Sonic Mars
From Sonic Retro
| Sonic Mars |
|---|
| System(s): Sega 32X |
| Developer: Sega Technical Institute |
| Development timeframe: 1994[1]-1995[2] |
| Genre: Action |
Sonic Mars is an unreleased Sega 32X action-platform game developed by Sega Technical Institute and scheduled to be published as a launch game for the system.[1] Intended to be the first 3D entry in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, the commercial failure of the 32X and a number of development issues resulted in the game eventually being moved to the Sega Saturn - where it would evolve into the equally-unreleased Sonic X-treme.
History
| “ | "Michael was studying the previous Sonic games and creating the design document for the game…I seem to remember making some 2D side-view animations of Sonic at that early stage. My first real artwork consisted of two animations demonstrating the game concept. They were flat-shaded and looked like actual games in action. I even made ring-counters that incremented when Sonic picked them up. These animations were to be used to sell the concept to the executives." | „ |
| — Designer Chris Senn[1] | ||
A Western-developed Sega Technical Institute Sonic game had been planned by the division for some time, most notably as the unreleased late 1993 Mega Drive title Sonic-16. While this project was unrelated to any later Sonic games, the idea would stick around and still be fresh in the memory of a couple of STI developers as they entered into the new year.
Envisioned by Sega of America management sometime around early 1994 as a Sonic the Hedgehog title for the upcoming 32X, the project was intended as a launch game for the system, leaving the small team scrambling to work as fast as possible by Christmas of that year.[1] The group was very much inspired to move to 3D after the release of Virtua Fighter[3], with Sonic intended to be a 3D model early in development.[4] Unfortunately, the game design during this early stage wasn't fully formed enough to determine if the 32X hardware could even run the game they were planning.[5]
The development team (sometimes identified by Roger Hector as "Sonic Team"[6]) was being lead by Michael Kosaka, who created his design proposal by studying previous titles in the Sonic franchise, and also penned the earliest known story for the game.[7] This design proposal, created on May 17, 1994, initially expected the project to be completed by June 1995. Initially, the decision was made to ground the story within the framework of the Saturday morning television series that was still airing at the time; a setting which was dropped later in development. Designer and artist Chris Senn was a core member of the team at this time[7], working as a character designer[6] and animator, as was artist and 3D modeler Ross Harris (who created the game's 3D models in Softimage 3D and later digitized them into pre-rendered sprites[8]). The group's lead programmer, Don Goddard, was brought on that September.[9][10]
The team soon realized the 32X would only be able to reasonably render a few hundred polygons at once (nowhere near what they would need for a fun game world), so Goddard created a 3D Doom-like engine which could smoothly rotate 90 degrees in any direction (including up and down), allowing for crude "loops". He says the team came up with a single concept for a "rail-style" game around this technology (likely referring to linear, Crash Bandicoot-like gameplay), but as the original intention was a free-roaming 3D game, this experiment was scrapped.[11]
Goddard later programmed a "blazingly fast scaled/rotated sprite routine" which could display thousands of sprites at once, and created a demo where Sonic runs around on a black background with about a thousand Rings bouncing around the screen. Running at 60fps, it was playable at Sega of America's Daddys and Daughters Day 1994. Shinobu Toyoda, company executive and one of the project's few supporters outside of Roger Hector[11], brought his daughter to work that day, and they both played and enjoyed the brief demo - despite Goddard admitting it to be a very basic one.[11][12]
Following the success of Goddard's demo, the development team began creating new concepts entirely out of multiple sprites, including Senn designing multiple monsters constructed out of Rings. Goddard recalls they were possibly going to design a specific zone or two populated with these Ring creatures, which would appear as either a stack of rings or a giant one, and would slink around the playfield. When hit, they would explode into smaller rings which could be collected as a unique gameplay mechanic.[11]
Senn would not only begin creating new characters during this time (like Tiara Boobowski, seen during the October 1994 airing of the MTV television special Rock the Rock), but also produced a number of key early test animations for the project. Produced in his Amiga 500 computer, he created a total of three demos for the project. The first two are potential gameplay concepts, featuring Sonic running around small gamefields suspended in the sky and demonstrating how the new 3D gameplay could possibly work. The third was a bonus stage conceptualized by Michael Kosaka, in which Sonic would roll through a hollow circuit of tube attempting to collect as many Rings as possible.[4]
Despite being in development for the 32X, Sega of America management was reportedly already considering moving the game to the company's following console (what would become the Sega Saturn). Because the team didn't have a solid answer on the choice of platform (nor any choice in the matter[13]), Senn's Amiga demos were rendered on the conservative side, with flat-shaded graphics more comparable to the 32X.[1]
These early tests were used to pitch the gameplay concept to company executives Tom Kalinske, Shinobu Toyoda, Yuji Naka, and a small group of others, who said that the graphics would have a hard time competing with games like Donkey Kong Country.[1] The executives insisted on a stronger focus around classic franchise staples like loops and Rings, disregarding the team's attempts to design a new game concept specifically for a 3D environment - and nearly bringing Senn to tears during the meeting. According to Goddard, Sega's management was asking the team for a game more similar to what would be seen in the later Sonic Adventure, but years earlier by a smaller team on less powerful hardware.[11] To make matters worse, Yuji Naka himself simply shook his head, turned to Chris Senn, and said "good luck."[1] Regardless, the team was able to argue that the graphics could improve, the videos showed the early gameplay concept clearly enough[1], and further Sonic staples could always be added down the line, and the project continued without issue. Sometime during this era, the game gained its working title of Sonic Mars: a reference to the Mars codename of the 32X hardware. Later in development, this name would evolve into a sort-of premise for the game's story, at one point becoming Sonic on Mars.
