Was any of the original Sonic team asked about that picture of Marble Zone if it's from a alpha build?
Yeah, it definitely looks to be a mock up... but I'm hoping that this alpha Marble Zone & Dust Hill where in game at some point. I remember reading in the old Dust Hill thread some years back that this was confirmed by the level artist (Brenda?) although my memory is a bit flaky.
I have plans to fix the Hidden Palace situation, I've just been very busy with my personal life the past few years. If (and that is a big if) I ever find and dump a Sonic 1 proto that's different than final, this would not be a problem at all.
Wouldn't just posting torrents of them be a good solution to any problem there may be with hosting those prototypes, anyway?
Dust Hill was designed for Sonic 2. Why would it be on the same build as an alpha version of Marble Zone?
@Hez & qwertysonic Sorry, I was pretty hungover when I posted that! I'll try and make sense of that post. Looking back at the development of Sonic 2, and the possibility that Dust Hill was in game at some point and not just a mock up (I think this was confirmed by level artist Brenda in the old Dust Hill thread some years back, but memory is hazy... maybe someone with superior S2 knowledge can correct me on that, ICEknight perhaps?) Hidden Palace was famous for it's mock ups. I'm hoping that because of Dust Hill & Hidden Palace in S2 that somewhere a Marble Zone based on the mock up graphics exists in an early build of Sonic 1 that's yet to be discovered. Off topic: there's a hedgehog in my back garden making weird growling noises :v:
I recall an interview saying something about a unfinished zone, of either Genocide City or Dust Hill, which had a few objects scattered around. Maybe in the way of Wai's Mystic Cave. But just which interview completely evades me. Someone on the SOA side, I'm sure.
That was probably Tom Payne. His assets designed for Genocide/Cyber City Zone were created, then used in Sonic Spinball's The Machine level.
Something I am very curious about here, is scanning. Are we not able to obtain a scan of these shots at a higher resolution? It seems from most of these shots, that the pixels are just see-able enough, that if we had a larger scan of them without lossy compression from JPEG or GIF, or the automatic "newspaper" dithering technique (I don't know the name of it), and with some specifically written tools. We might be able to generate an accurate pixelated rendition of these shots for further analysis. It may even help to narrow out which shots are mock ups and which are legitimates.
Get him! He may have answers! As for that MZ shot, there's too much difference to the final that it certainly screams "mock-up". Especially as Sonic is not centre and there's no HUD. Not to say that they never started to implement any art/objects seen in that shot.
I don't think anybody actually said that the level was ever implemented into the game, but I could also be wrong... I do seem to remember that, when we met in Madrid, Tom Payne told me about how you could get a one-level build from their computers, when you needed to test something. Did Brenda ever get do that with some of her finished graphics? Who knows, but I don't think a test layout could even count as a playable in-game level anyway.
I think the planned Genocide/Cyber City's layout was used for Metropolis Act 3, if I recall... but I don't know if the visuals were ever implemented. You know what would be an awesome hack someone needs to do? Modify the Machine's visuals and reskin them on a tweaked version of Metropolis Act 3 as a one act level. Bam, that'd be as close to an authentic Cyber/Genocide City as we'll ever get.
This is why Wood Zone is most likely just a test layout that got thrown into a build. By accident, who knows? [quote name=HEDGESMFG' timestamp='1430925652' post='824871'] You know what would be an awesome hack someone needs to do? Modify the Machine's visuals and reskin them on a tweaked version of Metropolis Act 3 as a one act level. Bam, that'd be as close to an authentic Cyber/Genocide City as we'll ever get. [/quote] sshhhh......
Interesting, thanks for the info! I would love to see some of these test levels. I bet Sega's archives is a treasure trove of hidden goodies... S1/2 mock up screens are really inspiring. @Hez Wood Zone screams test level to me too. Dust Hill & other levels have to be out there somewhere, either on old Sonic Team hard drives or cartridge... I mean, why make all of a zone's assets for a few mock ups?
This stuff just gives me blue balls.... I want more stuff so bad. EDIT: Did I just find more? EDIT2: Further examining them...they look fake
