Sonic Tweet

Sonic Tweet is a digital application created by SEGA of Japan as part of Sonic's 20th anniversary celebration. The app. is accessed though the popular social networking site, Twitter|Twitter. The application comes off as a game where the player must help Sonic defeat Dr. Eggman. The game, which requires the player to follow @SONIC_TWEET_JP and authorize it to be able to read the player's tweets, is a free mini-game that involves the player to tweet ”Sonic ★ Tweet”‘ as part of the Twitter message. Certain words from the message will make Sonic use a "Dash" to attack Eggman. Defeating Eggman will reward the player with 1 of 500 cards that can be collected or traded in for additional dash attacks. The cards are comprised with artwork or sprites from a group of 35 different Sonic the Hedgehog series games. The whole application is in Japanese. The game will be active till 31 December, 2011.

History
Sonic Tweet was launched by SEGA of Japan on July 5th 2011. By July 18th the game had crashed do to an overwhelming amount of participants. A message in Japanese was left in place of the game which stated:

"We have had to stop the server as it is so busy. Currently, we are investigating the failure and progressing toward recovery. To everyone we are very sorry, thank you for waiting."

The game returned on August 9th 2011. To reward returning users, every account automatically received the Sonic card from Sonic the Hedgehog (1991). The game has some slight changes from how it was at launch. For example, Sonic and Dr. Eggman used to pass by signs advertising Sonic Channel, Sonic Colors,Sonic Generations and Sonic's 20th Anniversary. When the user clicked on the signs they would be taken to the matching website. However, when the return of the game, these signs had been removed for unknown reasons. The signs returned on September 9th, exactly one month after the game itself came back online. Sonic Tweet is still scheduled to end on December 31st, 2011.

Official Description
Sonic Tweet is nothing more than a free app for Twitter. SOJ is calling it a “Game-included Twitter Client”

The objective of the game (or app) is to collect 500 cards of characters from Sonic’s history.

To play, the player must tweet something using the app, and try to chain combos.

The tweet will be separated into single words, one of them will be randomly selected and assigned points. Apparentely words like 20th or Sonic will receive more points. Then, the app will connect that word with words from other users and generate a combo. The higher the score, the more powerful Sonic’s attack will become.

Tweeting short sentences or tweeting the same sentence many times won’t be made into combos.

By attacking Eggman and making his HP go to 0, the player will receive a card.

To dash and attack Eggman the player will have to wait some time, but this can be bypassed by using the cards that are earned.

By defeating Eggman the player will receive exp points that will be used to achieve higher levels. The maximum attainable level is 10.

It will be possible to exchange cards with other twitter users, however to do this both users will have to be using this app and be followers of each other. Card trading is limited to 3 times per day, up to 5 cards per time.

There are three types of rankings, and going up to the third place will earn extra cards.

Sprites


Different sprites from the original Sonic games are used in this game.


 * Sonic from Sonic the Hedgehog (16-bit)
 * Crabmeat from Sonic the Hedgehog (16-bit)
 * Motobug from Sonic the Hedgehog (16-bit)
 * Tails from Sonic the Hedgehog 2
 * Eggman with jetpack from Sonic CD (Level 1)
 * Eggman in Egg Mobile from Sonic the Hedgehog (16-bit) (Level 2)
 * Eggman in Egg Mobile from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Level 3)
 * Eggman in Egg Mobile with sledge hammer from Aquatic Ruin Zone (Hammer Eggman) in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Level 4)
 * Eggman in Egg Mobile with lights and grips from Casino Night Zone (Catcher Eggman) in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Level 5)
 * Eggman in Egg Mobile with flamethrower from Hill Top Zone (Submarine Eggman) in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Level 6)
 * Eggman in Egg Mobile with the large screw drill from Marble Garden Zone (Drill Mobile) in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Level 7)
 * Eggman in Egg Mobile with two drills and a headlight from Mystic Cave Zone (Drill Eggman 2) in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Level 8)
 * Eggman in Egg Mobile attached to the Jet Mobile from Mushroom Hill Zone in Sonic & Knuckles (Level 9)
 * Eggman appears in any one of the above machines at random or the Flame Mobile from Angel Island in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Level 10)

Trivia

 * All Sonic's cross-over games do not have cards in this app. Neither do the Sonic Rivals games, pinball games, mobile games, educational games, arcade games, compilation games, Sonic Eraser, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, Sonic 3D, Knuckles' