How early CGI and pinball helped make Sonic the Hedgehog a success
'Making of' video shows the inspirations and development tricks SEGA used to make Sonic a game changer
YouTube creator, Stafefox, has made an excellent video (above) looking into the inspirations SEGA used to make Sonic the Hedgehog and how they helped to make Sonic an instant success and a household name.
Of course, there have been tons of articles and videos that talk about Sonic‘s creation and some of the facts in the video may already be known to many SEGA Nerds. But this video takes seems to take a new stance as it explores the early beginnings of Sonic‘s creation, through to the logic behind certain gameplay mechanics, the famous soundtrack and how they all came together to make Sonic‘s experience engaging to players.
It shows how early CGI effects were an inspiration for the visual design in Sonic‘s levels, such as the palm trees and ground that Sonic runs along. It also explains more technical aspects, such as how the parallax scrolling worked and how SEGA was able to produce a game that appeared to have multiple layers of depth, with limited hardware power.
Source: Strafefox, YouTube
Special Thanks: M. Anthony, via email