Sonic Crackers

Sonic Crackers (referred to as Sonic Studium in the ROM header and often identified incorrectly as Sonic the Hedgehog 4) is an early prototype build of the game Chaotix, incorporating many of the elements that would appear in the final game. Its name comes from a peculiar, and clearly quickly made, ASCII-art title screen. Sonic Crackers is thought to be an engine test, composed of various game engines, which are swapped out using RAM coding.

 

The game features Sonic and Tails, who, in the main demonstration of its link to Chaotix, are held together by rings that they carry and that are joined by an elastic force. Also, Sonic can pick up Tails and throw him upwards, to make it easier to reach higher platforms. The stages and music are also like those in Chaotix. There are no sound effects at all during gameplay. There are no badniks to be found, however there are spikes, and you lose rings when hitting them (even though you have none).

 

Interestingly, the date on the lower right of the title screen reads "19940401". The 0401, meaning April 1st, lead to some debate on if the title screen, or the ROM was an April Fools' joke. With the discovery of later Chaotix prototypes (particularly prototype 1207), it is now clearly known not the case.