1.09.4:Blue Heaven

Blue Heaven, formerly known as Chaos Zone, is a level pack for Version 1.09.4 made by Tets. It has its origins in levels submitted to the Official Level Design Contest between 2003 and 2007. The last release, v0.5.3, contains five two-act zones and five Special Stages, while the final version was intended to span eight zones. Updates for later versions of SRB2 were planned but never completed. Notably, the first two zones of Blue Heaven use music borrowed from Sonic: Emerald Quest.

Current release information

• Current version: 0.5.3 (April 13, 2007)
• Download: sr_blueheaven.wad
• Release thread: SRB2 Message Board
• Homepage (archive): Blue Heaven SRB2 level pack

Contents

Blue Heaven contains five zones, each of which consists of two acts. The second act of each zone ends with a portal that leads to a boss fight within the same level. In addition to the five main zones, Blue Heaven also contains replacements for the first five Special Stages, which use the same format as the regular Special Stages in SRB2 v1.09.4. There are only five Special Stage Tokens in the level pack – one in each second act – so it is impossible to collect more than five Chaos Emeralds.

Blue Heaven contains 32 emblems: one for each character in every level, as well as the two extra emblems that are always awarded in SRB2 v1.09.4. The second extra emblem, which is awarded for collecting all Chaos Emeralds on Normal difficulty or higher, is impossible to obtain because only five emeralds can be collected. No rewards are offered for collecting emblems; the only unlockable is a level select, which is unlocked by completing the Single Player campaign.

History

Blue Heaven has its origins in three levels submitted to the Official Level Design Contest between 2003 and 2006: The first was Poisoned Paradise Zone (now the first act of Metal Wasteland Zone) in the December 2003 OLDC, which was the first contest for Single Player maps. It won with a score of 7.43. Tets then expanded it into a three-act zone, which was released in May 2004. Dark Palisades Zone Act 2 (at the time without an act number) followed in the July/August 2005 OLDC and won with a score of 8.33. Finally, Aero Shrine Zone Act 1 was released in the January/February 2006 OLDC, where it won with a score of 8.78.

In April 2006, Tets released the first version of his then-unnamed level pack, which expanded all three levels into full three-act zones and renamed Poisoned Paradise Zone was renamed to Metal Wasteland Zone. At this point, the boss fights were still separate levels. For the next release in June 2006, the pack was named Chaos Zone, and Frigid Peak Zone was added. The final major release was made in January 2007, now under the name Blue Heaven. This release added Burning Cavern Zone, merged the boss fights into the second act of each zone and added Special Stages. Coop support was removed in this release due to several levels containing one-way events such as rising lava that could trap players in Coop.

Three additional zones were planned for the pack but never added: Arid Ruins Zone, Underwater Zone and Incredible Crisis Zone. Both acts of Arid Ruins Zone were released in the OLDC: The first act was submitted to the May/June 2006 OLDC and received a score of 8.10 (but did not win), while the second act won the September/October 2007 OLDC with a score of 7.50. However, Tets had planned to remake the first act for inclusion in Blue Heaven. Underwater Zone and Incredible Crisis Zone were never made.

After the release of SRB2 v2.0 in 2009, Tets started work on an update to Blue Heaven, but did not finish it. Two further attempts were made in 2014, after the release of SRB2 v2.1, and in 2016, after the addition of slopes to the game, but these remained incomplete as well.