v0.7.7

v0.7.7 corrects palette-script execution and several widescreen rendering and scene-transition problems across the Sonic 3 family. Windows x64 ZIPs and Linux x86_64 AppImages are provided for Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

Changes in this release:

• Palette scripts across all three cartridges: Corrected discovery and dispatch of native palette-command branches, repeats, transitions, and returns. Hexadecimal offsets are now kept separate from addition tokens when resolving command targets, so scripted palette updates and fades follow their intended original instruction paths.
• Ice Cap, Super Sonic, and the final arena: The palette corrections restore the intended Ice Cap act-transition and Super Sonic transformation colors, including transformation sequences in Ice Cap Act 2 and Launch Base Act 2, and correct the final-arena/Big Arms palette updates.
• Competition menus: Preserved character/menu colors when course-preview palettes are installed and corrected the outgoing race presentation. Further portrait shadow/highlight refinement is included in v0.7.8.
• Blue Spheres: Corrected ground alignment, sprite mapping-center registration, contact-sphere artwork, and character/sphere draw order so the character remains correctly placed in front of nearby spheres.
• Bonus stages: Extended authored foregrounds and rotating boards across the widescreen canvas. Queued bonus-stage actors remain stable when a simulation frame is presented more than once.
• Battleship scrolling: Kept background scroll rows attached to their owning camera during bobbing updates, preventing the scenery from shifting against the ship.
• Water-current corridors: Kept brick patterns registered with scrolling and bounded widescreen margin fill by the authored corridor roof.
• Retained sprite artwork: Bound immutable artwork to its captured mapping owner, correcting stale or incorrect art during explosions, boss movement, and object-slot reuse.
• Angel Island Act 2 chase transition: Preserved the waiting ledge pose through the boss-music fade and retained the outgoing grove foreground through the native handoff. The retained canvas is limited to the authored columns, and the outgoing ledge no longer leaks into the incoming chase margin.
• Doomsday: Kept Hyper Sonic visible as the camera scrolls beyond the finite scenery layout. Actor placement now follows the continuously scrolling viewport while the background retains its own layout limits.
• Imported Sonic 1 campaign in Sonic 3 & Knuckles: Star Light Zone foreground pylons now follow the expanded camera and its limits.
• Menu save/load: Resume points use the exact native wait continuations, preserving the current menu instead of restarting its loader. Separate menu and special-stage continuations remain distinct.

Validation completed for the final release packages:

• All 21 focused tests passed on Windows and Linux. All three games' actual release packages and all six combined-game campaign configurations passed their package and gameplay checks.
• Ice Cap validation covered its native miniboss defeat, act handover, and Super Sonic transformations. Final-boss validation exercised native damage and defeat logic, Big Arms grabs/throws, the credits transition, and completed native-save progress with a fresh save-file readback. No invalid live-player state or disappearance/reset fault occurred in those qualified runs.
• Supported current-build states passed repeat/cold-load checks in Sonic 3 startup/fade scenes and active/paused Angel Island gameplay, plus active/paused Blue Spheres in all three games. Default diagnostic recording/replay and native-save preservation were verified.
• All 111 standard Windows/Linux capture and fingerprint comparisons matched. All 504 production chase RAM/VRAM/image files matched the qualified reference. Doomsday was also checked in native and widescreen presentation, including actual 120 Hz output.
• Fresh configurations defaulted to adaptive Fit to screen, while explicit saved display choices remained intact.

Launch Base Act 2's checked ceiling-edge occlusion and movement match the unmodified original game. Collision physics at that location remain unchanged.

When upgrading, preserve settings, ROM selections, mod choices, and native save files. Save states are build-specific and are not expected to remain compatible across releases.

Supply your own supported ROM. Linux packages target Ubuntu 24.04 / glibc 2.39 or a compatible newer x86_64 system with OpenGL. Use --appimage-extract-and-run when FUSE is unavailable. Older distributions and Steam Deck were not part of this validation.

Full source changes · Next release: v0.7.8