Prerelease:Sonic 3D Blast (Genesis)

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Sonic 3D Blast (Genesis).

Sonic 3D Blast didn't go through that many changes before release compared to prior Sonic games, but it still had a lot of noteworthy stuff.

Development Timeline

1995

• July - The game is "initiated" around this time according to Mean Machines Sega's coverage of E3 1996. However, due to conflicting sources, it is very likely the game was only getting conceptualized around this time and not starting actual development.

1996

• January 2 - Main development begins under the title "Sonic Spindrift".
• Unknown - An early build with two-player split-screen is created. The mode is later scrapped because of too little screen visibility.
• Unknown - Jon Burton, the game's director, implements a unique crash handler that opens a Level Select instead of the usual crash-and-print-text-on-the-screen. This would help get past Sega's QA team with ease when the game is sent to them.
• Unknown - Due to the frustration and difficulty of designing the game's levels on PC, Burton adds an in-game level editor to make the process much easier.
• Early May? - Sega gives Burton a two-side cassette tape containing ten tracks composed by Jun Senoue, in order to get his approval on the tracks so they could be programmed into the game. Several of the tracks end up being scrapped.
• May 15-18 - The game is first shown off to the public at E3 as "Sonic Blast" (not to be confused with the Master System and Game Gear game of the same name). Footage of the game could be seen in the Sonic X-treme promo video, and a playable demo (which appears to be quite similar to the publicly available prototypes) is also present.
• July? - The game starts getting ported to the Saturn due to internal complaints by Sega about development taking too long, according to Neil Harding who worked on the port.
• August - Due to the cancellation of Sonic X-treme, Sega of America gives much more focus to finishing the Saturn port.
• September 4 - Development concludes on the Genesis version.
• November 7 - The Genesis version is released in North America.
• November 14 - The game is released in Europe.

Original Title

The game's lead programmer, Jon Burton, revealed in a video on his GameHut channel that Sonic 3D Blast was originally named "Sonic Spindrift", though he doesn't know why it was changed.

The video also shows a bit of the source code, which reveals that development of the game officially began on January 2, 1996.

;----------------------------------------------------------
;                MAIN GAME SHELL
;
;        SONIC SPINDRIFT WAS STARTED ON THE 2/1/96
;
;        SONIC SPINDRIFT WAS FINISHED ON THE ?/??/??
;
;
;
;----------------------------------------------------------
GFXS:            EQU:     1
TIMINGS:         EQU:     0
RECORD:          EQU:     0
ROM:             EQU:     0
DISPSPRITE:      EQU:     0
COLBOX:          EQU:     0
LEVELFXON:       EQU:     1
ERRORON:         EQU:     0
STARTLEVEL:      EQU:     1
LASTLEVEL:       EQU:     1
NTSC:            EQU:     1
                  
                 INCLUDE REGISTER.S
                 INCLUDE MARCO.S
                 INCLUDE VARS.S

                 ORG     $0000
                 DC.L    ENDSTACK                ;STACK POINTER
                 DC.L    CODESTART               ;PROGRAM COUNTER

                 IF      ROM
                 DS.B    $60

Very Early Build

Discovered by the game's programmer, Jon Burton, on a hard drive. Footage of it was uploaded to his GameHut channel.

• The game had split-screen functionality, which was removed due to it making obstacles extremely hard to see. The bottom camera is the one which moves.
• The sprites look far more detailed than in the final game, and apparently none of them were used in the final game (likely due to color palette limitations). The "grid" is also much smaller.
• Sonic controls far differently: Left and Right rotate Sonic and holding B makes him run.
• The level itself is an extremely-preliminary version of Green Grove Zone, featuring an almost completely different design. It is also very small and has a corrupted tile.
• Sonic only has a running animation.
• Collision doesn't exist, so Sonic doesn't react to anything, including walls and slopes.
• This build also has a singleplayer version as well.
• The pause function existed in this build and uses a different text graphic than later builds. The graphic comes from Toy Story, another game that was made by Traveller's Tales.

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  The earliest prototype of Sonic 3D Blast, with a splitscreen mode not used afterwards.

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  This prototype had a whole different design for Green Grove not seen in the final game. The tiles are smaller, and the leaves are not as big.

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  Slopes and bridges.

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  Quite a steep slope.

• 

  The pause function in the build. Appears to temporarily remove Sonic from the top screen.

E3 1996

The game was first announced at E3 and is now resembling the final game, the game was also still planned for the Sega Mega Drive at this point before the console got discontinued and a Japanese release for the game was cancelled.

Green Grove Zone

E3 '96	Final

The loop at the beginning of Act 1 looks different than the final.

E3 '96	Final

The door that would be under the Dimension Ring also looks different compared to the final.

Some additional footage seen in Game Catalogue 2 shows that the game had a playable demo at E3 and was simply called "Sonic Blast" at this point. Sonic also had no spring jump animation in this build. Other than that, nothing else seems to be different.

This page or section has one or more broken YouTube links. Please find an archived version of the video(s) or a suitable replacement. Specifically: Video was deleted or the uploader's account was removed. Also, I should mention that YouTube is unpredictable. If a replacement video is found, link it here and upload the video on Archive.org just in case.

A scrapped Crab enemy that was thought to be a mockup around this time. 20 years later, it was discovered by Jon Burton (the game's lead programmer) in a specially-written level editor build of the game. The badnik was then restored in the Sonic 3D: Director's Cut ROM hack by Jon and added into Rusty Ruin Zone, where it releases a red Flicky upon being hit. This screenshot also shows a bridge that looks nothing like the final game's and that you can walk under it, and only blue Flickies traveling behind Sonic.

Other Magazine Screenshots Around E3 1996

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  Sonic has just lost all rings despite there being no enemies (the Flickies, however, are retained). The shot is also off-center.

• 

  Same screenshot but flipped horizontally.

• 
• 

  E3 Demo title screen. This title screen can be seen in most of the prototypes.

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  An early title card, looking very similar to those seen in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. The graphics for it can be found in the 73 Prototype.

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  This looks like a playable prototype build that's earlier than the 73 Prototype, however the icons in the HUD are possibly simpler placeholders.

• 

  Looks to be a later build then the one seen in E3 but still earlier than the 73 Prototype, has the same possible placeholder icons.

• 

  The Flicky portion of the HUD may be static - despite having collected all five Flickies, the HUD claims Sonic has just two.

• 
• 

  Four Flickies following Sonic, but again only two are shown in the HUD.

• 

Level Editor Build

A build of the game Jon Burton had on a hard drive. Footage of it was uploaded to his GameHut channel.

Jon explained that it was frustrating designing levels for their games using a map editor on PC since it was very time-consuming to make each change to the levels (with the moving objects included), so he decided to build a level editor into the game itself in order to have an easier (less consuming) time placing objects in good positions, which was achieved by plugging a developer kit into the cartridge slot. Jon stated somewhere in the comment section of the video that there wasn't enough memory in the final game initially to fit the level editor onto the cartridge.

This build is also where he showcased the scrapped Crab enemy, which had long been thought to have been a mockup seen in a pre-release magazine screenshot. He also stated somewhere in the comment section of the video that he had to manually add it into the level editor from scratch.

This build also revealed the developmental names for the badniks, as they were never given official names.