Studio 8 - Freestyle Blog

Sonic the Hedgehog

Introduction

Sonic the Hedgehog is a traditional side-scrolling 2D platform game. The objective of most 2D platform video games can be characterized by jumping to/from platforms, over obstacles and avoiding contact with enemies (unless killing them, which is often done by jumping on top of the enemy, because from the side will injure the player).

About the Game

The main story of Sonic the Hedgehog is that the game is set on Earth, although lots of contradicting evidence points towards saying that the entire Sonic franchise is set on an alien planet called 'Planet Mobius.' With that said, the animals of Sonic's home planet have been kidnapped and captured by the evil, super genius; Doctor 'Eggman' Robotnik. He uses these animals to build robots, occassionally called 'Badniks' to take over the world but Sonic the Hedgehog is always there to put a stop to him.

Brief History

Sonic the Hedgehog was developed by the 'Sonic Team' and was published by SEGA to be released on 23rd June 1991 for the SEGA Mega Drive console (a.k.a. SEGA Genesis).

"Sonic the Hedgehog added the element of speed to the standard platform formula and introduced other unique elements as well, such as the loops, springboards, high-speed devices, and the rings now permanently associated with the game series."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(16-bit)

Sonic the hedgehog became the second greatest ever selling game on the SEGA Mega Drive, selling over 4 million copies and was second only to Sonic the hedgehog 2 which sold over 6 million copies.

The Characters

Sonic the Hedgehog

Name: Sonic the Hedgehog
Weight: 35kg
Height: 100cm
Age: 15 years old

Artist Naoto Oshima, designer Hirokazu Yasuhara and programmer Yuji Naka are generally credited with the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog. When Sonic was implemented into the game he did not have the ability to swim because programmer Yuji Naka assusmed that hedgehogs could not swim. Sonic's boots were inspired by Michael Jackson's boots during the late 80's although those boots were plain black the colour inspiration came from colour inspiration came from Santa Claus as he is known around the world for adopting the colour red. Although a hedgehog, Sonic is no ordinary hedgehog for he is an anthropomorphic (human-stylized) hedgehog, who has the ability to run faster than the speed of sound and when he curls up in a ball he has the ability to attack his enemies at great speeds.

Before 'Sonic the Hedgehog' was born this mostly blue-haired 15 year old hedgehog was simply known as Mr. Needlemouse who had fangs, his own band and even a human girlfriend called Madonna. These were all removed by SEGA to 'soften' the character for an American audience.

Doctor 'Eggman' Robotnik

Name: Doctor. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik
Height: 185cm
Weight: 128kg
IQ: 300

Created by Naoto Oshima, Doctor Robotnik represents evil, machinery and development. He was created to represent these things in order to play on the 'then' (late 1980's & early 1990's) growing debate between developers and environmentalists.

Doctor Ivo 'Eggman' Robotnik is a being of certifiable genius with an IQ of 300. His ultimate goal is to conquer the world and create his own ultimate utopia; Eggmanland (also known as the Eggman Empire and Robotnikland). Doctor 'Eggman' is extremely immature and is prone to childish emotional fits when things do not go his way. He will also never give up his quest to conquer the world and does not care one bit for other peoples feelings or opinions.

Although Sonic has ruined his evil plans of world domination on several occasions, Doctor 'Eggman' secretly holds a great respect for the little blue hedgehogs determination.

Sonic the Hedgehog Usability

In terms of usability my objective here is to apply Nielson's usability heuristics and the 4 fun key factors in order to fully assess if 'Sonic the Hedgehog' is usable according to these rules.

Neilson's Rules

Visibility - This is often referred to as 'feedback,' basically the princple here is that users should always know exactly what is going on through appropriate information displayed to them. Now I believe Sonic the Hedgehog has excellent visibility for the user simply because of the HUD (Heads-up display) that the user can constantly see throughout the entire game. Through the HUD the user can see how many lives they have left, the amount of rings collected, lenth of time spent playing the level and their current score, all of which is exactly the information the user needs to see for this type of game.

Match real world and system - The princple behind this rule is that the game should use real language to interact with the user instead of using system type messages and that information should appear in a natural and logical order.

When we apply this rule to Sonic the Hedgehog we encouter a slight problem because the game does not incorporate any substantial dialogue with the characters or the user except from the menu screens where the first instruction is to simple "Press Start" which comes across as systematical language. This pattern is also followed in the sub-menu sections as well and I believe that SEGA implemented this to keep the dialogue short and simple. So in conclusion I feel that this rule in particular does can not be applied to Sonic the Hedgehog.

user control/freedom - Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo. This rule does not apply to Sonic the Hedgehog.

consistency and standards - sonic the hedgehog has excellent consistency throughout the game and the standards never fall.

Error prevention - I have personally played and completed this game more than several times since 1991 and have never came across an error or a glitch, so the error prevention rule can be applied to sonic the hedgehog.

Recognition rather than recall - The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate. This rule can be applied.

Aesthetic and minimalist design - Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. This rules applies to sonic because there is a minimum dialog throughout the game and everything the user can see whilst playing relates back to the game.

Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors - This rule can not be applied to the sonic the hedgehog game because no errors have occured whilst I have tested the game. Although research has indicated that sometimes the game will freeze and there is no error prevention or way to recover from this error except for switching the game off and turning it back on.

After going through Nielson's heuristics we can see that a lot of the rules can be applied to sonic the hedgehog and this means that the can has a good usability design.

References

http://videoonlinegames.suite101.com/article.cfm/sonic_the_hedgehod_a_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(series)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D9h-4vQUHM&feature=fvsr
http://www.gametap.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(16-bit)
http://sonic.sega.jp/chara/sonic/
http://sonic.sega.jp/chara/eggman/index.html