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Christmas Test

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This is a sub-page of Sonic Robo Blast 2/Archived Versions.

To do:
There's some more revisional differences.

Revisional Differences#

SRB2 Christmas 0.90#

This version was released in a buggy and unfinished state, as it was rushed for Christmas 1999. The demo had a tendency to crash, and in particular had a bug which made it incompatible with computers running Windows 98 First Edition1. As such, this build was taken down and would later be considered lost media. Nearly 25 years later, SSNTails would rediscover the .wad file for this build, and soon would recreate 0.90 by reverting changes made in 0.92 to give an accurate approximation of how 0.90 was.

Note: Only changes found from the recovered SRB2XMAS.WAD are present here. There are most likely lots of differences outside of this file, but those files have not been found.

  • The health icon on the HUD has been replaced with a "RINGS" label.
  • Sonic's sprites are more complete now, showing fewer placeholders from Sonic X-treme.
  • Each level has its own intermission picture now, leaving the screen of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles from the Halloween tech demo unused.
  • All of the textures are now Christmas-themed, removing all of the Halloween theming from the previous demo.
  • The level from the previous demo has been replaced with a new 6-level campaign featuring a small story and a boss fight with Eggman at the end.
  • The menu now contains all-new textures instead of the Doom and Sonic Doom 2 styled textures seen previously.
    • However, the episode select assets from Sonic Doom still remain.
  • The title screen now contains original Christmas-themed artwork of Sonic and Eggman.

SRB2 Christmas 0.92#

This version was quickly released to address the buggy state 0.90 was in when it was released.

  • Drowning is now added – if the player stays underwater for more than 12 seconds they will lose a life. The Air Bubble Patch was also added, allowing the player to stay underwater for longer when they breathe in a large bubble from it.
  • A 10-minute time limit was added; once the timer reached 9:59 in any level, the player would instantly die and lose a life.
  • The most extreme difficulty modes received some extra changes to further differentiate them from the others: in Cakewalk mode players would now be bounced out of death pits, while Very Hard would now remove all rings from levels.
  • Sonic's homing attack was replaced by the thok. At this point, Sonic could thok an unlimited number of times per jump.
  • The ability to spindash was added.
  • The ring counter on the HUD, which previously displayed in the bottom left corner of the screen, now displays in the correct location.
  • Monitors now function.
  • The blue and green shields have been added.
  • Some options in the multiplayer menu were added back due to complaints towards 0.90 for not having them.
    • Notably, the button says "You want useless options? U got em!" as a jab towards these complaints.
  • Sonic's ability was replaced with the homing attack (which was removed in the following version), which was activated by pressing the jump button in mid-air.

SRB2 Christmas 0.93#

This version took big steps towards making Sonic Robo Blast 2 feel more like the Genesis Sonic games, such as:

  • Temporary invincibility after getting hit was introduced. This removed problems in earlier versions where players would die immediately after coming in contact with an enemy, even while holding rings.
  • Score, lives and a time counter were implemented, and a full Sonic 2-like HUD was added. Initially, the time counter displayed the time only in seconds instead of minutes and seconds. At the score tally screen, the player would now receive bonuses for time and collected rings, just like in the original Sonic games. The Extra Life Monitor was added, which awards the player an extra life when destroyed.

Christmas 0.92

Christmas 0.93
  • Tails and his ability to fly were added. Only Tails' standing sprites and some walking sprites had been completed at this stage.
    • Sprites from Sonic 3 are used as placeholders for his flying animation, while the other frames use a mix of Sonic's completed sprites and his placeholder Sonic X-treme sprites.
  • The "Useless Options" menu has been removed.
  • Multiplayer was made functional.
  • An early version of Greenflower Zone Act 1 was added as a hidden map in slot MAP13. The first half of the map is similar to how it is today, but everything after where the first Star Post is now is missing. In its place is a largely empty section that was later removed.

SRB2 Christmas 0.94#

This would be final patch towards Christmas most people would see, and would mainly fix bugs.

  • Analog control was added as an option, though in an unfinished state. Unlike in later versions of SRB2, the player still faced away from the camera instead of facing the direction they were moving in, and the turn left/right controls still turned the player around but also moved them sideways. It was automatically disabled in multiplayer. This option was later removed in Demo 1, but then re-added in Demo 3 in a more complete state.
  • Enemies can now be hit from underneath, and by Tails while flying.
  • Enemies will no longer break item boxes.
  • Falling underwater is faster.
  • The camera would now sometimes reset itself automatically if it detected it was stuck.
  • A bug was fixed where all objects would disappear on Very Hard mode instead of just rings.
  • The Armageddon Shield and the Elemental Shield have been added. At this point, the Elemental Shield only protected from drowning. The Armageddon Shield was originally activated by double-jumping as opposed to pressing the separate spin button.
  • Sonic 2's system font was implemented as the console's font, which is still used in the console in the most recent version.

