One of the key differences between the Master System and Game Gear Sonic games and their counterparts on Mega Drive is that Hirokazu Yasuhara was the man in charge of the level design on the latter. Yasuhara is responsible for a lot of what gamers remember about the Hedgehog’s early adventures,
despite often being overshadowed by programmer Yuji Naka and character designer Naoto Oshima, who are often considered to be the character’s creators. Any follow up to Sonic 3 & Knuckles would absolutely have to contain that Yasuhara factor, and Copeland thankfully understands that.
long. If you look at the natural progression of Sonic levels over time, they also have an increasing sense of spectacle. I really wanted to nail that with my more bombastic levels like the train ride in Sunset Park, or the exploding blimp in Egg Zeppelin. You are often moving from one set-piece to the next, which also helps create that sense of novelty.”
“Yasuhara has spoken publicly about his main design pillars: chance, competition, imitation, and vertigo. These were derived from French intellectual Roger Caillois’s book Man, Play, and Games. However, I think there’s an unspoken pillar that is very present in his work, and that’s novelty. I define “novelty” in this case as a constant influx of new ideas. By comparison, Mario levels are about exploring a singular idea. They take one concept and develop it in a very logical manner throughout the level in a very linear fashion.” he explains. “Sonic levels, on the other hand, are large, intersecting ant hills that are constantly throwing new ideas at you to achieve a sense of novelty. Sonic levels don’t care if an idea goes undeveloped; they are more than happy to use an idea once and throw it away, as long as it’s fun. Sonic levels, much like Sonic himself, never want to be boring or stay in the same place too
60 | MCV/DEVELOP September 2022
THE REAL SUPER POWER OF TEAMWORK Copeland is also keen to point out that despite the fact he did a substantial amount of work on his recently released Sonic fangame, other creative types had pitched in to help too by the time it was released. Once he was no longer a one man band, this meant a lot more structured planning would be required, turning him into a fully fledged game director, and probably also making the process of game development a lot more straightforward too. “I had quite a bit of help with pixel art during the last year of development. I definitely learned a lot. As a game developer, you love to just jump into your software and start tinkering and coding with stuff. However, I found that if you spend the first 30 minutes of the day planning and preparing, it can supercharge your productivity. Open up a notepad and start writing out your dev goals for that day.” explains Copeland. “The more you define the ‘what’, the better. What tools will you need? What’s the best way to code or implement them? Casting a vision like this is quite effective. It helps you get better at articulating whatever you are trying to accomplish. When it comes time to work with collaborators, articulating that vision back to them helps get everyone on the same page. As a director, your value lies in your vision and how defined it is. As a designer, your value is executing that vision.” It turns out that executing his vision was one of the things that posed a challenge for the game during its development however. Issues popped up in the quest for accuracy, with Copeland not wanting to settle for something akin to the NES+ style of Yacht Club Games’ Shovel Knight and other indie contemporaries. If he was going to simulate the 90s Sega aesthetic, he was going to go all the way.
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