Sonic 2 early prototype, dumped

I know that Cinos mentioned the source code, but I didn't see anybody talking about the fkn SYMBOL TABLE. I haven't figured out how it works yet, though. There also seems to be a lot of Japanese in there.

For reference, the earliest symbol I've located is at $418B5.

 

Further to the above, I've been trying to reduce the symbol table to a human-readable form. I've made a few assumptions:
1) Extra 0000 is just padding and is not significant.
2) $ is a delimiter separating a label name from something else - if you see a label and then a gap and then "ceba" or "zdba" or something, there's a $ between the two.

That said, here's the best I could come up with.

Code (Text):

1. 00000004 frameoutd2    zdba 000134BE
2. 00000003 colichgtbl         000135E2
3. 00000003 .loop          ceba 00013556
4. 00000004 .frameout2    zdba 000134E6
5. 00000003 colichgmove           0001352A
6. 00000003 .end1          ceba 000135D4
7. 00000003 .end2          ceba 000135D0
8. 00000003 .end            ceba 000135E0
9. 00000004 colichg_move_tbl     000134EA
10. 00000004 .frameout      zdba 000134D4
11. 00000003 colichgpat         00013602
12. 00000003 .jump2        ceba 00013594
13. 00000003 .jump3        ceba 000135A2
14. 00000003 .jump4        ceba 000135C0

A . at the beginning of a label is actually ASCII symbol 0x7F (DEL) which is a nonprinter.

 

I never would have imagined this would ever happen. But it did.

Congratulations!

And now I disappear again...

 

Nice table. It just made me realize some things.

First, $7F seems to mean "local symbol". You'll notice that there are a lot of labels in Cinos's source that are preceeded by dots - this is an indicator for locality. All local symbols are discarded when a non-local symbol is encountered; this lets you reuse names.

Second, the dollar sign ($) makes perfect sense as a string delimiter, because that's precicely what MS-DOS uses for that very purpose when you use its print functions.

EDIT: Note that the $ is only used when ceba or zdba is present. It seems that this word is part of the symbol.

 

Just noticed this, but I think that the earliest idea for going through pipes and stuff in Chemical Plant was the best. I like this early layout of Chemical Plant MUCH better than the final that we got =P

 

Thanks for releasing this DrX! Love all the discussion about it too. =)

 

Code (Text):

1. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Early prototype)
2. COMPRESSED GRAPHICS LIST
3. ========================
4. Documented by ICEknight with input from Quickman
5.  
6.  
7. 0009DF8E - Shield
8. 0009E114 - Invincibility stars
9. 000A0960 - SEGA logo
10. 000A1520 - Title Screen graphics
11. 000A2E82 - Sonic & Tails at the Title Screen
12. 000A39C6 - GHZ Bit of flower (S1)
13. 000A3A10 - GHZ & MZ Platform with chain (S1)
14. 000A3B2A - EHZ Log bridge
15. 000A3C16 - Unused 16x16 block (S1)
16. 000A3C5E - GHZ Rolling ball (S1)
17. 000A3DFC - GHZ rolling log with spikes
18. 000A4010 - GHZ Unused spikes around the rolling log (S1)
19. 000A413C - Possible GHZ Rock (S1)
20. 000A426A - GHZ Breakable wall (S1)
21. 000A4308 - Some GHZ wall (S1)
22. 000A4368 - Fire of some kind
23. 000A44A0 - Burning log (unused)
24. 000A45AE - Waterfall
25. 000A46B4 - HTZ fireballs
26. 000A4802 - GHZ Log brigde (S1)
27. 000A48DA - HTZ crossing platform thingy
28. 000A4BCE - HTZ Automatic door
29. 000A4C46 - HTZ Seesaw with green ball
30. 000A4DDE - HPZ bridge
31. 000A4F56 - HPZ Waterfalls
32. 000A52B8 - HPZ Big Emerald
33. 000A552A - Fuck knows, blocks of colour
34. 000A55EA - HPZ Glowing orb
35. 000A5826 - Some platform
36. 000A59C0 - UNKNOWN unused dust
37. 000A5AE0 - CPZ floating platform
38. 000A5C2E - Water surface
39. 000A5D9E - Button (S1? S2?)
40. 000A5E76 - Vertical spring
41. 000A5F92 - Horizontal spring
42. 000A605C - Diagonal springs
43. 000A6230 - SCORE RINGS TIME
44. 000A6338 - Lives HUD
45. 000A644E - Rings
46. 000A6542 - Monitors
47. 000A696C - Vertical spikes
48. 000A69BC - Gathered points
49. 000A6A96 - Prototype checkpoint
50. 000A6B3C - Prototype end of level panel
51. 000A6F8A - Crocodile
52. 000A732C - EHZ Buzz Bomber
53. 000A7512 - HPZ Bat
54. 000A7868 - OOZ Octopus
55. 000A7B88 - Triceratops
56. 000A7F84 - HPZ Dinobot
57. 000A835A - Unused sideways piranha
58. 000A8852 - OOZ Prototype horsefish
59. 000A8CA0 - Unused rolling ball
60. 000A8F36 - Unused three-eyed fish
61. 000A9162 - Mother Bubbler
62. 000A9384 - EHZ Snail
63. 000A9580 - Prototype Crawler
64. 000A9902 - EHZ Piranha
65. 000A9B0E - Boss ship
66. 000AA24A - CPZ Prototype boss
67. 000AA7A8 - Big explosion
68. 000AAE30 - Robotnik's ship boost
69. 000AAEAE - Puff of smoke?
70. 000AAF94 - EHZ Boss
71. 000AB780 - EHZ Boss helicopter blades
72. 000AB874 - SBZ Ball Hog (S1)
73. 000ABC34 - Crabmeat
74. 000AC122 - GHZ Buzz Bomber (S1)
75. 000AC4C8 - POSSIBLE BUBBLER
76. 000AC6B0 - LZ Burrobot (S1)
77. 000ACD9A - GHZ Piranha (S1)
78. 000AD002 - LZ Jaws (S1)
79. 000AD28C - SYZ Roller (S1)
80. 000AD7B0 - GHZ Motobug (S1)
81. 000ADA3A - GHZ Newtron (S1)
82. 000AE058 - SYZ Snail (S1)
83. 000AE440 - MZ Bat (S1)
84. 000AE73C - Splats (S1)
85. 000AE984 - SLZ Bomb (S1)
86. 000AEC1C - LZ Orbinaut (S1)
87. 000AEDFA - Caterpillar enemy (S1)
88. 000AEF88 - Title card
89. 000AF596 - Explosions
90. 000AFBFC - GAME OVER, TIME OVER
91. 000AFD8E - Vertical spring (S1)
92. 000AFE90 - Sideways spring
93. 000AFF6C - Big ring flash
94. 000B00E0 - End of level hidden bonuses (S1)
95. 000B03E2 - Sonic at Continue screen + Continue star
96. 000B0692 - CONTINUE + Minisonic
97. 000B08CC - Bunny
98. 000B0A24 - Chicken
99. 000B0B80 - Penguin
100. 000B0CFC - Seal
101. 000B0E18 - Pig
102. 000B0F4E - Flicky
103. 000B1088 - Squirrel
104. 000B2184 - EHZ graphics
105. 000B5784 - HTZ graphics
106. 000B6BAA - HTZ placeholders for animated tiles
107. 000C0492 - HPZ graphics
108. 000C31A0 - HPZ glowing orbs
109. 000CC8F4 - CPZ graphics
110. 000CFDC0 - UNKNOWN
111. 000D8C34 - GHZ graphics (S1)
112. 000DC1F0 - GHZ graphics (S1)
113. 000E0B62 - Ending scene additional graphics (S1)
114. 000E0DEA - Credits font (S1)
115. 000E13E8 - SONIC THE HEDGEHOG ending text (S1)

Finished the list off.


