M: Time for a stupid challenge. Go online, look up any descriptors only in the video games of Sonic the Hedgehog for the various worlds and zones and areas and all those kind of things. And from that, try and sketch out a map of the world that this game franchise is supposed to be based on, indicating where each of the various zones from the various games are supposed to be located on the map. The arrangement doesn't have to be a situation where the quote-unquote zone is supposed to be an entire area. For example, if there are multiple forest areas, they could be in the same forest without overlapping. So you don't have to create 50 different forests, or however many there are. But they do need to be arranged in a way that the path of each game on that world, unless specified by something in the plot, like a kidnapping and airplane ride or something, each area otherwise has to be in a straight line, a contiguous one. So if there was, for example, a path from a simple forest to a water area to a metropolitan area, there would need to be a path on the map going from some kind of forest through a swamp or shoreline and into a city. The goal is to make the map, while following these restrictions, as simple as possible while containing all of the areas. Consider this to be a first draft. Go through all of the Sonic the Hedgehog storylines and try and filter out the ones that are unable to be folded into a simple line of, you know, being on the same planet. I know that they have a lot of dimensions and time hopping and stuff in the stories. Just do your best for this pass through. Make a note of what was excluded and why so that I can be more specific about what goes into the second draft. And then I guess sketch out the map. Hmm, is there anything else dot dot dot? No, let's see what's what it is you come up with for this. Remember, we're trying to just turn this into a single planet so that everything connects to everything else as well as possible following the narrative of the video games whose plots can be folded into this single planet.
G: Here’s a first-draft attempt at constructing a “folded together” world-map for the Sonic video game zones (games whose plots can be reasonably placed on a single planet, ignoring alternate dimensions, time travel, etc.). I pick out a sample of well-known zones, map them by “type” (forest/hill, lava/mountains, industrial, aquatic, city/metropolitan, etc.), set them in a continuous linear or branching geography, note what zones or games are hard to place, and what I excluded (or flagged for second draft). Happy to refine if you want more games included (or fewer).
I collected descriptors from several popular Sonic games to get a sense of the environments and how they sequence:
| Zone | Descriptors of geography / environment / what’s around | What game(s), rough order |
|---|---|---|
| Green Hill Zone | Lush grasses, forest / wooded area, cliffs, palm trees, “South Island” origin; early stage, outdoor, green hills, forest creatures. citeturn0search18turn0search0turn1search7turn1search8 | |
| Marble Zone | Ancient ruins, mountain landscape, underground dungeon, lava pools, Greco-Roman type architecture, pillars, etc. Located on South Island, set “after” Green Hill in that game. citeturn1search0turn1search7turn0search0 | |
| Chemical Plant Zone | Industrial chemical factory, pipelines, toxic chemicals, surrounded by an urban / city backdrop. On “West Side Island” in Sonic 2; heavily built, dangerous machinery etc. citeturn1search1turn1search9turn0search0 | |
| Emerald Hill Zone | (From Sonic 2) More hill terrain, but also some greenery mixed with early industrial / slightly more exotic plants. It’s the first zone in Sonic 2; transitions from green, grassy to industrial. citeturn0search0turn1search3turn1search15 |
Using those descriptors, plus similar ones for other zones (aquatic, city, desert, ice, etc.), here’s a sketch of how zones might be arranged on a map of a single planet in a way that respects (as much as possible) contiguous paths in each game.
(I’ll assume there is a continent or landmass with differing altitude / climate / biome from coast through lowlands, hills, mountains, deserts, and also some islands.)
Mountains / Volcano / Lava region
▲
| Marble / Lava Zones
| (e.g. Marble Zone)
|
Forested Hills / Highlands
| Green Hill, Emerald Hill
|
Coastal Plain / Beaches & Aquatic
| Aquatic Ruin / Beach Zones
|
Swamp / Wetlands / River Lakes
|
Industrial / Urban Areas
| Chemical Plant, City / Metropolis
|
Lowlands / Forest
|
Shoreline / Islands / SeaMore concretely:
Then islands around the edges (especially if games include islands; e.g. West Side Island etc) that connect via beaches / sea.
For example, in Sonic 2 (16-bit) the progression is:
Emerald Hill → Chemical Plant → Aquatic Ruin → Casino Night → Hill Top → Mystic Cave → Oil Ocean → Metropolis → Sky Chase → Wing Fortress → Death Egg. citeturn1search3turn0search0
So:
So mapping those sequentially: starting inland from coast or shore → forest → city/industrial → aquatic → city nightlife → up to hills → into caves / mountains → over ocean etc → metropolis → sky / fortress up high.
Here’s a hand-drawn conceptual map in text form; imagine a continent shaped roughly oval, oriented north-south, with coasts to the west and east, mountains toward the north, deserts to one side etc.
North
^
[Volcano / Lava-Mountains]
● Marble Zone
● Lava Reef, etc.
│
Hill / highland region
● Hill Top Zone
● Ancient Ruins (Marble)
│
Forested Green Hills & Woods → toward east coast/aquatic
● Green Hill Zone
● Emerald Hill Zone
● Mushroom Hill, Seaside Hill etc.
│
Industrial / Urban Belt (river valley / near coast)
● Chemical Plant Zone
● Metropolis Zone / City / Casino Night
│
Lowlands / Forest / Swamp / Aquatic Ruins
● Aquatic Ruin Zone
● Oil Ocean Zone (near coast)
│
Coast / Shore Islands
● Beach or Shoreline Zones
● Sky Chase / Wing Fortress (on cliffs or over sea / sky)
│
East / South coasts & islandsIf I mark some particular zones:
So for Sonic 2, the path goes: lowlands → industrial → aquatic ruin → city nightlife → hills → caves/mountains → ocean → metropolis → sky / fortress → final Death Egg (which could be off-coast / skybound).
