https://www.facebook.com/groups/segaretrogamers/permalink/3002355736535441/ Another treasure from Craig Stitt. That Scorpius with the pincers is familiar. EDIT: Also, notice that there are giant rings instead of Chaos Emeralds. Or they're just weirdly drawn??
Stitt mentioned it a few weeks ago: Originally the first Round was going to be "Underground Caves". Could the Sonic Pinball demo have been Underground Caves? The only thing it has in common with Toxic Caves is the sea monster and the safety platform between the flippers. But as we can see on the Toxic Pools map, that safety platform was originally just a barrel, and that lower screen had toxic waste instead of water. So maybe the sea monster wasn't supposed to be in Toxic Pools at all, but got put in Toxic Caves after Underground Caves was scrapped? Also, on this map you can see the floating plant platform thing seen in prototype screenshots.
Ho-LY! Brenda Ross certainly got the rawest of raw deals with these projects. I've always assumed that her being so "meh" about the subject-matter when asked may have had something to do with her work constantly being cut (and being bombarded after her e-mail addy accidentally got publicized certainly didn't help matters), but this just further reinforces that. I guess anyone could argue "it's nothin' personal, just business", but it's still shitty nonetheless. On the flipside, it's amazing to see all this stuff!
Oh, so that's what those whited-out things on the left and lower paths are! On the map it uses the same graphics as those plants on the bottom-left and bottom-right sides that shoot you up to the upper areas, so maybe that plant in the pic is its original design. I also see that the ground below the tubes that lead to the boss area was originally one continuous slope. I'm guessing that changed to prevent you from just spin dashing up there.
