Sonic Crackers

The title screen reads "19940401", which is why plenty of people spent years insisting Sonic Crackers was an elaborate April Fools' hoax. It isn't. This is a real, leaked SEGA engine test built for the Genesis/Mega Drive, the rough draft of what became Knuckles' Chaotix on the 32X back when Sonic and Tails were still its stars.

Even the name is a clue. "Crackers" is a garbled "Clackers", after the old children's toy (two balls on a string that knock together), which is almost exactly what Sonic and Tails do here. They're joined by a ring on either end of a stretchy cord, so moving in agreement is easy, and the moment you pull apart the coil flings you both around the stage like a slingshot. Time a jump right and you sling yourself somewhere the level never meant to let you reach.

Just know it behaves like the prototype it is. Nothing can kill you, you can run up walls and freeze halfway through a loop, and clipping spikes scatters phantom rings that were never there. Pause the action and it gets stranger: the characters' arms and Tails' tails pop off and hover in place until you unpause. Only two of its worlds are playable at all, an industrial tower and a garish carnival, and the game simply loops between them forever.

What makes it worth the visit is that it barely exists. Sonic Crackers never reached a store — it leaked. A SEGA of America employee named Clint Dyer is credited with creating around fifteen copies; one changed hands on eBay for $146.50 in 2001, and a Belgian scene group called MORGOTH pushed the first ROM onto a BBS in 1995. Playing it online here is less a game than an archaeology dig into a Sonic that never shipped.