Creator / Sega Technical Institute

Sega Technical Institute was an American video game developer active during the '90s, founded by Mark Cerny. It was an off-shoot of Sega, but unlike its corporate parent, it was based in the U.S. Though it was a critically acclaimed studio, it was merged back into Sega of America following corporate shake-ups in the wake of the immensely Troubled Production of Sonic X-treme.

Here is a documentary about the short-lived studio, and an article about it.

Games developed by STI ^Note (STI is occasionally incorrectly credited for Sonic 3 & Knuckles. The title was actually developed entirely by Sonic Team, but done in the STI headquarters):

• Comix Zone
• Dick Tracy (Genesis)
• Die Hard Arcade (art, design and animation only; Sega AM1 programmed it. STI's final game)
• Kid Chameleon
• NFL '97 (with GameTek)
• The Ooze
• Sonic Spinball (Sega Genesis version; Game Gear version was by Sega Interactive)
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (with Sonic Team)

Cancelled:

• Kid Chameleon Sequel
• Jester
• Sonic X-treme
  • Sonic-16 ^Note  based on the ABC saturday morning animated series from 1993.
  • Sonic Mars ^Note A scrapped sonic game for the 32X.
• Sonic Saturn ^Note A planned 3D sonic game for the Sega Saturn unrelated to the topic above.
• Spinny & Spike
• Comix Zone Sequel
• untitled Chris Senn game ^Note This game would have used the Sonic X-treme engine and sprites can be found in said game's prototype that was found in 2009.

Tropes associated with STI:

• Nintendo Hard: Nearly all of its games are brutally difficult- especially Kid Chameleon and Comix Zone- the former for its large amount of levels and tricky platforming, and the latter for only giving you one life ^Note (yes, you can occasionally get an extra life, but it's rare) and hitting things slowly saps your life bar.

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