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It took some convincing, but in 2011 Whitehead's version of Sonic CD came out on mobile as well as seeing a release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

#Sonic games sonic mania professional

It's a specific skill-set I have with Sonic, and I thought it'd be a good way to leverage that and get into professional development.' I saw a potential to get an in to do that - and get an in into mobile development in general.

'But my engine was like a rebuild of the game, and it could run at high speeds. 'At that time mobile phones didn't have the power to emulate Mega CD,' explains Whitehead.

#Sonic games sonic mania series

And so Whitehead set about creating a proof of concept, getting Sonic CD - one of the more ambitious games in the series - up and running on early iPhones. The perfect tool, it turned out, to get some of the older Sonic games running in the nascent world of mobile gaming where Sega had started to dip its toes, releasing iOS takes on the likes of Super Monkey Ball and an emulated version of the original Sonic the Hedgehog. That fiddling eventually led to the creation of several fan games, perhaps the most famous of which was 2008's Retro Sonic - an exacting, excellent take on 2D Sonic that ran on the Dreamcast and was powered in part by Whitehead's own Retro Engine. So I'll have a go fiddling around myself as a 14-year-old kid.' My view was that there aren't any 2D Sonic games any more. It was before the internet really transformed the landscape for how people collaborate. My perception was that Sega and Nintendo were companies on the other side of the world, we just saw the games that came into Australia. In terms of doing games professionally or even working on Sonic, that wasn't a thought in my mind. 'It was just a naive sense of let's try it and see what happens. I used to draw pictures of new levels as a kid. Once I started tinkering around and making the games - I was a teenager then - I wondered if I could make my own Sonic. I could never be satisfied with the first four games. At least in Australia, the experience with Sonic after the Mega Drive era, the gaming world was very much focussed on PlayStation and Nintendo 64 - I had an interest in those systems, but at the same time I wanted to play *more* 2D Sonic. That really sparked my curiosity in how games are developed.' 'There was this special cheat debug mode, and for me it was the first time you could see some of the tricks of how games work. 'The first game I ever really played was Sonic 2 - and that really set off my interest in video games,' says Christian Whitehead over a slightly fuzzy Skype connection.

Not bad work from a small gaggle of enthusiastic Sonic fans given the keys to their favourite franchise - as well as a guiding hand from the people behind it all in the first place. Like those of Christian Whitehead and his cohorts, the Melbourne-based developer who's been behind a string of spectacular Sonic remakes, all climaxing in last year's outstanding Sonic Mania - a slice of pure concentrate fan service, ushered into life gracefully by Sega and offering an undoubtable high point for the series in some years. Some acts of fandom are a little more productive, though. I still have that lollipop, and I'm still proud of what I did. And so I decided to head down to the opening in the Sega T-shirt I'd made myself to show my support, and at least one person appreciated the effort someone in a slightly tatty Sonic the Hedgehog costume, who gave me a big, bright blue lollipop that had been reserved for winners of the colouring-in competition they were running that day. Fandom's a funny thing, isn't it? When a new SegaWorld opened up on the slightly tatty seafront at the foot of Brighton's Madeira Drive a good few years back, I was at the peak of my obsession with the company who'd brought blue sky joy to so many.