Sega-16:
The video you graciously donated is the game we mentioned in our interview with Sonic Xtreme artist Chris Senn, who stated that it later evolved into Xtreme; however, all evidence points to the contrary. Can you tell us more about this unreleased Sonic title?
Peter Morawiec: Shortly after finishing Sonic Spinball, Roger Hector (STI's boss) took Naka's team and number of us down to DiC Animation in Burbank, CA. The studio was about to start production on a Sonic cartoon series for the ABC TV network. It was a funny meeting - the storyboards were super Warner Bros'y, all squash-and-stretch, and full of silly slapstick humor. The Sonic Team guys sat through the spiel all stone-faced, so I don't think they liked it very much. Roger was interested in having STI create a spin-off game based on the show, so I tried to come up with a gameplay format allowing for more story and adventure than the original Sonic games. I had made a number of these Amiga demos by then, so it didn't take very long to put together, probably less than a week. John Duggan (STI's Art Director) created the title screen and helped with the character sprites.
Unfortunately, it wasn't easy to animate fast-scrolling backgrounds in Brilliance, so the demo came off too slow-paced, though I always intended for it to have some fast-moving sections. From what I heard, Naka gave the design thumbs down, but it was probably the right decision. The cartoon wasn't even out, so banking on its success would've been premature, and too many spin-offs for a fresh new franchise are likely to do more harm than good. I was really excited to get started on Comix Zone which was just green lit, so the design was shelved...