Taxman and Stealth: The Story behind Sonic Mania's Fans Turned Developers 

I mean hiring modders isn't really unusual for the PC space. But that was usually to integrate them into an old team, not letting them spearhead projects by themselves. Not to mention that it certainly seems unusual for any of the old console devs like SEGA.

+dravorek Also when's the last time a Japanese company let fans lead their big mascot game?

Passionate fans that know what they're doing can really bring a franchise to its true potential. The Sonic franchise sure is lucky to (still) have a dedicated fanbase despite numerous blunders.

It's pretty common with PC (Most of Valve's franchises started as mods), but it's still pretty great to see they're dedication really pay off. Sega has really been embracing it's community lately, as this and opening the Steam Workshop floodgates for Genesis/Mega Drive ROM hacking.

Other companies could learn to do what SEGA does instead of just at worst shutting down fan-made stuff and instead let the best make games... ...but then again, SEGA does what...others...don't.

It's back up. Also where is that damn sonic 3 bonus video!

Where did you go Cybershell!?!? You need to make the Sonic 3 & Knuckles Bonus Video

Cybershell colors for the ds was good too

You can make a Sonic 2 HD in Sega MD Collection.

Huh man if you kept making vids I might have been a lot more exited to see you here. Man I really wish you didn't just skip out on RU-vid

I was sure that was a Dayman and Nightman reference

Or Megaman bosses.

Definitely rejected Megaman bosses haha!

Josh Wunderlich if only megaman and capcom had their equivalent of taxman and stealth

FinalutionGaming *plays Mega Man robot master music*

Woah, I didn't know that! That's really awesome!

After seeing your comment I immediately went to Sonic 2 HD's facebook page.

Actually true, huh! www.sonicretro.org/2013/03/sonic-2-hd-team-behind-ios-game-major-magnet/

LOst is still gone, right? He was pretty much the sole reason Sonic HD died.

Kinda funny how the video completely skips over 2/3 of the Sonic Mania team. In addition to PagodaWest Games, the composer of Sonic Mania, Tee Lopes, did the soundtrack for Sonic 2 HD, as well as Major Magnet, so the soundtrack is in good hands.

*remake

Holy shit, where'd you find your profile Pic?

that game was really underwhelming but now it is decent.

Yeah tbh

That's because they're tech savvy people that do work like people and act like people.

Also they haven't touched a child, so they're in the upper echelon of the fandom by default

Shukterhouse Jive that shouldn't have made me laugh :P oh my immortal soul, where fore art thou?

Sonic tends to draw a lot of creative types into it's fanbase. So there's a lot of people who want to make Sonic inspired stuff.

Sonic Retro and Sonic Stuff Research Group is full of cool Sonic Fans, Deviantart is the land of the shit side of the fanbase.

Well, The new 3D Sonic isn't coming to handhelds, so it doesn't seem DIMPS is involved, cause handheld ports are usually their area.

+SSJ22Terris Ports, yeah. As well as the Advance line and Sonic 4

+Daijon Banks (DJ-XIII) and the Rush series.

aw I thought dimps was good.

DIMPS was good until 4 EP 1. Very sad. I loved Advance and Rush series.

I do. They were good, the second and third ones kinda teetered a bit due to cheap level design in parts.

Sonic Advance 2 was something more like G2G FEST M8. SA3...Yeah I kind of agree with you, but with level memorization, I think you can blaze some of those levels.

As someone who played SA3 a lot as a young kid, I agree. I dunno how I dealt with back then lol. Too bad I don't have SA3 anymore, just SA2.

damn those were amazing, i didn't played them in an actual gameboy, but in a emulator in my xperia play instead and played very well the only issue i found is that the screen size is very small so i can't see shit of the stage or where im going

I think that's a major issue in all of the 2D sonic games. Times you are so fast that you don't have time to react to enemies placed on screen. The ideal would be a big screen size, or smaller sprites to remedy that(on the classic games) Today the best solution is just to increase the FOV of the player.

if i may shill, i have also played a small demo called Overture, and that one is superb in my mind. Might take a look at that one as well to see what you think.

I've heard and seen some footage for that game, but have yet to try it myself. Thanks for the reminder. :)

+Marius Urucu Sonic Time Twisted is also looking really good.

Are those ports the Steam releases of those games or do we gotta buy on mobile?

Benschachar Only Sonic CD. Sonic 1 and 2 Taxman remakes are mobile only, sadly.

Mine were "I WANT STUFFED NACHOS IMMEDIATELY"

HELLO KITTY MEETS SONIKU.

