First @ TSSZ: Needlemouse.com Revealed to be Fan Project
Tristan Oliver | September 10, 2009
Developers Call it “A Total Coincidence”
As it turns out, the purported teaser website for Project Needlemouse that we were first on the web to debunk is a point of reference for a different kind of Needlemouse project–a new Sonic fan game.
Today, Jono Forbes, the artist behind those crazy 3D renderings of Green Hill you may have been, along with Boston University student Matt Schoen revealed Needlemouse: The Emerald Hills to the world on Needlemouse.com. Mr. Forbes first disclosed the project as a comment on our previous story.
The timing was all a little too convenient, according to the developers, and now, thanks to all this sudden attention, the gears will begin rolling on disclosing new information on the SFG to the public. This, according to the duo’s press release:
You may think you’re looking at a sample of the upcoming Sega game, which according to recent speculation is called Project Needlemouse. What you’ve stumbled on is actually a fan-created game that we’ve been calling Needlemouse: The Emerald Hills since we began working on it a few months ago.
Here’s the story. What you see above is some early environment art from a 3D re-imagining of a classic series, aimed recreating the tried-and-true side-scrolling platformer with a lot more eye-candy. We are Jono Forbes and Matt Schoen, a pair of game developers who really loved the original, kinematic hedgehog, and decided it would be fun to give him an update.
We registered www.needlemouse.com to host our hobby project while we continue to collaborate over a long distance. (A quick Google search turned up no references or links to other games, so we — ironically — thought it would be a unique handle for the project.) We had no idea Sega was working on their just-announced Project Needlemouse. No kidding: a total coincidence. Our project officially began in early May although, as with many of our ideas, it had been “on the table” since long before and neither we nor the project have any connection whatsoever with Sega (other than being satisfied customers).
Needlemouse: The Emerald Hills is purely a tribute, a nod of the head, an homage to one of the gaming world’s watershed events. We’re just having fun with a piece of extreme (interactive) fan-art as a tribute to our favorite game and the developer of many of the games we grew up on.
We must stress that we have no interest in benefitting commercially from our project, and value it only in terms of a representation of our skills and hopefully a fresh experience while taking a stroll down memory lane. We will continue to update this site for like-minded fans who are interested in our progress.
Stay tuned here for a news feed, forum, more game content, and upcoming Windows and OS X public beta!
Thanks for stopping by.
So, in the end, no harm, no foul on their part–at least, none of it was intended. But on the art direction alone–unique in its own right–this SFG bears watching in the future, and that’s exactly what we’ll do.
Filed Under Sonic Fan Flash, Sonic Scene
Glad this is all cleared up so people can stop whining. I’m also sick of people saying it’s not Sonic in the logo. It obviously IS Sonic. And he’s not wearing a hat!
@ Sonikku Master:
I know exactly what you mean! It’s driving me CRAZY when people say, “That doesn’t look like Sonic. It looks like a new character w/ a sombrero.”
I mean, anyone who knows Sonic very well from the old school days can clearly see that it’s the old school trademark!
idk. It just bothers me when people say it’s not Sonic when it obviously is. *sigh*
It’s also a complete coincidence that those projects are using my screen name. I have no involvement in either, so don’t ask me about them.
@AngelJump: Finally, someone else that knows what classic Sonic looks like!
8 Year Old Sonic fan: DUHHHHH…That’s Big the Cat wearing Shadow as a scarf!
<_<
What a strange Cowinky-dink.
I thought that it did not look like today’s Sonic, I grew up with the old logo, it confuses people when they say “All-New”, they are thrown off the old logo.
Do you guys want Super Sonic to appear? (Emeralds+50 rings)
It kind of looks like they’re giving Sonic a new design with this new game. If that’s the case, is this the look Sega’s gonna stick with after this game’s been released? ‘Cause I’d miss the post-Adventure designs of the characters, to be honest. But then, I kind of miss the pre-Adventure designs as well.
@ Sonikku Master:
“Big wearing Shadow as a scarf”! xD
And, HECK YEAH! That would be awesome if we could turn Super in the middle of the stages. Personally, not only do I want that b/c I miss that formula, but I’m tired of the recent idea of playing through the game and only using Super Sonic in the last fight. It’s kinda overkill as of now and it doesn’t make me wanna play more or get excited b/c it’s so expected.
If anything, I want this game to have 2 endings! A good ending for when you find all 7 Emeralds or something like that and an alternate ending where something bad happens at the end (like CATASROPHIC bad) to where you have to keep playing to find out what truly happens at the end. You know? Something like they did w/ Sonic CD and Sonic 3D Blast (Saturn version), but even better!