Some zones/games are difficult to locate coherently in the single‐planet map without invoking alternate dimensions / time warps:
Sky Sanctuary Zone and other sky/airborne zones (floating islands, etc.) — do these belong to the mountain peaks, or are they separate floating islands? Could be placed over mountains, but since they’re often floating/fantasy, plausible but ambiguous.
Zones that are explicitly alien, virtual, or dimension-based (e.g. Cyber Space in Frontiers, or “virtual” versions, or the Death Egg when in space). If the plot says you're in another dimension or orbit, it's hard to fold into terrestrial geography.
Desert zones, ice zones, etc., if the game includes them but with little environmental clues, are tricky to place. Without explicit adjacency in game, you have some freedom, but risk contradicting other games.
Zones with heavily fantastical flora/fauna or magical themes (e.g. some “ruins” whose scale seems huge, some fantasy temples) are harder to ground, but can be grouped with “ruin/mountains” or “forest/ancient ruin” belts.
Some games are open world (like Sonic Frontiers) or switches between zones across islands; mapping them may require adding multiple islands rather than one contiguous landmass.
Alternate versions of the same zone (e.g. inside Cyber Space) are excluded for this first draft (they might be layered “digital” duplicates rather than physical geography).
Below is a more structured map in ASCII, showing relative placement with some sample zones. (This is very rough.)
[ North Mountain Range ]
• Marble Zone
• Lava‐Reef / Hidden Palace (ancient ruins)
/\
/ \
Hill/Forest / \ Sky / Floating Fortress zones
/ • Hill Top Zone • Sky Chase / Wing Fortress
/ • Mystic Cave • Sky Sanctuary
/
West Coast / Forest / Plain Industrial / City belt Aquatic Coast / Islands
• Beach / Shore • Green Hill / Emerald Hill → • Chemical Plant → • Metropolis / Casino Night
• Seaside Hill
• Aquatic Ruin (coastal) • Oil Ocean (sea)
• Casino Night (on coast or near city)
• Death Egg – possibly orbit / final stage beyond mapSo in this map:
Here are a few concrete game-paths and how they map:
Sonic the Hedgehog (1991): Green Hill → Marble → Spring Yard → Labyrinth → Star Light → Scrap Brain → Final. → Map that as: coast → forest/hills → mountains/ancient ruins → underground labyrinth → night sky/star heights → industrial bad brain region → final boss area (could be skystation or fortress).
Sonic 2 (16-bit) as above.
Sonic Lost World etc can be fit if each of its levels (windy hills, desert ruins, tropical coast, frozen factory, silent forest, sky road, lava etc) are placed roughly matching types: desert ruins on the arid side, frozen factory up in cold/mountain, tropical coast on shore, etc.
I need to decide more precisely where sky/floating zones belong: edge of map over sea? Over mountains?
Include ice / snow zones explicitly (if game has them) and decide whether to put them at poles or mountain highlands.
Handle “island” games or open world islands (Frontiers, etc) – maybe multiple islands off coast rather than forcing everything on one landmass.
Consider how far apart deserts are; if deserts zones exist, put them on interior or side(s) of continent with less moisture (rain shadow maybe) etc.
Clarify whether Death Egg / orbital bosses are off‐planet or floating bases — might treat them as “sky / orbital” not part of ground geography.
Maybe simplify by grouping similar zones (all forest hills in same belt; all aquatic in same coastal belt; all ruins/mountains in same region; industrial cities in same belt).
If you like, I can draw up a visual version of this map (with zones labeled) and include many more zones. Do you want me to prepare that second draft with more games (e.g. from Modern Sonic, Lost World, Frontiers etc) and send you a graphic?
M: This looks like a good start. Unless there's something canonical in the games to explain why the mountains are floating, or how they pull it off in some sort of pseudoscience way. Disregard how they do it, and instead assume that they are. Free-floating and follow-a-jet-stream type situation. Circling the planet. And susceptible to wind patterns and stuff, just in a way that is more scaled towards their actual mass. So I guess we're assuming it's some sort of parallel to magnetism, so that they have equivalent weight and the floating is some kind of sci-fi physics so that they scoot around like monorails, but without tracks. Assume that virtual things can be accessed from anywhere. So if the storyline involves going into cyberspace, depending on the plot line, either if they go in just mentally, then when they finish they exit from the same place and move on to the next area. Or if somehow they're supposed to have been brought into a cyber world in their own physical body, then it's like with the airplane ride situation, where it can enter anywhere and exit anywhere else on the map. So just to be completely clear, the single path in the game does not have to continue from game to game unless the plot explicitly says it's a continuation. Like the simplest version is, I think, Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2 on Genesis, where the progression is similar, but there's no indication that the plot of number two starts from the area that number one ends. So don't try and create a single line in the game for the story, but just for each game that occurs. I think that's what you're doing, but I want to make sure explicitly. Okay, with the desert and ice areas, if there are no external clues, try placing them geographically appropriate in terms of how Earth is arranged. Deserts would likely be closest to the equator, even if they are surrounded by other lush areas. Ice would imply either getting up above a certain area of... what is it? Latitude, I think it is. Yeah, above a particular latitude or in a mountainous or plateau area. Okay, when you're trying to fold in the open world or hub arrangement of some games, let's function under the assumption of the area not being built entirely to scale, unless it's a particular site. Kind of the same way that role-playing games, when they show the character moving, the character moving will have icons the same size as an entire town. You can be flexible with this as long as