"That's the sound of 25 years of Sonic"

"On that day, 10 years ago the world of gaming would never be the same."

Mine was, "this looks too good to be a sonic game."

Exactly. People just apply this meme to every new game without actually realizing what it entails.

Yeah, the only game since Unleashed that had something that looked like the Cycle was Lost World. Even then it was still not trainwreck-bad, just somewhat mixed.

Eichro Lost World took a few steps backwards from Generations, but yeah. It wasn't terrible. The new game coming out looks ambitious yet familiar with Classic Sonic's inclusion. I take it the guy who made this video is just not a fan of 3D Sonic.

Unless you want to count people having low expectations for Boom managing to be surprised that how terrible it is actually managed to go lower. XD

Generations also sucked. As a fan of what Sonic actually was, nothing after the Genesis games with the exception of Advance for GBA deserves to even be called a Sonic game. Don't even get me _started_ with Sonic 4... I'm calling Mania the Sonic 4 we should have gotten back in 1998. Also, this is coming from someone who grew up with modern Sonic for most if not all of my lifetime, only learning about the originals after I entered my late teens.

Same hear

I’m not either but it turned out great

It did

While that's great and all (and it shows when Sonic looks up), I prefer the sprite art look. It looks more timeless than even the HD hand-drawn and smoothly-animated style that Sonic 2 HD was trying, and they really are giving Mania the extra attention to detail, animation quality and love it deserves.

Absolutely, the animation smoothness definitely bled through! I was just mentioning this because Pagoda definitely knows how to handle Sonic as well!

T H I S The Sonic Twitter account is fucking legendary at this point.

Thanks mate i didnt knew of that until now. I am laughing so hard.

I'm not sure if I can call that twitter account "legendary," but it's certainly better than nothing!

There's not too much to know about it. It was originally just used to post promotional Sonic material and then they brought longtime Sega member and Sonic fan Aaron Webber to be the franchises PR manager (he left Sega for a year before he began being the admin of the page in June of 2015). On June he posted memes in response to the announcement of Sonic Boom Fire and Ice and it became much more comedic and fan-oriented (also memes) since then. Aaron is such a cool dude!

av4d Watching big companies try to act "human" and "on our level" is usually incredibly cringe-worthy, like it was at this year's E3. But the way Aaron does it...is just flawless. Especially since all his MN9 bashing and bragging about Sonic's new game turned out to be justified, at least in my opinion.

I haven't been since Sonic 4 episode 1.... and we all know how that turned out. Hopefully Sonic Mania doesn't turn out to disappoint us all like that one did :/

Unlike Sonic 4, though, Mania is being developed by Taxman and Stealth. I have played Retro Sonic, Sonic CD mobile, and Sonic Megamix, and they were great games, so let's hope this one will end up the same. As for Sonic 4: Ep. I, I don't think it was a horrible game (or a great one). It was a decent platformer, albeit inferior to the classics.

Yay! Someone who actually LIKES Sonic 4!

Yes. Because people just want to force an agenda.

MAJORITY OF OPINIONS UPON RELEASE: Colors= "good, but needs improvement." Generations= "A god send that needs to be played. Sonic Team is back!" Lost World: "Well....it was....something. It was....ok, I guess. The hell happened to Sonic Team?"

It was, but then Boom torpedoed the franchise's reputation again.

+Mr. Missingno rise of lyric isn't even by sonic team. Big Red Button is and they were doomed from the beginning of development.

Lost World was bad, the other two were great

colors and generations both broke the sonic cycle but people still reference it anyways because the internet cares more about memes than good games

The only games that actually follow the Sonic Cycle are Sonic Heroes and Sonic 2006. That's it. Why it even became a thing is beyond me.

to me sonic unleashed broke the cycle it had the right tone of lighthearted and serious moments chipp wasgreat his realtionship was even better than tails,also tails and amy who are known for being around sonic were more of there own characters in uleashed than what 06 turn both of them into 06 messed up her character so bad. Amy is headstrong not stupid 06 made her terrible to play as and listen to , tails was helping doctor pickles and amy was seeing the world i love the fact that they have there own agendas and not just with sonic .Besides the werehog was not that bad the only thing that sucked was collecting medals and runnig so fast you could die. As for the others beside that the riders games were fun oi was think the babylon rogues were a good anti sonic with some respect towards each, story book series black like it i can play as knuckles again and secret rings meh alright, colors solid story but bland level design good gameplay, sonic genrations a cool throwback, lost world is like heroes its different so some love or hate it i like it. Thats everything after 06 my fav game os adeventure 1

amen!!! good games

I honestly found Sonic Colors to be sort of boring after a while it's just the same thing over and over again

Hahaha Sega's Moonwalker :)

Oh dude.. You're still active!? Nice. Used one of your tracks in my old gamer channel.

