# Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) prototype discovered



## Ecchi95 (Jan 1, 2021)

Holy shit.


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## tech3475 (Jan 1, 2021)

Wow.

It's funny making Sonic jump like he's Mario at the end of levels like he's Mario and Splats jumping through the moving floor into a pit of lava.


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## DinohScene (Jan 1, 2021)

Noice!

Didn't expect that to happen.


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## Sonic Angel Knight (Jan 1, 2021)

I thought linking roms was against rules here. 

Better take it before someone notice.


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## DaFixer (Jan 1, 2021)

Nice find!!


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## Justinde75 (Jan 1, 2021)

Sadly not the 1990 tokyo toy show build of sonic 1 but this is still a great find!


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## Jayro (Jan 1, 2021)

Sonic Angel Knight said:


> I thought linking roms was against rules here.
> 
> Better take it before someone notice.


It was released publicly, so it's okay.


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## BlueFox gui (Jan 1, 2021)

man i'm so happy with this, i thought there would never be any prototype of this game, at least one, honestly i really wish we had the 1990 tokyo toy build, but that's probably lost, well i can dream


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## 64bitmodels (Jan 1, 2021)

Labyrinth zone's background looks way cooler in the beta than the tiles they used for the final version, what happened!?


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## smf (Jan 1, 2021)

Jayro said:


> It was released publicly, so it's okay.



Copyright violations are ok if you do them in public? What does that even mean? Aren't most rom sites public?


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## James_ (Jan 1, 2021)

*My favourite zone in Sonic 1 is Clock Ork Zone
*
All jokes aside though, this is definitely quite cool


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## Trash_Bandatcoot (Jan 1, 2021)

shaunj66 said:


> Maybe some day we'll also get to see the incredibly rare Tokyo Toy Show prototype/proof of concept version of Sonic 1?


Ehhh, I doubt it. Yuji Naka couldn't even find the toy show demo anymore when he tried to find it. Maybe they lost the source to that too, and the build is just permanently lost.


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## Drogy (Jan 1, 2021)

uff.. amy on the road ! and now 3D 


 finchef !!

.... 



   



  a rework from 1;2;3 games ?    

Öhm the original .vers of sonic 31 is ?


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## uludag (Jan 1, 2021)

Can someone pls tell me what's so special about this?


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## stanleyopar2000 (Jan 1, 2021)

Sonic Angel Knight said:


> I thought linking roms was against rules here.
> 
> Better take it before someone notice.



This is Sega we're talking about. Not Nintendon't


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## wurstpistole (Jan 1, 2021)

Sonic Angel Knight said:


> I thought linking roms was against rules here.
> 
> Better take it before someone notice.



There is no link to any rom here.


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## FAST6191 (Jan 1, 2021)

uludag said:


> Can someone pls tell me what's so special about this?


The opening post covers some of the differences between this and the final released version.

Generally though Sonic (a fairly important computer game in the history of such things) did not spring fully formed onto the world. Various demo builds, magazine screenshots, video and whatnot were released during development that did not make the final cut (sometimes for gameplay, sometimes for budget, sometimes for other reasons).
However between said screenshots, the stuff left behind in various versions of the ROM* and leaked code in various forms over the years then hackers have managed to piece together and remake bits of it for this and its sequel (Sonic 2 on the megadrive probably being one of the more extensively contemplated games out there for this sort of thing http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/186/  -- Resident Evil probably being the only franchise to stand a chance of having had as much attention and those guys are crazy, guy on the previous link also having something of a playlist of Resident Evil related things if you are interested in the stuff they went in for). If indeed the list of changes above is what it is then it also provides something of an insight into how the game was designed which is also of interest to many; if an idea was added later in development but went on to become a key feature then that is valuable info, and this being the first then features later dropped could also be a thing. In some games it can also show how the devs wanted it to be before the publisher wandered in and said it must be playable by quadriplegic and comatose 4 year olds, had to play to regional censors ( https://tanookisite.com/nintendo-censorship/ ), or indeed this being the 8-16 bit era then the pubs wandering in and saying "the kids like hard games and we don't want them to rent it/trade it in after 2 weeks" make it so.

*prior to the PS1 most console games were written in assembly. This means if you deleted a bunch of stuff you could not just recompile and go from there with the old stuff now gone. To that end devs would often just note the sections in question as being effectively blank space, try to make sure there was no way to access them during normal play and leave the data there.
https://tcrf.net/The_Cutting_Room_Floor
https://www.unseen64.net/
https://hiddenpalace.org/
Those being three of the better known sites dedicated to finding and archiving such things, the former not caring so much for things from magazines and videos and instead being more about actual code. Most ROM hacking websites (which includes this place and romhacking.net linked above for a patch) are also not averse to playing around with such things.