the arrangement of the hub is approximately that of the rest of the map. Don't worry about the scale of the size, just where they are placed. Alternate versions of things like cyberspace can be considered to be similar places, but you know, cyberspace is such a nebulous term that just assume that they all are on the same network unless it's explicit, and even then it's just a question of where the storage space would be. Ask questions more specifically if you need to, but in general you can assume that they are all part of the same area in the way that it is on Earth, where it's considered a location but doesn't actually have physical space. Let's see, I'm going through your last part about the draft. I already addressed the floating zones. Given the fantasy method of depicting these things, don't worry about the temperature on those. They can be whatever the hell they want, they already have broken physics there. Don't worry about temperature until you start descending more to the planet's surface. That just reminded me of something. Go with the descriptor of the area more than the visual representation. When trying to decide where something belongs, the cartoonish graphics and necessary visual trimming for the 2D versions means that trying to sketch a forest directly combining all of the versions of the graphics would end up abso-fucking-lutely insane. So if you need to refer to pictures to decide what's going on in the foreground and background, but you're allowed to be more abstract about the idea and adhere more to the text description in the case of ambiguity. ... Assume for the island parts other than the games which explicitly are set on clusters that these are archipelagos or something similar giving the coasts a couple island chains for any island purposes. Do a quick brush-up of where deserts appear for what reason. Like I said, when in doubt, just put it closer towards the equator, but if you can rationalize it, please feel free to be creative about the desert placement. Actually, don't even worry about the rationalization. The purpose is to put things in the correct place and then the story can be backfilled even if the story is the geography and geology of the place. Orbital bosses are orbiting. They are like the airplane instance. They can hypothetically be accessed from anywhere and from there the story can proceed to anywhere. We're working with pseudoscience, so the methodology doesn't matter. Grouping together similar zones is a good idea and kind of what I'm going for. That being said, don't hesitate to split into two or three separate clusters in order to simplify the mapping process. Like we don't want a single forest trying to hold every forest zone if that means that the forest ends up being a gerrymandered mess. But at the same time, if there are 20 forest zones, we don't want to end up with 20 forests areas. It's not technically useful or aesthetically pleasing or very geographically likely. Please describe a second version trying to incorporate as many of the games as possible before we start trying to draw what the map would look like.
G: Cool, thanks for clarifying. Using your rules, I put together a more inclusive second-draft map plan, bringing in many more Sonic zones (especially desert, ice, open-world, etc.), categorizing them, placing them roughly, and noting what’s still fuzzy. Once this is approved I can try drawing a more formal version.
First, I pulled a lot of zones from the “List of Sonic zones” and other sources to have a larger sample. citeturn0search0turn0search1turn0search6turn0search9
Here are some of the added zones with their environment type / descriptors (ice, desert, forest, industrial, aquatic, floating sky, lava etc.):
| Zone | Game(s) | Type / Descriptors |
|---|---|---|
| IceCap Zone | Sonic 3 / Sonic & Knuckles | Snow, ice plateau, cold weather environment. citeturn0search0turn0search6turn0search9 |
| Sandopolis Zone | Sonic & Knuckles | Desert / dunes, pyramids etc. citeturn0search0turn0search1turn0search6 |
| Lava Reef Zone | Sonic & Knuckles | Lava, reef, likely near volcanoes / magma regions. citeturn0search0turn0search9 |
| Hydrocity Zone | Sonic 3 | Underwater / water city / submerged zones. Aquatic. citeturn0search6 |
| Angel Island Zone | Sonic 3 | Island terrain, forests / jungle. Possibly coastal. citeturn0search6turn0search9 |
| Frozen Factory (Lost World) | Sonic Lost World | Factory in icy / cold environment. Ice + industrial. citeturn0search0 |
| Desert Ruins (Lost World) | Sonic Lost World | Desert, ruins, pyramids, arid. citeturn0search0turn0search1 |
| Tropical Coast (Lost World) | Sonic Lost World | Lush coast, tropical water, beaches. citeturn0search0 |
| Lava Mountain (Lost World) | Sonic Lost World | Mountain + lava, volcanic region. citeturn0search0 |
| Silent Forest (Lost World) | Sonic Lost World | Dense forest. citeturn0search0 |
| Windy Hill, Sky Road (Lost World) | Sonic Lost World | Hill / high elevation; sky / floating or elevated road. citeturn0search0 |
| Seaside Hill, Emerald Coast etc | Various games | Coastal forest / beach / ocean interface. citeturn0search0turn0search9 |
| Angel Island, Mushroom Hill, Mystic Cave etc | Classic Sonic 3 / & Knuckles etc | Jungle/forest, cave / underground, hill terrain. citeturn0search6turn0search0 |
| Quartz Quadrant, Tidal Tempest, Stardust Speedway, Palmtree Panic (CD) | Sonic CD | Desert or beach or strange floating / futuristic roads; quartz/mineral, storms, tidal forces. citeturn0search0turn0search9 |
Plus many more, including industrial zones (Chemical Plant, Launch Base, Metallic Madness etc.), floating / sky zones (Sky Sanctuary, Sky Road, Sky Chase, Wing Fortress etc.), lava zones, underwater and aquatic zones, ice zones, desert zones.
Using your further clarifications:
Here’s a more detailed conceptual map, with more zones included, laid out in belts / clusters. I’ll describe regionally by latitude (north / equator / south) and by continent / island clusters.
High-Latitude / Polar or Mountainous Belt (Ice, Snow, High Elevation)
---------------------------------------------------------------
[North Pole Ice Region / Mountain Ranges]
| IceCap Zone
| Frozen Factory (Lost World)
| Other snow/ice zones (e.g. “Snow Mountain”, Glacierland, etc.)
