Let's think up new Sonic zone tropes!

Mystery Science Zone. You're stuck on a space station orbiting the planet. If you fail to escape before the movie sign lights up, you have to watch the 4kids dub of Sonic X for two hours.

 

Backwards Zone

You drown in air, save badniks by crushing the skulls of woodland animals and when you get hit, rings spill into you instead of out. The boss would be the zone logo at the beginning of a normal level.

 

I don't know why but "Metro PCS Zone" just came into my mind.

 

That is crazy awesome.

 

Innsmouth zone. An eerie, early 1900s ruined town lit in moonlight and covered in fog. A subquest in the level involves bolting doors, and if completed, will lower the amount of baddies attacking you.

 

I always thought that ancient castle ruins similar to those found in Europe would be a cool idea for a 2D Sonic stage. using old rickety chandeliers as a swing mechanism but if you hang on for to long the chain snaps. You could also have some timed platforming across break away platforms and for the higher route Sonic could cross the towers on top of the castle via ropes or springs. Just something I always thought sounded good, however, in practice it could be a totally different story and might not work at all.

 

Any trope could work if it's given fun gimmicks.

I want an Asian casino-themed pinball level, with tons of traditional-styled architecture mixed with liberal amounts of bright neon and hanging lit lanturns and fireworks and solid gold statues of fat Buddha and pinchinko-themed sets. And the whole thing's set over a reflective lake at night.

 

How 'bout a level where Sonic is miniaturized to microscopic proportions and has to run around inside of the body of some...thing? Organic Innards Zone :v:

 

I totally think the Pachinko machine theme would be a great twist on an old trope. Great idea there Uncle Otis

 

I always thought the inside of a giant computer would work. Or a tiny Sonic in a normal-sized computer. It would include all the components a normal computer has, and heat would somehow play a role in it.

 

Cream's Nursery Zone- Maybe an incredibly lighthearted factory-like level, like a fusion of Chemical Plant and Tidal Plant, plus some childish things to make it into a stupidly easy/deceptively hard level, like rubber rainbow trampolines (like in Neo Green Hill in Advance, but rainbows). And those bubbles from Tidal Plant, but make you float through both air and water, rather than just water.

Forgive me, I've been feeling strange lately.

Aquatic Tower Zone- A large stone tower (maybe grey) that looks a bit like Lost World (SA1), but a tower, plus the water level gimmick from Aquatic Mine (SA2).

 

Climactic Cavern Zone.
Starts with a massive drop, then it's a flurry of fast-pace-rock-face and twisting tunnel water-slides.

 

Ohhh, and spinning fans and exposed wires :p

 

Perhaps a cruise ship zone?

Meh, I got nothing...

 

I've always kinda had this idea more for a Banjo-Kazooie type game ever since I was a little kid, but I think that a super-market level would be quite fun. Hopping across giant pieces of produce, running through loop-de-loops which are actually the handles of milk cartons, etc, would be pretty fun.

 

I want some mystic type zones.
Like hidden palace zone....or something

 

Acid Rain Forest. A forest ruins level, only suffering from the effects of acid rain. The environment would be grey and dead, with ring-sapping water, poisonous badniks, dead trees and bits of trees to run on, jump on and break through, and there could be creepy damaged statues and ruins.

It could be placed in between a natural level and a factory/base level.

 

Mr. Mash that sounds like something that Robotnik would indeed cause. In fact, it has a strong SatAM feel to it.

Consider me a fan of your Zone idea. It has some compromise between canons in there. We need more of that compromising business going on.

 

Coincidentally, I just finished watching a TV programme about Yellowstone and forest fires a day or two ago. When a fire burns through an area of forest, it will leave a patch of dead trees that can stand for decades.

I was thinking how cool a "Standing Dead" Zone would be. Of course, I like bleak, Tim Burton-esque imagery; but if you wanted to lighten it up a bit for a Sonic Zone, it might be interesting to have the ground be carpeted with new growth. There'd be teeming new life underfoot, watched over by the thousands of outstretched arms of the dead preceding generation.

 

The first level of a hack I made features a forest kind of like that. But that's shameless advertisement for Dead Hill Zone...

I agree, a supermarket level would be cool.

What about a automatically-sidescrolling highway or something, like jumping on top of cars going in both directions, and bridges like in Radical Highway?

Or another Thailand-themed level, like the Adabat levels (can't remember what they're called) but act 1 with more focus on the tropical beach/jungle areas, and act 2 more like Grung Thep at night or something like that. (For those not in the know, Grung Thep is the capital of Thailand. Or it might be Krung Thep- one of the two.)

Even better: a 2D China/Japan level (like Chun-nan, but 2D and less irrelevant, see those annoying spinning platforms in the PS3 version).