Christmas 0.93

Christmas 0.94

SRB2 Christmas 0.96#

This version was initially only released on CD, and was not distributed online until years later. 0.96 greatly expanded SRB2 Christmas's campaign, adding many new levels including 2 new secret levels.

  • Four new maps have been added to the campaign:
    • Close Corners
    • Xmas Factory
    • Snow Valley
    • Final Boss
  • Two new secret levels have been added:
    • Emerald Coast
    • Sonic's Nightmare
  • Emerald Coast returns from 0.94 and is now accessible by jumping to your right into the green alcove at the start of Snow Valley. Sonic's Nightmare, the second secret level, can be found within Emerald Coast atop a ledge accessible by spring.
  • The TIME counter on the HUD was updated to use the minutes:seconds format and not just display the number of seconds passed since entering the level.

Christmas 0.94

Christmas 0.96
  • Super Sonic was made playable for the first time, though only one sprite of his had been completed. Super Sonic would remain in an unfinished state until Final Demo. The Chaos Emeralds were also present, and all 7 could be found in a secret area of Emerald Coast.
  • Blue and Red Crawlas were given new sprites for this version, which they would keep all the way until Version 2.0.

Christmas 0.94

Christmas 0.96
  • Diagonal Yellow Springs were added, and were used in some of the levels included in 0.96.

Unused Graphics#

A set of graphics of the Doom chainsaw with the hands filled in with white. Strangely, these graphics are different from the ones used in Sonic Doom and Sonic Doom 2.

This snowman goes unused in 0.96 due its former object now using one of the Christmas tree sprites.

This lamp sprite goes unused in all versions. This sprite would be repurposed as a decoration object in later versions of the game.

Various intermission graphics leftover from previous versions of the multiplayer intermission screens.

SRB2_Christmas_WIFRGS.png
SRB2_Christmas_WIP1.png
SRB2_Christmas_WIP2.png
SRB2_Christmas_WIP3.png
SRB2_Christmas_WIP4.png
SRB2_Christmas_WISUCKS.png

The WIMSTAR, WIMSTT, WIOSTF, WIPAR, WIPCNT, and WITIME lumps are all unused from 0.93 onwards.

Despite Emerald Coast using the Christmas-themed skybox all of the other levels do in 0.94, its unique skybox is leftover in 0.94's SRB2XMAS.WAD.

Sonic Doom 2 Leftovers#

All of the unused menu graphics from the Halloween Test demo are still found unused here.

SRB2_Halloween_M_DETAIL.png
SRB2_Halloween_M_DISOPT.png
SRB2_Halloween_M_DISP.png
SRB2_Halloween_M_EPI1.png
SRB2_Halloween_M_EPI2.png
SRB2_Halloween_M_EPI3.png
SRB2_Halloween_M_EPISOD.png
SRB2_Halloween_M_GDHIGH.png
SRB2_Halloween_M_GDLOW.png
SRB2_Halloween_M_LGTTL.png
SRB2_Halloween_M_MESSG.png
SRB2_Halloween_M_MSENS.png
SRB2_Halloween_M_MSGOFF.png
SRB2_Halloween_M_MSGON.png
SRB2_Halloween_M_SCRNSZ.png

Halloween Tech Demo Leftovers#

The version of GFZGRASS used in the Halloween demo is still leftover in Christmas 0.92.

Unused Music#

The music used for the levels only seen in Christmas 0.96 is also present in Christmas 0.94, albeit unused.

Despite MAP11 through MAP14 not existing in Christmas 0.96, or any other version of Christmas Test, music for these maps is found in the SRB2XMAS.WAD of Christmas 0.94 and Christmas 0.96. A MIDI rendition of "We Three Kings", meant for MAP11. A MIDI rendition of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", meant for MAP12. A MIDI rendition of "What Child Is This?", meant for MAP13. A MIDI rendition of "Joy to The World", meant for MAP14.

Unused Maps#

Unfinished Emerald Coast#

An incomplete recreation of Emerald Coast Zone can be found in Christmas 0.94 at slot MAP15, the same slot it occupies in 0.96.

Watch on YouTube

Greenflower Zone Act 1#

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Add a video of this.

A version of Greenflower Zone Act 1 resembling the version seen in the March 2000 prototype can be found in the MAP13 slot in Christmas 0.93.

References#

  1. https://www.srb2.org/history_data/wgd/glove/290100.htm↩︎