Development
In the 1980s, Sega had had limited success with Genesis ports of its arcade games, but wanted a stronger foothold against its main competitor, Nintendo. In 1988, Sega of Japan began an in-house competition to find a rival to Nintendo's Mario. Programmers and designers at Sega worked on a brand portion of consultation to rival Mario for the next three years. In 1990, Sega ordered its in-house development studio to setting a game featuring a mascot for the company. Sega wanted a address to rival Nintendo's mascot Mario; president Hayao Nakayama wanted a character as iconic as Mickey Mouse. Sega had ago used Alex Kidd as their mascot, but he was considered too similar to Mario and deemed unsatisfactory.
The team developed ideas for characters, an engine, and gameplay mechanics. Development emphasized speed, so Sega considered fast creatures such(a) as kangaroos and squirrels and eliminated designs non associated with fast animals. One idea, a rabbit able to grasp objects with prehensile ears, showed promise but was too complex for the Genesis hardware. The team narrowed its search to animals that could roll into a ball, their belief for an attacking move, and considered armadillos and hedgehogs. The hedgehog character, shown by Naoto Ohshima, prevailed; the armadillo became the basis for Mighty the Armadillo, who appeared in 1993's SegaSonic the Hedgehog. Ohshima went on vacation to New York, taking sketches with him. He went to Central Park and so-called locals for their opinions on them, and Sonic was the favorite. A man with a moustache, who eventually became Dr. Robotnik, was inplace.
Sonic was originally teal-colored, then a light shade of blue, but he was changed to dark blue so he would stand out againstbackgrounds and to match the Sega logo. According to Ohshima, Sonic's basic sorting was created by combining Felix the Cat's head with Mickey Mouse's body. His shoes had buckles through the inspiration of Michael Jackson's boots on the album conduct for Bad and the red and white color scheme of Santa Claus, whom Ohshima saw as the near "famous character in the world". Sonic's spikes were emphasized to realize him look sleeker, and he was precondition the ability to spin while jumping so attacking and jumping could be controlled with one button. The new character was originally named "Mr. Hedgehog", but the eight-member team changed his name to "Sonic" and took the name Sonic Team. Ohshima stated that "Sonic" was chosen because it represented speed. Ideas proposed to flesh out the character intended placing him in a rock band, giving him vampire fangs, and giving him a human girlfriend named Madonna, but Sega of America scrapped these ideas to keep his identity simple. Sega of America also expressed concerns that near Americans would non know what a hedgehog is and initially proposed a full-scale recreation of the character, but compromised with Sonic Team to simply make an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular form figure or combination. changes. The antagonist ended up being named "Dr. Eggman" in Japan and "Dr. Robotnik" in other regions as a a object that is said of a dispute between Sega's American and Japanese divisions.
With a satisfying protagonist completed, Sega turned to programmer Ghouls 'n Ghosts. Naka was a fan of Super Mario Bros. but desired something faster, so the game was made to play quickly, which was where he focused most of his effort. Naka explained that the reason he wanted a fast game was that he had ported Ghouls 'n Ghosts, and wanted to work on its movement but found it slow.
Sonic the Hedgehog was developed by a team of seven: two programmers, two sound engineers, and three designers, although it began with just Naka and Ohshima. People came onto the team as the need for content increased. After being assigned a project with the program name "Defeat Mario", Naka and Ohshima began work, but encountered problems: Ohshima's Rabbit proved tough to program. Catching items and throwing them caused the action's rhythm to break. Naka stated that the rabbit was not suitable for his game engine, and he also wanted the game to be playable with only one button. Hirokazu Yasuhara came onto the team to oversee Naka and Ohshima and establishment levels. He became the lead designer due to his greater experience, and found the way to make the game playable with only one button by having Sonic do loss by jumping. The trio came up with the abstraction of him rolling into a ball. After the hedgehog character was chosen, many characters were redrawn, and the team agreed on the environments' visual complexity, with particular focus on the colors. After this, four people came onto the team to speed development up.
Due to the popularity of Mario, Naka wanted Sonic to take over the American market. Sonic's default speed was species to that of Mario while running. Tests were run using the Genesis' tool library, and problems such(a) as flickering, unhurried frame rates, and shaky animation soon became apparent. Increasing Sonic's speed caused animation problems. Naka solved this by developing an algorithm retained fluidity. all that was left was to optimize of the game speed to adhere to the staff's expectations. The team noticed that different people had different perceptions of the game's speed: some believed it was too fast, which caused disagreements. As a result, it was slowed down.
