I have a theory about this one and why was the zone originally named Clock Work! Just recently there was new concept art revealed by the same artist who worked on this game and he just revealed that this game was going to be something like Nights when it was titled Twin Stars! Concept art and info about this never before seen version of Sonic shows what could be a very similar setting and story to Nights where the game was going to be in a dream while the character might be sleeping and fighting against enemies who work for causing bad dreams! This lost setting returned in another game from the same maker, Nights! Which was released some years after Sonic!

Its possible that Clock Work might be a completely different stage and this could not be the actual Clock Work we are looking at now. Its even possible that this could be just a very early Scrap Brain asset while the real Clock Work zone might come from a leftover from Twin Stars which of course was overwritten by this stage in this very late prototype.

a bad guy named 13 was very likely going to be boss for Clock Work as he was originally planned as the final boss for Twin Stars and its possible he might be the one behind all the bad dreams hence Clock Work zone being some what related to sleeping and dreams lmao.

I guess this is where Dr. Wily got his W from

The missing W has me thinking of the Orks from Warhammer 40k

I still find it hard to believe they hadn't made a W at this point lol

C L O C K O R K

Ah, yes, my favorite zone, Clock Ork