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pandhora · 7 months

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Premise of Sonic Mars was recycled for Sonic Frontiers.

I discovered that the game's story: Sonic Mars had its premise idea recycled by someone at Sega.

(Photo Official of The Sonic Fronteirs)

• Sonic Mars = Sonic Frontiers: Sonic has to save his friends from being trapped in a virtual world.

Sonic Frontiers Story: Following the trails of the Chaos Emeralds, Sonic, Tails and Amy fly in the Tornado towards the Starfall Islands, an archipelago of islands forgotten by everyone. As they approach the islands, a wormhole suddenly appears in the sky, sucking Sonic in and separating him from his friends. Upon waking up, Sonic finds himself trapped in Cyber Space, a digital space that resembles places from his memories. He escapes and finds himself on Kronos Island, one of the Starfall Islands. Guided by a mysterious voice, Sonic must now gather the Chaos Emeralds.

When Sonic tries to save his friends, he gains Cyber Corruption. This corruption causes him great pain, but also gives him new powers that he uses to defeat the gigantic Titans that protect the emeralds. Sonic encounters a holographic girl named Sage who wants him to leave the islands. She was created by Dr. Eggman, who is also trapped in Cyberspace after tampering with the Ancients' technology. On Ares Island, Sonic encounters his friendly rival Knuckles, who was teleported here from Angel Island. The mysterious voice that guided Sonic through the islands is released from cyberspace on Rhea Island. This monster is a planet killer that the Ancients tried to stop long ago by sealing it away. Eggman reluctantly teams up with Sonic to stop him and save the world.

What was Sonic Mars?

(Image edited by me imagining what Sonic Mars would be like)

(Real photo from the Official Sonic Mars game)

The game's proposal was prepared on May 17, 1994 by then-lead designer Michael Kosaka with assistance from Chris Senn and Don Goddard. Opting to frame the game in the Saturday morning show that was still on the air at the time, the hope was to make the first fully 3D game about Sonic and his world. Presented to the management of Sega of America, they gave the green light for the Sega Technical Institute to move forward with the project. When shown what the American side of STI was coming up with for the next chapter of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, Yuji Naka, one of the character's creators, could only shake his head and say "good luck", not being very impressed with what was shown and knowing firsthand the difficulties involved in making a Sonic game.

Shortly after the proposal was accepted, Michael Kosaka left Sega due to problems between him and Dean Lester, the producer of Comix Zone. Without a lead designer, Chris Senn was thrust into the role, with Don Goddard reworking the Sonic Mars script. Eventually, the Saturday Morning premise was abandoned due to disinterest, and the game was completely reworked once it changed systems, becoming the more familiar Sonic X-treme.

The game was to be a tie-in to the TV series Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), but the idea was scrapped as the TV show was never released in Japan. The game had several playable characters that would have Sonic as the default for Player 1 , while Player 2 would choose from five other characters, such as Sally Acorn, Bunnie Rabbot, Tails, Knuckles, and Tiara. There would be several endings where Sonic would have to choose between Sally and Tiara. Some special stages were designed as minigames, like the one where Sonic plays air hockey with Robotnik.

In this game, Sonic would save his friends from a virtual world of Dr. Robotnik.

Summary by Michael Kosaka (1994):

While Sonic checks a security alarm in a remote corner of the Great Forest, his friends Sally Acorn, Bunnie Rabbot, Tails, Tiara and Knuckles discovers a strange message from one of Dr. O.mad scientist is trying to take control of Micro Mobius, a virtual world, and the message is a cry for help from your peaceful inhabitants. The hedgehog returns to Knothole and discovers that Eggman captured his friends and took them to the virtual world. Sonic sets out to save his friends and stop Eggman from reformatting Micro Mobius.

(The information where I found that the premise of Sonic Mars was reused in Sonic Frontiers was through the "Tv Tropes" website where you have all the curiosities about the franchise: Sonic The Hedgehog.)

