Astropede

Astropede
System(s): Sega Mega Drive
Developer: Sega Technical Institute
Planned release date(s): 1994
Genre: Action
Number of players: 1
State before cancellation: Early in development
Status of prototype(s): Prototype released
Sound driver: GEMS

Astropede, also known as Segapede, is an unreleased Sega Mega Drive action game that was being developed by Sega Technical Institute in 1994. It was never announced publicly, though development material and a prototype ROM have been demonstrated by Craig Stitt.

Notably, one Astropede demo recycled graphics from Hidden Palace Zone, the infamous scrapped level from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. According to Craig Stitt, he reused the graphics to save time.

Development

Astropede was initially pitched to Sega of America as early as September 21, 1993 after development on Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball had concluded, with a playable prototype being produced by Craig Stitt and Ken Rose.

Craig's original intent was for the game to be part of the Sonic the Hedgehog universe, as ideas previously used in Sonic 2 were given a twist - the main character, Zipp, would be followed by a train of pods with various power-ups (such as a Turbo Charger, Scorpion Tail, and Pulse Cannon) that would be pulled behind him. If he was hit, the pods would scatter and start rolling away, similar to Sonic's Rings. The player would have also had to find a 'caboose' pod to secure the other pods so they wouldn't fall off when going too fast. A second player character, a hornet/wasp character named Sputnik whose abdomen could be swapped out with the same pods carried by the main character, was also conceived.

Zipp was first established to have been a creation of Dr. Robotnik that had become friends with Sonic, and would be fighting to save his creator's life by cleaning up and collecting “Chaos Dust”. The ties to the Sonic universe would be dropped during development of the first playable build of the game as Sega wanted the project to be a standalone game, but the core gameplay concepts remained the same. The first playable build of the game with its revised story was pitched on November 22, 1993 - this version received positive reception from Sega, thus the project was greenlit for further development.

A starving lack of resources caused by STI trying to work on too many projects at once resulted in the game being cancelled after 14 months, alongside other projects, to prioritise other projects such as Comix Zone and The Ooze.

Production credits

• Lead Designer: Craig Stitt
• Enemy Designer: Alex Niño
• Programmer: Ken Rose
• Music & Sound: Howard Drossin

Gallery

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Technical information

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
✔	CRC32 3134c42a MD5 72b6095a290eb39183c602be6f1e2d20 SHA-1 3452959175fa7631af01e8821cb8b8410f5fbb79	453.6kB	1994-06					Page

External links

• Sega Technical Institute’s Cancelled Segapede article at Hidden Palace
• 
  Astropede / Segapede prototype footage
• 
  Astropede short animation test