Remember Sanic Ball?

FreeColaZ

Recently I just remembered a random game that I played back in the mid-2010s. It was this "memeish" type game called "Sanic Ball" and you were in environments and racing as balls with faces of Sonic Characters. It actually had some good physics and I played this game a lot back when it was getting regular updates, and even played online matches with full lobbies.
But, looking at the game today, the dev no longer works on it, with the source code being out there, and the servers are completely empty. I only recently saw the main server still up, which too was empty and I actually saw one that was created just recently, but I have no idea what time it's active.
Anyone else remember this game?

Lumeinshin

FreeColaZ I never played the game myself, but i knew a few who did and it seemed fun. just sorta a marbles game that wasnt just watching

Fantasy

I don't.
But I do remember Sonic Spinball, that was a fun game.

FreeColaZ

Fantasy Sonic Spinball looks interesting but I haven't really had any reason to play it. I know that Sonic Origins Plus is coming out soon, but from the look of things it's just making Origins more expensive than it should be.

FreeColaZ

Lumeinshin I loved it growing up. It's kinda dead now, like I said before. But, I feel like retooling it for a more broader audience would help bring some interest in it, because I think the physics were strangely great for a game that was made as a meme.

FreeColaZ

Before this thing dies out, I wanna say that this game has always fascinated me about game design. I was interested in computers and Sanic Ball was one of the few games where I wondered to myself; "How does this work?", as a young teenager.

Now seeing it be open source, after the developer left it due to disinterest, I have a desire to continue it myself. There have been a few revival projects, like "Sanic Ball Custom" and "Re-rolled", but I want to make a version where it would be up to the community to help it grow, and I feel like that's what made the original game fun.

I was there back when it was popular, and to be in full lobbies, chatting with people and with them wanting more from the game; levels, characters, and features, I would definitely like to make a larger and more accessible base in which the community can add to it and have that be part of their own servers rather than just downloading the entire source code and praying what they added doesn't brake the game.

Lumeinshin

FreeColaZ
source code is available here for reference:
https://github.com/BK-TN/Sanicball

There is a webGL version for those that want to play it nowadays, I gave it a go and it was still pretty good. I can see why its not super popular anymore. There are just a lot of racing games and even party racers that do a better job at being community games imo. SRB2Kart comes to mind as having both an extensive modding community, and also a pretty popular online playercount.
For me sanicball was something kids i knew at school (the nerds) played with their laptops because it was simple, easy to pick up and play during lunch. It fit with other games like the pc version of Halo. Just simpler times imo.

I think as well that it being made in Unity might also be part of the issue, as older unity projects are harder to support as far as i know. Maybe a total rewrite or port to something like Godot might help it?
I couldnt say. Still a neat game though. I havent really looked into the current remakes/resurrections you mentioned

Trondei

Sounds a bit like a mod for Monkey Ball.

FreeColaZ

Lumeinshin
There's a modded version of the game called "SanicBall Custom" which simply uses the original source code as a base to add more characters, levels, and even power-ups. The only problem is that it's still in development (at least I think) since there are many maps that don't work with AI players and some maps don't have all of their features implemented or have a lot of bugs.
[https://migouche.itch.io/sanicball-custom]

I do feel like SanicBall could comeback in some form, non-sonic related, as that may be a big barrier for most people and I think by finding a way to make a custom ball with their own texture would help broaden what characters you'd see in game, especially if it were to have online multiplayer.

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