Sonic Boom (Games) Megathread

TimmiT · May 14, 2017

Iirc they did put some more characters from Rise of Lyric into the TV show in the latter half of the first season, like Perci. But besides that, yeah there's not that much tying Rise of Lyric to the show. Sticks also seems to just be inserted into the game as an NPC to sorta tie it into the show.

rebelcheese · May 14, 2017

Dark Sonic said:

Yea the game lining up with the cartoon is strange. What came first? Which one held more influence? Why has nothing from the game been brought into the show universe (like wheres not uncle chuck aka cliff). Funny that the 1st episode of the show used the game's plane, but then changed to the orange one seen since.

This thing seemed doomed from the start unfortunately
Click to expand...

I am not sure it matters, but it's pretty clear that Big Red Button had a drastically different story and environment in mind than the TV show people did, and the game people lost the creative arguments.

Which is a bit of a shame as it looks like from the alpha builds they had some good ideas. It could have been a solid Rayman 2-esque platformer even if we would question it being an actual "Sonic" game.

High Fidelity · Jul 1, 2017

JaxTH · Jul 1, 2017

Fire & Ice

High Fidelity · Jul 1, 2017

JaxTH said:

Fire & Ice
Click to expand...

Ha, nice. Cheers

Beltway · Jul 12, 2017

Here's one hell of a whopper update on the game's development history.

Spanish site Sonic Paradise published a whole slew of new information about the game's development; thanks to the efforts of researcher MotoBadnik, who was not only able to uncover some prototype trailers of the game from 2012 and 2013 (back when it was known as "Sonic Synergy"), but also secured an interview with a former Big Red Button employee (who requested anonymity).

You can read a translation of the article below, courtesy of Fusion Ellipis from SSMB. You can also download a Big Red Button internal PDF of February 2014 here, it's a design guide in which you can see various concepts and ideas for the game and how it evolved, including several things discarded. Sonic Paradise have also posted more concept art (you can see them both at the site and at Fusion Ellipis's translated post at the SSMB link above; I tried to add some to the post here but the images refused to embed), as well as posted links to the two prototype trailers mentioned above (which I've embedded below).

Origins

The Apollo project begins.

The game had already started development in October 2011. At that time I was in "BlockOut", experimenting with races and LAN Party games with a multiplayer approach.
The story planned at that time was about the origins of Sonic: Sonic and a young Eggman were friends, but during a time travel sequence Eggman annoys something in the past, causing his enmity. The elders were very important in this story, because they were related to the origin of Sonic. Eggman was also planned to be a playable character. (Sonic Origins was the tentative title)

One of the pillars of the game was to create an organic and more natural world tailored for Sonic, with hand-painted textures for a cartoon style. Although not ruled out, this can not be seen much in the final game due to Wii U hardware.

The game had a focus of 80% Exploration and 20% Speed. They wanted to do some sort of Jak & Daxter with Sonic, reminiscent of Bob Rafei's work on Naughty Dog.

After a series of demands by Japan, they worked for 2 ½ years in the Vertical Slice (A technical demo in which all the aspects of gameplay are represented, to advance on them) demonstrating the game's approach to SEGA . The game was planned to be a Cooperative Multiplayer game for 4 people, with digital launch on Steam, also planning a PS Store port and Xbox Live if it sold well. That Vertical Slice is what we know as Synergy.

The story at this time was not very important, the game would start in this room, with its corresponding scene.

Decline

Here the problems begin, about the end of 2012, SEGA teaches Nintendo its Vertical Slice, and include Synergy as part of the exclusivity contract on Wii U. To this is added that SEGA asked for a version for 3DS, which had That also occupy BigRedButton until Sanzaru came to save it.

About mid 2013 is intended to port Wii U, that completely changes the focus of the product, begins "The reform".
The multiplayer for 4 players was impossible, and the game had to be redesigned to an adventure for 2 players. They also had to eliminate a lot of mechanics due to Hardware and that made the levels have to be redesigned (more linear, buttons to interact with everything).

To the disaster of Wii U was added another big problem: The television series.
A designer presents to SEGA the idea of making a Sonic TV show. It was supposed to be separate from the game, but about 8 months before the game's launch, SEGA gave them control of the series, changing big parts of the story and returning Knuckles silly among other things, forcing them to create characters for A richer world that was totally excluded in the series and create scenes and levels stuffed due to the change of history. (I have no information on the previous history, only that the elders would be much more important)

Discrepancies of Japan

Throughout the development Sonic Team and SEGA Japan forced BigRedButton to change several aspects of the game:

Playability: Originally the game was going to be based more on exploration than speed, from Japan demanded that it had speed and that reduced the exploration. Originally you could swim, they opposed and because of this in the final game you die on contact with the water.

Designs: Several designs of Sonic and company were discarded for getting too far away from the "Legacy" designs, making them more similar.Several NPCs had to be changed due to violating Sonic Team design guidelines. (Cliff was originally an inventor, but Iizuka said the only inventors should be Tails and Eggman).

Story: The original story was completely eliminated, they flatly refused to tell Sonic's origins, and said they would explain it someday.

Mechanics and ideas deleted or changed

Rappelling, launching your partner like a slingshot, pushing your teammates as you race to give them speed, you could run in the water (Water Ski) with your friends with Sonic being the leader, you could swim and submerge a few seconds underwater. Most of them were eliminated by the Wii U.

Among the levels that reached the final version, Crater Lake had a big change, it was going to be focused on 4 players Water Ski.

Due to the change to Wii U they had to mix parts of levels to fill the lack of mechanics (The worm's boss took place in Crater Lake).

They wanted to bring the Chao back, but due to time and hardware constraints they had to abandon the idea.

Synergy had a "piggy bank" system, when you found one, you deposited your Rings, and then you could improve your characters and weapons with them. The change of focus of the game forced to discard the system.

During the port a Wii U was planned to use the Gamepad to move platforms and to control a robot golem, due to technical complications and of time could not be.

The level of Biplane was discarded because of being very boring, in the control to Tails and persecute to Lyric until the final level.

During the original story, Eggman was going to be playable, after the elimination of history was completely discarded the idea.

The name Synergy was probably discarded because of SEGA wanting to create a global brand and lose meaning after "reform"
Click to expand...

Blue Spikeball · Jul 13, 2017

The story planned at that time was about the origins of Sonic: Sonic and a young Eggman were friends, but during a time travel sequence Eggman annoys something in the past, causing his enmity. The elders were very important in this story, because they were related to the origin of Sonic. Eggman was also planned to be a playable character. (Sonic Origins was the tentative title)
Click to expand...

Oh, groan.

The original story was completely eliminated, they flatly refused to tell Sonic's origins
Click to expand...

Thank goodness.

Antheraea · Jul 13, 2017

They wanted to bring the Chao back, but due to time and hardware constraints they had to abandon the idea.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure whether to be furious at the fact that we missed an opportunity for a Chao return, or relieved at the fact that at least they didn't show back up in this game of all things.

Glaber · Jul 13, 2017

Sounds like Boom could have been an even bigger departure than Lost world was if Sega didn't step in.

TheKazeblade · Jul 13, 2017

Origins

The story planned at that time was about the origins of Sonic: Sonic and a young Eggman were friends, but during a time travel sequence Eggman annoys something in the past, causing his enmity. The elders were very important in this story, because they were related to the origin of Sonic. Eggman was also planned to be a playable character. (Sonic Origins was the tentative title)
Click to expand...

Anyone remember that old poll Sega did to see what direction the fans would like a future Sonic title to go and one of the options was an origin story? Looks like this is what was originally going to come of it.

JaxTH · Jul 13, 2017

The last time Sega did a poll we got Shadow.

MykonosFan · Jul 18, 2017

There was also the Facebook poll that helped influence Generations' level choices, that one didn't go as badly (depending on who you ask).

Sonic Boom (Games) Megathread

Useful Searches