(If you saw that Sonic Frontiers has references to Sonic SatAm, it's because the premise was reused and also because Ian Flynn wrote both Sonic Archie and IDW.😊)

#tiara cyberooski #sonic the hedgehog #miles tails prower #bunnie the rabbot #sally acorn #knuckles the echidna #dr eggman #mips #king gazebo cyberooski #sonic mars #sonic x treme #sonic frontiers

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segravedad · 24 days

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parejas que me gustaría rolear en algún momento. personaje en negrita es que el puedo rolear, y los que están cursiva es que puedo tomar cualquiera.

charlie hunnam x adria arjona.

adam senn x chris wood.

henry cavill x eiza gonzalez.

casey deidrick x camila queiroz. (este debe ser con una trama de mafia y romance)

ryan destiny + garrett hedlund

im jinah + ji changwook

irina shayk + boyd hoolbrok

phoebe tonkin + peter gadiot

demet ozdemir + theo james

jannick schumann + chay suede

lizzete oliveira + jessica alexander

#comunicados.#jé

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gruffdasmuff · 7 months

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X-treme

The original image from Chris Senn’s long-gone website was too low quality for me to be happy with, so I did the best I could to remake it without a pro scanner.

#sonic the hedgehog fanart #sonic x-treme #sonic the hedgehog

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sallyacornsmackdown · 1 year

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Round One - Wave Four

Information about these Sallys: Both of these Sallys were from cancelled video games Sonic-16 Sally is from a tech demo of a game that was going to be released for the Mega Drive, but did not receive approval to carry on with development. It seems to be more closely based on SatAM and at the end of the demo we see Sally appear to open a door to help Sonic break into Robotnik's base. This video of the demo is as much as we have of the game and possibly all that exists of it. Still, lost media fans have worked with less and I like to hope that one day what's included in this demo could be found and made playable. It'd be nice to at least have the sprite sheets (assuming they're not already out there?) Sonic Mars Sally is from a cancelled SEGA 32X game called Sonic Mars. It is better known as Sonic X-Treme, from after its development was ported to the SEGA Saturn, although it would still never see a conclusion. While the game was still Sonic Mars, it was heavily based on SatAM and much of this has been documented. Sally was going to be included as a playable character and one of two potential love interests for Sonic in the game, with the other being Tiara Boobowski As a side note, when I setup this tournament I was asked if Tiara would be included as one of the prototype Sally designs. But Tiara's creator, Chris Senn, has stated that any similarities between the two are unintentional, so Tiara isn't truly a version of Sally and therefore I opted not to include her here

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Sally Acorn #Princess Sally #Princess Sally Acorn #Sonic Mars #Sonic-16 #Sally Acorn Smackdown #Round One

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ciaranswritingportfolio · 4 months

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Every Cancelled Sonic Game Pt 2 [YT Script]

Every Cancelled Sonic Game Pt 2:

Ever wanted to learn about every canceled Sonic the Hedgehog game? Find out in Every Canceled Sonic Game, Game Facts Special!

There are at least 20 Canceled or Unreleased Sonic games and we’ll be covering all of them in this episode!

Sonic Riders (GBA Port)

Sonic Riders is a well known and much loved game, but did you know that there was going to be a port to the Gameboy Advance handheld system? The console version of the game used a 3D engine, but due to the limitations of the Gameboy Advance system, this was not really feasible for the port. Instead the development team, Backbone Entertainment, worked on an engine which primarily used 2D sprites, similar to the one used in the arcade racing game; Outrun. The hover-boarding hedgehog never made it to the GBA, with complications arising when Sega of Japan demanding more 3D elements, resulting in the American side of the company axing the game, as they’d have to significantly rework the engine to incorporate 3D assets.

Sonic Sports

A spinoff game featuring Sonic and his pals was in development for the 32X. The game almost beat Mario in its bid to have the first character focused console sports spinoff. There are are no leaked ROMs, prototypes, or source code for Sonic Sports, the only information we have is an article by the now discontinued GamePlayers magazine, which claimed that the development team was Scavenger, who was also working on other games for 32X hardware at the time. The article also hinted at an all-in-one 32X and Genesis system that was reportedly going to be called the Sega Neptune. Ultimately, a number of factors likely led to its cancellation, including poor sales, including the fact that development kits for 32X were released late, not leaving much time for development.