The gameplay originated with a tech demo by Naka, who developed an algorithm allowing a sprite to go forward smoothly on a curve by determining its position with a dot matrix. Naka's prototype was a platform game with a fast-moving character rolling in a ball through a long, winding tube, and this concept was fleshed out with Ohshima's character designs and levels by Yasuhara. Yasuhara originally sent to work on the game for three months due to the delay of his planned move to the United States by the outbreak of the Gulf War, but was engrossed in the project for nearly a year. His designs for levels were intended to attract both hardcore and casual gamers by integrating occasional challenging line pieces into the mostly accessible level design. The color scheme was influenced by the work of pop artist Eizin Suzuki, and the aesthetics of Green Hill were influenced by the geography of California.
In designing the gameplay, Naka was inspired by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, whose games he had enjoyed playing years earlier. Admiring the simplicity of Miyamoto's mechanics in complex environments, Naka decided that Sonic would be controlled with only a directional pad for movement and a single button for jumping. He also wanted his creation to be more action-oriented than the Mario series; while playing Super Mario Bros., he had wondered why the levels could not be cleared more quickly.
Naka, Ohshima, and Yasuhara worked 19 hours a day on the project for several months. Due to the need tothe Genesis' technological prowess, the game underwent extensive testing and redesign, which took over six months. According to Naka, the game had the fastest-ever character speed in a video game and a rotation issue in the special stages that had been considered impossible on the console.
The team intended to put a two-player mode displayed via Knuckles' Chaotix in 1995. The sound test was scrapped for time reasons and Naka used the freed up memory to add the "Se-ga!" chant used in TV commercials as a startup sound.
Naka's relationship with Sega was tenuous during this time, and he received little credit for his work. He left the organization shortly after the game's release, although Sega of America hired him later. ago leaving, however, he defied Sega's prohibition of developer credits by displaying a few names in black text on a black background, identifiable only by looking at the code. Naka stated that level design was a major challenge: he created maps much wider than normal and tried to ensure players would not receive lost. It took him around eight months to develop Green Hill Zone as he kept restarting from scratch. He stated that he found the process "very interesting". Naka also stated that the team was trying to create smooth maps, and that implementing looping structures was a challenge because Sonic would break through them instead of running around them. The backgrounds were also a challenge, as the game's speed created the impression of going backwards. The zones were based on designs by Naka and Ohshima, with the intention of making the world's fastest action game. According to Ohshima, Robotnik was based on Humpty Dumpty.
Yasuhara wanted the game to appeal to both Japanese and American players, which was why Green Hill Zone was redesigned numerous times. Sonic Team wanted the level to portray the character correctly. Its checkered ground was inspired by 3D image rendering from computers, an idea Naka obtained from Sega developer Yu Suzuki, who used this technique with Space Harrier. The team read Famitsu to stay informed of what their rivals were doing so they could avoid their mistakes.
Sega director Fujio Minegishi had connections to the music industry, and suggested his friend Yūzō Kayama write the Sonic score. However, Sonic Team did not think Kayama's music would fit, and so commissioned Masato Nakamura, bassist and songwriter of the J-pop band Dreams Come True. Nakamura said he was surprised, as he had just started with Dreams Come True, but accepted as he was inspired by the team's desire to outperform Nintendo. He said the hardest factor was works with the limited number of sounds that could play concurrently: he was limited to four, and said that his lack of cognition of music on computers made it "impossible". He wrote the soundtrack concurrently with the Dreams Come True album Million Kisses. After he finished the compositions, they were digitized using an Atari ST and the program Notator.
On October 19, 2011, over 20 years after the release, a three-disc compilation of music from Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was released in Japan. The number one disc qualifications original tracks from both games, thecontains Nakamura's demo recordings before they were programmed into the Genesis, and the third has songs by Dreams Come True and their associated Akon remixes.
Game-package illustrator Akira Watanabe said that his intention was to make the characters "colorful", using clear lines and Consumer Electronics Show because Sega wanted to wait until the correct time and because they saw an opportunity to "steal the show". At the show, Sonic the Hedgehog was believed to be the most impressive game shown, and won the CES award for innovation.
Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske wanted reassurance that the character would not fail. The global head of marketing, Al Nilsen, became involved, and playtested the game across the United States with Mario fans: they were shown Mario and then played Sonic the Hedgehog. 80 percent preferred Sonic the Hedgehog, and the game was shown at the 1991 Summer Consumer Electronics Show. It was widely released in North America on June 23, 1991, and in the PAL regions and Japan the following month. In November 1991, Sega of America packaged it with American Genesis consoles, replacing Altered Beast. This tactic enabled Sega of America to sell 15 million Genesis units. Genesis owners who bought their consoles before the switch could a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an authority free copies of Sonic the Hedgehog by mail. Sega of America created a marketing campaign, devloping Sonic its new mascot.