I love your remixes

sorry to bother you for asking: do you have any of your work on SoundCloud or sites that doesn't take your music for samples? your work is incredible work of art there. thank you

Bad good

Also, the Wisp powers from Sonic Colors were completely extraneous in Lost World. They were in every single level, but they didn't add anything to the gameplay.

Sonic Team is what's used to address a lot of different people. I believe the group that worked on Lost World was not the same team as who worked on Colors and Generations. That'd probably be why they feel so different.

yeah... I can't argue against any of your points but I personally really enjoyed my time with Lost World.

YES! God I've always hated anything that tries to predict how a game will come out that doesn't want to consider the fact that it's possible to for excpetations to be completly shattered for better or worse. And the sonic cycle theory is so full of cynicism it makes it at best needlesly depressing and at worst complete bullshit. I mean it's just the realisation that games usually aren't better than what we imagine them to be and that usually make a bad game feel worse but I'm supposed to take that somehow a big revelation?

Not me. Pessimism is good. Cynicism is better, but pessimism is a good substitute. If it keeps people from preordering...

It is. But it sticks around since it's a pretty decent predictor of how the more *ahem* obnoxious fans react to Sonic news.

William Brown Cough sweets are cheap. There's no need to clear your throat.

it is bullshit. for every game after black Knight it has never worked on me. generations came out. I knew generations was going to the a good game by looking at it. played the demo at the very least an had a blast. lost world was in a similar boat as generations. I knew where they were going with it. its basically Sonic Adventure X Sonic Generations. so I wasn't disappointed. actually had fun for most of the game. Hell, I knew that Rise of Lyric wasn't gonna be a game for me with how much has changed. But it came out worse. its a little thing called paying attention to what is giving to you.

They still remember the chocolate and the flowers given at the start of the relationship.

Funny how that applies for Nintendo fans too.

Surprisingly accurate

Angry Bee You okay, buddy?

+Victor Kruger Except Nintendo doesn't consist of bumbling moblins that forgot how to make a game. Nintendo at least puts out serious quality at least 80% of the time, they just fumble often.

Just bookmark the subscription list instead. The homepage for youtube sucks so there's no need to use it.

Do you mean that it doesn't show up in your subscription list at all, like a CGP Gray video?

Unfortunately, they got rid of the All Activities page, so now the _only_ thing worth looking at is the Subscriptions page...

My advice is get an RSS reader. RU-vid is lying to you. Especially if you're subscribed to anyone that only puts out a video like, once every few months.

Is that possible without running an emulator? I don't do emulation.

PC > MAC ANDROID > IOS

Let me fix that PC > MAC >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ANDROID > IOS

They can't really be compared. I would love to see you get your PC on the road and easily pick it up on a bus ride.

Olodus you can, its called a laptop, a mobile PC

There's a problem with that: with Freedom Planet 2, Galaxy Trail is trying to create their own identity as a developer. They want people to know Freedom Planet as a unique standalone franchise, not just 'that one sonic-inspired game.'

+Smitteys86 Neat thing to note: Christian Whitehead actually helped port the Freedom Planet Engine to Unity3D for that team so they could hit the ground running way faster in creating their sequel.

+Samuel Sarette That's awesome! Makes me wish they could have a Lilac bonus character in Sonic Mania.

Treat their cash cows like crap?

+YBPaladin That gave me a good chuckle.

YBPaladin No, let fans work with them

make a lotof shitty games in a row

taxman and stealth does what even sega doesnt anymore*

It looks like Sonic '06 2.

Wall Staples No it doesn't, sure the big robots and apocalyps scenery looks kinda stupid for a sonic game but the gameplay is most likely gonna be like generations and colors.

heh....we ALL know Mania is likely to be loved more.

+Thatssomegoodpie Animations it really does. Pre rendered debut trailer and all.