At least, that’s what I would love to see.
@AngelJump: Couldn’t agree more! Let’s hope this game is as good as Sonic 3 & Knuckles!
I think that Hyper Sonic isn’t necessary but he would be a nice bonus. The Super Emeralds could spice things up a bit. imagine having different types of Special Stages for different types of emeralds!
Chaos Emeralds= Blue Spheres
Super Emeralds= Half-Pipe or Sonic 1 Rotating ‘Brick Maze’
I also think that they need to bring back the bonus stages, like the gumball machine, slot machine, etc.
YES!!
I need those bonus stages!!
they are frickin awesome!!! and addictive
and and and….Elemental Barriers * w *
p l e a s e
and this new game have the chance again
please make true ^ w ^
Heh, figures. Nice little tidbit there, and it does make sense; “Mr. Needlemouse” was a concept name behind Sonic.
Lol… I don’t like the name Noodlerat. Oh what? Yes, it’s Needlemouse… I always forget. XD Well, don’t like this name… sounds like they’ll make Sonic as a rat and not as a Hedgehog, as Tec Toy (I guess) used to say TIMES AND TIMES ago.
lol Project Needlemouse is a symbolic name, since Needlemouse was the project name for the classic. As a stand-in title, it reflects the mission statement behind the project. They’d probably call it Sonic the Hedgehog, but they already did that for a game that wasn’t a throwback at all.(Bad idea, that was). So, we get some geeky “insider” title. I love it.
Now, wqho wants to start a petition to bring back Hidden Palace Zone? Come on…
LOL, I suspected it but wasn’t sure.
@everyone
“Mr. Needlemouse” never was the codename for the original game or the character. At least not as far as I know.
It’s a common misconception, even mentioned in Sonic’s current Wikipedia article. However, there’s no proof, no definitive source (please correct me if I’m wrong; if there is proof, I’d like to see it).
The misconception about “Mr. Needlemouse” goes back to a sketch sheet by Naoto Oshima that was shown in some Making Of Sonic video. On the sheet, you can see various versions of Sonic, plus the writing “Mr. harinezumi”, with “harinezumi” being spelled in Japanese Katakana. Now, harinezumi simply means “hedgehog”. So, if that writing really indicated the codename, then it was either “Mr. harinezumi” or “Mr. hedgehog” and NOT “Mr. Needlemouse”.
Here’s a picture of the sheet:
http://info.sonicretro.org/images/c/c4/S1concept-Needlemouse.jpg
It is true that in Japanese, the word “harinezumi” is a compound, consisting of the parts “hari” (needle) and “nezumi” (mouse, rat***). However, it makes no sense to split the word into its parts and translate each part separately, unless you want to be punny. Consider that the English “hedgehog” itself is a compound: hedge – hog. You wouldn’t translate that separately into another language either. By the way, that’s also a reason why I never had a problem with the term “werehog”, unlike some of those pathetic critics that wanted to show of their etymology 101 knowledge. Why should it be a problem that “were” used to mean “man”? If you complain that werehog literally means man-pig, then you should also complain that hedgehog literally means bush-pig, more or less. ;P
*** remember Erazor Djinn calling Sonic a rat in Sonic and the Secret Rings? It’s a pun in the Japanese version because of the harinezumi – nezumi connection. Not so much in the English dub. They could have used “hog” there instead of “rat” to preserve the pun, but instead they went for a literal translation.
Guys.
It’s obviously Pikachu in a sombrero.
@:AngelJump on September 10th, 2009 4.43 pm
@ Sonikku Master:
«
I know exactly what you mean! It’s driving me CRAZY when people say, “That doesn’t look like Sonic. It looks like a new character w/ a sombrero.”
I mean, anyone who knows Sonic very well from the old school days can clearly see that it’s the old school trademark!
idk. It just bothers me when people say it’s not Sonic when it obviously is. *sigh*
, but I don’t have to tell this things to SEGA they are going to do it I KNOW, THIS IS GOING TO BE THE BEST SONIC GAME EVER, you’ll see! 
»
I agree tottaly IT’S CLEARY SONIC, next thing I agre with some poeple here who sad that they should bring back the BONUS STAGES, tjose are super and SO ADDICTIVE
OMG
Haha! Okay… than we don’t have to care any more about that. If you don’t like fan games…
The silhouette is definitely Sonic.
Let us hope they get it right this time.
[...] first announcement that this would be the center hub for Sega’s next Sonic project. But we first uncovered the confusion, and that yielded the official announcement of this SFG–a game with quite the unique art [...]