Sand Shower Zone

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-bit)

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Sand Shower Zone

level, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive)
Level theme: desert/western

Sand Shower Zone is a planned desert-themed Zone from the development of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Likely conceptualized by Hirokazu Yasuhara,^[1] and with graphics created by Brenda Ross,^[2] its artwork was designed to be easily recycled into the later Christmas Zone, and would feature a hot desert setting in contrast to Christmas' cool wintery atmosphere. Unlike that Zone, however, Sand Shower Zone made far more appearances in development material, and also unlike that Zone appears to have boasted a finalized name before being dropped from the final game.

The Zone was known by the working title Desert Zone by members of both the American^[3]^[4] and Japanese sides^[5] of Sega Technical Institute. Early community speculation over its infamous prerelease mockup image attributed the erroneous name Dust Hill Zone to the mysterious Zone (likely as some English speakers use dusty as a close synonym for sandy), despite Dust Hill Zone actually being the prerelease name for the final's Mystic Cave Zone.^[6]

Overview

Sand Shower Zone is set in a desert environment similar to the American southwest. The Zone appears against a wide backdrop of sand, with the blue skyline punctuated by the occasional natural rock mesa. Bright green cacti and their colorful flowers populate the background. Curiously, decorative blocks and an ornate column seem to adorn the covered tunnel in the known mockup, hinting at an ancient ruins theme.^[7]

History

Development

“

"This is a stage that was created as a test with about 2 screens for a photo published in a magazine. Brenda is also in charge here.

The graphics themselves weren't bad, but they tried to make it look like the quicksand was flowing by changing the color, but it didn't look like it was flowing if it was a large area, and when Sonic gets stuck in the sand, it moves just like in water. The main gimmick was that it would become too heavy and detract from Sonic's sense of speed, so it was canceled because the idea had not been refined any further at this stage. As a result of this, we are very sorry, but both stages that Brenda was in charge of have been canceled and she will be leaving the project. This happens to be because the graphics of the stages she was in charge of were very difficult, and if they were to create more stages with early time travel elements, there would still be one or two stages that lacked a sense of speed. I think it was, but in the process of narrowing down the numbers, it was decided that stages that would take away from Sonic's sense of speed would inevitably be cancelled.

By the way, there were plans to turn this stage into an ice stage by changing the color and replacing some of the cacti and other graphics with Christmas trees.

Eventually, these stages would be rethought and carried over to Sonic 3 and beyond."

„

— Yasushi Yamaguchi^[1]

The earliest known mention of a Desert Zone is in a piece of concept art for the Badnik Crawl.^[5] It is suggested that Sand Shower Zone would be the modern-day version of another area, Rock Zone (set in the past) - tracing to a time when Sonic 2 boasted an elaborate time travel mechanic.^[5] Building on this assumption, further concept art suggests this area was at one point known as Sand Shower Zone.Media:Sonic 2 Level Map Concept 02.png^[8]Media:Sonic 2 Level Map Concept 01.png^[9]Media:Sonic 2 Level Map Concept 04.png^[10] Later in the game's development, the time travel mechanic was dropped from the game, but the idea of a sandy, desert Zone appears to have remained in the minds of the developers at STI.

In a 2024 Beep21 interview, Yasushi Yamaguchi reveals that Sand Shower Zone was limited to a graphical mockup produced for the gaming press. Interestingly, he says there were two screen's worth of artwork produced for the magazines. This could refer to either the Zone's corresponding Christmas Zone mockup, a possible wider base mockup from which the original screenshot was taken, or an entirely second desert mockup which was left unpublished. Despite this, he also reveals that tangible gameplay designs were created, such as the Zone's visible quicksand, which would slow Sonic if he fell into its flow. This would reportedly be the stage's downfall, as a mechanic which slowed down Sonic worked against the game's overall sense of speed. Yamaguchi cites this as the reason the Zone was cut from the final game. However, the Zone's artist, Brenda Ross, recalls her contributions being cut due to simple time constraints.^[11]^[2] Regardless, Yamaguchi says the concept of desert and snow stages were reconsidered and carried over to Sonic the Hedgehog 3.^[1] Fitting, while Sand Shower Zone's graphics were obviously completed to some degree, it is not believed to have ever made it to a playable stage. To this end, Ross does not recall the Zone ever having received a boss. "There was no boss designed for that level, if I remember correctly. If so, I never saw it."^[11]

“	"The Desert Zone was as you see in that image, with cactus and assorted plants. It was designed to have a palette change, which turned the sand into snow, and you’d have a winter scene. We had to be fairly ingenious with such a limited palette. In the Winter Zone, instead of cactus, I had created Christmas trees, which I thought looked kinda cool. I remember the Woods Zone having pink flowers somewhere. Hey, I am a girl… heh."	„
— Brenda Ross^[11]

Sand Shower Zone was set to feature graphics which could be recycled into the later Christmas Zone with a suitable winter palette,^[12] with graphics would have been swapped out as well. For example, cacti would have been replaced with Christmas trees.^[12] Importantly, the two Zones were to be placed far apart so that the recycling of graphics would be less obvious to players. According to art director Tim Skelly, very little else was produced for the winter theme.^[4] Ross herself does not recall exactly who conceptualized reusable Zone art, but believes it to have been Hirokazu Yasuhara's idea.^[2]

Prerelease

The infamous "Dust Hill Zone" mockup.

