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

I mean there are, but these tiles are legitimately ones that were replaced. Those you mentioned are recreations. This is concrete art/tiles replacing metropolis.

 

Hello I wanted to ask a question. I remember hearing that sand shower's layout was completed before it was ultimately scrapped , so besides the animated art we got and the palette swap winter version , Did we find any chunks of layout or has it yet to resurface.

 

If I'm looking correctly, those pipe/cable things found in the machine level, they overlap the fan tiles, they have a purple background unlike the rest of the tiles, and are only 8 pixels tall. did he draw b-bomb/the machine tile on top of the 16x16 tile then bob?

 

This is absolutely amazing, thanks @TheRedEye and @Hez , good job guys

 

Grrr I want my two threads happening at once so I have a bad case of FOMO

Gotta say, I was wondering when the two threads would be merged, but this will do for now. Was not expecting that CCZ find, god damn

 

Just the animated mockups from the VHS tape. Although Sand Shower's level art was finished (Brenda confirmed it was completed before she moved on to Wood's art) it getting released would have to come from Sega themselves at this point, as Brenda has already shared everything she kept.

 

It also does not appear likely SEGA has archives that go that far back now, I'd guess. Almost everything they've ever revived has relied on outside dumps/hacks/recreations, it seems.

The one exception appears to be older Sonic 3 music, but digital beta material of Sonic 2 has ever emerged from the company directly, only from former employees. It all has 100% been from outside sources.

 

Bob is essentially the Sonic 2 dev lore equivalent of the Rosetta Stone. Let's call him "Bobetta Stone" :P

 

Cheers!

(In all seriousness, Twin Peaks had just been airing right before Sonic 2 kicked off development. Scary face's name being "bob" surely has everything to do with B-bOmB but now I am curious if Tom was a fan.)

 

"Bob" bears a absolutely no resemblance to the additional BOB effects seen in the Japanese version of Twin Peaks episode 14, but I'd like to share anyway:

 

I don't know where the "Bob" name came from (did Tom tell us it was named Bob?), but for what it's worth, "Bob" also happens to be an Amiga term for "Blitter object". But that could just be a coincidence.

I like Hez's discovery. I hope to see updated chunks incorporating those changes. Though I realize that Bob prevents us from ever having a true representation of how they were supposed to look. Thanks, Bob.

 

Testing the theory:

Scanned mockup


VHS

(these are 320x240 grids)

I'm fairly confident in saying the VHS version is 320x200 - a very common Amiga screen resolution. The scan has obviously been cropped by the magazine, but there's at least an extra 16 rows of pixels. I think 320x224 is very likely here.

And yes this confirms the rings are in different spots.

 

I had been working on this before, but now bob helps a bit. Here is what I THINK a lot of the tiles were to be replaced. Bob for reference too. Someone can feel free to continue this if they want because I'm kind of cyber citied out.

 

The link seems to have a mismatching security certificate.

In addition, it seems that much of the enemy name files match labels found in the Sonic 2 Nick Arcade prototype as well as the Sonic 1 J2ME port.



Wow, this is all amazing. Props to those who found this!

 

The mockup also added ring collection sparkles behind Sonic. I wonder why they did that. I can understand adding the HUD and life counter, but little details like that seem unnecessary.

 

He's uncurled midair so it's just to show that he's falling since it wouldn't make sense if he was jumping.

 

If they could add sparkles could they not just add in sonic in a ball? For the sake of a mock up image I'm not sure they would have thought about that much detail, if they did they also would have centered the camera on sonic for example. I think the best interpretation is that it was an internal mock up that was then touched up a bit before it was given to a magazine, they added ring trails to show more going on and to sell the idea that it's gameplay instead of a static mock up.

 

Personally, I think Sonic in a ball is boring looking and may not stand out as well. If I was in charge of marketing and had to pick screenshots, I wouldn't use any where he was curled up.

 

Sorting through the loose papers to add to the wiki (watch it live! Or, you know, help out!) (bits already done)


https://info.sonicretro.org/File:To...llaneous_Loose_Pages_(No_Order)_image1494.jpg
https://info.sonicretro.org/File:To...llaneous_Loose_Pages_(No_Order)_image1493.jpg
exactly how the Bubbler enemy was meant to work. The "alpha" build we have of Sonic 2 has a partial implementation, but this is the full fat thing.

We already had the correct palette supplied by the disks that were unearthed in 2019. These have been sitting around taking up space as you wait for the magic wiki fairy to make proper use of them. Come on lads.

Also while I don't understand that whole "Bob" thing... one of the disks was called Bob:
https://info.sonicretro.org/Category:Tom_Payne_disk_(Bob)_sprites
including this happy chappy

I'd guess it's an in-joke. No the pixels don't line up with the Genocide City tiles.

There's concept art for a few of the enemies on those disks. There's more enemy designs than anything intended for Genocide City - I really don't think they got far before it was axed.


With some of these files, it's not immediately clear where Metropolis ends and Genocide City begins. There may be multiple iterations of Metropolis sprites.

 

Tom kept a record of all the things he did in April and May 1992.

https://info.sonicretro.org/File:To...llaneous_Loose_Pages_(No_Order)_image1453.jpg
https://info.sonicretro.org/File:To...llaneous_Loose_Pages_(No_Order)_image1452.jpg

In case reading isn't your thing

April
6: "Sonic enemy sketches"
8-13: "Dinosaur" (Stego)
15-16: "Ball of Death" (the bouncing ball thing)
17-21: Bubbler
21-22: Snail
22: Map image for Metropolis 3
24: "5 enemies"

May
4: Finished Sandcrab (Crawl, presumably the first version)
9: ...something
10-11: Fish (Masher)
11: Snail/Wasp (Buzzer)
12-22: "Metropolis parts"
25: "Build Zone" (Metropolis?)

This means Metropolis 3 existed by 22nd April 1992.... which is weird because the Simon Wai prototype was likely built after then, and has a spot for Genocide City. So it was cut but not really? Unless it's a retrospective log of course.

To put this into perspective, the Nick Arcade build was shown at Summer CES 1992 on the 21st May, which means it pre-dates the existence of the Metropolis Zone as something tangible in-game. It also means, as we have dates for enemy graphics now, that the Hidden Palace Zone mockup couldn't have come before the 13th April, and the Emerald Hill and desert zone ones before the 11th May.

What tangled webs we weave.