About this site
Zone: 0 is a Sonic the Hedgehog game information site aiming to provide reference and strategy guides of more depth and clarity than ever before. With screenshots, maps and incredibly thorough descriptions for every level, Zone: 0 is an unofficial Sonic site like absolutely no other..
Featured Level
Death Egg Zone  Sonic & Knuckles
Leaving new ally Knuckles behind, Sonic climbs aboard the revived Death Egg one more time, alone, for the final dramatic scenes of this game. The difficulty is brought up a great deal, as Sonic explores the huge, trap-filled internal arena of the huge orbital satellite, now a fully-featured final level, before defeating the core machine and taking the fight outside into space. This is where we first see the often-repeated gravity reversal system that has Sonic running around on the ceiling, as well as the floor. A tough stage, with unstable streaming pathways and conveyor belt elevators over dangerous electrical fields, all before the final confrontation with Dr. Eggman himself. Can Sonic retrieve the Master Emerald and destroy the Death Egg once and for all..?
Updates
30th August 2012
Sonic & Knuckles guide complete: Death Egg Zone added, The Doomsday Zone and game endings added to the Stages and Stories page, and Downloads page added.
26th June 2012
Miscellaneous Page added to the Sonic & Knuckles section
9th June 2012
Other Modes page added to the Sonic & Knuckles section
3rd February 2012
Sky Sanctuary Zone added to the Sonic & Knuckles section
14th December 2011
Hidden Palace Zone added to the Sonic & Knuckles section
Update history
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Zone: 0 Guides Complete!
Thursday, 30th August 2012, 9:00pm (BST), 48 Comments
Update: Sonic & Knuckles guide complete: Death Egg Zone added, The Doomsday Zone and game endings added to the Stages and Stories page, and Downloads page added.
Thanks for Playing!


The final guide update is complete, Sonic & Knuckles is now wrapped up with Death Egg Zone, and the Stages and Stories, and Downloads pages. This is where, sadly, Zone: 0 must draw a line under its new guide content and ride off into the sunset.

I sat down and started writing these guides eight years ago this very day. My projects at that time had a history of fizzling out after a few months, and I don't quite know how this one has managed to hold itself together for this long. But I'm grateful that it's received as much support and respect from fans and the Sonic community that it has done, which has allowed me to keep going when it's been a chore as much as it has a complete joy. Although I've said my interest has dwindled in it in the past, I never failed to feel a great sense of pride and accomplishment with every new level guide that I've published, and I hope you've enjoyed reading them as much as I have writing them.

I can't deny a big part of me wants to carry on, my love of Sonic level design and the series as a whole begs me to appreciate more of the games in the same way, and I'm sure getting back into writing (since I haven't actually done a great deal of it in years) would be really fun and invigorating. But there are so many more projects I want to do, and I can't just leave this place hanging, waiting for a promised guide that takes ages to come because I'm doing so many other things, and I have very limited free time anyway. Never say never, I may get the itch again and decide to write up Sonic Adventure or something, but don't hold your breath - at least not any time in the next few years. I just don't want to tie myself down to any more of it right now, I'm sure you'll understand.

What's next? Well, I don't know exactly. As well as being a web developer I also make small games as part of my day job, so a mobile phone game app is something I've been thinking about for some time now. And then of course there's also my ultimate dream - to use my knowledge of Sonic level design to create my own original fan game levels; something I've always wanted to do, and I hope to make at least one of them (and I mean a really awesome one) during my lifetime. However, before you think I'm trotting off to pastures new forever, remember that all I've said so far is that there won't be any new guides written for the forseeable future - that's not to say that guides won't be amended and updated with new pieces of information that you guys have provided me with over the years, or new downloads. Sonic CD for instance is desperately in need of an update to account for the popular 2011 re-release, and I hope to get around to everything that needs amending in due course, after a short break. I would also like to see what I can do about a new look and some new site features, now that I've developed a few new tricks since 2009, when I launched the current design. This blog will also remain in regular use too, for any further Sonic musings I may have or project updates you might be interested in. So if you think I'm now just going to allow this place to gather dust and rot away, think again. At the very least, it will definitely stay online for as long as I can afford to host it (and on that note, may I highlight the new ad banners and invite you to click on a few should they peak your interest.. cough cough).