Shortly after Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was publicly announced to the world, Sega of America distributed three screenshots of the upcoming game to the gaming press.^[13]^[14]^[15] Alongside what would become Emerald Hill Zone and Hidden Palace Zone, an unknown desert stage (rumored to be named Dust Hill Zone) was pictured which would captivate the early Sonic community for years. It was eventually discovered to be a mockup created during her time with Sega (likely created by or with the help of the company's marketing department),^[12] something which created an association between Ross and the name Dust Hill for decades to come. "Everything animated, and the sand animated, and it was fun to do that. I mean, I thought my levels were beautiful."^[2]

Sonic fans quickly noticed a number of features amiss in the mockups, including incorrect HUD positioning, a visibly off-center player character, and graphics borrowed from the first Sonic the Hedgehog. Curiously, the mockup also features an unreleased alligator-like Badnik by the name Gator, who was actually programmed into prototype builds of the game and was even placeable in Hidden Palace Zone. Much like the other two Buzzer Badniks, it is unclear if any of the Zone's designers planned for Gator to appear in the final Sand Shower Zone.

Legacy

Some of the graphics from Sand Shower Zone were later recycled into Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball. Following the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Brenda Ross migrated to Spinball as an artist and animator, and during that game's development would create the level Underground Caves, particularly using the thin pillar graphics seen on the side of Sand Shower's covered tunnel section.^[7] Unfortunately, much like her Sonic 2 work, this level would also go unreleased, only being discovered when a VHS resume of Ross' work was publicly preserved.^[16] However, later in development, Underground Caves was combined with another unreleased level known as Toxic Pools (unrelated to the Game Gear Spinball level of the same name) to produce the final's Toxic Caves.^[17] While the Sand Shower graphics do not appear to have survived verbatim into the final Spinball, their inclusion in Underground Caves served to inspire the final game's level in style and tone.

A number of Ross' responses to Deviance's February 2001 interview were unfortunately misconstrued by the early Sonic community. Notably, her answers regarding the creation of Zone graphics were misinterpreted as proof she was the designer of both Sand Shower Zone and Christmas Zone. Further, a later answer stating that Sand Shower's graphics were mostly complete (combined with a somewhat ambiguous response regarding the mockup's covered tunnel area) was interpreted as evidence an actual stage layout had been mapped out and largely completed. In reality, Brenda is referring to and was only responsible for the Zones' artwork and animation, with their design and inception largely falling to other members of the staff. "Whatever Yasuhara called them. I just created what he asked me to create."^[2]

Desert Dazzle's teaser image pays homage to the infamous Sand Shower Zone mockup.

Additionally misinterpreted were Brenda's choice of Zone names. Those who had reached out to Ross' in the past had unfortunately introduced their questions regarding Sand Shower with erroneous names like Dust Hill Zone, under assumptions that this would either be correct or corrected by Ross. In actuality, Brenda and other Sonic 2 interviewees like Tim Skelly were predominantly artists and did not play direct design roles on the project, meaning they were generally not privy to things they were not responsible for. Often these developers would be introduced to a certain name and, being unable to remember the correct name, assumes it is correct and adopts it themselves. More recent interviews have revealed that Ross was unaware of any official names, and that her and the rest of the American artists called these Zones by their most basic and obvious working names: Desert Zone, Christmas Zone, and Wood Zone.^[18]^[2]

The 2011 version of Sonic the Hedgehog CD was planned to feature a new Round, Desert Dazzle, with a similar look to the infamous Sand Shower mockup. Coincedentally, Desert Dazzle would suffer the same fate as Sand Shower, being shown to the gaming public but being removed from the final game before release. By extension, the Sonic Mania stage Mirage Saloon Zone also draws direct inspiration from this notable moment in Sonic history.

In 2019, a set of floppy disks owned by former STI member Tom Payne were found and preserved. One of the floppy disks houses an overdump containing a fragment of the original Sand Shower mockup, at the Mega Drive's horizontal dimensions of 320 pixels. Unfortunately, most of the file had been overwritten by unrelated data once discovered, including its palette. However, another palette - that of the dirt in an early Digitizer file for Crawl - seems to be a close match for the published mockup.

Later in December 2023, a VHS tape containing a video resume made by Cook around the mid 1990s - containing her artwork from a number of cancelled Sega Technical Institute projects, and PF Magic's Dogz - was preserved and uploaded to YouTube by The Video Game History Foundation in December 2023.^[19] In it, animations and artwork from largely undocumented titles such as Jester and Fat, Daddy were seen by the public for the first time. Among the preserved content was an animated mockup of Sand Shower Zone,^[16] allowing both historians and the gaming community a glimpse into the once-fabled Sonic 2 Zone.

Sand Shower Zone

From Sonic Retro

Contents

Overview

History

Development

Prerelease

Legacy

Gallery

References