In his/her defense, the server is slow and it's difficult to find that stuff bunched in with the rest of this topic.
In the defense of the server, you guys are solely destroying the SQL server with your massive hits. It's a surprise it's still up now.
I wonder if there are tile left overs like there were in Wai Beta for level art, I took the alpha CPZ tiles from the Wai Beta awhile back and put them in S2 and they happen to match the ones from this beta more closely then the oens in Wai Beta so hopefully we could find HPZ left overs of when it was being built on Labrynth Zone.
I'll have to do an authoritative disassembly at some point. I'm particularly interested in the wall-hitting code.
I could very well be imagining things, but I thought I heard something about a different looking Death Egg zone, or some other zone that had purple ramps or something of the sorts, existing in some version of S2 a few years back. Was there actually something like this or not?
Wow. I was having a pretty bad day today. But this has to be the highlight of it right here. The dedication it took to receive this beautiful work of art (err, abandoned art) is simply great. More prototypes have been released this year, and this has to be the biggest one yet. Thank you drx. If we knew your real name, we could name the prototype after you (going back a few pages on this). Two things I noticed while playing Hill Top that MAY have been mentioned: The pulley system (shown below) behaves differently. In Simon Wai's ROM, the bottom falls to the bottom like in the final build. But in drx's ROM, the bottom hatch stays connected (and sometimes the entire thing stops before meeting its destination (not shown). Simon Wai's Prototype (falls like final build) drx's Prototype (stays) The second thing is that the backgrounds of Chemical Plant and Hill Top aren't animated. They are a constant image that never moves. Lastly, let's see some hacks! (ahem Sonic Delta/Long Version) Thanks again, Troy
Death Egg was supposed to have Tagging for it's 8x8 tiles but the art does not exist in the final Rom as I found the code for the tagging for DEZ awhile back so you may be right that it wasa different looking DEZ.
OMG! SYZ is the real music for Hidden Palace!! *shot* But in all seriousness, holy crap! This is incredible. After taking into account everyone's posts, plus some things I've looked at myself, I'm pretty confident that this is the Nick Arcade build. As for a name for it, Sonic 2 Alpha would be the best wording. If you want to be technical, you can call this Alpha 1 and the original ROM Alpha 2. Alpha is a working copy but in development, testing for major bugs. Beta testing is a full product, give or take one or two things, and it's mostly bug fixes and rarely a new feature is implemented. This ROM is pretty damn early in the development, though, as the level select is exactly the same as Sonic 1 JP. The sound select seems to be the exact same as well, as are other more technical things such as the sound engine location, etc. I love the fact that S1 Green Hill Zone is pretty much in tact. I also find it interesting to see what levels were written over first. It's also quite amusing that they had the level design for Hidden Palace mapped out exactly the same as in the original beta ROM, which has been confirmed to be the same as in S2Final. This much with HPZ was done so early, yet they couldn't finish it for the final release. Whether it was a bug they couldn't fix or size constraints of the cartridge, I'm not exactly sure, but they can't use time as an excuse as to why it's not done. I would now love to see a build in between this one and the original beta ROM. That might hold some interesting clues for the Desert Zone, among other scrapped levels. The likelihood of that happening is probably slim to none, but then again, that was once said about finding another ROM in general. Awesome find, man!
Hmm, I also noticed some different deformation in the background. Is it just me or does Emerald Hills lower part background deformation seem less smooth in animation? Hill Tops clouds also scroll with you rather than moving automatically on their own. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Dunno if this was spotted before, but in case it hasn't, take a good look at this garbled mess: It's the CPZ collapsing platforms! If I had to make a guess, I'd say this was the level they were working on primarily around the time of its compilation, hence the objects slowly being programmed and slammed in the level.
Okay, I'm not about to look through 17 pages to see if someone has done this before, but in "Scrap Brain Act 3," using the debug to go to the top of the screen and then going right causes you to go to "Final Zone" just like in SB3 in S1 with the springs.
No one posted that in this thread yet, but yes, I noticed that too. I didn't make your same guess anyway... I still have so much to learn.
I just found some really odd stuff in the uncompressed art area a precursor to Metropolis zone? or CPZ animated art that hasn't been added yet? (Note: this is using CPZ's pallete)
<!--quoteo(post=149359:date=Nov 8 2006, 10:50 PM:name=Mistergambit)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Mistergambit @ Nov 8 2006, 10:50 PM) a precursor to Metropolis zone? or CPZ animated art that hasn't been added yet? (Note: this is using CPZ's pallete)[/quote] Whoa, what the shit? This looks like it might be another case of the cart being burned over another game entirely... it just doesn't seem like it would be art from a Sonic game. And even if it was, I can't think of what it would be a part of - usually you don't start making art for objects/levels like this unless they were already being developed in some way. EDIT: The top tiles look like part of the animated patterns in the background in the wai beta/final.
The quality almost looks low enough to be from a game gear game. Then again, it may be small parts of the background.
I saw all of this when I checked with TLP yesterday.. I wasn't sure if it was new or not hence me saying someone should look :P I did recognize the old "HPZ Background Object" right before em though :P it looks really familiar to me though.. just cant place it