"and all" There's quite literally nothing we've seen *beyond* the cinematic teaser. A few statements from the event imply that Sonic Team's staying in their comfort zone with their most recent success, though.

i mean, considering that there was much less fanfare for Fallout 4 than Skyrim just due to those elements along with others the next projects will likely inherit (fucking dialogue wheel) then its safe to say the Bethesda Experience is waning on people. that being said, i don't get the cynicism for the other sonic game, it has all the telling points (hinting at Generations/Colors gameplay thats the stuff people said they liked, significantly long development period, etc) that it may turn out for the better. im guessing the trailer having more "dark" themes are a sign of caution for people who just like the recent sonic trend of "third wall breaking self aware cartoon character" as well as JUST being a cgi trailer isn't great either. but honestly just estimating what the gameplay would be like, it seems to be heading the right direction :/

because memes have told people on the internet that all modern Sonic games are bad and give disappointments to its fanbase when the only really shit games have been Boom and Sonic 06, and even Sonic 06 only failed as bad as it did because Sega got overly ambitious without optimization. I mean if you ever had the 360 demo of Kingdom Valley it's really fun and like all Sonic Team games the levels are gorgeous and all had memorable set pieces... but no Sonic Team made a bad game a decade ago so all 3d Sonic games are trash. sorry I go on rants defending Sonic games because most of the time the people talking the most shit about them haven't played whichever one they claim to hate

well theres sonic and the black knight, unleashed, and the secret rings, shadow the hedgehog heroes and honestly adventure 1 and 2 arent really very good games. Even excluding the adventures and heroes because their is reasonable debate about their quality thats still 3:6 ratio of good to bad games 3d sonic games have not done well over all.

+TheNejD no one has ever been able to explain to me why they think the storybook games are bad, the storybook games were Secret Rings and Black Knight just in case the sonic gaming community are the only ones that call them that. The closest thing I have seen to actual criticism and not just, "lol sawnik sucks amirite? you're too slow lol" along with further meme vomiting, are the floaty feeling controls and the fact it's loosely on rails which comes with the bizarre camera FOV. Really there was nothing truly awful about it. As for Unleashed idk where you are getting this information but the only disappointment in Unleashed was not that the WereHog levels weren't fun. it was that changing from day to not night killed the pacing and the general consensus that, however fun they were, if they wanted something like that they should have had knuckles doing it or tails in a mech suit. heroes was and still is fun. such things are obviously subjective but I had my ps2 hooked up cause I was replaying the Ratchet and Clank games, and it still holds up, except for that weird Japanese trigger operated camera system of course, and like I said I was playing the ps2 version the buggiest downgrade of the release. Shadows only sin was the gunplay "edgy" bullshit that happens when you have to make a character interesting and unique because a bunch of 12 year old thinks that's the height of cool but the stages were just as interesting and visually arresting as ever. finally while I'll be the first to admit Adventure 1 & 2 didn't age as well as I'd like to tell myself they are still easily 7s by today's standards and they stand up A HELL OF ALOT BETTER than Mario 64 or GoldenEye... hell maybe it's me and my SEGA fanboy friends seeing Nintendo praised for shit Sonic got heat for it kinda pisses me off at the sheer hypocrisy of it

+TheNejD no one has ever been able to explain to me why they think the storybook games are bad, the storybook games were Secret Rings and Black Knight just in case the sonic gaming community are the only ones that call them that. The closest thing I have seen to actual criticism and not just, "lol sawnik sucks amirite? you're too slow lol" along with further meme vomiting, are the floaty feeling controls and the fact it's loosely on rails which comes with the bizarre camera FOV. Really there was nothing truly awful about it. As for Unleashed idk where you are getting this information but the only disappointment in Unleashed was not that the WereHog levels weren't fun. it was that changing from day to not night killed the pacing and the general consensus that, however fun they were, if they wanted something like that they should have had knuckles doing it or tails in a mech suit. heroes was and still is fun. such things are obviously subjective but I had my ps2 hooked up cause I was replaying the Ratchet and Clank games, and it still holds up, except for that weird Japanese trigger operated camera system of course, and like I said I was playing the ps2 version the buggiest downgrade of the release. Shadows only sin was the gunplay "edgy" bullshit that happens when you have to make a character interesting and unique because a bunch of 12 year old thinks that's the height of cool but the stages were just as interesting and visually arresting as ever. finally while I'll be the first to admit Adventure 1 & 2 didn't age as well as I'd like to tell myself they are still easily 7s by today's standards and they stand up A HELL OF ALOT BETTER than Mario 64 or GoldenEye... hell maybe it's me and my SEGA fanboy friends seeing Nintendo praised for shit Sonic got heat for it kinda pisses me off at the sheer hypocrisy of it

The question is are they actually going back? I mean seeing the phrase "by the same team as Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations" immediately followed by "Sonic Team" kinda makes me doubt that.

Well, there's definitely evidence in the trailer, given how Modern Sonic moves in the CGI teaser. But then again, it's a CGI teaser, so we won't *really* know until more of the game is revealed.

