Regarding the S3K special stages, another thing mentioned earlier in this thread was that even the layouts seem to reference the zones in some cases. For instance, the third special stage is made up of a bunch of square sections, reflecting the fact MGZ is a structure made up of blocks. The first SS has curved paths of blue spheres that go through "walls" of bumpers, reflecting the auto-spin tunnels in AIZ. The fourth SS has more bumpers than usual, reflecting CNZ. The spheres in the first S&K SS are surrounded by bumpers, reflecting the fact MHZ is filled with bouncy mushrooms. There are other examples too. So I don't think the special stages were going to change palettes depending to the current zone. I think it's more likely that each SS was going be tied to a particular zone (just like the Sonic Advance series and other games would later do), but they changed that for one or more reasons (making it possible to go Super earlier, giving players more opportunities to get the Emeralds, Sonic 3 no longer having 7 zones after the removal of FBZ, etc.) The change in plans probably happened after the 9th SS was designed.
You're looking too deep into this. The first S&K stage is this weird maze thing up until the 0517 prototype. The diamond design only appears starting with the 0525 prototype, and even then the tips of the diamonds you mention are blue spheres rather than bumpers. Furthermore, it's actually the second stage in that build, and it would only switch places with the first one in the 0606 prototype, which is also the first build where the S&K stages have their own color palettes. It is far more likely that they came up with several designs, kept the seven (well, eight) best and sorted them roughly in order of difficulty.
Well, that proves that the first S&K SS's layout wasn't inspired by MHZ, but its says nothing about the S3 ones. If they did base the palettes and/or layouts of the first special stages on zones, that design decision was dropped at some point, as the last S&K SS have no similarities to its zones, not even in palettes. It's possible that they dropped it before they designed any of the S&K SS.
Just watch any of my Sonic 1 videos then, since I use this strategy virtually all the times (the only exception being ring attacks or other exotic challenges).
https://twitter.com/suddendesu/status/1308972704851263488 First possible evidence of a SegaSonic Arcade revision B.
I could probably find more. Though it would be nice if someone added all the unused SegaSonic arcade stuff to the wiki first. Or just generally improved the page(s) so I can have a clearer idea of what to look for.
The article for my site is almost complete. After that, someone can strip mine it for content for the wiki. There's going to be a lot of new content. A lot.
Yui Karasuno created some artwork of Sonic & Tails for SEGA's TGS 2020 show. The poses Sonic & Tails are in seem to be derived from the art used on the JP Sonic Chaos / Sonic & Tails boxart! (screenshot in the "Spoiler" below) Spoiler Karasuno's piece: Compare with the Sonic & Tails Boxart: http://info.sonicretro.org/File:Schaosgg-box-jap.jpg (sidenote, and many probably know this already, but, the art on the boxart was also used for Sonic Mania's debut (https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Mania#25th_anniversary_debut_trailer) and is still used on Mania's JP website (you'll have to scroll down a bit to see it: http://sonic.sega.jp/SonicMania/) I just really love this piece, her art is so good!! Link to tweet by "SEGA OFFICIAL": https://twitter.com/SEGA_OFFICIAL/status/1309770518917079040 timelapse of the piece:
I was wondering, recently didn't a newly discovered Sonic poker/card game get discovered? I vaugly recall seeing a few vids of it on twitter but I can't find any trace of it? Anyone able to help me out with this?
Was it a machine? EDIT: This? https://www.fromjapan.co.jp/en/auction/yahoo/input/k480203283/lgk-link_search
I might be remembering it wrong or getting mixed up. Just could have sworn that footage of it was around.
I thought I should bring this up for discussion here since it doesn't appear to have been brought up at any point: some unused content in Sonic CD! Novedicus, a user at TCRF, posted some findings back in May, all found in the Palmtree Panic data. You can find them all here. The findings included three unused color palettes (the Sonic 1 title screen palette, the Sonic 1 level select palette, and Palmtree Panic's v0.02 proto palette) and an unused object that appears to have been a waterfall. I'm not sure if any of this was known already. It's cool to see that talented people are still discovering unused content from games that came out over 20 years ago, and I wanted to bring it up.
Novedicus is Ralakimus, a user here. I think that stuff is somewhere at the hacking or archive sections, but I'm not sure.
So Sonic Mania Plus is apparently coming to the new Amazon Luna streaming service. So basically does that mean it’ll finally officially work on Mac, Android, and the like?
While I cannot confirm Mac compatibility, Sonic Mania already can be played on Android through SteamLink.