i also just learned that this game was actually taken pretty seriously and was almost finished. check out this incredible character art (from the designer and producer’s website) and buckwild plot (from a Sega‐16 interview):
According to the design document, the pint-sized gadgets Chip the Hamster used were in great demand by the U.S. military, and since modern detection systems were geared towards human-sized targets, this new hamster-driven technology was highly coveted by other, less scrupulous figures. Shortly after an eccentric but good-natured toy inventor perfected his work, an evil scientist stole the prototype, as well as its blueprints and hamster pilot in order to create S.H.R.E.D. (Super High-speed RodEnt Delivery system). Though the villain had trained his own rodents to recover and return secret documents, the vehicles he designed for them to use were too complicated. The S.H.R.E.D. system, being much easier to control, was exactly what he needed.