Just saying initial hopes being raised by first reveal of the game and thinking this may be Sonic's return to form is part of the cycle.

***** I am to an extent as well. I don't think Sonic should be as dark as he was in Shadow the Hedgehog or Sonic Adventure 2 (Execution by firing squad?!? Really?!?), but I do hope the story is a bit more serious. The light and goofy stuff definitely fits Sonic more, but they were so light they you kinda forgot what's at stake in the plot.

+William Brown Light and goofy fits sonic more as a character than as a story. He's like young Dante from DMC 3. free spirited, bundle of joy even when condemned by satan, would give even less of a fuck as long as they have their thrills.

Kamon62 Thanks for elaborating on Pagoda, I'm glad I read this!

it's taxman dude, no need to pray

Mania is the safe option. The other "serious" one is probably going to raise eyebrows. It almost sounds like a premise for the Sat AM Sonic getting a new game for that continuity.

The "serious" one sounds and looks like absolute garbage compared to Sonic Mania. Sonic Mania will be the ONLY 25th anniversary game to me.

+gamephreak5 Oh yeah, it's totally time to judge it, like, those 12 seconds really were the unfinished game in brief.

Redfoxe It will be.

I wish I could give more than just a like to this vid!

"Proud" to own a $5 game on Steam?

A fine one at that, i mean. People should be ashamed they even paid for a FNaF game, Street Fighter V or the latest Call of Duty. So, nice attempt there. But your failure is on par with SEGA's overall management of their properties

+Alfernus the Geek why should people feel ashamed for buying a competitive game?

Samir Malik Why buy a "new" game, when it's the same as the previous. But a metagame update sold as a full price release. I'm better off buying Overwatch, even on console

***** Rushed for the competitive scene... Pathetic, and even funnier because it's a contradiction. They benefit and embrace pre-order culture, yet. By doing that, they're punishing the majority of early buyers. Lacking features, barebones and DED servers were the top of the cherry in a cake of shit. But, they have slowly redeemed themselves. And quite sucessfully, as of now. It only needs a bit of polishing around the edges

You posted this before you could've watched the video lmao

Not really. They had audio issues... wow. I think people just WANT another Konami press conference.

Gmaniac01 Like?

Gmaniac01 So clearly no where near as bad as Konami or ps3 then

no, shut up though but "muh memes, muh daddy jim sterling" tho the show was silly and bad at times but nothing will top Konami E3 2010. no amount of "cringe" from that will be able to beat having to watch a dude try super hard to read out a statement and try to sell Otomedius Excellent, just for it to be followed up by a poorly censored trailer desperately hiding anime nipples. that shit will never be topped no matter what.

Found out just a few days ago that Tee Lopes was composing for Mania. So excited for this game :D

The Sattanas Artwork Ummm, and why is Tee Lopes composing a guarantee of that exactly? Other than you may/may not like his music?

+William Brown Oops my bad ! I meant a GOOD one. I totally messed up my comment :v

+William Brown Okay, at this point, the likelyhood of Sonic Mania being a GOOD game is like 100 fucking %.

The Sattanas Artwork LOL No worries dude Hakuna Matata. There's just so many haters in this comment section who have *no* idea what they're talking about that it's sorta fun to call people out on stuff. What's your favorite remix from Tee Lopes? Spring Yard will always be my jam.

Dimps only made 2 sonic games. generations 3ds was considered good but phoned in Lost World was lacking in challenge. also phoned in.

+Samir Malik I'm pretty sure Dimps made Sonic Advance 1, 2 and 3, Rush, Rush Adventure, Colors DS and 4. I should know, I finished most of them. Their wiki page confirms it. I haven't played the ones you mentioned, but I hear you're correct about both. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimps#Games_developed

3DS generations had really horrible level design...

And Forces bombed, which proves what exactly?

Ikr

RednekGamurz it came true tho... forces sucks.

s2.quickmeme.com/img/8f/8f2aaa088711d81edcbf169e362e1086e9f4c6f55db6e26acfb0d83d9fb3816b.jpg

tell me you're being sarcastic

Schroeder M. Schulz another reason why what sega does that nintendon't

DukeThe EXE.hog Whish Sega would be big AS they used to be tbh so they could hire more fan devs *The modder of today is the game dev of tomorrow*

Sonic 4 is good

@@rodolfochavez5764 no

Start small

colors, generations and lost world were all good sonic games. and every single one came out after 2009 which is the last time sonic team made a bad sonic game. so that's basically 7 years going on 8 where the main line sonic have consistently been of quality. I really do not get the hate anymore.