Sonic Crackers
Sonic Crackers is an early prototype build of the game Knuckles' 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 different game engines, which are swapped out using RAM coding. The game features Sonic and Tails, who, in the main demonstration of its link to Knuckles' 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 similar to 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).
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There are only two levels in the prototype. The first is a tall level where you have to get to the top of a rocket. It looks lovely and is a lot off fun to play, with the game being very speedy and being able to run up tall walls with ease. It’s also available in different colours, reflecting different times of the day, so it seems possible that each level was going to be set throughout a day to make them look a bit different.
The other level is a very long linear level, although this has sections with no collision and parts where you can’t progress without going into debug mode.
It’s definitely interesting to see the early ideas for Chaotix.