For sometime now I've been using the contents from an internal Saturn showcase disc that I acquired from a friend in Japan for my own saturn homebrew. However as I decided to pack things up and put it away recently, I thought I should make a backup of all discs that I have just in case. All fine and dandy, the demos were written in assembly and some in C (as Sega encouraged and wanted developers to use C from what I've been told) it's very interesting that the date stamp on the files are from various months of 1993 so before the launch date of the actual system to more than a year according to the disc. There's one demo in particular and it was excruciating to get it working, showed Sonic (using Sonic3 sprites) over a static background with basic control for sprite movement and scaling. I thought I remember playing Sonic3 in 1993 but I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the launch date was 1994 according Wikipedia! I'm trying to piece it together as to how they had a Sonic 3 sprites in October 1993 when the game was launched in 1994... Anyone have or know a timeline of the game development ?
Hi, a bit of a Sonic expert here. I have 50+ Sonic prototypes, have researched them extensively etc. The final build of Sonic 3 was built on November 20, 1993. I know this from some internal files. edit: now that I think about it, I have some dev cds, such as DTS (stuff Sega would send out to developers) and I *think* one of them had some Sonic sprites as a placeholder, similar to lorem ipsum for text. Would have to check my stuff to make sure.
Oh... I remember that my father got me a pirate cart for Sonic 3 when he went to a trip to Asia. My memory is foggy but I could swear it was in late 1993, the cover was a sonic 2 US artwork with a 3 slapped on. Do you have any info of that ? It's not from the DTS discs as those were intended for developers and they had a static artwork of a sonic running with another pose in deeper colors with other random sprites (gold ring and green jailbars). My disc comes from the 1st unveiling of the console to the board with animated Sonic 3 sprites. But thanks anyway !
Are you going to share more of whats on the contents of these discs? It sounds quite interesting regardless.
About the pirate cart. The final was built on Nov 20, 1993 and the game was released on February 2, 1994, so there was 2.5 months lead time for producing the cartridges and distributing them etc. They would transfer the final built ROM to some factory in Asia and the factory would produce the carts. So it's quite possible that the ROM leaked before release and found its way into a mass pirate's hands. If you still have the cart, I could probably judge whether it's the final ROM or a prototype based on screenshots/footage. Or if you have a Game Genie. PM/email me if you're interested.
Hey! My apologies for being quite off-topic, but I read somewhere about this one cancelled 2D Sonic game for the Saturn. As far as I know, it was never even announced. Does anyone have any info about that? I can't find much online about this.
I am most likely the source of the information you are referring to. I plan to post an article about it some day.
We're kinda veering off topic, but if the ones you have match mine, there's a good chance they came from me. Mine are: SEGA DTS March 1995 SEGA DTS June 1995 SEGA DTS Nov 1995 SEGA DTS SDK 1.0J; SGL 3.02; SOURCE; 12/96 SEGA DTS March 1996 DTS November 1996 I'm not sure if I released these publicly, I might have, but I'd have to check. If I didn't, I'll put them up in a few months.
This is getting rather off topic. Can we keep on track, guys? If you want to ask someone something unrelated, PM them - or start a new thread if you think it would benefit. drx runs Hidden Palace, andrew75. It's full of information on his prototypes.
