don't click here

Unused enemy sprites by Sonic 2 artist Tom Payne

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Fred, Apr 17, 2019.

  1. Fred

    Fred

    Taking a break Oldbie
    1,563
    117
    43
    Portugal
    Sonic 3 Unlocked
    Apparently Tom Payne went to a vintage game store in California and dropped off a fuckton of Sonic 2 development floppies?

    EDIT: Pending a proper writeup, here is a twitter thread from the Video Game History Foundation account.
    https://info.sonicretro.org/Category:Tom Payne disk sprites
     
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2019
  2. Hez

    Hez

    Oldbie
  3. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

    no reverse gear Wiki Sysop
    8,543
    2,465
    93
    Northumberland, UK
    steamboat wiki
    I imagine those are the same disks ICEKnight unearthed back in the day.

    Bit annoying - if he was keen to part with them someone could have jumped in and got these things preserved properly. Now it's all up in the air.
     
  4. Gryson

    Gryson

    Member
    384
    343
    63
    That instagram post says "Wednesday @nkdbob @jesterpezz and Frank Cifildi will be coming to the store to get these preserved."

    I think we're going to be OK.
     
  5. 360

    360

    Light Vision Overdrive Oldbie
    2,282
    1
    0
    United Kingdom
    Sonic Neon
    Yeah fucking huge news if I'm being honest. Even if there's only a small chance these will have anything new. Sonic 2 is what Retro was built upon.

    Deserves a new thread, but maybe when the contents of the disks are (hopefully) made available?
     
  6. Xilla

    Xilla

    I fail to understand....I begin to see! Member
    832
    177
    43
    The B-Bomb stuff might be of great interest too, seeing as he created graphics for what-could-have-been Cyber City Zone and what-would-become The Machine for that game
     
  7. ICEknight

    ICEknight

    Researcher Researcher
    Man, I'm so glad that those are finally going to be preserved.
     
  8. Eric Wright

    Eric Wright

    Born into this. Oldbie
    https://twitter.com/TheN4Us/status/1117863819185774601
    https://twitter.com/cupofn00bles/status/1118527168810639360

    am I super late to the party about this or something?
    randomly came across it this evening, figured Retro would have SOME kind of chatter about it, but didn't seem to find anything...

    Petaluma was a 10 minute drive from where I was for the last four months, I had actually meant to check out that store while I was out there but never got around to it.

    are "nkdbob" "jesterpezz" and "Frank Cifildi" any part of whatever's left of the sonic research community? I'm so out of touch with all this shit lol
     
  9. 360

    360

    Light Vision Overdrive Oldbie
    2,282
    1
    0
    United Kingdom
    Sonic Neon
    We had a brief discussion about it here when Neo alerted everyone about it. Obviously the Sonic 2 stuff could be of the greatest potential magnitude amidst the other games - though the reason we (and I) held off in making a thread is because we wanted to wait for everything to be released to have a proper discussion about it.

    That said it is awesome you made a thread as in hindsight it probably deserves discussion as the situation progresses and unfolds - and as hopefully the stuff is released and revealed.
     
  10. Eric Wright

    Eric Wright

    Born into this. Oldbie
    lol i just miss the days of Mad Hype (™) over prospective new shit being released like back in the day :P Stumbling on that twitter post was like a 15 year flashback

    I know I had seen pictures of one disk and chatter about it a few years ago;
    http://www.retrocollect.com/Articles/uncovering-sonic-2s-secrets-finding-the-hidden-palace-part-4.html

    but forgot (or never knew) whether they landed in the hands of anybody competent enough to actually preserve/respect/dissect them. Seeing "bubbler" written on the disk stood out 'cause i remembered that was one of the lost enemies or something like that, back at a time when so much stuff was still being uncovered. I'd just be happy to see what, if anything, comes from it.

    I'm also curious as to just why Tom Payne traded all that stuff in to the store in the first place... it's not exactly "normal old game stuff" that was sitting around in the basement, even if that's exactly what it was doing at his house :P
     
  11. ICEknight

    ICEknight

    Researcher Researcher
    It's in good hands, so don't worry about the contents not being preserved/released or anything.

    EDIT: Images got leaked out of the blue, here's a mirror so that wou guys won't get intrusive ads while browsing them:

    Sonic 1
    yamaguchi

    Sonic 2
    sonic_enemies_backup
    metropolis
    bob

    Spinny & Spike
    pc_disk_again

    B-Bomb
    b-bomb_asteroid_enemy_b
    b-bomb_plutonia_lower_class
    b-bomb_plutonia_upper_class
    b-bomb_plutonian_enemies
    b-bomb_tech_world_blocks

    Misc Sonic 2 and B-Bomb
    tom_payne_dpaint

    Scans
    Sonic 2 development documents (1/2)
    Sonic 2 development documents (2/2)

    Credit goes to Frank Cifaldi, Rich Whitehouse and the Video Game History Foundation.
     
  12. Overlord

    Overlord

    Now playable in Smash Bros Ultimate Moderator
    19,218
    965
    93
    Long-term happiness
    Yeah I was tempted to split those posts out into a separate thread but figured it'd happen anyway when the contents were dumped. No matter, this one's fine now: I've moved the posts in here.
     
  13. biggestsonicfan

    biggestsonicfan

    Model2wannaB Tech Member
    1,608
    406
    63
    ALWAYS Sonic the Fighters
  14. ICEknight

    ICEknight

    Researcher Researcher
    Oh, that guy released Frank's stuff as-is before he could finish documenting everything in the full-fledged article that he was preparing. How nice.
     
  15. Yuzu

    Yuzu

    Member
    2,548
    51
    28
    Frank tweeted about it:

    "Man I wish you would have talked to us about this before publishing, we're still in the middle of reverse engineering the rest of the files etc., we only just archived these two days ago. Kinda jumped the gun on the reveal IMO.

    I have a lot of theories about what these files are that I wanted to confirm with Tom, that's what we were working on. As it is right now it's just a mess of content with no context. Please at least credit @DickWhitehouse with reverse-engineering the Sega Digitizer format."

    Seems like a really shitty situation all around.
     
  16. ICEknight

    ICEknight

    Researcher Researcher
    Yeah, I think it would be best for everybody if you guys don't retweet that.
     
  17. Yuzu

    Yuzu

    Member
    2,548
    51
    28
    Do you want me to remove the link to Frank's reply so it doesn't bring more attention to the original tweet?
     
  18. ICEknight

    ICEknight

    Researcher Researcher
    There's a direct link to the offending tweet a few posts above so meh, I don't know.
     
  19. Yuzu

    Yuzu

    Member
    2,548
    51
    28
    I've removed it and just quoted the reply instead to give less attention to the original tweet.
     
  20. Shoemanbundy

    Shoemanbundy

    Researcher
    1,094
    30
    28
    Chicago, Illinois
    selling shoes
    Big oof. He must have really wanted to have that exclusive. Really should have considered his greed probably just ruined whatever relations he had with Frank and his org now. I wonder if there were no explicit rules given so he just saw it as a free for all?

    I hope this doesn't ruin whatever Frank was planning since I'll take carefully done research over a rushed "EXCLUSIVE" blog post any day.