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Naoto Ohshima, Twin Star, Wonder Hedgehog, 1990 Tokyo Toy Show, and other goodness

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Gryson, Mar 2, 2022.

  1. Blue Spikeball

    Blue Spikeball

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    Indeed we did:
    https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/new-sonic-1-alpha-screens-discovered.34294/

    It's not really speculation, they show the enemy clear as water.
     
  2. Laura

    Laura

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    One thing that always bugged me about the TTS proto is that people always referred to the purple monster as a standard enemy but in the early concept art he's presented as a character alongside everyone else. Do we have concrete proof that he is a standard enemy? I always thought he was supposed to be a central character.
     
  3. Pengi

    Pengi

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    The Sparkling Zone concept art has the six fingered hand enemy just there in the Zone, Sonic rolling past it, which implies it was going to be a standard enemy: https://info.sonicretro.org/File:Sonic_1_concept_sparkling.png

    It stands to reason that some of the others would have been standard enemies as well.
     
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  4. Gryson

    Gryson

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    My eyes hurt from doing this, but I gleaned all of the info I could from that blurry page (please add more if you can figure anything else out):

    [​IMG]

    The most interesting bits:
    • The title was going to be Wonder Dream.
    • It says "two-player twin scroll ---" (ツインスクロールの2人---) - but don't jump to conclusions about this yet...
    • The main character was a hedgehog at this point (I can't make out a name, though, if there is one - but it doesn't look like Sonic).
    It's not clear what the "twin scroll" thing means. Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is that it's referring to the Sonic 2 split screen mode, which as I recall was originally intended for Sonic 1 but had to be cut. However, "twin scroll" was a word used in the original Mega Drive promotional material to refer to two scrolling background layers.

    Anyway, although Ohshima says he and Hayashida made the proposal, Yuji Naka might have been involved at this point. It's also possible that Naka was unofficially involved then. I don't know enough about what's been said about the timing of his joining the project and if he was giving feedback to Ohshima before he officially joined.

    And, of course, we should always keep in mind we're working against 30 years of time here, and memories aren't always as clear as the statements people make.

    As for the TTS comment about there being no finished enemies: As always with these things, it's best not to read too much into the words here. He was most likely speaking in hyperbole (30 years after the fact) to emphasize that the demo didn't really have any content.

    I will post the original Japanese excerpts from the interview, but I encourage anyone with the ability to do so to buy the magazine and read it themselves (please support this kind of thing). There's a lot more content I'm not covering here.

    The photo caption: 最近「ソニック」の企画書の第2稿が見つかりまして。これは私と林田(浩太郎/当時:企画課長)で作成したものです。第1稿では悪夢と戦うツインスターという男の子2人組が主人公でした。第2稿でもその名残(悪夢)があります。その後、中(裕司)さんと組むことになって、キャラクターが今のようなハリネズミのソニックになっていったんです。 (大島)

    The TTS comment: 1990年6月の東京おもちゃショーで「ソニック」のティザーを公開していますが、エネミーがまだ1体もできていないものだったので、多重スクロールやスピード感をウリにした映像になっていたと思います。
     
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  5. This is really amazing! It's great finding all of this info out
     
  6. saxman

    saxman

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    Too lazy to find the picture right now, but I believe Thirteen might then be the one at the top of the picture looking down on everything. I recall a long nose.

    Very interesting stuff. As always, thanks for finding this stuff!
     
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  7. Blue Spikeball

    Blue Spikeball

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    Makes sense. The two designs have obvious similarities. I can see the early Thirteen sketch evolving into that guy:
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2022
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  8. Forte

    Forte

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    Hoo boy, there's still a lot of uncovered stuff within these games. I love being a part of this fandom.
     
  9. Blugenesi(Jarty)

    Blugenesi(Jarty)

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    I’ve given it some thought the past few days, and while I plan to make a video talking about this, my basic thoughts are this. This new concept came somewhere between the rabbit and TTS. It’s weird for me to imagine that Ohshima wanted to use a hedgehog, Naka got involved, and then they went to a rabbit and then back to hedgehog after some work. Due to what we can tell from these materials, I say that with the fact that a 2P mode was planned for Sonic 1, the similarity’s with the nightmare world concept, and it seems to involve a hedgehog, I would say that this must have been a very early draft of what would become Sonic’s nightmare draft which itself was also early.
     
