Development:Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis)

This page details development materials of Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis).

Tom Payne Archives

In 2019, a set of floppy disks owned by former STI member Tom Payne were found and preserved, creating what is now known as the Tom Payne Archives. These files contained sprites for Sonic 1 and 2, along with internal concept art and unrelated sprites pertaining to two other games that went unreleased.

Original files can be found here.

Original Palette

The palette used on most of the files appears to use a more saturated set of blues. These would show up in many later games, including Sonic CD, Sonic Eraser, and Sonic Crackers.

Enemies

To do: Get comparisons between the sprites here and their in-game variants, and maybe provide all of the individual palettes.

Artwork	Name	Description
	Burrobot	Named "Mogera" instead of the Japanese final's "Mogurin", making the reference to Toho's Moguera even clearer. It's titled "duckthing" in Tom Payne's archives.
	Ballhog	A Ballhog using its pre-WCES design that stands in place like the final Ballhog does, indicating that these sprites were potentially made later in development. It is referred to as "buta".
	Ballhog	A finalized Ballhog, referred to as "nbutaa". Oddly, the blues here use the final palette, but the darkest blue still uses the old palette.
	Roller	Slightly bigger and including more rolling frames, which account for 4 different angles instead of 3.
	Buzz Bomber	The only difference is that its antennae is completely yellow. The in-game graphic uses a mix of dark reds and tan to achieve the shading, due to Sonic's palette lacking dark yellow shades.
	Splats the Bunny	Strangely called "Birdthing".
	Chopper	Referred to as "fish".
	Jaws	Referred to as "fish02".
	Spikes	Referred to as "Spikecar". Like the finalized Ballhog, this also uses the strange combination of old and final blues.

Visuals

Artwork	Name	Description
	Splash	Two different versions, both shorter and using Sonic's palette (like in the prototype).

Masato Nakamura's Demos

In 2011, composer Masato Nakamura released a CD containing his original demo tracks for Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The demos for Sonic the Hedgehog were sequenced using a Yamaha SY77, Roland D-50, Roland D-70, Roland TR-626, and Ensoniq SQ-1. He briefly goes over the process of making the songs here, where he mentions that he used an Atari ST and worked under specific limitations to make conversion easier.

Name	Masa's Demo	Prototype	Final Audio
Title Screen
Green Hill Zone
Marble Zone
Spring Yard Zone
Labyrinth Zone
Star Light Zone
Scrap Brain Zone
Final Zone
Boss
Special Stage
Stage Clear
All Clear
1-Up
Continue
Game Over