Long Lost 1993 Tails Game Finally Becomes Playable
A playable prototype of Treasure Tails, the cancelled 1993 Mega Drive spin-off featuring Sonic's sidekick, has been released by preservation groups Hidden Palace and DevStash.
For over three decades, Treasure Tails was practically a ghost story among Sonic fans, known only from a couple of blurry screen captures off a 1995 VHS resume tape. The discovery comes straight from former Sega Technical Institute programmer Ken Rose, who went digging through his personal collection of vintage floppy disks after an interview with DevStash founder Ashley Rojas.
Different Direction for Tails
The recovered build reveals a very different direction for Sonic's sidekick. Designed as an isometric puzzle adventure, the game was meant to tie directly into an episode of the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog animated cartoon, trapping Tails in a trap-filled ancient temple.
Sega of America wanted it ready for Christmas 1993, but the ambitious scope killed it. Lead artist Craig Stitt realized that hand-drawing all the required animations would take four full years, leading Sega to cancel the game in April 1993 and reassign the crew to crunch out Sonic Spinball instead.
Bonus Historical Treasures
The floppy disks contained plenty more 16-bit history beyond Tails. The drop includes an early April 1991 build of Jester, a claymation style platformer later known as Kinetix, as well as a July 1992 build of B-Bomb, an unusual vertical action game coded in C.
There is also an earlier January 1994 compile of Segapede featuring lost level layouts and leftover Sonic Spinball code, with community developer vladikcomper already hosting a restored, ready to compile version on GitHub.
Available for Fans
Fans can download the playable ROM, design sheets, and source code over at Hidden Palace today, or check out early gameplay footage on YouTube.
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