Sonic the Hedgehog Awakening

This game was rumoured to be in development between the years of 2006 and 2009, with its public discovery happening when keen eyed Sonic fans found the title of the game on Pete Capella’s work portfolio. Capella back then was the voice for Silver the Hedgehog, and was presumably hired to voice that character in the game, suggesting that this game was quite far along in its development. It’s quite rare for a canceled Sonic game to have this little info, as fans normally are able to get hold of visuals and concepts of these games, even working source code into playable prototypes, however, there is nothing on Sonic Awakening!

Maybe this lack of information suggests that Sonic Awakening was an in-development name for a later Sonic game that did release such as Sonic and The Secret Rings or Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity. But fans speculate that the game would have centred around Silver, and that it may have been cancelled due to the poor reception of Sonic ’06, Silver’s debut game.

Sonic X-Treme

Possibly the most infamous of the entire range of cancelled Sonic games, and one that will keep cropping up as we go along! Sonic X-Treme was slated to be the next big Sonic game. It was intended to boost sales of the Sega Saturn and timed to release for the holiday rush.

Several different versions of the Sonic X-Treme Project were attempted by Sega of America. But the version that got the farthest was a version developed by Chris Senn and programmer Ofer Alon who were in charge of making the levels and engine for the game and a second team lead by Christina Coffin to develop the boss encounters on a separate engine. The two teams worked under the supervision of producer Mike Wallis.

A game split into two engines with two separate teams working on it seems like a bad enough idea on its own. But Sega of America Executives decided to take it a step further by scrapping the work done on the level engine work on Saturn and bringing in a third party company called Point of View to take over programming duties starting from scratch.

After another poor showing of the level engine, Sega of Japan executives ordered the entire game to be reworked into the boss engine. Thus again starting the level portion of the game from scratch.

The game’s story underwent even more rewrites than the code! At one point Sega producer Richard Wheeler and game designer Hirokazu Yasuhara pitched the idea of having the game set in space, with Dr. Eggman building a ‘death egg’ to use for his world conquering plans. The pair planned to have different alien species included in the story, interacting with the Sonic characters. While the story went through many iterations, the gameplay style landed upon a spherical fish-eye lens which the player could rotate in order to get better views of the 3D environment that Sonic was in, utilising the mechanic for puzzle solving, and exploration.

Many issues led to X-Treme’s demise. The game was not being made by the usual Sonic Team, instead, by the two teams mentioned at the Sega Technical Institution. Relations weren’t great between the American and Japanese arms of the Sega either. Leading to stressful work conditions and long hours for a dev team new to working in 3D. Disorganised management, and exorbitant expectations from Sega of Japan compounded the problem. This unsustainable work atmosphere led to the lead developer, Christina Coffin, becoming sick through the unbearable stress. Chris Senn stepping away from the project for his health, led colleague Mike Wallis to throw in the towel, and call it quits for Sonic X-Treme, leading to cancellation. Fans expectations of a brand new huge Sonic game at the time were destroyed with the cancellation of Sonic X-Treme arguably affecting the future of Sega’s involvement as a console leader.

Information about content and information about Sonic-Xtreme is well preserved. Multiple Saturn and PC prototypes have leaked. At one point during the mid 2000s Chris Coffin hosted a Sonic X-Treme compendium and released tons of game assets with aspirations of completing the game unofficially by working with fans. That never happened but there have been several attempts to finish the game. Hopefully one day it will happen, even if only unofficially.

Segasonic Bros

This cancelled game was one that never graced the arcades. Designed by Bubble Bobble creator, Fukio Mitsuji, Segasonic’s development was actually mostly completed. However, due to poor player response it never saw the light of day outside of Sega’s localisation testing.

