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

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by The Joebro64, Mar 19, 2023.

  1. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

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    The real reason a lot of internet projects never take off is because too many people want to be the "idea men" and too few people are willing to actually put in a large amount of work. And by "idea men" i mean more than just "here's how the game should go," I mean a lot of time is spent by people critiquing what little rubber meets the road. Inevitably, it becomes the onus of like one or two technical people to implement mountains of assets, of which is good nobody can agree upon. Then you run into stuff like Sonic 2 HD, where a single person can run away with the project.

    If something was going to happen, it would need to be handled like a modern open source project. Put up a git repo, have someone be the arbiter of what gets merged in or not, and just have people contribute without constantly posting their stuff on forums to be subject to backlash and critique.
     
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  2. HEDGESMFG

    HEDGESMFG

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    https://gamebanana.com/tools/8369

    The tools for stage editing are getting pretty sophisticated in the RSDK scene. I feel like a 1 act rebuild of Metropolis 3 would not be too difficult. The biggest challenge would be implementing unique objects like the fans at the start of the thread. You might even be able to keep the same Metropolis Zone boss.
     
  3. Chimpo

    Chimpo

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    That got lost? I'll see what I can find in my old drives.
    I mentally blocked out the development of that because of useless page long arguments (like the shade of purple being used on Sonic) ended up dominating the discussion. Maybe OSM still has some stuff. I think I still have his contact. I know jman had a working tech demo too that was never publicized.
    I'll bring this up in another thread if I end up finding it. This isn't relevant to this thread. Carry on.
     
  4. Blastfrog

    Blastfrog

    See ya starside. Member
    For what it's worth, Bubsy already had a Canada Zone. :P

    This is how the Freedoom project handles things, and would serve as a good reference.

    I strongly feel that it should be done as a ROM hack instead for authenticity.
     
  5. Childish

    Childish

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    I had no idea the sonic 4 project was a thing, predates me joining the forms significantly lol. But yeah my idea would have been someone calling the shots about what gets added or not. But then the question is who?

    I originally brought up the idea cause I thought it was cool no idea I'd derail the thread.

    But yeah if this is something people want then cool although I'm still a bit noobish when it comes to hacks, not sure I'd be able to handle it, someone else might have to host it.
     
  6. The Joebro64

    The Joebro64

    SAY HELLO TO MY CHOCOLATE BLEND Member
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    I assume the Sonic 4 they're talking about is Project: Sonic Retro.

    Let's try to refocus on Cyber City though. I am going to see if I can make some free time to learn hacking and make progress on a restoration. My idea would be to:
    1. port the Simon Wai Metropolis Act 3 layout and objects to the final
    2. replace the graphics and palette with the known Cyber City assets
    3. polish up the object placement (I'd just use the normal Metropolis 3 enemies unless someone finds Cyber City-specific ones)
    4. replace the music (personally would go with the final Death Egg theme (0A) since that's commonly speculated to have been intended for Cyber City)
    I think that'd be a pretty close approximation of the real deal.
     
  7. charcoal

    charcoal

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    I'm not gonna lie, the more we learn about this stage the more I'm glad it was cut. Doesn't sound fun.
     
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  8. HEDGESMFG

    HEDGESMFG

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    I mean, a lot of the stuff we obsess over was early in development and would often be crude compared to the final versions of some of the levels. A lot of stuff was cut for quality reasons, and that's not always the wrong call. Wood Zone in particular fits into this, and maybe Sand Shower/Dust Hill as well. I'd guess SCD's R2 as well probably was not the greatest stage either in whatever early form it took.