Floating Sky/Fortress Ring (circling planet, drifting in jet-stream) – overlays
· Sky Sanctuary
· Wing Fortress
· Sky Chase
· Sky Road
· Flying Battery
· Sky Deck, Sky Base, etc.
Mid-Latitude Forest / Highlands Belt (Temperate Forests, Hills, Caves)
---------------------------------------------------------------
● Forested lowlands / hills: Green Hill / Emerald Hill / Hill Top
● Jungle / Island forest: Angel Island, Seaside Hill, Mushroom Hill
● Mystic Cave, Ancient Ruins, Marble Garden, Marble Zone
● Silent Forest (Lost World)
● Quadrant Zones like Quartz Quadrant (CD) in mineral hills
Equatorial / Near-Equator Belt (Deserts, Tropical Coasts, Beaches, Lava)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Tropical Coast (Lost World) – beaches, lush coast
● Desert Ruins, Sandopolis, Sand Hill, Oil Desert Zone
● Lava Mountain, Lava Reef, Red Volcano Zones etc.
● Beach / Seaside zones (Emerald Coast, Ocean Base etc.)
● Aquatic Ruin / Hydrocity (coastal aquatic zones, undersea near equator perhaps)
Industrial / Urban Zones Belt (often adjacent to coasts or rivers)
---------------------------------------------------------------
● Chemical Plant, Launch Base, Power Plant, Metallic Madness, E.G.G Station etc.
● Metropolis, Casinopolis, City Escape / Rooftop Run etc.
Islands / Archipelagos around coasts & open world islands
---------------------------------------------------------------
● Angel Island cluster off coast
● Lost World Islands (Ares, Kronos, etc.)
● Other small island chains with beaches, tropical forests
South side mirror (if symmetry) or southern deserts / forests depending on game presence
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Some games may have zones in southern hemisphere: deserts, ice if mountain ranges etc.
Orbital / Off-World / Final Boss / Death Egg / Space / Orbital
----------------------------------------------------------------
● Death Egg (orbit), Final Zone / Final Base etc.
● Other orbital or flying fortress stages that are “beyond sky ring”
Virtual / Cyberspace Network Layer (non-physical)
------------------------------------------------
● Any Cyber Space / Virtual zones act like teleport hubs; entrances from anywhereHere are how a few full game paths would map into these belts / clusters under this layout:
Sonic & Knuckles (classic):
Forest / Island Hill (Mushroom Hill) → Lava Reef (volcanic equatorial) →
Sandopolis (desert near equator) → Hidden Palace (ancient ruins
highland) → Sky Sanctuary (floating sky ring) → Death Egg
(orbit).
Sonic Lost World:
Windy Hill (forest / hill) → Desert Ruins (desert belt) → Tropical Coast
(coastal near equator) → Frozen Factory (move north toward ice belt) →
Silent Forest (forest belt) → Sky Road (sky ring) → Lava Mountain
(volcanic equator) → Hidden World (floating / magical) etc.
Sonic 3 / & Knuckles:
Angel Island (coastal island, forest) → Hydrocity (aquatic
coast/underwater) → Marble Garden / Marble zones (highlands / ruins) →
Carnival Night (city belt) → IceCap (move into ice belt) → Launch Base,
Lava Reef etc → Sky Sanctuary / Death Egg ring.
Even with this, some zones are still ambiguous or problematic. These are ones I'd flag for decision or later placement:
Some floating islands or Sky zones that have little proximity hints: e.g. where is “Sky Deck” exactly over what surface? Over mountain or sea?
Some desert/desert-adjacent zones: e.g. Oil Desert Zone, which could be equatorial but might be adjacent to forest or aquatic for narrative convenience; exact placement depends on adjacent zones.
Some industrial zones which have mixed descriptors (icy, desert, scale etc) — e.g. if a factory built in frozen / mountain area or desert; their location could slide.
Open-world hub regions (Sonic Frontiers islands, etc) – need to decide which island cluster they belong to, and approximate lat / belt.
Some obscure / scrapped / bonus zones: may or may not include depending on whether you want non-canonical or lower visibility ones.
To tie things together, here’s how I’d assign approximate “positions” on a spherical/elliptical planet for many of the zones (latitude / belt and rough longitudinal placement) in your simplified map. Think of north at top, equator in middle, etc.
Latitude Band: High North (~ +60° to +80°):
• IceCap Zone
• Frozen Factory (Lost World)
• Other high ice/snow zones
Latitude Band: Mid-North (~ +30° to +60°):
• Marble Garden, Marble Zone (ruins / highlands)
• Mystic Cave (in the foothills near forest belt)
• Silent Forest
• Quadrant zones like Quartz Quadrant
Latitude Band: Equatorial (~ -30° to +30°):
• Tropical Coast / beaches (Lost World, Emerald Coast, Seaside Hill islands)
• Desert Ruins, Sandopolis, Oil Desert Zone
• Lava Mountain, Lava Reef
• Hydrocity (coastal aquatic / undersea)
• Aquatic Ruin (coastal aquatic)
Latitude Band: Mid-South (mirror or forest/desert depending on game):
• Perhaps more forest / hill zones if games have them south
Floating Sky / Sky Ring: circling roughly above mid-latitudes (say between +30° and -30°, but drifting):
• Sky Sanctuary, Wing Fortress, Sky Road, Sky Chase etc.
Industrial / Urban Zones: likely at mid-latitude towards coasts / river valleys (possibly both in northern and equatorial belts)
• Chemical Plant
• Metallic Madness
• Launch Base
• Metropolis / City / Casinopolis etc.
Orbital / Final Boss: off the planet (above sky ring), accessible from anywhere.