Anyway hope that serves as a brief intro to why game prototypes, betas and information thereon is often sought, examined and shared onwards.


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## robman62 (Jan 1, 2021)

Wow, can’t wait for the reactions of people in 30 years when they load up the “final” product of Cyberpunk 2077 lol


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## AshuraZro (Jan 1, 2021)

Always awesome to see another prototype come out and a hotly desired one no less. Also watch near the end of the twitch stream for Sonic to bring in the new year by bringing an end to a certain internet plugin...


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## master801 (Jan 1, 2021)

> during their last Twitch stream of 2021



Shouldn't that be 2020?


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## raxadian (Jan 1, 2021)

Clock Ork Zone? Was the boss a Clock Ork?


64bitmodels said:


> Labyrinth zone's background looks way cooler in the beta than the tiles they used for the final version, what happened!?



It probably glitched or was changed because it slowed down the game.  Remember they made Sonic 1 to show off that the Sega Genesis is faster than the Super Nintendo.


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## toguro_max (Jan 1, 2021)

Holy shit...
I'll finally play it again after nearly 30 years.


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## K3N1 (Jan 1, 2021)

The digital world still blows my mind sometimes, it takes 4 different chips to run a sonic gensis game but now you can play it with a click of a button and it's probably under 20mbs a game.


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## Sonic Angel Knight (Jan 1, 2021)

Man wish there was more prototypes of streets of rage. I wanna hear some cool unreleased tracks like the thriller song from moonwalker. Or some unique graphics from vector man or sonic 3d blast.


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## BlazeMasterBM (Jan 2, 2021)

Labyrinth Zone missing water entirely??? Why did they have to ruin it in the final version?


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## Deleted User (Jan 2, 2021)

I think 2020 was worth it now. I'm crying looking at this.


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## matpower (Jan 2, 2021)

raxadian said:


> Clock Ork Zone? Was the boss a Clock Ork?
> 
> 
> It probably glitched or was changed because it slowed down the game.  Remember they made Sonic 1 to show off that the Sega Genesis is faster than the Super Nintendo.


It is "Clock Work Zone", however missing " W" art makes it "Clock Ork Zone". The correct name shows up in the level select. 

Correct initials for the level should be CWZ instead of COZ like in the OP but I'm not sure if the community has decided on this.


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## HarveyHouston (Jan 2, 2021)

Huh, never knew that such a thing wasn't released yet. Interesting!


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## raxadian (Jan 2, 2021)

matpower said:


> It is "Clock Work Zone", however missing " W" art makes it "Clock Ork Zone". The correct name shows up in the level select.
> 
> Correct initials for the level should be CWZ instead of COZ like in the OP but I'm not sure if the community has decided on this.



Ah yeah I remember someone mentioned the font they used didn't have a W to save space hence the name change.


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## soup1 (Jan 2, 2021)

Woah. I woulda thought we would be done with this game by now but apparently not lol


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## raxadian (Jan 3, 2021)

The ball must have killed a few beta testers or something.


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## RocketRobz (Jan 4, 2021)

As a Sonic fan myself, I'm so glad that a prototype for Sonic 1 is now out!
I'm hoping that the Tokyo Toy Show proto is released in the future as well.
Some people have said that a Sonic 1 proto wouldn't/won't be made public, and now look what happened. 

Here's what I like about the recently released proto:

The percussion samples.
They're lower-pitched than the final, so I'm under the impression that the high-pitched samples in the final, is an overlooked bug due to reworking the sound driver for the SEGA sample.
The UFOs in Marble Zone.
I can see why they removed them in the final.
The look of Sparkling Zone.
I prefer the lively look of it over the cool-looking Spring Yard Zone.
The background of Labyrinth Zone.
In my opinion, it's what makes Labyrinth Zone look like... well, a labyrinth.


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## raxadian (Jan 4, 2021)

Robz8 said:


> The UFOs in Marble Zone.
> I can see why they removed them in the final.


Because they are a leftover of when Sonic was a vampire and fought mutants?


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## Sonic Angel Knight (Jan 4, 2021)

And now we see a static background image of Labyrinth zone. 








matpower said:


> It is "Clock Work Zone", however missing " W" art makes it "Clock Ork Zone". The correct name shows up in the level select.


