During the late 1980s and early 1990s the gaming world, still in its infancy, was ruled by a plumber. Yes, Nintendo's Super Mario (or simply called Mario) seemed to be unstoppable. But gaming rival Sega hit back, hard, with Sonic the hedgehog.
Then president of Sega, Hayao Nakayama, rallied his employees to come up with something universally appealing. The resulting submissions ranged in many animals from bunnies to squirrels, dogs, porcupines, and kangaroos. But the essence of the concept was to have the character display intense speed, rolling as it went. The addition of spikes made it seem a tad more formidable so it was narrowed to two animals: a hedgehog or an armadillo. "The hedgehog ultimately won and a character, code named 'Mr. Needlemouse,' was born," reads an archived article on the 1Up website.
Three men were pivotal to making Sonic the character we have all come to love.
- Naoto Oshima, a character designer,
- Hirokazu Yasuhara, the original game and level designer, and;
- Yuji Naka, a programmer.
They answered questions at the Games Developers Conference (GDC) in 2018, as reported on gaming website, Gamasutra.
Why a hedgehog?
โItโs a character you can imagine dealing damage by curling up like a ball and rolling around,โ said Yasuhara.
When he visited the US, Oshima said he sketched the various characters they had in mind and took it to Central Park to show random people walking by. The consensus was clear. โThe result was, the hedgehog was most popular; people pointed at it and really liked it,โ said Oshima. โThe second was Eggman, and the third was the dog.โ He said that he thought lots of people chose the hedgehog because it was cute and transcended race and gender boundaries.
And the blue? Well, that came from Sega's logo.
"In the end, Sonic the Hedgehog launched in 1991 and was bundled in with Sega Genesis consoles, something the pair say helped the company surpass Nintendo in the market," reads the Gamasutra website.
Now, almost three decades later, Sonic is back and better than ever. Enjoy Sonic The Hedgehog your Sunday night movie on 18 October at 20:05 (CAT) on M-Net channel 101.
If you miss any of these movies on M-Net 101 you can always Catch Up on DStv.
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