| “ | "Sonic Xtreme underwent many changes and difficulties that would have tested even the most seasoned game industry veterans. Lack of experience, poor business decisions, ego, politics, over-ambition, bad timing, poor communication... these were some of the ingredients that ultimately spelled disaster for the game. Bringing Sonic into 3D for the first time was a huge challenge - not only for gameplay, but from a technology standpoint as well. This made the job of defining what the game should be more difficult, but doubly so as the technology and platforms changed. In the first year and a half the team went through three programmers, causing the game’s technology to basically restart each time. Problems like this took a toll on the budget and created more pressure for the entire team down the line." | „ |
| — Designer Chris Senn[4] | ||
The game would miss the 32X's November 1994 release date, with this soon followed by the departure of the team's leader, Michael Kosaka, in March 1995[14], who quit Sega Technical Institute over political tensions between him and STI director Dean Lester - leaving the project with no one in charge. As a response, Senn became the game's temporary producer while management looked for another to replace him.[15] Ultimately, both Roger Hector and Dean Lester decided he should remain in this role, increasing the number of Senn's already-considerable responsibilities. However, this allowed him to take Kosaka's former gameplay design in a direction which excited him more. As Senn describes it, Kosaka's design was solidly-constructed and more in-line with traditional Sonic the Hedgehog games, but he wanted to explore the potential of approaching these established concepts in new ways.[4] Goddard took this opportunity to further rework the game's script.[15]
Following this shakeup, Dean Lester also left the company around this time, being replaced as director by Manny Granillo.[1] Sega Technical Institute did eventually move Mike Wallis onto the project in late 1995 to serve as the game's primary producer from then forward, in an attempt to save the project from slipping into further stagnation.[12] Still, this was not enough to develop the kind of game management was looking for, and the team's leader, Don Goddard, knew that they would need more hands on the project: specifically, the team would need a second programmer. Gary McTaggart, an outside programmer experienced in 3D engines recommended by STI tools developer Mark Kupper, reportedly had a great interview with the company. Despite being cheap to acquire, management dragged their feet and he was never hired.[11] Later, Goddard made his own recommendation, Midway's John Morgan (of Super Off-Road fame). He also had a very positive interview and was equally qualified for the project, but was never called back either.[11]
Following this, a third attempt to acquire a programmer was made. Dean Lester told management he'd found a software engineer from the Middle East by the name of Ofer Alon, who'd previously worked on Astro Chase 3D for the Macintosh. Alon was flown into company headquarters, and while he reportedly interviewed well, Goddard felt Alon had a superior attitude in regards to knowing what was best for the game. Additionally, he was also very expensive to hire. To the team's surprise, Alon was soon brought onboard, and began working at STI 3 weeks later.[11] This would not come without issues, as while innately talented, Alon was not the easiest to work with. According to Goddard, he would reportedly agree to gameplay designs when speaking to fellow staff, but would later ignore these requests and perform his own work - only really ever getting along with designer Chris Senn).[11]
Sometime in 1995, Goddard's team were introduced to early specifications for what would eventually become the Sega Saturn were extremely turned off, seeing it as a complicated mess to develop for. Still, they began running technical evaluations and familiarizing themselves with the hardware, with programmer Hirokazu Yasuhara suggesting development be moved to this new system outright.[4] Programmer Christina Coffin was also brought on board, described by Goddard as being a passionate developer and fun to work with, despite her tendency to work alone unwittingly coming off as paranoia to others - and resulting in her making a few enemies among the staff, particularly Ofer Alon. Senn recalls Coffin being "a wild stallion" who had difficulty taking direction, "but when unleashed did great stuff."[11] During this time, Goddard was still attempting to get Alon to cooperate or listen to any of their requests. He continued to refuse, and began locking himself inside his office for the entirety of the business day (reportedly creeping Goddard out, who worked in the office next to Alon's).[11]