0A4368

0AAEAE

Palettes may well be wrong.

 

Uh, dude, the 3-eyed fish *is* the Mother Bubbler, isn't it? = P According to the concept sketches ICEknight acquired a while back, anyway. Don't have the decompressor at the mo so I can't check out what you have labelled as the Mother Bubbler, but I assume it's the Bubbler (the unused enemy that looks like bubbles)..

..Which leads to the question as to what the hell this is supposed to be:

Pics of all three for confirmation as to exactly what you're talking about for what entry, plz? =P

 

Awesome work Drx, tis a great victory for the community.

It appears that this might be the very Nick arcade prototype.

 

I didn't make that document or any of the parts labelled; I assumed ICEknight is intelligent enough to know what he's talking about. The "possible Bubbler" is a bizarre blob which inflates rapidly and then disappears with a puff (apparently multiple frames of the thing).

 

Just noticed this while using debug and saw that no one had said about it, there are Waterslides in HPZ (attachment inclusded) but you have to use Debug to get to them.

.: Dan Dyer :.

 

He can die in every possible way, what are you guys talking about?

Or just a pirate thing.

It's not the same smoke, this could be for the spindash.

Which is also obvious with the scrolling clouds of GHZ, and the ordered levels in the level select menu.

 

Go here in GHZ3:

The spike here used to be a horizontal left facing one. Now it's been changed to a vertical upwards facing one slightly off the ground. The problem is though when I jump on it, I get stuck in a never ending "lose ring" sequence. I just keep bouncing up and down there, and I can't move to the left or right at all.

Another small thing to note. After you beat GHZ 3 and go to CPZ 1 The hud has garbage for gfx like in GHZ, but that's not what's important.
(I found this only occurs with debug enabled wether it's the CPZ with the messed up hud or without)When you pass the yellow/black vertical bar and the last vertical bar for some reason it plays the sign post sound effect. Image shown for location clarification:


Edit again: It's actually several places in the level I think it's whenever you pass that tall object that looks like some rings.

 

Nobody mentioned it because everyone knew it already; it was in Wai's beta, too.

 

Ah, Didn't realise, Sorry ^^'

.: Dan Dyer :.

 

<!--quoteo(post=149178:date=Nov 7 2006, 09:03 PM:name=SKAARG)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SKAARG @ Nov 7 2006, 09:03 PM)
This shows that not all screenshots with Sonic off-center are fake.

Edit: I'm probably wrong with this idea becuase of what Gerbilsoft and Rika said on irc.
[23:02] <GerbilSoft> all the screenshots with sonic off-center weren't after a spindash
[23:02] <GerbilSoft> (the magazine scans, at least)
[23:07] <rika> yeah, cause he was just walking.
[23:08] <rika> off center while spinning or running with speed boost or sneakers is nothing out of the ordinary.[/quote]




BOO! =P I?s a bug with the camera that happens when Tails dies.

EDIT: Another one.. the camera focus on Tails when he returns after dying.

 

I think they're the same as those in the other proto, only now they make sense with this different layout (Sonic doesn't get stuck and starts acting like an idiot, etc).

You could already see in the other prototype that HPZ was even made with the Sonic 1 main palette (which makes the spikes look wrong), so yeah, it's quite possible.

 

I found the Hex location to HPZ's Object layout and HPZ's object debug list.. But I didnt keep notes... =P

 

So it makes me wonder, the ring monitor was replaced with the shield when they changed objects around. I bet that the shield monitor in the very begining was originally a 10 ring box. I'm half way curious if that tails monitor was even suposed to be a free life.

I also wonder if HPZ was the first level even created? Or perhaps it was just worked on the most and canned the fastest. It seems like they had no motivation to work on the level anymore past what was done. Since it could have been the first level made, maybe they got sick of it fast?

 

If someone with techie knowledge could prove me wrong feel free, this is just another thought of mine. Does this enemy that's graphics are garbage remind anybody of the sketches of the frog enemy? Except this one just jumps back and forth.

Edit: Forgot the image :P