Proto:Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis)/Simon Wai Prototype/Hill Top Zone

This is a sub-page of Proto:Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis)/Simon Wai Prototype.

General Differences

• Unlike the Nick Arcade prototype, the lava in the Simon Wai prototype properly damages the player(s).
• Like the Nick Arcade prototype, Sonic & Tails don't automatically spin when they go into the corkscrew tunnels.
• In the Simon Wai version, the breakable blue rocks are only used in Act 2 to mark where certain breakable bricks are. Later layouts sprinkle a few of them across both acts to add a bit of flavor to the zone.
• The rising floor / lava sections are silent in the Simon Wai version.

Act 1

Full Maps

Simon Wai prototype
Beta 4

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• The start of the act, already redesigned once since the Nick Arcade prototype, changed again in Beta 4. Behold the natural quarter-pipe.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• In the Simon Wai version, the player has to make a jump at an incline to a pair of platforms sinking in and out of lava. Later versions simplify this by flattening and lowering the ground around the lava pit.
• Two Spiker enemies were added to this small stretch of level.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• The lava and spikes switched positions between builds. They forgot to erase one of the lava blocks at the bottom, but it's not like players would ever be able to see it in normal play.
• The ring tunnel and ledge were both moved down a block...but the old ring tunnel is still there! It would stay like that through Beta 8 before being emptied in the final version.
• A super ring monitor was placed on the aforementioned ledge.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• The floating platforms at the top are further apart vertically in the Simon Wai prototype.
• A checkpoint and shield monitor are now on the larger floating island.
• The seesaw section consists of two seesaws and a short ledge in the Simon Wai prototypes. In later builds, all of the ledges were lowered, and, since the distance from the last ledge to the top is now too high for a single jump, a yellow spring was added to the third ledge.
• The pointless lava pit was filled in starting in Beta 4. Note that the seesaw object wasn't actually removed, just obscured by the foreground.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• A super ring monitor (Good) and Rexon (Bad) were added below the lift.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• Breakable blocks and enemies where there were no breakable blocks nor enemies before.
• A super ring monitor was added to the short tunnel on the the left, though it's not possible to actually get in there. The monitor was removed in later builds.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• Two retracting spikes, a horizontal red spring, and a Spiker were added to the start of this area.
• The vertical red spring is now embedded in the ground.
• The Beta 4 build fills the tunnels with rings and monitors.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• Let there be Spiker.

Simon Wai prototype
Beta 4

• A checkpoint was added to the top of the loop, just to give the player one more chance at a special stage before the act ends.
• Four rings were added to the last slope in the level.
• The signpost is more to the left and more...in the ground in the earlier layout.

Act 2

Full Maps

Simon Wai prototype
Beta 4

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• The opening of act 2 starts with a seesaw platform right next to a lava pit, which is a bit much considering the act just started. The seesaw was replaced by a quarter-pipe and the lava pit was removed.
• The twelve ring cluster above the seesaw was removed from later versions of the act.
• There's a long slope downward in the Simon Wai layout after the seesaw / lava pit bit. This changed to a set of rolling hills.
• Certain wall chunks are still present in the same spot as the lava pit once was in the later versions.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• The seesaw on the left was altered to a lava pit with a long platform. A small piece of floor to the right was lowered in consideration of the new sinking platform.
• There are eight rings above the seesaw in the Simon Wai prototype. Four of those rings were moved to the upper path, three were put in the cave below, and the remaining one was deleted.
• The Simon Wai layout is missing the red horizontal spring just before the loop, the checkpoint and super ring monitor on top of the loop, and the four rings after the loop.
• In the Simon Wai prototype only, there's a red spring on the ceiling of the lower path that will send the player right back into the corkscrew tunnel.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• In the upper path, one of the red springs was replaced by a yellow spring, and the other was replaced by a seesaw.
• The ground to the right of the second red spring / see saw was lowered and the tunnel was removed.
• The second moving platform in the Simon Wai layout drops down low enough to sink into the lava and harm Sonic & Tails. To keep that from happening, the platform was elevated by 16 pixels.
• In later prototypes, an extra life monitor was placed in the remaining tunnel.
• The diagonal yellow spring and the ground it sits on were changed for some reason. Why they changed it, I can't say. Maybe they just liked it better that way.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• The three thin lava pits were taken out of later versions, replaced by a long quarter-pipe leading to a higher strip of land. Five rings were placed on that quarter-pipe.
• The Simon Wai prototype has a long, shallow lava pool with a rising platform and a horizontally moving platform. Other versions have a long, deep lava pool with a Rexon and a collapsing platform.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• Rings were added to the lift line, and a Rexon added to the lava pit.
• Three rings and a Sol were placed on the right side.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• In a purely aesthetic change, a couple of chunks of ceiling were changed from flat ceiling blocks to hanging ceilings.
• There's an extra super ring monitor on the top of the loop, and two of the rings in the loop were slightly shifted. Very slightly.
• Five rings were added to the two large quarter-pipes.
• A yellow spring was placed before the second quarter-pipe. Of course, the slope to the left had to be changed to a raised floor.
• The rising surface and flat floor on the right changed to a flat floor leading to a small quarter-pipe. And a Spiker.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• In this section of the upper path, the Simon Wai version is missing all rings, Spikers, and the invincibility monitor in the tunnel.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• Two checkpoints were added in later versions. To make room for the second checkpoint, a ledge was created where the slope originally created, and the slope was moved up and changed from a rising to a descending slope.
• The four rings above the small floating island were shifted 24 pixels down.
• All four pine trees were removed. Probably for the best, since the two pine trees on the top seem to have sunk into the ground.
• The lava pit is inescapable in the Simon Wai version. A rising platform and Rexxon were placed in the pit to let the player escape.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• The only object in the Simon Wai layout is a single one-way barrier at the top right.

