake, she clearly had a better understanding than most of Sega's 32-bit system, and I'd love to see more of these high end approaches documented. For example, wasn't she responsible for exploiting (if not discovering) a little-known bug with VDP1 that involved setting two points of a quadrilateral polygon to the same position then inverting another side to create a curved surface, which the Project Condor era Sonic model showcased around its eyes? A possibility might be for someone from this forum to collaborate with a similarly-passionate intermediary from Sonic Retro, since they've got experience of reaching out to people involved with the franchise, including Brenda Ross, Craig Stitt and the aforementioned Chris Senn...

 

You referring to JollyRoger and the v37 sti engine for Saturn , pc and level editor? Along with point of view Saturn release? I'm very familiar with them, as I took part in assisting JollyRoger with fixing up over 100 of the level files for v37 while he worked on restoring engine code and porting it to modern hardware using the source. I also coordinated all the releases on retro and with Borman on here.

 

I'm aware of your involvement with the restoration of those assets from Sonic Xtreme, and I'm eternally grateful that you were able to achieve so much (with the help of JollyRoger) as someone who'd never given up hope of playing all those prototype builds shown off back in the day. The fact you also managed to release the Point of View build that wasn't seen before - at least to my knowledge - simply cemented your status in the community as far as I'm concerned... Here's to Project AXSX somehow continuing and you being involved in any future preservation efforts!

 

Thanks man ! I really hope we can see more lost assets from X-treme.
Now I have something interesting to share. Buried deep in the recesses of the V037 Release we did. there were some levels that did not belong to the POV or STI's V037/040 builds, but rather they belonged to a later build of the engine. Somewhere from around Version 042 or up. STI's team stopped labeling the .def files after V042 for some reason even though there were builds of the engine past V053. or maybe the def file format was V042? while engine had different versions ? I'm not sure what was going on with that.

Here are the 5 Jade Gully Act 2 level subsections that I had restored recently that I had meant to restore much sooner.
At first I was just restoring them and than showed a friend (SonicGenesis89) some screens of the level in Unreal 4. She replied. "That looks a lot like Yasuhara's Jade Gully concept art with the water wheel" and so we looked at the concept art and sure enough they matched pretty damned close! Anyways these are the first levels I've seen that have a corresponding concept art set.

Jade Gully Act 2-1







Jade Gully Act 2-2





Jade Gully Act 2-3