Segapede (Prototype) Discuss this release on our Discord server! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We’re back with another Sega-related goodie for you to enjoy today. Presenting, the original presentation demo pitch ROM for Sega Technical Institute’s (STI) Segapede (also known as Astropede) for the Sega Mega Drive! Lead Designer: Craig Stitt Enemy Designer: Alex Niño Programmer: Ken Rose Music & Sound: Howard Drossin Be sure to checkout our write up for some details on the development of Segapede. HUGE special thanks to Craig Stitt for making this happen. Enjoy!
I took a quick peak into the code (not gonna go any deep, was just curious for a second), and it looks like the game was programmed in C. Lots of stack usage for variables/arguments, including usage of the link instruction. Can't wait to see the art pulled out and put into Sonic hacks now lmao
A "I should be working but it's Friday afternoon and nobody's watching" write-up. Sega Retro pages are currently using "Astropede" as the title - we can switch to "Segapede" if it makes more sense.
Here's The Spriters Resource page. I've already added the full level map, the background, the title screen and some other small assets.
Dang it doesn't have that eye candy level that appear towards the end of that one video when it was first shown.
The "master emeralds" in this game telelport the player to various spots... which means they were given more purpose in this Segapede demo then they ever were in Sonic 2. Also am I to guess there aren't any remnants of this "level" in the ROM? I shouldn't expect much from what was probably a short game pitch, but... idk, feels like there should be more.
So happy this finally got released! Hopefully that potential "first prototype" of Treasure Tails gets found, if it exists! I played this to a bud in a call & I love the sense of speed I was getting, even if it was a lil' jank! Also that music is so god damn good! Not just the one that's used in the prototype, but the ones in the rom itself. Howard Drossin can make a great track.
Fantastic little curio, this one. The sprite work looks great and it's an interesting idea, pity it never got any further. Thanks to Craig for letting us have this!
Nice write-up. I find it incredibly fascinating how Sega of America's internal studios were simply unable to release games, despite enormous amounts of money being pumped into them. And STI wasn't even the worst. There was Sega Midwest and Sega Multimedia Studio, into which tens of millions of dollars were invested, and they were unable to release anything significant. Craig Stitt (or someone else at STI?) said in Ken Horowitz's book on SOA that there were developers who had been working at STI for years who never had a game released. Incredible. It's a classic example of how pumping tons of money into game development doesn't work if you don't have that critical component of experienced and capable managers and team leaders. SOA tried to become one of the largest game developers in the world from scratch in the span of a few years. By 1994 they had a reported 700 people working in game development across all of their studios. Yet they had a huge turnover rate, especially in management, and they had producers making critical decisions who had never worked in game development before.
Seems to be unfortunately the same version of Sierra Systems C that was used by Sonic Spinball-- in other words, the one we don't have. There's a function that only closely matches in 3.1b if I type it in a funky way, and the code output is still slightly off because it keeps trying to be safe about reusing registers. Someday I'm going to go out on a hunt for these damn compilers.
When I saw the original video release of this prototype, I thought it looked cool, but the physics looked like they would be problematic and I wasn’t sure how fun it would feel, looking more like a proof of concept than a game. After playing it however, I can say that it’s really fluid, surprisingly well crafted, and very playable. I love the idea of a segmented character and the possibilities it could have introduced. This should have been greenlit.
Wonder how this level would play if put in Sonic 2 proper. Obviously not exactly designed with that game in mind but still curious about it.
While I was (re)watching some old documentaries trying to find some instance of a Sonic 2 art commented on its thread, I stumbled across some minor curiosities in the video "Careers for the 21st Century: Sega Technical Institute". At 5:38, the background appears to feature Craig Stitt's Astropede/Segapede character in a city that reminds me of Metropolis, maybe? Also a clip related to Sonic 3.
