ever get those big red star balls from the fireworks store? you know, the ones that look like oversized cherry bombs and make you think they're a particularly weighty firecracker, but just spin around on the ground instead? someone taped a bunch of these together, and the result looks like a constellation. i might have to try building a device like this at some point, since it looks pretty harmless as far as fireworks mods go
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Edited by: fireball3k, Oct 17th, 2020 @ 12:10 am

That's really cool! They look like something you'd see in a Mario game or something. The name would be fitting, too.

bibby, you ever play sonic the hedgehog 3? i know you've got serious nintendo gamer cred, but i don't know if you and i have discussed sega that much.

in any event, i bring up that game because the star balls here kind of remind me of the game's special stage. it's a pseudo-3D level where you have to collect blue orbs to get a chaos emerald. they also kind of remind me of an object in the game's debug menu, something that looks like a bunch of those red orbs. there's also an object you can place if you activate the debug menu which resembles a conglomeration of those red orbs that are used in the special stage i linked. they twist and spin around similarly to the flying star balls in the video when you place them in the game, and they're so energetic in doing so that they lag the game. either way, they're neat!

I've played Sonic 3, but it's been a long time, and I only played it briefly. I remember watching Miles stream those bonus levels one time, and they looked fun.

I really need to go back and beat the classic Sonics.

You might be interested in the Sonic 3 prototype that was found last year. The balls in question are present, and in interesting forms. The whole thing is an absolute trip to me, though.

Here's a good video of the whole thing in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYXJV1IVcOg

(Note that the first bit of gameplay shown is the automatic gameplay demo, but they do get properly into it after that; this channel is extremely competent at playing these games)

Also, sound warning; the sound driver is a bit busted so it might screech sometimes, but you might want to hear some of the interesting differences between this prototype and the Sonic 3 we ended up getting.

Timestamp for spheres, if you want to skip to them: 43:52 (trust me, they get to be interesting, especially at the 44:28 mark)
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Edited by: Miles, Nov 1st, 2020 @ 5:41 am

miles, i remember reading a little about that when it first broke. i thought the beta version of the special stage you mentioned at the timestamp looked really rad. it definitely explains that weird ball spawner object in the debug mode of the final game that you can place early on in angel islabd act 1