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New Sonic 2 development lore drop - Genocide/Cyber City palette and art!

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by The Joebro64, Mar 19, 2023.

  1. The Joebro64

    The Joebro64

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    https://info.sonicretro.org/Genocide_City_Zone
    Noticed that no one has created a thread for this so I'll go ahead. On March 17, Frank Cifaldi (he has an account here but I don't remember the name so I can't tag him) shared this photo he took in a meeting with Tom Payne on the Hidden Palace Discord server:

    [​IMG]

    It contains the palette and some object art from Genocide/Cyber City!

    Here's the palette and what it looks like applied to Metropolis, courtesy of @ICEknight

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG][​IMG]

    Credit goes to @JayKuriN for bringing this up on the Sonic Retro Discord or else I wouldn't have known about it lol
     
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  2. Ura

    Ura

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    It really does look like The Machine from Spinball, huh
     
  3. Vertette

    Vertette

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    Doesn't look as melancholic as I pictured a zone called Genocide City would be. Neat stuff though.
     
  4. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

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    Wasn't his username just "Cifaldi"? He used to go by Redeye back in the day too. I think his account might be closed. I also just noticed Taxman doesn't have an account here anymore. Scratch that, I forgot "the" in his username. I'm guessing they might have made their accounts private or some such.
     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2023
  5. GoldeMan

    GoldeMan

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    Is this the first time we've been made aware of those objects for the stage? Looks like there are two types of fans, a bear trap, and pistons. Pistons of course made it into the final game, albeit with Metropolis' palate and a different look but the other objects look new to me
     
  6. Fadaway

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    As far as I know, maybe yes but it's been a while since I've played Spinball and The Machine level. These, I'd assume, would be somewhat easy to recreate (I think...I hope...) based on those documents.
     
  7. Fadaway

    Fadaway

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    They might be related to these concept drawings? Educated guess.
     

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  8. Blue Spikeball

    Blue Spikeball

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    I can't get over how out of place those graphics look for Sonic 2, what with that shading.
     
  9. saxman

    saxman

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    Really neat to see this. Obviously, I hope to one day be able to get proper scans of these paper assets. There's probably more than we're able to see here.

    Though can we be sure these were intended for Cyber City and not Metropolis? The mix of Metropolis assets in there has me questioning. Though I don't know the context of the discussion that took place that brought about this photo, so maybe that would help give some clarity.
     
  10. ashthedragon

    ashthedragon

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    This is amazing! I guess this makes even more evident that Cyber City was reporpoused as The Machine in Spinball
     
  11. The Joebro64

    The Joebro64

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    Cyber City was going to be like Hilltop, iirc — like Hilltop and Emerald Hill, Cyber City was largely a palette swap of Metropolis, with some unique assets.
     
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  12. Blastfrog

    Blastfrog

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    That pic looks hi-res enough that the art could be recreated with perfect (or near-perfect) accuracy. Neat stuff!
     
  13. JaxTH

    JaxTH

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    Jack shit.
    Didn't someone put The Machine palette over Metropolis in the Reverse Engineering forum already?
     
  14. saxman

    saxman

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    I thought that was just speculation. I was under the impression that Cyber City had a whole bunch of its own art. Didn't the artist reveal the tiles at one point?
     
  15. Blastfrog

    Blastfrog

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    Yep. The colors are different than here, however.
     
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  16. The Joebro64

    The Joebro64

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    We have some Sega Mk. 5 Screen Map scans and concept art which show that a good chunk of the stage was based on Metropolis tiles, albeit with a new palette and some redesigned to have a more futuristic aesthetic. I'd guess it had a different background, in line with Hilltop.

    The picture Cifaldi shared is the first time we've seen the actual palette and digitized graphics. From what I saw in the Hidden Palace Discord, it sounded like he thought they'd been scanned already, haha.
     
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  17. HEDGESMFG

    HEDGESMFG

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    Yes. We've never seen those before. In fact, those are the first ever pixel assets to be confirmed 100% to be from Cyber/Genocide City.

    The next closest thing we had was assets Tom Recycled and put into an unreleased game called B-Bomb.
    https://segaretro.org/B-Bomb

    He gave those to us on a digitized disc a few years ago, but most people forget about it and the retro wiki doesn't really acknowledge them as being from Cyber City (even though they most likely are, with Tom himself also stating such, I believe). The Sonic 2 Secret Zones Hack uses them, however to create the best guestimate we've had so far.

     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2023
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  18. GoldeMan

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    I remember seeing that video a few months ago but wasn't sure of how accurate it was, cool to know there was some authentic to the assets at least! Really wild to get anything about Sonic 2 in 2023, especially in relations to assets to some of the unimplemented zones.

    I remembered seeing that concept art in passing but I had forgotten I saw it! Really cool to see both versions now, the concept art and the digitized final asset.
     
  19. Londinium

    Londinium

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    The bear trap has me wondering if the 'Genocide' in Genocide City was put there because the devs had a vague understanding that genocide meant murder.
     
  20. Orengefox

    Orengefox

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    Right in front of my computer.
    Some artwork, a ZZT game, and a hack.
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Well now we know what those fans and bear traps were meant to look like when you look at these concept chunk layouts. Tom Payne once again delivers~
     
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