New Sonic 2 development lore drop - Genocide/Cyber City palette and art!

Well I imagine if you get asked the same questions the same way over and over again it can be pretty exhausting. It might be exhilarating at first to be recognized and appreciated but it will get tiring eventually. Personally I’m a big kid chameleon fan and it deserves to be documented too. Therefore it would be wiser for someone, such as frank, to ask about any past game dev info rather than just specifically about sonic 2. I’d rather not make the devs hate the fans bothering them as we are in unprecedented times where they are finally connecting and opening up to us.
TLDR help keep redeye working and if it’s there they’ll try to find it.

 

In other words, it’s being handled. I think we should just go with the flow.

 

I’m not suggesting anyone do this of course, but out of sheer curiosity has anyone tried to contact Hirokazu Yasuhara about this kind of thing? I recall one time he answered the question of whether Sand Shower was Dust Hill or not but can’t remember any other times he was reached out to.

 

Just fanwanking/daydreaming, but damn GCZ would have been an excellent fuckin final level for Mania if the boys had only had these docs sooner. Not-Chrome-Gadget is cool too though...

 

This. Exactly what Hez saying here everyone.
Also sorry for mentioned this name again moderators but last thing we need is another AngelFox incident where they keep harassing devs for game devs info and contents like how he was doing to Mazin on Twitter (it's sickening how he's doing it all for clots)
That's the number one thing none of you guys should be doing, they're human beings.

 

Let's move on already. We don't need another page of this.

I was thinking about those turrets earlier and forgot to ask: what's the earliest prototype we have that has those programmed? I don't think those were in Simon Wai at all, but if they were in the next one (August), that could at least provide a clue as to whether they were programmed with GCZ in mind or not. We don't actually know if GCZ was officially a scrapped level by Simon Wai time frame, especially given the level select. So it's interesting to consider this.

 

How would I find the code for it? I've tried debug mode but it doesn't enable on any level.

 

All objects that will be (and not will be) in final- were made in Simon Wai beta.
Everything but badniks, ofcource

EDIT: WFZ Turrets was added in September prototype, WFZ badniks- in August, before level objects

 

I checked my disassemblies of the August 21 and September 14 prototypes, and this seems correct; the turrets, with the action number (or ID) $B8, was added between the two builds.

 

Two thoughts:

- Looking at those weird vertical spinning objects unused in WFZ, they look like they might be based on the laser emitters in the CCZ concept art. If that's what they were used for that might actually explain aspects of their coding -- destroying the generator destroys the laser, allowing Sonic to access otherwise-blocked routes

- The 'bear trap' tiles on the ground remind me a lot (especially with their placement over pits) of the sliding bridges in Scrap Brain.

 

Rebuilding parts of this layout are interesting now that I've finally fixed collision a bit in what I'm using.

In the beginning, there's a secret room that you can access via the fans. I just copied Oil Oceans fans for this object and upped the height limit for now.


THIS part interests me the most. I'm starting to think this might have been a place that drained water, or maybe opened somehow via a switch? It's very Labyrinth zone looking


Then you have these areas that really remind me of Scrap Brain. Which I'm guessing a bunch of turrets are here or something. I've got to watch more of the stream and hope that they release layouts/code soon.



I honestly really think I would have liked this level, but I see the flow works a bit better with what ended up happening in the final.

EDIT: FYI this has the object layout of MZ act 3 still. I've only made changes to random objects to add the propellers

 

Hey was there any badniks designs for Genocide/Cyber City zone that ever got made?

 

If you'll pardon my language, these look fucking brilliant so far.

I believe that second section is a water tunnel where you grab the pipes, they break, then it rushes you out the top and a latch closes behind you? At least if it's the spot on the map I was thinking of.

 

As far as I’m aware no. There is however many unrealized concepts of badniks that you can find on the wiki. I don’t have the best eye for badnik themes so please feel free to check.

 

I would say unused Water enemies are a good choice for this stage, regardless of the original intent. The Squid, BFish and Bubbler for Acts 2 and 3, for example.

 

In retrospect it's a bit funny that we were seemingly all surprised by the stages being water levels when I recall someone else suggesting the WFZ air current tunnel was probably designed with intent to be used in this stage. Certainly would make sense to me if that were the case here.

 

This all looks amazing. Excited to see anything else you make.

I think the level looks really nice aesthetically too. The purple works really well I think.

 

Also Balkiry, Nebula, Turtloid and Clucker are options for GCZ; they were implemented into the game code before SCZ or WFZ were; predating stuff like the Tornado or the WFZ gimmick objects.

 

Are there any updates on when the scans will be uploaded?

Looking back, the Jaws, Balkiry, and Turtliod badniks are VERY similar in design. Maybe those could also be used.

 

Remember that in earlier prototypes there were also two versions of Oil Ocean's Aquis badnik - "Seahorse", the version seen in the final, and "Skyhorse", a version with a jetpack and a pink-coloured body. From the names, it seems like the jetpack version was intended to fly around somewhere (much like it does in the final), and that the one without the jetpack was likely supposed to appear underwater. Makes you wonder why they just used the "sea" version above water in the final version, haha! But it does leave us one more potential "underwater" badnik that could have appeared in this Zone.

Bubbler is already accounted for as far as I can tell - the concept art is pretty clear that Bubbler, Mother Bubbler and Ball were all intended for Chemical Plant originally. Does make you wonder where the final Chemical Plant badniks were intended for, though - Spiny is another one with a possible aquatic use, as I've always thought it resembled some sort of sea urchin...

...Of course, there were also concepts drawn up for more Zones with water which never made it, too, so without knowing how long those concepts lasted behind the scenes, it doesn't really give much of a clue as to whether any underwater foes were intended specifically for Genocide City.