Proto:Knuckles' Chaotix/1207 Prototype

This is a sub-page of Proto:Knuckles' Chaotix.

This page sucks.
If you could make it suck less, that would be awesome.
Specifically: Needs a serious rewrite. There's some bogus information in here. Also needs to be better organized, sub pages etc.

Knuckles' Chaotix Prototype 1207 for the 32X was released by drx during the February 23rd, 2008 proto release. This is the earliest of the Chaotix protos. Its compile date is December 7, 1994.

Download Knuckles' Chaotix (Prototype 1207)

File: Knuckles' Chaotix (Prototype 1207).bin (3 MB) (info)

(WARNING) The only way to play this prototype on KEGA Fusion emulators v3.6 and up is to enable "Fast 32x timing" before playing in the config file. The sounds can be very unpleasing to hear, it is best to mute your system before you play this prototype.

Download Savestate past the Sega screen

File: Chaotix 1207 After Sega.zip (92 KB) (info)

In case you are not able to get the prototype running in Kega Fusion v3.6 and up, please download this savestate. It will get you to the title screen and past the Sega screen.

Sub-Pages

Splash, Title & Menu Screens
Things you first see when booting up the game.

Levels Part 1
Intro Stage, World Entrance, Botanic Base, Techno Tower, & Marina Madness. Amazing Arena & Speed Slider are both unfinished.

Levels Part 2
"Training" Stages as well as Bonus & Special Stages.

Various Differences

General

Pausing the game does not stop the music.
The Level Title card calls the game Knuckles Ringstar and refers to Heavy as Heaby.
Knuckles has different climbing sprites in this build.
All the 32X art is uncompressed, in final most of the static art uses the C42 compression. Everything that uses the 32X VDP is viewable in this prototype.
Due to a sound driver issue involving interpolation in the PWM code, some songs beep, making the music in them unpleasant to listen to.
The cutscenes before the bosses are fully implemented in this proto, although the boss music starts directly in the cutscenes instead of playing "Have Some Fun".
Items do not "pop out" of monitors. Graphics do exist for the animation, though.
Spindashing into a monitor does not break it.

Gameplay Differences

Every character except Espio has an ability programmed. However, Vector can only climb walls, and it's very tricky to do so. There are sprites for Vector's double-jump ability in the ROM, however.
Vector's running animation is faster.
If Vector is holding a character and jumps, there is no running animation like in the final.
The line that holds 2 characters together is always blue.
When clearing a level, "Mechanical Dance" plays instead of "From Party to Party".
Free movement/Debug mode is always enabled.
The time of day system doesn't seem to be working at all. Each level you select after the World Entrance seems to have a time of day arbitrarily assigned to it. The World Entrance itself seems to always be daytime.
Metal Sonic will not attack you if you are idle in a level. Likely done intentionally for testers.
The timer infinitely loops during a level. Again, probably done intentionally for testers.
Icons for your current powerup don't display at the bottom of the screen, unlike the final.
When Mighty uses the wall kick, it is different and "automatic". It uses an unused sprite present in the final, and matches with the same unused sprite for Sonic in Sonic Crackers. Another thing to note is that the sound effect when he clings to a wall is different. (It's Vector/Espio/Knuckles' sound when they cling to a wall.)
When Knuckles is climbing you have to keep A, B, or C pressed to climb, otherwise Knuckles falls off. In addition, the animation that plays when you move from wall to floor is a little more "rough."
When entering a Special Stage from a normal level, when the results screen is finished, the game incorrectly plays the "enter Special Stage" sound effect.
The invincibility stars are very different - there's less of them (only two at a time, it seems), and they're small, gold, five-pointed stars. The stars also only surround the first player, unlike in the final when both players are surrounded.
Buttons do not make any noise when pressed, but when they spawn they make a noise.
Invincibility does not destroy enemies.
The character switch monitor does not work.
The "change your partner into someone else" monitor doesn't exist. This is presumably because the finalized graphics weren't done yet.

Level Differences

General

All Speed Slider acts are the same.
As with the final, the backgrounds undergo color changes depending on the time of day selected, except Amazing Arena, which just changes a window's colour.
Any crumbling platform will use a different sound effect than in the final. The sound effect sounds very similar if not outright identical to earlier Sonic games.
Enemies do not drop "battery rings" when defeated.

Early/Unused Graphics

Isolated Island Portrait

To do:
Put up graphic here

An unused portrait of Isolated Island exists in the ROM in the style of the other portraits.

Sonic Crackers S32X

Graphics for the game's earlier name - "Sonic Crackers S32X." The S32X stands for Super 32X. This confirms that Sonic Crackers was in fact a Knuckles' Chaotix prototype.

End Of Level Sign

To do:
Put up animation here

The end of level sign is completely different and only has a "2D" effect.

Mechanical Pod

To do:
Find if this is in the final

Graphics for a device in Techno Tower. In the prototype it only seems to open the hatch when you approach it but you can't interact with it at all.

Animals

There exist graphics for several small animals, similar to the ones found in earlier Sonic games - specifically, the original group of seven introduced in the original 16-bit Sonic the Hedgehog. Interestingly, there's a discrepancy here compared to their depictions in earlier Sonic titles; the rabbit (Pocky/Johnny Lightfoot), seal (Rocky/Joe Sushi) and chicken (Cucky/Chirps) are usually all depicted using shades of grey. The rabbit and seal use shades of blue here to approximate a similar appearence - however, for unknown reasons the chicken has been drawn using the palette's orange/brown shades instead, resulting in a markedly different appearence.

Sonic & Tails

Graphics have been discovered in the ROM for monitors that were used in an earlier version of Chaotix - likely when it was still running on Genesis/Mega Drive hardware. The image above uses a palette that was unused in Sonic Crackers. As you can see, these graphics represent Sonic & Tails, conclusively proving they were intended to be in Chaotix.

There is an empty space in the character selection menu following Mighty, who originally was Sonic. This space is believed to originally be reserved for Tails - the palette above is assigned to the character in the slot after Mighty, and contains many similar colors that were used in the Sonic Crackers prototype for Tails. In later protos, the palette still exists, but the character's palette pointer points to Mighty's palette instead. Interestingly, most other characters in Chaotix use 18 entries + a transparent color for their sprites, but this one only has 15 + transparency. It's possible that this palette is a leftover from earlier 32X hardware, or was the palette used during the Genesis/Mega Drive phase of development.
To properly play as "Tails" in this prototype, change the bytes at address 0x16060 from 03 CC to 04 F4. Noticeably, there are many things here that don't exist in future prototypes. "Tails'" animations are very different, and he jumps much higher than his later "nulled-out traits" versions do in the later prototypes.
Tails has a tendency to crash the game a lot, even on real hardware and Kega Fusion. Currently, the most stable emulator for playing as Tails is Gens.