  10. RDNexus

    RDNexus

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    Erm... Excuse me the blatantly ignorant question...
    Who's that Thirteen? Some opponent from a game?
     
  11. Snowbound

    Snowbound

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    Are u going to wait for the full article to be translated and/or try to confirm this with Ohshima before making another vid?
     
  12. Gryson

    Gryson

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    Right - at the point of this proposal, the things that have been decided and that will appear in the final game are the character (a hedgehog), its attack/movement (rolling), and the curving structure of the ground (see below). The design of the character and his name still seem up in the air. The enemies and setting are centered on the nightmare world, which is a leftover from the first Twin Star proposal.

    Nightmare Thirteen (夢魔サーティーン) was intended as the game's main bad guy.

    Oh, and just when I thought I had spotted everything in that photo, I noticed that you can see a bit of the page underneath (please, Ohshima, save us the trouble and just scan all of this ;))

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
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  13. Pengi

    Pengi

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    The title "Wonder Dream" is interesting.

    Sonic as a character was first unveiled to the public on 7 November 1990, during Dreams Come True's Sega-sponsored tour for their new album, Wonder 3.

    Could just be a coincidence though.
     
  14. Hez

    Hez

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    There's a crap ton actually visible after seeing Grysons post...

    [​IMG]
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    [​IMG]

    If I had more than 15 minutes of time I'd try and clean these up way more.
     
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  15. Blugenesi(Jarty)

    Blugenesi(Jarty)

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    I asked him already, and I’ll give it a few days. But I mean, I can’t expect him to get back to me every single time I have something to ask him. He’s been nice enough to tell me the whole nightmare world concept AND that they didn’t have the mechanics figured out for the Tokyo toy show. I can’t expect him to just give us a accurate timeline for something he did 30 years ago. But I will try to update my audience the best way I can.
     
  16. Blugenesi(Jarty)

    Blugenesi(Jarty)

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    let me know if you end up doing that, I’d love to include that in my video
     
  17. David The Lurker

    David The Lurker

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    Remember, there was that interview done with Yasuhara back in 2008

    This is long before Naka told his version of events, and doesn't contradict his telling of it.
     
  18. Blugenesi(Jarty)

    Blugenesi(Jarty)

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    that interview alone is contradicted by the story of events on the game development page on Sonic 1 here, where when He got there, it was the rabbit game concept and he agreed that it “wasn’t working out” clearly memory 30 years ago is faulty, as there are multiple different interviews with different time lines. All I’m saying is, the rabbit has to predate this two player wonder twins nightmare concept as it makes no sense to me how you’d go from hedgehog 2 player demo, to rabbit throwing objects to hedgehog again. It makes the most sense to me that this version became the Madonna Sonic concept that Ohshima explained to me a year ago by about June 1990 and sometime inbetween June 1990 and January 1991 Eggman and badniks were decided on.

    edit: I read that 1997 interview. I don’t believe that this document comes from before Naka’s involvement. Naka straight up claims he came up with the roll maneuver in front of Naka, and when he first got involved, it still involved a rabbit. Ohshima calls this draft the second draft of Sonic; so based on this, I’ll create a timeline of what we know.
    Twinkle Star (Rabbit) -> Twinkle Star (Hedgehog) -> Sonic nightmare world with Madonna -> Eggman and Band members -> final game.
     
    Last edited: Mar 4, 2022
  19. Pengi

    Pengi

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    We should try to keep the names straight.

    Ohshima's game idea was called either Twin Star (according to Ohshima) or Twinkle Star (according to Naka). It starred two boys and was set in a dream/nightmare world. One of the ideas was to travel to the past and future. The slate was wiped clean when Naka came onboard.

    The proposed game in the design document this thread is about was called Wonder Dream. It's set in a dream/nightmare world and stars a hedgehog who can perform a rolling attack (the attack is called "Wonder Hedgehog").
     
  20. Gryson

    Gryson

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    I should add that I'm now almost certain the text on that blurry page says "Twin-scrolling two-player simultaneous play ---" (ツインスクロール2人同時プレイ−−−) although I can't make out more than that. I've a strong feeling that's referring to what we ended up with in Sonic 2. If so, it's interesting to see that it was planned from this early stage.

    That's also a really strong indicator that Naka was already involved at this point. That doesn't quite agree with what Ohshima was saying, but memory is never perfect.