As 1995 progressed, the slow and uncoordinated nature of development was taking its toll. Tensions arose between team members and Dean Lester[11], and artist Dean Ruggles was also disliked by the staff for leaving work early every day (and once walking out in the middle of a team meeting).[4][11] Alon was continuing to be uncooperative, Coffin was isolating herself from others, and some staff were working at a notably slow pace; programmer Chris Ebert reportedly spent ten months coding a 32X demo in which a camera would fly over a single line of ten polygons.[11] To compound matters, when the team put in requests to management for development resources, these requests would often go unanswered or unfulfilled for months at a time.[11]
Making things worse was the 32X itself. It was difficult to program for even before release, but now that it was on sale, it was performing notoriously poorly, and Sega of America was less than enthusiastic about releasing a flagship Sonic game for such a platform. Per Wallis, due to the relatively short development time spend working on the platform, "releasing X-treme for the 32X wasn't even a consideration".[5] As a result, management ordered the project moved off the 32X entirely around Fall of 1995[1][16], wasting months of development for the system.[17] Initially, the chosen target platform was the Sega Saturn they had previously experimented with, and development was briefly moved to the upcoming CD-based system. This would not last long, however, as Sega of America quickly pulled an about-face and changed the platform once again; this time, presenting the team with something entirely different.
Development material
Production credits
- Executive Producers: Dean Lester[1], Manny Granillo[1]
- Producers: Michael Kosaka[1], Mike Wallis[5]
- Team Coordinator: Michael Kosaka[1]
- Co-Lead Designer: Chris Senn[1], Michael Kosaka[1]
- Art Director: Don Goddard
- Artist: Jeremy Cantor
- 3D Modeler: Ross Harris
- Animator: Chris Senn[1]
- Programmers: Don Goddard[10], Chris Ebert[1], Mark Kupper[11], Toshiyasu Morita
- Writers: Michael Kosaka, Christian Senn, Don Goddard
- Promotional Artwork: Jeremy Cantor[1]
- Source: Developer statements
External links
- Demonstration Video on YouTube.
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 http://www.lostlevels.org/200403/200403-xtreme.shtml (Wayback Machine: 2023-09-01 08:21)
- ↑ File:SonicMars 32X conceptart titlescreen static.png
- ↑ Interview: Stieg Hedlund (2006-12-15) by Sega-16
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 http://www.senntient.com:80/projects/xtreme/FAQ.html (Wayback Machine: 2011-03-17 06:48)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Interview: Mike Wallis (2007-06-19) by Sega-16
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Roger Hector interview by hxc (October 2005)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Interview: Chris Senn (2013-09-12) by Sega Addicts
- ↑ https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/presenting.7325/page-4#post-128889
- ↑ https://www.linkedin.com/in/don-goddard-37b15b/details/experience/
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Interview: Don Goddard (2011-11) by Torentsu
- ↑ 11.00 11.01 11.02 11.03 11.04 11.05 11.06 11.07 11.08 11.09 11.10 11.11 11.12 11.13 11.14 11.15 Interview: Don Goddard (2008-05) by hxc
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 http://www.lostlevels.org/200403/timeline.shtml (Wayback Machine: 2023-06-21 01:35)
- ↑ Mike Wallis, Playing at the Next Level, 2015-01-07 email interview by Ken Horowitz
- ↑ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-kosaka-99312b1/details/experience/
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 http://www.senntient.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=216
- ↑ Interview: Peter Morawiec (2000-12-27) by ICEknight
- ↑ Interview: Mike Wallis by Pachuka
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| Sonic the Hedgehog games for the following systems | |
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1991 Sonic the Hedgehog | Sonic Eraser 1992 Sonic the Hedgehog 2 1993 Sonic the Hedgehog CD | Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine | Sonic Spinball 1994 Sonic the Hedgehog 3 | Sonic & Knuckles 1995 Chaotix | Sonic Classics 1996 Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island |
| Unreleased Sonic the Hedgehog games |
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| Sonic X-treme incarnations |
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