It diverges to other Net Yaroze stuff partway in but I messed around with Minick for a while on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxPphROlqkM .... now that I think about it, does this make "Minic the Hedgehog" the earliest documentation of a Sonic fan character?
I wouldn't consider fans guessing names for a new official/canon character to be remotely related to "Here's my Sonic character, he's colored red and smaller." :P
It took two years, but we now have a Wiki page for it, complete with the PS1 executable for download: Minic the Hedgehog Also, this tweet made back in November 2015 (after I had shared the PS1 port here) mentions the possibility of this game being made by Umihara Kawase co-creator Kiyoshi Sakai, given that the Net Yaroze 2012/2014 collection lists the name as Minic's author. Sure enough, both Minic the Hedgehog and Umihara Kawase use the exact same font style for the HUD and other text: So, I guess we now know the creator of this old fangame went on to make the Umihara Kawase series? Perhaps someone could ask about Minic so we can hopefully find the X68k original?
Surely enough, Minic was made by the same Kiyoshi Sakai! Not only that, Sakai-san recently took to youtube to upload a video fo the original 68K version, backed with remixed music to boot! Not only that, it also even includes a bonus stage not featured within the PSX port of the game. Maybe we'll finally be able to get a download soon....
That's exactly the sort of thing a special stage should be - fancy hardware trickery. Sure it doesn't look as if it plays well, but it's amazing how many Sonic games forget that the stage is meant to be "special" (i.e. not just another tube).
http://www.os.rim.or.jp/~pekochan/develop/X68k/ ^ Link to the X68000 rom is on the bottom of that page. Plus other info about the song and a good emulator to use. What's charming is that he admits that it's not very fun to play being a small little fan project and all, and also says if anyone doesn't know Japanese, figure it out and don't start any problems. lol I dunno, the whole project to me just oozes charm. From the graphics, to the little smoke details when Minic runs, to the overly small cute Sonic CD-esq sprite, to the developer making it. So awesome.
Fought an emulator and got it to play (don't ask how) - it's a challenge. It requires a lot of patience and hills are deadly. Looks the part, though, and lovely for 1993.
