So it seems, according to GDRI, that "Sonic Labyrinth" was like the most appropriate title ever. This rabbit hole was dug astoundingly deep:
I stumbled upon the game in
SIMS' catalogue, credited as the directors. (SIMS as in, the people of Tails' Sky Patrol/Golden Axe PS2 infamy.) It shows "Minato Giken" as the developer. I thought it was someone's name, but then when I ran a search there for something else entirely, I found...well hell, it's a name alright.
The name of an obscure development house, spun off from what would later become Arc System Works. And those Giken people took up the bulk of Labyrinth's credits. Sheesh!
not all bad news tho, SIMS also made the home ports of Sega Bass FishingAnd here's other fascinating tidbits i'm finding:
- A reminder of something I may have posted about here already but forgot entirely: the team responsible for the bulk of Spinball's programming was
Polygames, formerly Sterling Silver Software. Sega-16 did an interview with someone (Lee Actor) who divulged this, which is why I thought I heard about it already, and GDRI happens to have the same interview.
- Some of the minigames in Sonic Shuffle were worked on by a studio called, ahem,
A.I. Which was founded by...two ex-Sanritsu (SIMS) employees. What the fuck.
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This interview with Steven Dwyer, a former Now Production programmer who worked on Sonic Riders. A little bit of insight into their workings, and he was at work on the game for around a year and a half.
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These weird people who can't decide how their name should be pronounced, apparently did "production cooperation" for the Wii version of Sonic & Mario at the Olympics.