I'm checking out a bunch of the SAGE 2023 entries in no particular order, just downloading what I think looks neat and writing about it here if it left a particular impression. There's some really cool stuff this year! I will spare your scroll wheels and put it behind a read more.
FEATURED IN POST: GATOSLIP Chapter 0 and HOPTIX
GATOSLIP Chapter 0 
I recognize the creator of this one, VAdaPEGA, from various other Sonic places online. They've made some absolutely beautiful Sonic romhacks and a handful of good SRB2 levels.
Much to my surprise and delight, GATOSLIP seems to be an RPG romhack of Sonic the Hedgehog with a bit of a Deltarune flavor. Much of the game takes place in a standard RPG overworld, and when battle commences, you control the unnamed cat character in a CGA MS-DOS platformer minigame of sorts. Tire the enemy out by jumping on its head until it relents, or complete some kind of secondary objective to dispatch it non-violently. Your HP is depicted by your cat paw in the upper right corner, counting down from three. You're rewarded LB--lobobeans--for victory, which you can eat a handful of to restore a hit point in battle.
The entire game seems to be evoking the various eras of MS-DOS. VGA on the overworld, CGA in battles, and EGA during a brief platformer zone. Meanwhile, the sound and music seem to be intentionally using the similarities between the YM2612 and the various Soundblasters of the PC to create a soundscape similar to what you'd hear from an MS-DOS game. It works well!
This one was a real treat and totally unexpected. I'm not sure how long the finished game will be, but I'm excited to see where it goes.
LA CREATURA COUNT: 1
HOPTIX
What if Sonic Advance had some of that Super Smash Bros. Melee sauce in it? That's what you get with HOPTIX by @applecinnabun , an impressive demo filled with speed and... (reading smudged writing on hand) schmovement. It even comes with a handy .GIF button ready to record your sweet movement combinations!
Knowing how Sonic game momentum and physics work along with knowing various movement tricks from Super Smash Bros Melee will highly benefit you in this game. For example, jumping off of a ramp in a Sonic game when running at speed will launch you much higher--and then you can use wavelanding to preserve your momentum to land right where you want to.
The game even features wavedashing, which serves an extra purpose in HOPTIX--wavedashing gets you up to speed much faster than letting your speed build up by simply running.
Further taking inspiration from Melee, the two levels of the demo have brief segments where you have to BREAK THE TARGETS before you're allowed to continue onward. Mastering the movement tech so you can blitz through the targets as quickly as possible will be a real treat in the finished game. I didn't even particularly get good at it and I still had a great time pathing out the quickest way to break the targets. Imagine what you could do with more skill!
This game was a real pleasant surprise as well, and it even featured some really cool music to go along with the action. Watching this one with great interest.
LA CREATURA COUNT: 2