Clock "ORK" zone just funny 

Least is not clock cork zone. Might be filled with corks and screws. Clock work kinda remind me of clock tower stages in like every castlevania game which is the most annoying swinging on pendulums or the spinning gears, unlimited medusa heads.


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## KlasseyKreations (Jan 4, 2021)

gotta go fast


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## RocketRobz (Jan 4, 2021)

raxadian said:


> Because they are a leftover of when Sonic was a vampire and fought mutants?


lol, nope.
It's because Marble Zone doesn't look like a Sci-Fi/space level.


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## raxadian (Jan 5, 2021)

Robz8 said:


> lol, nope.
> It's because Marble Zone doesn't look like a Sci-Fi/space level.



Unless you go by the ancient ruins equals aliens thing.


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## Sonic Angel Knight (Jan 5, 2021)

So someone already made VGM files of the prototype. Some songs sound.... different.


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## Milenko (Jan 5, 2021)

Idk why but I just had memories of castle of illusion on the master system come back to me, stressful memories


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## matpower (Jan 6, 2021)

Sonic Angel Knight said:


> So someone already made VGM files of the prototype. Some songs sound.... different.


The drum sample is a lot cleaner compared to the final release, it really shows in Final Zone's sound slot IMO.
It is likely that they tweaked the sound driver for the "SEGAAAAA!" chant, and made the drum weaker either due to technical limitations.


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## raxadian (Jan 7, 2021)

matpower said:


> The drum sample is a lot cleaner compared to the final release, it really shows in Final Zone's sound slot IMO.
> It is likely that they tweaked the sound driver for the "SEGAAAAA!" chant, and made the drum weaker either due to technical limitations.



Or just a result of audio compression to save space.  The SEGAAA!  scream alone takes 5.15% space of the finished game.


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## AFK797 (Jan 7, 2021)

From What I remember, the "Press Start Button" Text doesn't appear on the title screen in the final game, correct? And is that font used anywhere else in the final game?


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## raxadian (Jan 7, 2021)

AFK797 said:


> From What I remember, the "Press Start Button" Text doesn't appear on the title screen in the final game, correct? And is that font used anywhere else in the final game?



The color makes it hard to read,  and the game was Christmas rushed.


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## matpower (Jan 7, 2021)

AFK797 said:


> From What I remember, the "Press Start Button" Text doesn't appear on the title screen in the final game, correct? And is that font used anywhere else in the final game?


Yeah, due to a bug. It is actually there but invisible. It was fixed in one re-release but never again. As far as I remember, it is not used anywhere else.


raxadian said:


> Or just a result of audio compression to save space.  The SEGAAA!  scream alone takes 5.15% space of the finished game.


Yeah, my train of thought was incomplete there, I was going to say "and made the drum weaker either due to technical limitations or to save space.". TCRF says "The snare drum samples used across all tracks are pitched lower and of a much higher quality than the final release, due to the sound driver not being updated to accommodate the 'SEGA' chant." which is why I thought of the sound driver.


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## uludag (Jan 19, 2021)

FAST6191 said:


> The opening post covers some of the differences between this and the final released version.
> 
> Generally though Sonic (a fairly important computer game in the history of such things) did not spring fully formed onto the world. Various demo builds, magazine screenshots, video and whatnot were released during development that did not make the final cut (sometimes for gameplay, sometimes for budget, sometimes for other reasons).
> However between said screenshots, the stuff left behind in various versions of the ROM* and leaked code in various forms over the years then hackers have managed to piece together and remake bits of it for this and its sequel (Sonic 2 on the megadrive probably being one of the more extensively contemplated games out there for this sort of thing http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/186/  -- Resident Evil probably being the only franchise to stand a chance of having had as much attention and those guys are crazy, guy on the previous link also having something of a playlist of Resident Evil related things if you are interested in the stuff they went in for). If indeed the list of changes above is what it is then it also provides something of an insight into how the game was designed which is also of interest to many; if an idea was added later in development but went on to become a key feature then that is valuable info, and this being the first then features later dropped could also be a thing. In some games it can also show how the devs wanted it to be before the publisher wandered in and said it must be playable by quadriplegic and comatose 4 year olds, had to play to regional censors ( https://tanookisite.com/nintendo-censorship/ ), or indeed this being the 8-16 bit era then the pubs wandering in and saying "the kids like hard games and we don't want them to rent it/trade it in after 2 weeks" make it so.
> ...



Thanks a ton for this extensive explanation! One of the better posts on this forum


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