The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

In S3K, Super Tails' friends (the super Flickies) won't target Knuckles during the fight in Hidden Palace Zone.

It's like they know he's not the real enemy here.

 

Not quite sure where to put this, so I'll put it in this thread:

At offset 0x40C0 in Revision 0 of Sonic 1 (In Revision 1 I believe it'd be offset 0x40C2, and in the prototype we currently have, offset 0x311C), there's a set of demo input data that appears to be unreferenced. I used BizHawk to set a breakpoint at this address and ran through the title screen and credit demos, without the breakpoint being hit. I also don't see anywhere in the code that references it.

A recording of the demo data from the prototype can be seen here, courtesy of MDTravis:

(I've also uploaded one using Revision 0 as a base instead -- the demo data is the exact same, but if you're curious, it's below)

Spoiler

The demo inputs seem to consist of a series of walking to the right and stopping periodically, with a single jump partway through, and then it ends with Sonic running at full speed to the right.

I'm wary of jumping to conclusions or making unfounded guesses, so apologies if I've jumped the gun on this. If this data has a perfectly normal use somewhere in the game, I'd be happy to know and will gladly redact this post.
But if it is truly unused, what's very interesting about the data is that it seems to line up with what is known about the Tokyo Toy Show demo.
Most of the screenshots of the demo feature Sonic walking (moving at a slower speed than would trigger the running animation), with Sonic only seen running in the screenshots near the presumed end of the demo.
We know that Sonic stopped before an airborne/mid-jump enemy, and then ran underneath it.
We also know that Sonic also jumped, dodging another enemy that was on the ground.

If it is that old of a leftover... hopefully this is useful information to further our understanding of that demo.
I wouldn't completely rule out that it was used for a different purpose and only superficially resembles the TTS demo though. It's hard to say.

 

Can someone wire the famous TTS recreation with demo functionality to see how well this would fit? This has me Georging my Curiousity right now

 

This data also exists in Sonic 2 and the 1103 prototype of Sonic 3, making it a leftover that stuck around for quite a while.

Spoiler: (Image from KatKuriN)

Spoiler: Deobfuscated inputs

First byte is button inputs, second byte is that input's timer.

Code (Text):

1. 0            $8B
2. btnR         $37
3. 0            $42
4. btnR         $5C
5. 0            $6A
6. btnR         $5F
7. 0            $2F
8. btnR         $2C
9. 0            $21
10. btnR         $03
11. btnR+btnC    $30
12. btnR         $08
13. 0            $2E
14. btnR         $15
15. 0            $0F
16. btnR         $46
17. 0            $1A
18. btnR         $FF
19. btnR         $CA
20. 0            $00
21. 0            $00
22. 0            $00
23. 0            $00
24. 0            $00

A similar thing has happened with one of Sonic's victory jump animations remaining all the way to Sonic & Knuckles. Animation 0x12 I believe?

 

Conceptually it's interesting and I want to agree with your theory. since we know very little of TTS's assets as none appear in any build my first instinct is to be skeptical but this does really seem to fit.

 

Someone with know-how really needs to throw that input set into a TTS recreation and record it

As a side note, if that is TTS against all odds, wow that demo is way shorter than I thought it was

 

I'm willing to believe it is in fact the TTS data. This isn't the first time TTS leftovers were just staring us in the face this whole time. And it comes after the demo pointers, rather than bunched with the actual final demo data. Which would make sense at time when they were only referencing a single demo.

 

All my chips on TTS

 

Only question is if Sonic in TTS was slower because that might fuck up the demo. Otherwise yup dibs on TTS leftover

 

Am I just seeing patterns in places where there aren't any, or have recent-ish Sonic games had way too many parallels to Sonic the Comic for it to be a mere coincidence?

Forces is centered around the premise of Robotnik conquering the world after Sonic is absent for six months, while Frontiers retroactively connects Chaos to an ancient alien empire which built enormous robot warriors. And even if can't prove it, I'd bet a million bucks that the Heavy King from Mania is based on Commander Brutus at least partially.

 

Those are definitely all coincidences, I think we're just used to stuff like Archie going so far off with it's tone that Fleetway generally knowing what it wants to be necessarily makes it fly closer to the direction SEGA ended up taking. I mean, the Chaos Emeralds coming from space was also a thing in Archie, but I don't know that SEGA was referencing that either (though Ian obviously knew).

Though on that note, I do think anything from comic staff is fair game, especially Metallix stuff. Krudzu Hydra possessing a Metal Knuckles and turning into a junk monster definitely smacks of The Trickster doing the same with a Knuckles-Metallix, and I'm sure Tyson Hesse informed the movie staff of how the post-credits scene of Movie 3 might look, if not cooking up the Metal Sonic army entirely on his own.

 

Sonic is a huge franchise, so it's natural for different people to coincidentally come up with similar ideas. We even have the games doing that, like with the Lost Hex being this tiny planetoid, which is vaguely similar to the Little Planet

It is fascinating to see how much stuff the western cartoons and comics preempted from the games, but as Devin said, it's probably a coincidence

 

I don't think this is licensed but with CrossWorlds I have no idea what's real anymore

 

Forgive my double post but this just came in an hour ago and I want to keep this separate.

@MDTravis has done a lot of work on Futurescape Productions. Like a LOT. Much of what we know about their games comes from his research. While looking through the source code of Monster Hunter, he found the following strange side-scrolling stage artwork. The below are just a few snippets of the assets. It's strange because... Monster Hunter isn't a sidescroller.





Most importantly, he found this loop. So, I decided to ask Futurescape's founder, the lovely Kevin McGrath, if he recognized any of this.

When I read this, I thought back to this statement Craig Stitt made about Sonic 2:

Anyone have any ideas? This isn't actually lost Sonic art, is it?

 

Could it be from Astropede? I could swear it had concept art with a very similar-looking loop.

 

Which files in the MH source code are these, exactly? And can we see the files converted to .PNGs?

 

I can kinda see it, but only in that the loop has a downhill section. Enough of a connection for me to ask him about him, but we'll see.

RAINFOR.GMP. In two of these screenshots, Travis is using SCAT to view the assets.

 

It doesn't really fit the style of art Sonic games on the genesis were going for. Are there any clearer images? It'd be nice to compare it to other stuff if there are.

 

This has me thinking that this could possibly be some of the earliest sprite art for Sonic 2, being drawn by one of the American devs before Yamaguchi informed them of the game's art direction.

And Stitt's burning forest would fit that description really well.

 

It's why I'd love to see unartifacted pictures. It'd be interesting to compare it to the style of spinball. I immediately thought of this