Zone: 0, now and then


I thought it would be nice at this point to include some fun stats, including visitor analytics since the current design launched on February 22nd 2009:

- Total number of page views: 1,011,342
- Total number of unique Sonic fans that have visited Zone: 0: 134,372
- Total number of images across the guides: 4558
- Total number of words across the guides: 254,061 (wow)
- Number of community awards won: 3 (I think)
- Number of Zone: 0 maps that have appeared in gaming magazines: 2
- Total time taken to get this far: 8 years on the dot.

Not bad going for a hobby, especially the fact that I've written over 25 times the typical length of a University dissertation just on five Sonic games - that's pretty scary in fact. Why did I do it? How did I do it? Simple really; I love Sonic. I want to tell you everything I can about Sonic because I love it that much, and I wanted a site like this to exist, so I made it exist. I hope that's come across in everything you see here, from the amount of detail I've put into writing about the level structure and visual iconography of Marble Garden Zone, to the placement of every last ring on the map of Spring Yard Zone.

The overall concept has changed a little since my original vision of it came to me - it's more of a strategy guide now than I had originally intended - but I think if the me eight years ago, with his sudden passion for his brand new project idea were to be able to glance ahead into the future and see the final outcome of his wildly ambitious ideas, I would hope that he would be pretty amazed. I would hope that he would put aside the mild disappointment of the fact that I'd covered only five out of sixty-odd Sonic games, and instead see that it's not the quantity but the quality that makes Zone: 0 what it is. I would hope that he would be amazed that a little idea that popped into his head one day had gradually evolved, appeared on screen and slowly grew into a huge virtual library, something truly unique in the community and respected and praised as such, and is only just now coming to an end, as all good things must do at some point. This has not been a flash in the pan, this has been an unlikely idea turned into a reality, after an immense amount of work.


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Free banner week starting NOW!
Monday, 27th August 2012, 6:57pm (BST), 5 Comments
Another quickie from me, the free banner week is now underway! But you can still submit your banners between now and the end of the week (end of Sunday 2nd September) to get the banner for your site (or Youtube channel, dA profile, blog, etc) up on this site for the rest of the week, for free. One banner per site, but if you want to take advantage of more than one of the three different banner spots, you can pay $3 per extra banner, and you'll get a full week for those, regardless of when you submit, during this week. Get in touch, because the big final guide update is all on schedule for this Thursday, and I'm expecting lots of extra traffic here as a result, so you'll want to get your ad up in time for that! Check out this post for how to submit.

Hope you're looking forward to the final update, only a few more days to go! I'll either put it up at midnight GMT on the Wednesday night/Thursday morning, or it might be during the Thursday evening, GMT, depending on what's convenient for me. It's all ready and raring to go though so should be no delays :) Expect Death Egg, Doomsday, the game endings and the Downloads page, to wrap up the Sonic & Knuckles guide and the whole Guides section of this website.

See you on Thursday! You won't want to miss it.


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Zone: 0 interview at RadioSEGA
Sunday, 19th August 2012, 9:58am (BST), 2 Comments
I was recently interviewed on RadioSEGA, as part of their Fans Chronicles series. I cover things like the origin of Zone: 0, my plans for the final update coming up at the end of this month, and a few favourites of mine! Check it out!

Still accepting banners for my FREE ad banner week, starting 27th August! Check out the previous post for more info!


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Advertise your site FREE on Zone: 0 from 27th August to 2nd September!
Wednesday, 8th August 2012, 10:04pm (BST), 16 Comments
I mentioned last time that my final guide addition would be joined by something else that would hopefully appeal to other site owners, and generally anyone creative, looking to get their handiwork noticed in the Sonic community. I'd like to announce that during the week of the final update, the last week of August, Zone: 0 will be kicking off an advertising program, beginning with an offer of completely FREE advertising for your website or content page (which can include blog, Youtube channel, deviantArt profile, potentially anything like that) throughout the site, for that one week only!

For those of you not familiar with what I've been up to here, Zone: 0 is a Sonic the Hedgehog fan project that's been in the works for eight years and online for five. Its range of information may be specific within the huge Sonic universe, but it makes up for this in its extreme detail, covering complete guides for the original Mega Drive/Genesis games, including thorough written notes, tonnes of screen shots and most popular of all, the kind of maps you really don't get anywhere else. Popularity and visitor numbers have constantly increased, the site's won community awards for its design and content, and so far this year over 100,000 visitors have passed its gates! Not only that but its wealth of content has them flicking through multiple pages and getting lost for ages in its libraries, and always coming back for more too!


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Featured Posts
We've finally done it! The Zone: 0 guides have reached their last big update. Owner LiQuidShade has new projects on the horizon, but this site will always remain in his heart.
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