Islands / Archipelagos: around equatorial coasts (both north and south):
• Angel Island cluster
• Lost World / Kronos, Ares Islands, etc
• Other small coasts islands
If you like, I can now produce a visual sketch (map-drawing) with all these zones placed, labeling them, and perhaps even color-coding belts (forest, desert, ice, sky). Do you want me to generate that version (draft #3)?
M: Maybe for the floating islands, it would be best to consider them as a kind of combination of... As responding as though they were in a combination of a jet stream and the flow of water around the Earth, in that there may be a few areas where large and possibly repeating islands accumulate like some kind of vortex, but on the whole, the drifting islands actually do drift around in some sort of pattern. Hub type areas you seem to be on the right track with. As another way of describing it, consider the placement of the various items as the important part and then add scalars to the distances so that they can be placed correctly and relative to each other in terms of direction, but without worrying over much about how much that actual distance is. The direction is the important part and the ability to get there relatively easily, not the distance itself. Skydeck, if I remember correctly, is a man-made structure. There may be a few of those that you're getting confused by. What game is that from, particularly, and what does its graphic set look like? Deserts can be adjacent to anything, I think. I'm not sure about the geographical necessities on Earth, but I think they are more of a product of history and airflow than, in terms of rainfall and all that, than anything else. So, an oil desert could, hypothetically, either exist next to a forest by itself or be part of an arm extended up from a larger desert section. I think the only thing about desert areas, and you might want to look this part up in terms of geography and climate and such, I don't think that they tend to exist as very small things. I mean, they have to have been small at one point, but they transition into deserts gradually, although they can be restored fairly quickly, allowing for forests and such to be relatively close to a desert. I think the transition goes something like grassland and savanna down to kind of barren and eventually to a desert, at which point restoration requires a climate shift or effort to restore not just moisture, but ground material that can contain anything but scrub grass. So, yeah, your oil desert could be somewhere nearby, and deserts regularly go up to the shore, so I don't see any problem there, although there might need to be some kind of grassland padding around any kind of freshwater river, kind of like the Nile in the middle of Egypt. Try and keep the city count down. If you can, but this is a populated place, so having minor cities is not a problem, especially if it's around a resource. Like you said, there are factories or something which probably would place them in some sort of shipping lane, so you can have like a Cleveland or a Richmond, as well as the mega metropolises that the game implies exist. I guess if you're going to have any kind of overlap with the cities, it would probably be that kind of related topic, like if there's obviously two places that have two zones that have sailboats, see if they can be described as being in the same place. Make a decent effort to include the open world hub islands and such, and if that doesn't work, put them elsewhere. There's an entire continent to work with. It would be really, really neat to see how many areas can be worked into one place and still have the games make sense in terms of continuity. But if you have to shift things around either completely or to introduce a couple new areas while using a couple of the existing ones to overlap the hub world zones, go ahead and do that. The hub world zones, go ahead and do that. Leave the bonus zones alone. If I had to describe how it worked out, we'll say that those are little arenas that exist wherever the hell Sonic shows up, like how Arizona can have an ice hockey team. I can't remember if I asked, but before you start, try and do a third draft and then tell me what games you're trying to include and what games are being excluded either because they are explicitly incompatible with most Sonic locations or because they are supposed to be set entirely in cyberspace or for whatever other reason. Thank you.
G: Cool, thanks for all that extra detail. I looked up Sky Deck and have some info, plus I’ll work out a refined third-draft map proposal using your additional rules. Then we can decide what games to include/exclude.
“Sky Deck” is a stage in Sonic Adventure (and its enhanced ports) aboard the Egg Carrier. citeturn0search0turn0search1
Here are the key features:
So Sky Deck is not a natural floating island; it’s an industrial / mechanical level, part of a flying ship, and thus should be placed in the map as a flying man-made structure, locally mobile (but anchored to the Egg Carrier). Under your rules this is like a “sky fortress” or orbital type / aerial platform sort of thing, but not one of the naturally drifting floating islands. I’ll treat it as an industrial sky/flying structure rather than a floating island.
Here’s a list of games / levels I propose to try to include in the next draft, and ones I may exclude. If you want some kept/excluded differently, we can adjust:
| To Include (or try to) | Reason / Fit |
|---|---|
| Classic 2D / 16-bit: Sonic 1, Sonic 2 (Genesis), Sonic 3 & Knuckles | Very strong set of zones; many environment types; adjacency rules known. |
| Sonic CD | Has some distinct zones (beaches, quartz / mineral hills, etc.). |
| Sonic Lost World | Many types: desert ruins, tropical coast, ice factory, etc. Helps fill in belts. |
| Sonic Adventure (and its sequels) | Sky / Egg Carrier structures, hub zones etc. Brings in industrial sky / flying ship levels. |
| Sonic Frontiers | Open world, many biomes, island-clusters, plus virtual / cyberspace zones; good for placing hubs. |
Possible Exclude or Defer:
Using your additional rules (floating islands drift, approximate direction matters more than exact distances, deserts near equator, ice near poles/high mountains, cities limited, islands as archipelagos etc.), here’s a more fleshed-out map layout / plan.
I’ll firstly describe belts / zones with approximate compass directions / shape, then place major zones, then note paths for some game progressions to ensure they can connect.
