More interesting Sonic CD stuff!

I stuck this page up in response to Jan's Sonic CD secrets page on Area 51. Basically I've done some research myself, and have got even more things to say about the Sonic CD secrets!

On the PC version of Sonic CD, while it's loading you get a picture of the Little Planet. On that picture there's an area with cacti - possibly Dust Hill?
The SegaCD version doesn't have that loading screen, but it does have a thing called the 'DA GARDEN'. In there you can see the Little Planet and rotate/scale it. You can also see the planet in Present, Good Future and Bad Future. Now here's where it gets interesting...

This is the 'suspicious' area with cacti and trees next to the volcanoes. Dust Hill?

Now we're in good future. The cacti are still there, along with the trees. But some structures have been built to the left of the cacti - possibly some buildings in the Dust Hill future?

And this is the Bad Future. The trees have turned purple, but that's probably just a palette change. More interesting is the fact that the cacti have been replaced by towers and pipes, something like an oil refinery. There's even an extra pipe going into the area with trees!
Notice in the futures how there are pipes going into the volcanoes - possibly there was a deleted volcano level as well (like Volcanic Vault in Sonic Arcade?)

All this evidence can mean only one thing: Dust Hill had Bad and Good futures planned.

There's even more evidence in the Collision Chaos zone. Notice those tall things in the background. What are they - cacti? Saguaros? Sure look like them! And what's more, they change with the time frame...

Present
Past
Bad Future
Good Future

Hey, there are structures among the cacti in the Good Future, just like on the Little Planet picture! And in the Bad Future, there are refineries and pipes all over the de-colored hills!
The only thing that concerns me is the Past picture - it shows green grass on top of the hills (much like Emerald Hill). If this was a desert, there wouldn't be any grass, would there?

These plants crop up in the Palmtree Panic Zone. Jan reckons that the water on the Good Future plants is a mistake in the game - it has water where it should have shade. I don't agree.

This is the Present plant, to compare. If the water was a mistake, then each segment of the plant would be colored a single shade of water, constantly changing. However, looking at the Good Future pic, the water on the plants is split up into segments, each one a different shade.

Therefore, the bottom segment of the plant MUST be divided up, as shown by the red lines.
Each segment has an index code, mapped to a certain area in the palette. The palette then cycles, so the color it refers to constantly changes - hence the 'water flow' effect. Using PSP, I've mapped the red, blue, green, yellow 'demonstration' colors onto a Hidden Palace pic:

As you can see, the waterfall changed as I changed the colors. So therefore the water on Good Future plants was intentional.

This is the same object from Bad Future. The plants here don't have water in place of the shade. However, some areas of the plants glow deep red (like the middle of the trees), and the edges of the plants are trimmed with the polluted water colors!
(Note: This is a capture card screenshot from the SegaCD version - it's much more visible if you're playing the PC version full-screen, or if you have your SegaCD wired to the TV via RGB.)

Jan says on the PC version, the mine in Metallic Madness Good Future is incorrectly colored, (shade instead of light), but okay in Bad Future.

But on the SegaCD version, the colors are all correct:

So, maybe there was something wrong with the PC version? Or Jan's computer? ;)
But I think the most likely reason is that the original Genesis had a shadow/highlight function, which effectively gave an extra 64 colors at a darker shade. The 'emulator' in Sonic CD PC doesn't support that.

On Stardust Speedway act 1, there are a set of platforms below the end of the act. There is no way you could reach them without debug.

This picture shows where you could get in, but as you can see, there's a spring in the way! (No, I didn't place it with debug!)

If the spring wasn't there, you could flip the cards and go down through the dark area to the platforms. However, I think the extra bit was designed to be the other way round - you'd go along a lower area, then the springs would shoot you back up to this point so you could exit the level.

Also, people have often wondered where the volcanos on Little Planet picture come from. Well, you can see them at the beginning of Tidal Tempest present! But it does make you wonder - was there a deleted volcano level?