Desert Zone

http://www.geocities.com/tqsonicfan/4.JPG

The desert level (sometimes erroneously referred to as Dust Hill Zone) is a widely speculated debate centered around the images above — Sonic in a mock-up desert level.

It was going to take place in a typical southwest American desert and feature lots of quicksand.

According to Brenda Ross and Tim Skelly, most of the graphic tiles would be reused (with different colors) in a separate winter level.

In technicality, there is no piece of animation or art discovered as of yet to show that the "desert level/zone" was a playable level.

In the pictures above, the left and middle ones use inaccurate colours while the one on the right is using the correct colours. The middle one was printed on the back of a Sears, Roebuck and Co. Magazine from a November/December issue of 1992. None of these pictures were accompanied with a caption mentioning "Dust Hill Zone".

Rumor mill

The "general view" of the words Dust Hill could describe a desert area hot and sandy, or cold and snowy. Hot and sandy would apply to the concept art as seen above.

Seperating fact from myth

The first interview conducted by Deviance on February 2001 to Brenda Ross, the artist who oversaw the art production of the desert level, is deemed unreliable, so confirmation by Brenda on whether the desert level was called "Dust Hill" is sketchy, mainly from the bombardment of e-mails asking about the level and it's name "Dust Hill").

Brenda Ross HERSELF (not necessarily the people who created the zone names) has never called this zone "Dust Hill" as mentioned in the interview conducted by Wetflame on September 2004. She has called it "the desert level" or "the desert zone". It is not fact that the title "Dust Hill" would not have gone to this desert level before the known prototype because of the following...

There is no photographic evidence (film, official video game pictures (playable versions), or otherwise) to show that Mystic Cave's prototype name was Dust Hill Zone BEFORE the known beta as of yet. The only photographic evidence WITH captions of the name "Dust Hill Zone" belonging to "Mystic Cave Zone" comes AFTER the known prototype, which does not state it being used before the prototype.

Other details for this zone are unknown, so other pieces of information is missing from this article.

Returning to the desert level

Several enthusiasts in the community, such as Esrael with his hack, Sonic 2 Delta, have used the image of the desert level to create full zones based on the artwork. These levels provide an alternative to perhaps understand how the desert level would have been had it moved past the concept stage.