The game followed a similar gameplay structure to the classic ‘Tetris’, but rather than falling blocks, it involved differently coloured Sonic characters that fell from the top of the screen. The game was designed to have social mechanics with a 2 player mode, but ultimately scrapped, and never made it out to the public.

Sister Sonic

This was a great case of fans getting involved in game development, and influencing the course of Sonic history. In 1992, a game called Popful Mail was released in Japan on the Mega-CD (known as the Sega-CD outside Japan). During this time, and after the success of Sonic 2, Sega joined the development team of Popful Mail, and began re-skinning the entire game to be Sonic related. It would be released as ‘Sister Sonic’ introducing Sonic’s sibling. A popular gaming magazine, Electronic Gaming Monthly, in 1993 reported on Sega’s plans and fans were outraged. Fans of the game wrote letters to both companies expressing how they wanted Popful Mail in its original form, ultimately causing the rebrand, just like Sonic’s Sister, to be cancelled. After the cancellation of Sister Sonic, publisher Working Designs picked up Popful Mail for a proper western release to the Sega CD.

Sonic Crackers

This game was one of the earliest prototypes of the official release ‘Knuckles’ Chaotix’, but appears here due to its many differences. Sonic and Tails were originally to be the main characters in this game. Fans uncovered the Genesis ROM of this early build in 1995, with much speculation as to whether the game was a joke by the group that made it public, however, it was later found to be legitimate after later prototypes of Chaotix were uncovered.

Like in Chaotix, Sonic and Tails are attached by a bungy ring. Probably inspired by the bouncing motion of the kids toy Clackers. The name Sonic Crackers is actually thought to be a mistranslation of the word Clackers due to the lack of the L sound in native Japanese speech. Aside from the character swaps, the special stages are also completely different from Chaotix. While Chaotix had bonus stages which would shift camera perspective to full 3D. Crackers was intended to have an isometric view during the field stages.

It's unknown why or exactly when Sonic and Tails were dropped in favor of Knuckles and the Chaotix. But the earliest Sonic free prototype we have is from December 7, 1994.

Sonic’s One Button Mobile Game

Heading to the UK for development studio Nitrome’s cancelled mobile Sonic Game! Intended for release on iOS and android, Nitrome pitched a Sonic game with mechanics that ended up being used for their game Super Leap Day, which released in 2001. The developers created a fully fleshed out demo for Sega executives to enjoy, however, according to a tweet by Nitrome, it didn’t go down too well.

The game was pitched with the idea of being a simple take on their classic games, with just one control button. The developers said that they would have included pinball bonus rounds, and stage themes echoing old, and new Sonic releases. Nitrome followed up their tweet with a causal hint to Sega that they’d still be down to work on a Sonic game considering their success with Super Leap Day, so.. maybe one day Nitrome… maybe one day!

Sonic DS

The Nintendo DS was hot on the market in 2004, and Sega wanted a piece of it. Sega knew they had to make a Sonic game for the hit handheld and when E3 in 2004 came, work had been completed on a tech demo for the DS. The Demo was a 3D runner of sorts, with largely flat level design, negating the need for most jumping. Players would swipe the screen to increase Sonic’s speed, utilizing the touch screen mechanics that the DS was famous for. At the end of the short demo players were graded on how fast they completed the level and how many rings they collected.

The tech demo gathered some impressive responses in regards to the visuals, but ultimately was simplistic in gameplay. This game was eventually swiped aside, and Sonic Rush ended up being the first DS Sonic game.

Sonic Mars

This title was in development for the performance-enhancing add on to the Sega Genesis the 32x. Which held the code name ‘Project Mars’, making it clear to see where Sonic Mars got its title.

Lead designer Michael Kosaka and duo of assistants pitched this game to Sega of America to great success. The trio of designers would take heavy inspiration from the Sonic television show that was airing at the time, with ambitions to create the first 3D polygonal Sonic game. Yuji Naka, who was co-creator, and president of the Sonic Team at the time, reportedly had a negative reaction towards what the American development teams had come up with and backhandedly wished them luck on development, noting their naivety.

