New Station Square - Part 01
Date:
[]
Categories:
[Projects],
[VR]
I spend a lot of time hanging out on the social VR platform Resonite. It's not as big as VRChat, but I'm a fan of its instant-feedback and ability to collaborate on-the-fly. It's rough around the edges but I encourage you to check it out and keep an eye on its development.
I've built a few worlds there and for a while now I've had the itch to adapt a personally beloved hub world into a social space: Sonic Adventure's "Station Square"
Social VR spaces like Resonite and VRChat are no strangers to worlds consisting of ripped assets from other games. It's legally problematic but it's hard for me to blame anyone for wanting to vacation on Wuhu Island. I think hub worlds in particular are great candidates for these kind of hang-out spaces. They're often built to be comfortable, leasisurly, atmospheric environments where players can spend as much time as they like exploring. Not to mention the nostalgic appeal of "actually" visting a virtual space one might've spent hours just vibing in during their younger years. They're just ripe for the picking!
A Hub World to Refurbish
As far as Station Square goes, I could take the approach many others have and assemble the ripped assets into a virtual world. However, while I don't want to downplay the effort in porting content accurately, I'd like to take things further. I'd like to build a modernized New Station Square of my own. We've had some great modern remakes of older games in recent years and I'd like to see what it takes to do that; to give Station Square the glow-up it deserves while trying to preserve its original vibes.
While I won't be using the original assets in the world, I will be using them for refrence. I've already begun assembling them thanks to some very robust community modding and development tools for Sonic Adventure. SA Tools is genuinely incredible and I owe a lot of thanks to the work put in by a dedicated community of developers. I have what I need to get started and I can already tell there'll be some interesting choices to make in this adaptation.