    I think the major exception was Hidden Palace, but we now have a "full" version of that level anyway, even if not what the original concept was (which also may have been a leftover from the time travel era of the game's development)
     
  9. TheRedEye

    TheRedEye

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    Hi, this is Frank Cifaldi, I'm the one who dumped Tom's disks and scanned (most of?) his paper. This was four years ago so I don't exactly remember why the Genocide City stuff wasn't in that gallery that's floating around with my scans. I can only guess but knowing me I was probably planning content specifically around making a big splash with the "lost city" as a way to draw attention to the nonprofit I run, The Video Game History Foundation, and that I sent the rest to that blog to get it out there. I just don't remember, and I can't find the scans (if I even made any?). I just happened to take that photo of them all spread out. As someone mentioned earlier, I actually thought all the scans were out there!

    I know for sure that I did not scan all of the paper because some of it was too large, I brought an 8.5x11 scanner on site and we made plans to finish the job at our office on our 11x17. I also recall that I might have done quick 300dpi scans instead of my typical 600dpi.

    Tom no longer owns the paper but I know who does, and I will try to work this out with them. I recommend not going too hard on working with my bad photo as reference. I won't swear to it but I believe it's possible there may have been a layout for the level as well.
     
  10. HEDGESMFG

    HEDGESMFG

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    Do what must be done. We're counting on you to preserve this tiny bit of gaming history, and know that it will almost certainly not be wasted if you can fully scan and recover those assets.

    And thank you for all that you've given us either way.
     
  11. saxman

    saxman

    Oldbie Tech Member
    I know how Jack Bauer would handle this. But hopefully less-messy methods work. Thanks, @TheRedEye, for taking this up. It means a whole lot, especially to us oldbies!
     
  12. Nik Pi

    Nik Pi

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    Everyone talks about Simon Wai layout, but nobody talks about concept arts :/
    [​IMG]
    You about Sonic 2 director's cut? Well, author is gone to unknown a long years ago and his co-workers doesn't know what happened with him.
     
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  13. HEDGESMFG

    HEDGESMFG

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    If you look closely to the far left, there appears to be a fan like device for the final tunnel that blows you into the boss room. Also, I'm assuming those are crushing pistons on both the top and bottom of the ceiling, as well as sideway spike pistons like you'd see in beta Marble Zone.

    That layout is clearly more mechanical than cyber, but it appears a few elements may have passed through.
     
  14. Hez

    Hez

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    That's a good catch. I also never noticed the springs before it being those that Payne drew that are similiar to what we see in Flying Battery.
     
  15. Fadaway

    Fadaway

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    I fully agree.
     
  16. HEDGESMFG

    HEDGESMFG

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    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    Here's the two of these side by side, BTW. The first 1/3 is almost identical to simon wai beta map. After that, almost every object seen in the right hand side isn't something you see in the final build. There's a spot near the center after the ceiling spikes where it appear you'd run over a button and a spike floor trap would pop up, similar to the ones seen in Collision Chaos in Sonic CD.

    And again, Final Metropolis 3 for comparison
    [​IMG]

    Finally, I don't know if these 2 images have been dropped in the thread, but they are yet more proof of the fan objects and how the Metropolis visuals would transition into Cyber City.
    [​IMG][​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2023
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  17. T.Q.

    T.Q.

    The Sims 2, Tim Drake [Robin] Member
    Here's a version that superimposes the version from Metropolis 3 (Simon Wai prototype) versus the concept sketch (with vertical squishing of the concept art to somewhat align with the in-game level structure). Quite interesting...

    [​IMG]
     
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  18. MathUser

    MathUser

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    Coloring the map really makes it easier to see the layout.
     
  19. Tiberious

    Tiberious

    Yeah, I'm furry. Got a problem? Oldbie
    I'll just go ahead and confirm for you that the picture floating around does also show a level layout on paper. It's the one with all the red boxes with hex values in the top-left corners, mostly visible in the corners of the pic.
     

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  20. HEDGESMFG

    HEDGESMFG

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    And looking at it closely, that layout is drawn in the same style, but does not match any spot on the (later?) Metropolis 3 (Alpha?) layout. Nor any spot in Metropolis 1 or 2 for that matter.