The 3D scope ended up being too much for even the 32X, and the project moved to the Sega Saturn, where it evolved into Sonic X-Treme.

Sonic Saturn

Whilst work was tumultuously commencing on Sonic X-Treme, the Sega Technical Institute were also set working on another Sonic game that would be released for the Sega Saturn. Not much information about this cancelled game exists, aside from a small amount of concept art, which appears to depict the inclusion of Metal Sonic. Peter Morawiec, a designer who began his Sonic career making the special stages on Sonic 2, described Sonic Saturn’s bonus stages as a minigame where the beloved character would be playing a giant ball game similar to pool. The screenshots that Morawiec released shows sonic being on the table within a 3D environment featuring various themes within the special stages, including Egyptian theme, a Roman Amphitheatre, and even a futuristic spaceship stage.

This project eventually was cancelled, and Morawiec went on a mission, spanning years, to get his bonus stage design into a Sonic game. The Sonic X-Treme team agreed during one of their phases of development, but unfortunately we all know how that went.

Sonic the Hedgehog (Home Computer)

YES! That’s correct, the classic original Genesis game was being ported to UK PCs. At the time, Sega had lucrative contracts in licensing out its arcade intellectual properties to studios wanting to profit from the home computer industry. With the release of the Genesis, Sega understood the value of these licenses, and while selling rights for games like World Cup Soccer, Outrun, and Thunder Blade. Just prior to the explosion of success that Sega had for the release of the first game, it was ready to sign off on deals which would bring the blue hedgehog to home computer systems. Sega didn’t want to disrupt the flow of customers that would come to buy the Genesis purely to play Sonic the Hedgehog, so they decided to pull out of talks and negotiations with those wanting to port the game. Because of this, its unlikely much, if any, work was actually completed on these ports.

Sonic the Hedgehog MEGA-CD

Continuing with the theme, another port of the original game was cancelled. To be titled ‘Sonic the Hedgehog MEGA-CD’, this port would take advantage of the add-on hardware systems that Sega was developing: The Mega-CD would boast enhanced graphics, and processing power.

Details of the game have been seen in public twice, first with a tech demo at the Consumer Electronics Show during the Summer of 1992, and as a feature in the 11th issue of the Mega Play magazine. As development progressed the game either evolved into or was canceled in favor of an entirely new game, Sonic the Hedgehog CD which extend the original games mechanics with time travel elements and introduced new characters: Amy Rose and Metal Sonic to Sonic’s world.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 CD

The timeline of events surrounding Sonic 1 Mega CD’s change for Sonic CD is unclear. It's further complicated because we know at one point Sonic 2 was also planned for the Mega CD.

While in development Sonic 2 CD may have gone by the names Super Sonic’, or ‘Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Escape from Ring Zone’. Some believe that Sonic 2 and Sonic CD split into two distinct games when Yuji Naka left for Japan for Sega of America but it's difficult to know. Others speculate that Sonic CD may have taken abandoned ideas from this Sonic 2 CD port. What we know for sure is that Sega of America was advertising a version of Sonic 2 for the Sega CD in 1992.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Limited Edition

The story of this title begins with the simultaneous development of Sonic & Knuckles, and Sonic 3 for the Sega Genesis, as these two games were initially planned as one game, due to the tight deadlines, costs of the right sized cartridges, and marketing obligations that came with a McDonald’s promotional deal meant that the developers had to split the game in two. The limited edition, also known as Sonic 3+ or Sonic 3 Complete was to hold both games in one unifying product on the same cartridge. Two early prototypes of this game were found, and unfortunately, the game was canceled, this was likely decided in order to save development resources once Sega had created their ‘lock-on’ technology, which allowed players to plug in their Sonic 3 cartridge into the Sonic and Knuckles lock on system. Doing this allowed for additional content for both games, including altered levels, new playable characters (Tails, and Knuckles respectively), and also the inclusion of the new collectibles, and abilities.