Polar / High Latitude / Mountain Belt (North & South)
Temperate Forest/Hills Belt
Equatorial Belt
Industrial / Urban Strips
Floating / Sky Ring
Islands / Archipelagos
Orbital / Off-Planet / Boss Bases
Network / Cyberspace Layer
Here are where specific named zones (from the list of “include” above) go on the map, with compass / belt / approximate direction from center / coast etc.:
N
^ (North Pole / High Latitude)
[ Ice Belt | High Mountains & Ice Zones ]
• IceCap Zone — placed in far north high mountain region
• Frozen Factory (Lost World) — also north, maybe on high plateau
• Other snow/sleet zones from other games if present
[ Temperate Forest / Hills Belt (mid-north to mid-latitude) ]
• Mystic Cave, Marble Zone, Marble Garden (ancient ruins + highlands) — just south of ice belt
• Silent Forest (Lost World) — forest in mid-latitude
• Angel Island, Mushroom Hill, Seaside Hill — forest / island cluster off coast here
• Green Hill, Emerald Hill — forest / grassy hills, somewhat central latitudes
Floating Sky / Sky Ring (drifting above belts)
• Sky Sanctuary, Wing Fortress etc — in the floating ring, drifting around planet above mid belts
• Sky Deck — as part of a flying ship; treat it like industrial sky structure; may occupy a point above mid-latitude coast / ocean
[ Equatorial Belt: Tropics, Deserts, Volcanoes, Coastal Aquatic ]
• Tropical Coast (Lost World) — equatorial coast
• Sandopolis, Desert Ruins — desert dunes near the equator band, perhaps to east/west side
• Lava Mountain, Lava Reef — volcano region in equatorial belt
• Hydrocity, Aquatic Ruin, Oil Ocean — coast aquatic / undersea near equator
• Seaside / beaches etc.
[ Industrial / Urban Corridors ]
• Chemical Plant, Launch Base, Power Plant etc — near resource-rich coasts/rivers, moderate to equatorial latitudes
• Metropolis / City / Casinopolis etc — major city hubs on coasts or in lowlands
Isolated Islands / Archipelagos
• Starfall Islands (from Frontiers) — cluster in equatorial belt near ocean
• Other forest islands, coast islands — e.g. Angel Island etc
Off-Planet / Orbital Boss / Death Egg etc
• Death Egg — orbit; treat like reachable endpoint from anywhere
Cyberspace / Virtual Levels
• Cyberspace entrances (Frontiers, etc.) — layer accessible from islands, hub zones, etc.Here’s how a few game level sequences can be mapped under this layout, so adjacency works roughly in direction:
Sonic Adventure (with Sky Deck on Egg Carrier): you might start in Forest / lowland belts, move toward coast (if entering Egg Carrier by ship or coast), then ascend or encounter flying ship (Sky Deck), then continue to sky ring or off-planet. That works because Sky Deck is an industrial sky-platform above coast/ocean region.
Sonic Lost World: e.g. path from Windy Hill (forest hills) → Desert Ruins (equatorial desert) → Tropical Coast (coast) → Frozen Factory (north) → Silent Forest (back to forest belt) → Sky Ring (sky fortress) → Lava Mountain (equatorial) etc. These transitions work because belts are contiguous and direction shifts allowed.
Frontiers: Starfall Islands scattered in equatorial belt then via network layer into cyberspace then back etc.
Here’s a more concrete sketch with compass directions, approximate positions:
↑ North
[Polar / Ice & Mountain belt] — spanning near top edge
IceCap Zone (+ other snow zones)
↓ Temperate forest/hills belt just below
Marble Zone / Marble Garden Mystic Cave
Silent Forest Angel Island (off-coast)
Green Hill / Emerald Hill Mushroom Hill
↘ East / West along this belt
Coastal forests / islands Seaside Hill etc.
Floating Sky Ring — drifting above mid belts (around ~ latitude +30° to −30°)
Contains: Sky Sanctuary, Wing Fortress, etc.
↓ Equatorial Belt (center)
Tropical Coasts Hydrocity / Aquatic Ruins (coastal)
Desert Ruins / Sandopolis Lava Reef, Lava Mountain
Oil Ocean etc. on coast
Industrial / Urban nodes placed near coasts & lowlands in equatorial to mid-latitude belts
Chemical Plant Metropolis / City Escape
Launch Base, Power Plant etc.
Islands / Archipelagos around coasts of belts
Starfall Islands (Frontiers) in equatorial ocean expanse
Angel Island etc off coast
Off-Planet / Orbital Bosses
Death Egg etc (orbit) — cloud ring off map, reachable via sky ring or anywhere
Cyberspace / Virtual layer — overlaid, teleport entrances dispersed among zonesExactly where some industrial zones go, especially ones with mixed climate (e.g. “Frozen Factory” is clearly north, but what about a factory in lava region?)
How densely to cluster floating islands / sky ring around certain longitudes (i.e. east vs west side).
How to handle game zones with no clear environment descriptor (ambiguous visuals) — assigning them either forest, hills, or industrial depending on what minimal clues exist.
Whether southern hemisphere is mirrored or has fewer zones, depending on game count; many games picking north / mid latitude – could leave south less populated or with equivalent belts.
If you want, I can produce the third-draft as a visual map (sketch) showing all zones I plan to include and where, then we can review which zones feel mis-placed. Do you want me to generate that visual map next?
