It really wasn't too much of a surprise when Nintendo announced Super Mario Maker - a game that would let you build your own 2D Mario levels - back in 2014, and Sega fans wondered if they might ever get an equivalent starring their favorite blue hedgehog. After all, the rivalry between Sega and Nintendo fans stretches back decades.
Well, say hello to Sonic Maker, an unofficial project that aims to give Sega fans exactly what they've been asking for since four years ago:
Sonic Maker first debuted on YouTube earlier in March, but has quickly been gaining the internet’s attention. A Twitter account, which has only one tweet from March 21, already has more than 300 followers. Still, it's easy to see why: the ability to create your own Sonic levels, using an easy and intuitive interface that doesn't require coding knowledge, is extremely appealing. And by using the Sonic Mania sprite for the blue blur himself, Sonic Maker also gives itself a bit of modern shine.
It may seem like this project is destined to be hit with a cease-and-desist in about, oh, five minutes from now, but Sega has historically been relatively lenient with fan-games like this. It's not being sold, and the creator of the project has specified that it won't allow users to export full .exe files - which is to say any levels made in Sonic Maker stay in Sonic Maker, and therefore shouldn't cause a flood of knock-offs that anyone can download and play.
There's even a Mega Man-focused twist on this idea called (appropriately enough) Mega Man Maker, which was released in summer of 2017 and is still going strong. So who knows! Maybe Sega will leave fans to their own devices, or maybe it'll smack this down faster than you can say "ColdSteel the Hedgehog". If the company opts for the latter, I hope it's due to an official version being developed. I'm eager to take a Sonic Maker-style experience for a spin (dash).
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