• There's an extra gap in the wall in the Simon Wai version. Unfortunately, the rising floor isn't wide enough to reach that gap, and once the floor rises high enough, the player will start being pushed up by an invisible slope.

• Even though the oversight itself was fixed in August 21st, the gap was later filled by September 14th for unknown reasons.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• Four more floating chunks of land were added to later version of this rising lava area. Three of the floating platforms were repositioned to accommodate the new floating chunks.
• A helpful invincibility monitor was placed in the tunnel on the right.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• Three super ring monitors were placed on the loop, and two of the rings in the loop were slightly shifted. Very, very, very slightly.
• Five rings added to large quarter-pipe, as is tradition.
• The lava pit with two rising platforms changed to a harmless stretch of land with a seesaw.

Simon Wai prototype
Beta 4

• The tunnel in the rising lava area extends much further to the right in the Simon Wai layout. Likely changed to keep the player from being able to freely exit and enter that section. Those one-way barriers are there for a reason, people.
• Speaking of which, the one-way barrier is more to the left in later versions. Six rings were placed to the right of that barrier.
• The path in the Simon Wai prototype is a set of four steps that alternates between harmless chunks of ground and chunks with retracting spikes on the left side. This was changed to four small quarter-pipes in later layouts.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• The later builds add a set of retracting spikes on both sides of this section.
• The first lava pit is much deeper in the Simon Wai version...

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• ...see? It even reaches down into the lower path!
• A yellow spring trap was placed in the bottom-left corner.
• The path at the bottom is very much cramped in the Simon Wai version. There's a rising platform at the bottom that can crush the player and two sets of spikes above it. In later versions, the area was opened up, the rising platform removed, and a retracting set of spikes and super ring monitor were placed on the otherwise empty floor.
• The nine ring group is placed in a gap in the ceiling in the Simon Wai version. This gap was covered over in later versions, but in the Beta 4 build, the rings hadn't been moved yet. This was fixed in later prototypes.
• And the usual Spiker and blue rock additions.

Simon Wai prototype	Beta 4

• The set of cliffs in the top-left, already reduced from three in the Nick Arcade prototype to two in the Simon Wai prototype, changed again to just a single cliff in later versions of the stage.
• Three rings were added to the first quarter-pipe. Oh, and the quarter-pipe is new too.
• The first floating platform is now flush with the ground to the left instead of the thin floating chunk on the right.
• In the Simon Wai layout, the first and second lift lines have their ends tied to blue pieces of land, which looks a bit strange. Later versions add posts to the end of those lines, which looks a bit strange but in a different way.
• This is where the act ends in the Simon Wai prototype. The path to the boss area and the boss itself have yet to be added to the game.

Simon Wai prototype
Beta 4

• The lava pit is empty in the Simon Wai layout. Later versions add a red spring to escape the pit, an extra life monitor on top of that spring, and a Rexon at the other end of the pit.
• Five Spikers were added to the ceiling. Seems a bit rude. At least they placed a super ring monitor and six more rings below them.