Sonic the Hedgehog Extreme

Not to be confused with the famous ‘X-Treme’ that we’ve already mentioned, Sonic the Hedgehog EXtreme was planned to show off the blue hedgehog's hoverboarding skills. Slated for release on the Xbox, it would feature Sonic and Shadow riding around a 3D open world version of Green Hill, including different game modes.

Due to the popularity of the Pro Skater games, developers at Visionscape Interactive saw an opportunity to pair Skate culture with Sonic the Hedgehog's gnarly attitude. An early prototype was found and subsequently released online in 2016. Some believe that it may have been the prototype which led to the game Sonic Riders, leaving Visionscape’s co-founder Mark McDonald a bit bitter, as he claimed that Sega took their concept to make the hoverboarding game, though, no legal action was taken due to the contractual obligations that McDonald signed while working on the Sonic IP.

Sonic’s Edusoft

Developed by Tiertex Design Studios, this cancelled game would have seen Sonic in an educational game that was due to be released for the Sega Master System in 1991.

If released, then this would have made it not only the first educational Sonic game, but also the first Sonic game made by an outside company. With over 15 levels, the game featured timed puzzles, with correct answers moving Sonic along in a race themed format.

Unfortunately for Tiertex, they never obtained the license for the Sonic IP, and couldn’t release the game, however, multiple sprites, and even a prototype has been leaked online by fans.

Sonic-16

Peter Morawiec returns for this cancelled game where he and his colleague, John Duggan, at the Sega Technical Institute, pitched a game that would have strong narrative elements due to the plans to base it on an animated Sonic TV show that aired at the time, known as Sonic SatAM.

Sonic-16 would be developed for the Genesis and have beat-em-up styled game mechanics, with new abilities for Sonic such as ledge climbs, and new attacks prompting new ways to traverse and battle his way through the environment. A video demonstration exists of the game and displays fully animated sprites, and the visual style appears to be a vast departure from previous games. Sonic-16 was cancelled personally by Yuji Naka, with speculation that the slower gameplay didn’t have him convinced.

Treasure Tails

Game designers who worked for the Sega Technical Institute in 1993 supposedly pitched a spin-off Sonic game starring Tails. The game would have had an isometric view of various tomb areas, with screenshots depicting Tails exploring these ruins. Very little is known about this project, aside from the screenshots released by Craig Stitt, who made the screenshots in order to make a more appealing, and persuasive presentation. Stitt rediscovered them on a VHS in 2020, and uploaded them onto a private Facebook group, revolving around retro Sega games. It’s unknown whether the pitch was approved, but the game was definitely never made.

Untitled Sega Technological Institute Game

There is one game that STI employee, Chris Senn, created concept art for that never got a name. The image that Senn made showed Sonic in a world with graphics similar to the older classics, but with an isometric view. The paths are diverging, but only momentarily, making it seem like Senn wanting to hold onto the classic mechanics, but update the players viewpoint. Senn himself said that the mockup screenshot was made during the development of the 32X hardware, with him keeping in mind the possibilities that this could bring to development. The concept for this game never came to fruition, and that it was absorbed, and ultimately lost in the many iterations of Sonic X-Treme.

Astropede

After the development of Sonic Spinball, Sega Technical Institute’s Craig Stitt and Ken Rose developed a game for the Genesis. It starred a Robotic centipede named Zipp that would grow and shrink in size when taking damage.

At first the game was to be a spin off of the Sonic series, with the Zipp character intended to be a creation of Dr. Robotnik. The game would also have reused graphics from Sonic 2’s cancelled Hidden Palace Zone.

After 14 months of development the game was canceled to focus on STI’s other games Comix Zone and The Ooze.

Did you know that there was also a planned Sonic Triple Trouble release for the Master System according to the UK Magazine Sega Power?

There was even a version of Sonic Generations that was going to make its way to the Sony PlayStation Portable. We know this from a development UMD found by video game preservationists. But we’ll talk about that one real soon.

