Hey, Gotta Step It Up! A Sonic The Hedgehog Producer Quest (2025)

Functionality: 84 + 30 = 114 Very Critical Success
Mechanics:

40 + 60 = 100 Quite Critical Success
Story: 89 + 35 = 124 Extremely Critical Success
Visuals: 45 + 40 = 85 Very Good Result
Audio: 59 + 30 = 89 Very Good Result

There are times when you wonder if fate really is guiding Sonic Team to success. The first game to star Blaze the Cat, one of the fans' favorite characters, gets pitched right when management is feeling generous. And the game's story happens to focus on pirates, right after a book about the genuine history of pirates has been published in English and gotten people interested in the subject. That's just a pair of happy coincidences, but then when you asked your colleagues in America if they could put you in touch with a historian who knows pirates well so the Pirate Pile-Up team can get ideas, they found an actual university professor who was interested in acting as a consultant. Apparently he has a new theory about why pirates did what they did, and he'd like to tell the public about it in a way that can reach a broad audience easily.

A Sonic game probably wasn't what he'd been hoping for, especially since the main character is a pirate hunter, but the presence of the more heroic Captain Shellbreaker seems to be enough for Professor... Rediker, is the man's name. He strikes you as rather sympathetic to the historical pirates he studies, so it isn't very surprising that his pet theory looks at pirates almost like they were freedom fighters. Giving the pirates in this game's story a set of motivations beyond simple greed does make them more interesting, though, so the writers aren't complaining much about the script revisions they've been doing to establish the pirates as outcasts forced into a life of crime for lack of better options. Still not fully in line with Professor Rediker's theory, but he's getting his chance to shift public opinion on the real pirates of history, and Sonic Team is getting the use of his expertise in how wooden ships with sails and cannons looked, sounded, and fought.

It's a good thing you looked into hiring an expert, too. From the professor's comments, Sonic Team was leaving a lot of potential unexplored because of all the things they didn't know about. The existence of swivel guns, for instance. A good way to let players target enemy weak points while still feeling right for the era you're aiming for, and no one on the team had any idea they existed before Professor Rediker told you about them (Oda might have, but he isn't working on this game). Not to mention the different options for customizing the ship's appearance the team hadn't thought of or using recordings of sea shanties to fill the silence when sailing from one spot to another. That last one isn't quite historically accurate, apparently, but you're making a video game about a talking cat-woman who can throw fireballs around. Accuracy is something you're aiming for, but it's secondary to making a good game. Luckily, Pirate Pile-Up looks like it will be a very good game indeed.

The game works impressively well (apparently the work to optimize the Wolf Engine means that Sonic Team's programmers now have a very good idea of everything the Concord can and can't do), and the ship combat is fun. The platforming is too, of course, but you weren't worried about that; the day Sonic Team can't make a fun platformer is the day you ask Nintendo if they're hiring. Combine that with a story that definitely gives Blaze and Marine a chance to show off the complexities of their personalities (working with Professor Rediker seems to have inspired the writers to introduce something of a "justice versus revenge" theme as Blaze realizes that she's partly hunting people for the "crime" of being desperate) and some great art and audio, even if the team hasn't finished implementing all of it yet, and you think Pirate Pile-Up is a game that could do well even if it wasn't the massive event of "Blaze the Cat's first solo game." This game is going to sell, and fans are going to love it. You're sure of it.

Result: Pirate Pile-Up is coming along extremely well! Thanks to consulting with a proper historian of pirates, Sonic Team has been made aware of various historical things that gave them many helpful ideas. One of those things includes your history consultant's personal view of what motivated real pirates, which inspired the writers to introduce some moral complexity and explore Blaze's character through that. The art and sound work hasn't all been implemented yet, but what's there already is very good and works well to call up the feel of the golden age of piracy. Due to the high quality of everything, profit and reception for the game cannot go below 60.

Moving on from games that have everything they need and more to games that barely have enough to get by, you have Metropolis City Builder. Seeing how this game is ultimately a tie-in for Sonic X, management didn't give you much in the way of resources for it, but you'll figure something out. You always do.

Time Allocation
Allocate Time in increments o 0.5 for a total of 6

[X] Functionality: This game requires a lot of different AI-controlled characters all doing things at the same time. That could be tricky. (0.5 Time automatically allocated, with +5 bonus for every additional 0.5 Time allocated; automatic bonus of +10 due to previous work with the Concord)
- [] How much additional Time?

[X] Mechanics: Sonic Team hasn't done a city-building game before. But at least the person who drafted the pitch studied them, so you have something to go on. (0.5 Time automatically allocated, with bonus of +5 for every additional 0.5 Time allocated; automatic bonus of +10 due to pitch)
- [] How much additional Time?

[] Story: This is a tie-in to Sonic X. The writers will have to be careful about stepping on the anime writers' toes. (Bonus of +5 for every 0.5 Time allocated past an initial 0.5; automatic bonus of +10 due to pitch)
- [] How much time?

[] Visuals: Everything needs to be understandable at a glance. (Bonus of +5 for every 0.5 Time allocated past an initial 0.5)
- [] How much Time?

[] Audio: The various noises of the city all need to be understandable and not get in each other's way. (Bonus of +5 for every 0.5 Time allocated past an initial 0.5)
- [] How much Time?

Budget Allocation
Allocate Budget in increments of 1 up to a maximum of 18

[X] Employee salaries: The team doesn't work for free, even if some of them seem like they'd be happy to. (2 Budget automatically allocated, with bonus of +3 to production rolls for every 1 additional Budget allocated, up to a maximum of +15)
- [] How much additional Budget?

[] Talk to an expert: You don't know much about city planning, and you doubt anyone else on Sonic Team does. You could get ideas, or at least an understanding of why other city-building games work the way they do. That's valuable too, in its own way. (Must allocate exactly 3 Budget, provides bonus of +20 to Mechanics)

[] Do some reverse engineering: You have a feeling that figuring out how other city-builder games manage their large amounts of AI could help with this game's performance. Of course, reverse engineering a game is difficult and requires special tools. (Must allocate exactly 3 Budget, provides bonus of +20 to Functionality)

[] Research trip: You've sent artists to get reference material of real cities before, but those trips focused on the nice parts of a city. Finding out what run-down parts of real cities look like could help the artists figure out ways to let the player know when they're doing a bad job. (Bonus of +5 to Visuals for every 1 Budget allocated)
- [] How much Budget?

[] Prepare a marketing campaign: Sonic X is doing well enough, but you've still got to let people know about the game before it releases. (Bonus of +5 to profit and +3 to reception for every 1 Budget allocated)
- [] How much Budget?

Voting

Cast voice actors for these characters
[] Captain Whisker
- [] In English
- [] In Japanese (optional)
[] Captain Steel
- [] In English
- [] In Japanese (optional)
[] Captain Shellbreaker
- [] In English
- [] In Japanese (optional)
[] Abyss the Squid
- [] In English
- [] In Japanese (optional)

GM Note: The professor you found was Marcus Rediker, who, to my knowledge, is considered one of the experts on the golden age of piracy. The real-life man has worked on mass media dramatizations of his ideas about pirates' motives (particularly a graphic novel that came out a couple years ago; a bit too didactic for my liking, but under the circumstances I can forgive it), so I think it's not totally out there for him to agree to consult on a video game in a series that's become well-known in the English-speaking world because one of its games has already changed a lot of people's perception of a certain group. Maybe he'd want to see if he can make lightning strike another time for his thing. And as usual, please vote by plan.