M: A factory in a lava region would be possible in any mountainous area, even the frozen ones. Assume the pseudoscience of the world has harnessed some kind of geothermal method of energy and or is placed to extract minerals and process them into whatever is going on there. So those could be in temperate zones, equatorial, northern, or southern mountains. Remember, the south can be frozen as well, as long as it's past a certain point. But the lava regions could be either near a functional volcano or otherwise in mountains that are not volcanic themselves, but lend themselves to mining and situations like that where lava could, in this fantasy world, hypothetically be extracted for its energy and minerals. Assume that the floating islands are drifting in a way that lets them cluster in kind of a Brownian motion way. They are spread out on a macro scale, but in an appropriate time scale. I'm not sure how to describe it because it wouldn't quite be the very slow time of geological shifts, but certainly not as quick as water tides. But they can cluster, but don't necessarily stay near each other for longer than, I don't know, a few years. Like how Saturn's rings are dispersed, but also have areas of higher density than others. If you can't tell where somewhere is because of the foreground visuals, make an attempt to identify their location relatively by looking at the background. If that's still not enough to work, then look at the textures involved in the same game and see if you can derive what it's supposed to represent from that. If all else fails, just call it grassland and make a note of it in a list and present that list to me so I can try and give you a better description of where it likely should be. It's okay to have things balanced towards the north. I think that might be a very human thing to do. Earth has most of its landmass towards the north, and I have a feeling that if it had been the other way around, then the south would have been called north anyway because people tend to define things as being in the direction of up. Anyway, yeah, don't worry about having things lopsided in terms of north versus south. Just be aware that if there is some kind of difficulty in maintaining the continuous line of a game, then don't worry about whether or not it quote-unquote should be in the north. You can put it in the south if it makes for a better flow. We will ask for a drawing after you give me a fourth draft and that list of areas which you haven't been able to definitively place yet in terms of geographical type.
G: Got it — this is shaping up well. I’ll prepare a Fourth Draft that:
North:
South:
Forests & Hills:
Mineral Highlands:
Tropical Coasts & Seas:
Deserts:
Volcano & Lava Regions:
Aquatic Ruins:
Placed near coasts, rivers, or resource belts.
Major cities:
Minor/Resource towns (Cleveland/Richmond scale):
These zones I couldn’t definitively classify, even after texture/background checks:
These can be slotted into grassland until refined.
Would you like me to list out the exact games included and excluded in this fourth draft before we move on to the drawing stage? That way you’ll know what I filtered out (spin-offs, purely cyberspace levels, etc.) before we lock in.
M: Consider the Spring Yard to be an industrial adjacent place. It looks like it's kind of a precursor to the Casino Zone. So you could either place it adjacent to that zone or put it either independently or with another city area as a kind of Atlantic City to Casino Zone's Las Vegas. Thank you for watching. Starlight Zone seems to be something that could be thought of as equivalent to a highway at night, so that could also be metropolitan, or if you wanted, placed in some connective area between two nearby city areas. The quartz quadrant appears to be a kind of rocky lowlands, probably somewhere in the transition between a mountainous area and a grassland or desert, but likely from what I saw to be adjacent to a city area, or if not adjacent at least close to, because it looked like there was in Sonic CD, if I remember correctly as well, this idea of a past and a future version. The future version had human expansion. You seem to be doing a decent job in figuring things out, by the way, pretty good by any standard, because the nature of the Sonic the Hedgehog stories, which generally involves someone trying to turn nature into something more inorganic and robotic, makes things difficult to determine visually sometimes. But yeah, let's say the quartz quadrant is kind of a low area with a lot of mineral wealth over vegetation. Let's call the Mystic Ruins hub as being something kind of rainforest-ish, based on the architectural parallels. This was on a Dreamcast, so being explicit about the vegetation in that kind of density wouldn't have been technically possible, but from my memories of playing it, there was certainly kind of a cleaned-up version of the rainforest in the surrounding. ...area. Let's call Windy Hill as being rolling grassland, something like inland Denmark or maybe a little bit east of the continental United States Midwest, somewhere where the up-and-down of hills exists before you hit the really flat areas of the country. I don't blame you on that one. It is very much one of the more visually confusing areas. Please list out the exact games included and excluded in your fourth draft and incorporate the information I've given you for a fifth draft before we move to creating a visual representation.
G: Perfect — thanks for the clarifications on Spring Yard, Starlight, Quartz Quadrant, Mystic Ruins hub, and Windy Hill. I’ll first list out exactly which games I included/excluded in the Fourth Draft, then integrate your notes into a Fifth Draft map description. That’ll be our staging ground before we draw.
No zones remain in the “undefined” category.
👉 With this Fifth Draft, we now have:
Do you want me to list the zones grouped by game under their new map categories before I move on to the drawing, so you can check continuity game-by-game? Or should I go straight to preparing the visual map sketch based on this draft?
M: Executive Decision. Exclude Sonic Colors. If I remember correctly, that entire game is supposed to be occurring off-planet, in orbit on some kind of recreational space station. Don't worry about redrawing or reconstructing the map to remove those areas, but don't worry about including them either. Let's do one more pass at this, and ask me to resolve any ambiguity before we try to sketch anything out.
G: Understood — Sonic Colors is now formally excluded. You’re right: the setting is Eggman’s Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park, which canonically orbits above Earth. That means it’s in the same “orbital boss / off-planet” category as the ARK, Death Egg, etc., so no need to wedge its environments into the planet’s geography.
Here’s the refined framework with Colors removed, everything reorganized, and the main uncertainties flagged for you to resolve before we sketch.
Potential Ambiguity: Should Holoska (Unleashed, explicitly based on Inuit/Arctic themes) be North Pole locked, or could it float between North/South depending on story flow?
No current ambiguities here — you’ve resolved most already.
Potential Ambiguity: Mazuri (Unleashed, African savanna/desert hybrid). Should it join the desert band (next to Sandopolis/Desert Ruins), or stand alone as a transitional savanna region?
Potential Ambiguity: Radical Highway (Adventure 2). Treat as part of Station Square’s metro belt (bridge/freeway zone) or make it its own city cluster?
No ambiguities — your rule covers their behavior.
Potential Ambiguity: Should Little Planet be considered “orbiting satellite” (like Death Egg) or a semi-anchored island that occasionally phases into low atmosphere?