Make sure to like the video and subscribe.

Checkout our episode on Every Sonic Voice Actor, Sonic Triple Trouble or Sonic Origins!

Voice Actor Say Goodbye

Thanks for watching!

This has been a Game Facts Special [69 References Available on Request] Content Link [if available]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YebndgSsly8&t=8s

#gaming #sonic the hedgehog #content writing

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tbthqs · 5 months

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O que é isso? Parece que algo aconteceu, e agora o The Ambitious (Jawie Peralta) está mudado e se parece com Dylan O'Brien e Giacomo Gianniotti, enquanto Jacob Harris (OC) agora lembra bastante Colton Haynes.

Os FCs Chris Wood, Matt Cormett, Adam Senn e Ben Turland se encontram disponíveis para aplicação.

#tbthqs.avisos

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sonichedgeblog · 18 days

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Concept artwork of a Snake or Centipeded enemy for 'Sonic X-Treme', drawn by Chris Senn. Support us on Patreon

#Sonic X-Treme #Saturn #SEGA #Sonic #Sonic The Hedgehog

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crystalizedcontrol · 4 years

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#mark gonzales #eric dressen #tommy guerrero #tony hawk #danny way #john cardiel #salman agah #mike carroll #chris senn #skateboarding #skate #thrasher #thrasher magazine #thrasher mag

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blazehedgehog · 3 years

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i bet you could do a kickass video on sonic xtreme

I dunno.

I talk big about Sonic X-treme, but the truth of the matter is I kind of stopped paying attention to a lot of it after a while.

For those who don’t know, here’s the whole story:

Around 2000 or 2001, I was deep in to, like, The Secrets of Sonic Team and other websites that covered lost beta elements in Sonic games. This was right after the big Sonic 2 Beta discovery, and the Sonic community was working overtime documenting all kinds of discoveries and lost stuff from every Sonic game ever made up to that point...

...except Sonic X-treme. That information was fragmented and spread across the internet and nobody really seemed to care. I saw a niche I could fill, so I started up a website and combed the web looking for every scan, screenshot and video I could find. I collected all of it at a modest website that was something like sonicxtreme.tk or sonicxtreme.cjb.net or whatever. One of those free domain URLs.

And once I’d collected everything that could be found on Sonic X-treme... that was, uh, it. It’s not like there was anything more that I could do. Once I had all the magazine articles and screenshots of the game, I had reached a dead end on what that website could accomplish. I had completed the known snapshot of what was Sonic X-treme. And so it sat for like, a year. Maybe longer. Just gathering dust.

By now, people at in the community were making efforts to contact the English-speaking members of Sonic 2′s development team. People like Craig Stitt, Brenda Ross, so on and so forth. The Sega Technical Institute folks. And it dawned on me: the entire development staff for Sonic X-treme was American, weren’t they? With Sonic 2, they were stuck talking to artists who were trapped in the tunnel vision of only working on small, specific parts of the game. Brenda Ross could only speak about the couple levels she worked on, y’know? They couldn’t interview the larger members of Sonic Team directly -- they were celebrities, which made them hard to contact, and on top of that there was a language barrier. There were a lot of hurdles to cross, and many of them were borderline impossible.

But with Sonic X-treme, everything was way more accessible and local. So I started skimming the magazine scans I had. Ultra Gameplayers had run a monthly feature called “White Glove Diaries” about the development of the game, speaking to people who were working on it, and it was the best source of information for the game at the time. Within moments, I had a name: Mike Wallis, the game’s producer. Inside of maybe thirty minutes and some skillful Google searching later, I had an email address. It really was that easy.

I tried to be as polite and respectful as I could; I asked him if he was the same Mike Wallis that worked on Sonic X-treme and wondered if he would be willing to answer any questions.

The first thing he wrote back to me was “How did you find me?” along with confirmation that yes, he was that Mike Wallis.

The second thing he wrote back to me was “Would you be willing to speak over the phone?”

