Let's think up new Sonic zone tropes!

Mindfuck Zone:

Nothing makes sense. Nothing is as it seems. The entire level is made of surreal constructs as fickle in nature as the whims of the designers, in a bizzare array of colors never static, let alone sane.

Basically, it's a level where the only consideration is gameplay and the visuals are surreal shit designed solely to accommodate the gameplay.

 

Nice job mentioning a zone I've never heard of and doing nothing to explain what it is aside from having the applied phlebotinum words that are in its name.

 

Lunatic Lake Zone
Minge Mania Zone

 

You know, typically when describing a zone as something that concentrates more on gameplay than concept, you should usually make your description of that zone do something like... oh, I don't know, follow suit.

 

Oh, if we're doing random zone names, how about Rampant Racism Zone?

 

Fine, don't get angry at me. Anyway, the most chaotic thing I can think of is Quantum Physics. It would make a great puzzle zone instead of a LOL-HOLD-RIGHT-TO-WIN zone. Maybe you pass a wall, get to a dead end, come back, and the area is completely different. Think of things that make no sense, and they ARE Quantum Physics. It's kinda like Mindfuck Zone, so, uh, I'll let someone else explain that.

 

"I'm sorry, I'll try to describe it. It makes no sense and it's like this other zone that wasn't described at all by anything other than 'have good gameplay'".

The problem here is people seem to think that an intention to have a level or a game that plays well is the intention to have a level or a game that plays well. It takes more than that. It takes specifics.

 

That sentence itself should be incorporated into the fabric of Mindfuck Zone.

Augh.

It's like a young "Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?"

 

Though technically this isn't a trope for a level, an idea for a zone I've had is that you play through a zone that at first Robotnik has barely touched, than a zone or two later you play it again backwards(right to left) through a completely ruined version of the zone to catch robotnik.

 

I cracked up when I read that. Yeah, what I meant to say that having the intention to have a level or game that plays well means that the level or game will play well. I didn't sleep well last night, something about a 3 second clip of some game or some shit like that.

 

You mean Green Hill Zone vs. Mecha Green Hill Zone?

Or the whole gimmik of Sonic CD?

 

Oh, he spends the entire Zone doing this. If you fail to complete an act within 10 minutes, he realizes how impossible he truly is, and gives himself a game over.

 

Highway Trope: Always on the move, these levels are fast-paced and full with obstacles. Grind on Guard Rails, Run on Semi's, and bounce on Trailer covers. Dodge oncoming traffic and also run on the occasional embankment.

Zone Names:

Highway Hills
Rapid Runaway
Semi Sector
Night Line

Boss Examples:

The Egg Grinder - Robotnik's machine grinds on the Guard Rails. While it is on them, it has cogs which grip the rail. It uses these as a generator to store up power to fire a lazer. It can also fire some missiles. The ONLY time you can hurt this machine is when it fires rockets or detaches from the guardrail to latch onto another. This happens frequently, so you have many chances for hits.

The Eggamotion - Robotnik has a train filled to the brim with attacks ready to fire upon Sonic! To hurt this boss machine, you need to reach the front and attack the engine. This is not easy, as every car has a different weapon aimed at Sonic. There are bomb drops, missile raids, slippery liquids, and many other crazy things to keep you from the Engine.

K I'm done now.

 

Pizza Palace Zone
- An 8 minute long castle made out of pizza. Sonic can walk on cheese and dive into tomato sauce. He can also bounce off pepperoni stacks. Sometimes he gets stuck in thick tomato sauce so he has to eat his way out of the trap. At the end of the zone, he is morbidly obese and slowly crawls his ass to Treadmill Zone.

Yeah, I'm hungry. ._.

 

I actually had something like this planned for a future hack, once I got more experience.

Of course, I'm a lazy bastard. Maybe eventually it'll be done.

 

A zone based on a water park. You've got fountains and sprayers and things to toss you around, maybe one of those wave machines like (I want to say) Schlitterbahn has, perhaps acting as some sort of fork in the route, Maybe even make it like Sea world and have an aquarium kind of thing. Would probably have kind of a lively Hydrocity Zone kind of thing going on. Act 2 could be a red neck yacht club with a bunch of boats. Perhaps have the red neck yacht club in a shallow bay past the breakwater to avoid having to make too many underwater segments. Of course, this being Sonic's world, there wouldn't just be conventional boats, there would be hovercraft and various hydroplanes and the like.

 

I've got all sorts of great ideas, but as far as totally original environments go, I've always wanted to do a salt flat with low-flying airships and ancient machinery all over the place to keep it from being Straight Line Zone. I've considered the airport deal too, and I think we all want to see a sunken Death Egg. Even the Sonic Mars/X-treme people wanted to see that happen.

 

"Early Planet Zone"

Somehow Robotnik, like Q, travels back in time to the beginning of Mobius, trying to change history and destroy the planet. Sonic follows in order to stop him and plays this zone.

The planet is almost entirely molten, having just formed. Only a very thin crust on the surface has cooled. Shiny black scales of lava drift along glowing fields of magma, like an inverted parody of ice floes on a lake surface.

What few pools of water there are bubble, and belch acrid smoke that obscure the view, so that entire areas are played in a silhouette like an old shadow play.

Some areas are under such intense pressure that thin wiry streams of magma jet out like a water show in front of a Las Vegas hotel. A stringy arc of magma shoots out of the ground, curls around, cooling into a loop that wasn't there moments before.

It's still early enough in the planet's formation that it's still drifting through a highly populated meteor stream. In the sky in the level BKG, meteors radiate outward from a point in the sky, a cross between rain and a sunburst. In the foreground, meteors are an intermittent danger, sort of like Meteor Herd, and they can smash open new areas for Sonic to explore.

For the heck of it, a great impact at the beginning of Act 2 causes an epic chase, as an homage to Sonic Boom's brilliant Act 3.

The glassy cooled lava reflects Sonic as he runs past it.

Plus, though this is a little anachronistic (but we can stretch 'cos it's Mobius), all the Badniks are crazy creatures of bizarre, Cambrian style phyla - 7 legged, 20 eyed, nightmarish - all pincers, stingers and shells.

EDIT: OMG, Ritz, that's an awesome picture. I love watching stuff about geology, because it gives great Zone ideas. Sonic Team needs the Discovery Channel!

 

Cave Cat Hog 3,000,000 B.C. :v:

On a more serious note, I don't really have any ideas.

A Cruise Ship based zone would be pretty cool though, or a grave yard. Robotnik rising the dead to fight Sonic, yeah... all the creatures he could have killed over time, all buried, now rising out of the grave to destroy what is their hero. It is sadly ironic, in a way.

 

No, you're missing the point. Mindfuck Zone's gameplay isn't the issue; whatever it is, the level's art needs to be transparently about that gameplay.

A thing you bounce on is a thing you bounce on; no justification as an object fitting the environment. A tiered platform isn't justified as a tree, it's just a tiered platform. It's a level which doesn't try to hide gameplay behind its environment, whatever that gameplay is.