How All-Star Moves Came to Be
You may have been too busy reading our confirmation of the final character slots to concern yourself with the latest developer diary for Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing.
We don’t blame you–so were we.
The news was a bulletin blip on Wednesday but quickly overshadowed by Project Needlemouse developments. So, we spend Thursday coming back to that diary, which was published on the Sonic City Blognik.
This one is a little better than the last. In it, Steve Lycett tells how the All-Star Moves came to pass, right in the heart of Sonic Team headquarters:
‘Where all the SuperStar moves’ we get asked. Well, at this point I refer to my earlier diary, at that time the game was a pure racer. There were no weapons or special moves, it was all about lines and drifting. ‘We loved those in SST, you should have them in this’. Every so often on games, you have a ‘Eureka!’ moment, and this was one of them. We reply that we’d not considered it, but it wasn’t out of the question…
And thus were born the All-Star moves. Back then we went ‘Well, we could use this to get players back into the race, so they can take revenge on anyone who’s knocked them about on the track’ and now, well they’re something very special. Each character has their own All-Star move, they’re all things that our slightly insane design team figured would be impossible to do in a racing game!
Lycett also speaks of a meeting with AM2, and there he and they speak about Tokyo R-Tuned–even offering the use of a track or two in ASR, but only “if they’d like them.” There is talk of a track environment looking eerily similar to the game that’s been spotted in a recent trailer. Hm.
Those are the only items of note with the recent dev diary. A couple more are expected soon, and we’ll be sure to keep you up to date when they are released.
All-Star Racing Dev Diaries #3
Part 3: I’ll never look at a fish finger in the same way again…
I’m back! Yes it is I, Steve Lycett of Sumo Digital, here to rattle on yet again with more tales of Sonic & SEGA All-Star Racing. You may remember me as S0L from the Sega forums, NeoGAF, SSMB and all manner of other internet forums. Remember, we’re reading what you say, keep it nice 
But I digress, last time I’d got up to where we’d managed to secure our first character from our friends over at SEGA Japan, and I promised to take up from there. It’s been a while now, and I’ve slept since then, but I’ll do my best to relate it as accurate as my memory allows…
So, buoyed by success, it was time to visit the offices of Sonic Team. You know when you arrive at the right floor in SEGA HQ, because as soon as you step out of the lift, you see a nice bright shiny Sonic Team logo.
We’re ushered into a nice bright open plan office. In the reception area is more Sonic merchandise and games then I’ve ever seen in my life! We’d stop to fill our bags if we thought we could get away with it! We didn’t have time for such petty larceny though, we’re straight into a meeting with some of the most experienced SEGA game developers in the world.
Let’s set the scene. We’re on one side of the table, there’s me, Travis (Lead Designer), Warren and Sakae (SEGA producers) and our Japanese friends from the oversees business department. Sat across from us are the directors of every game series we’ve ever played and respected from Sonic Team. We’ve got, the Sonic games director, the designer of Ulala, the Samba De Amigo director and – well the list goes on. Let’s say this was a meeting which could make or break the game!
So we run through the game, design, show our car and track concepts. It’s all going well. We touch on one tricky point, how can we ensure that we don’t end up confusing players with multiples of characters, so say 4 Sonics racing, to which we’re momentarily stumped! At this point someone suggested we have different coloured characters & vehicles, (I think green was the shocking suggestion) – and after a sharp intake of breath and some narrowed stares, we decide this isn’t the suggestion that is required! We agree to not do this, and move on swiftly…
‘Where all the SuperStar moves’ we get asked. Well, at this point I refer to my earlier diary, at that time the game was a pure racer. There were no weapons or special moves, it was all about lines and drifting. ‘We loved those in SST, you should have them in this’. Every so often on games, you have a ‘Eureka!’ moment, and this was one of them. We reply that we’d not considered it, but it wasn’t out of the question…
And thus were born the All-Star moves. Back then we went ‘Well, we could use this to get players back into the race, so they can take revenge on anyone who’s knocked them about on the track’ and now, well they’re something very special. Each character has their own All-Star move, they’re all things that our slightly insane design team figured would be impossible to do in a racing game!
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Mario Kart games have Allstar moves, so I’m pretty sure that’s where the inspiration came from. Same goes for the items, which are done in many casual racing games.