No ambiguity here — just an orbit layer.
No ambiguity here.
Once you give me rulings on those four points, I’ll finalize the zone placements and produce the visual map sketch.
Would you like me to prep two alternate sketches if some of your answers split the options (e.g., Little Planet orbit vs. semi-anchored), or stick with only the decisions you confirm?
M: The Holoska stuff should be kept together, but it doesn't matter whether it's north or south. We are using Earth as a geographic reference, but we can assume that any Eskimo situation that arose in the south would likely have appeared similar to the one that arose in the north, simply by virtue of available materials. Keeping those levels in similar areas to allow for the game plot to flow correctly is more important than locking it into the north. For Missouri, M-A-Z-U-R-I, I just realized that probably will be translated as the United States version. But I mean the Savannah you identified. You identified it correctly. It certainly looks more robust and healthy than a desert. So it could be safely slotted in, either as adjacent to a forest or a desert. The game flow is the important thing. So it doesn't have to be connected to a desert. But if it fits into the flow of the game, go ahead and put it there. The Radical Highway seems to be kind of like the Starlight Zone in that you could probably place it either adjacent to a city or on the path to another area. But how it works into gameplay doesn't even have to follow the city sequence. It could go pretty much anywhere that is near enough to a settled area to warrant some kind of transportation. The little planet is a mystical anomaly. I didn't even realize it existed and I'm glad you said something because I think you need to check and make sure that the areas from Sonic CD aren't supposed to be on Little Planet. If they are, they need to be removed from the larger map. Anyway, treat the Little Planet area as a kind of floating island, but one of the stable points like a vortex or something that stays above, if I remember correctly from what I just read, Never Lake or something like that. Anyway, it doesn't orbit so much as defy physics to screw with the storyline in some kind of mystic way. Just treat it like an island and make sure that none of the areas you're trying to include are actually supposed to be placed upon Little Planet. Let's do a final check before we start. It seems like you've described all of the areas well enough to start trying to assemble them into some sort of map, but before we do that, I need you to go online, do a quick perusal of the various storylines, and make sure that nothing like the little planet situation is occurring in any of the other games. You know, nothing where after you went to the effort of identifying their biome, it turns out that they aren't actually on the planet you're trying to map.
G: I did a lookup to see whether there are other zones (in addition to Little Planet) that are explicitly not on the main planet we’re mapping (i.e. Mobius / Earth-analogue / whatever world you’re using). Here’s what I found, plus whether they need exclusion or special treatment.
| Zone / Location | Game(s) | What the source says about being off-planet / separate world / “not part of main geography” | Implication for our map |
|---|---|---|---|
| Little Planet (Sonic CD) | Sonic CD (and referenced in Mania etc.) | Little Planet is a separate planetoid / mystical planet. It appears above Never Lake for ~1 month a year, then vanishes. It has its own gravity & flora etc. citeturn0search1turn0search0turn0search6turn0search4 | Needs to be excluded from the main-planet map or treated as floating/mystical “stable floating island” per your rule. None of its zones map to regular continents. So yes, we should keep them off the main geography. |
| Cyber Space / Virtual Levels | Many (Frontiers, Generations, etc.) | These are virtual / network / non-physical layers, not located on Mobius in conventional geography. | Treated as network layer; not placed on physical map except by their entry/exit points. |
| Ark (space colony) | Adventure 2 | Explicitly a space colony / off the planet or high altitude orbital facility. | Off-planet / sky/orbital category. |
| Death Egg | Multiple (Sonic 2, 3 & Knuckles, etc.) | A large orbital space fortress; definitely not part of surface geography. | Off-planet / orbital. |
| Egg Carrier / Sky Deck (part of Egg Carrier) | Sonic Adventure | Flying ship, industrial / sky fortress; man-made mobile structure. | Sky platform, but not “natural geography” — treat as sky ring / floating fortress. |
| Other dimension / Time travel zones (e.g. Past / Future versions of zones in Sonic CD) | Sonic CD etc. | These are alternate versions / timelines of the same zone. They don’t change geography in the sense of new areas on the main planet; they are time variants or alternate condition versions. citeturn0search26turn0search1 | We map only the "present" version; time variants do not require multiple placements. |
| Pocket Zones | In some lore / comics / side materials | Zones in alternate pocket dimensions (e.g. magic / portals) not part of main geography. citeturn0search18 | Excluded or treated like virtual/non-surface layers. |
Based on that, the following need to be treated specially or excluded from fitting into the main planetary map:
Everything else I've been considering seems to belong to the “on the main planet” setting, or at least is ambiguous enough and not explicitly non-surface, so they can be included.
If you want, I can produce a list of every zone I plan to include stating whether it is surface / ambiguous / off-planet, so we can double-check before sketching. Would you prefer I do that, or move straight into drawing based on the adjusted set (excluding Little Planet)?
M: Start trying to do a drawing of the map of the planet based on what you have. I look forward to seeing it. Thank you for watching.
G: Here’s the first conceptual sketch of the Sonic world map, based on the belts and placements we worked through:
This is very much a first visualization draft — we can add more detail (like coastlines, archipelagos, or vortex-clusters for floating islands) once you’re happy with this foundation.
Would you like me to refine this into a more “map-like” rendering (coasts, continents, archipelagos), or keep it schematic like this for clarity?
M: Give me a new illustration, if you can, with the same schematic setup, but adding in the paths of the games you have included that would be followed. Does that make sense?
G: Here’s the updated schematic world map with game paths added:
This keeps the belts visible but overlays each game’s directional flow.
Do you want me to expand this further by plotting all included games (Heroes, Unleashed, etc.), or keep it focused on the “flagship titles” for clarity?