And I panicked. This guy was, at least to me, a pretty big deal. I was still deep in my pit of despair, so the idea of interviewing this guy rattled me. I couldn’t do it. I posted on on the Sonic hacking community forum, relaying my inability to go through with this thing. Here I was on the cusp of a big breakthrough and I was acting like a deer in the headlights. Leaped before I looked and got exactly what I wanted, at the cost of now feeling deeply over my head. I was in no way mentally prepared for this.

Somebody on the forum stepped forward and said he’d do the interview for me. His username was Pachuka, and he was gaining notoriety in the Sonic hacking community. Pachuka seemed confident and knew his way around the important terminology, so I figured sure, he can do it. We talked over IRC, ran through some questions we wanted to ask, set the whole thing up for the appointed phone call. We were a team.

The call happened and Pachuka recorded the whole thing. Said he’d release the MP3 on his new website, The Sonic-Cult.

I was incredibly nervous even just listening to the MP3 of the phone call. They’d have to mention me, right? Acknowledge my existence? Talk about how I set the call up? It was hard not to feel incredibly self-conscious.

The call opened with Mike Wallis referring to my website. And Pachuka... had no idea what he was talking about. He never mentioned me by name, and barely even acknowledged that he knew me. Heck, Mike Wallis seemed to know more about me than Pachuka did, and I’m the one who set the whole thing up for him.

Looking back in retrospect, I probably didn’t do that much. From getting the idea, to finding his email address and sending the email, contacting Mike Wallis took what was likely less than an hour’s work, and I was mainly following the example of others in the Sonic community. But in the moment, it felt like I had done a lot. This was as much my discovery as it was anyone else’s. I was the only person who cared enough to set this up. I ran a whole website about this stuff -- the only website for it on the entire internet. And yet, Pachuka couldn’t even remember my username. I felt worthless.

From then on, the community treated this as Pachuka’s discovery. It was his interview. He made the discovery. His star rose, and I remained a nobody. No one cared about my site. Sonic-Cult is where you went if you wanted to learn the real deal about Sonic X-treme.

With Mike Wallis on the line, Pachuka started contacting more people from Sonic X-treme’s development. Soon, that lead him to Chris Senn, and the floodgates were blown wide open. Chris Senn was the key to everything.

I was never a part of any of those conversations. Not even once. The whole community took off without me and I was left in the dust. The handful of screenshots and magazine scans I had collected now looked absolutely pitiful.

I paid attention to the information that came out, of course. I was still interested in the game, and I mirrored what I could on my site. But on the inside, it was hard not to feel hurt. I never looked at it with quite the fervor I once had. It wasn’t mine anymore. I let myself get scooped and the door was slammed in my face without so much as a “thank you.”

After that, the magic and mystery of Sonic X-treme wore off pretty quickly for me. As more and more and more concept drawings and videos and music files and sprites and everything else burst out of Chris Senn, my interest began to wane. It stopped being special.

Petty? On some level, maybe. But for a brief window of time, Sonic X-treme research felt like my baby. I was the guy you talked to about that. Why bother keeping up appearances when somebody else was getting patted on the back and now one of the game’s developers was practically uploading the entire design document to the internet? They apparently didn’t want me involved, so I took a hike.

Don’t get me wrong: it was my fault. I handed this to Pachuka on a silver platter, and he ran away with it. It was a decision that haunted me for years. Made me start realizing I needed to be more confident and less shy.

I am in no rush to relive that mistake.

So when it comes to Sonic 3, I could recite a lot of that from memory. When it comes to Sonic X-treme, I remember the details of the Mike Wallis interview and some basics that came from Chris Senn, but a lot of the finer details of that weren’t really committed to memory, because I didn’t pay super close attention to all of it. And where would you even go to fill in those blanks? Last I checked, The Senntient website isn’t what it used to be.

So, again... I dunno.

#questions #sonic x-treme #sonic the hedgehog #sega #sonic team #mike wallis #chris senn #Anonymous

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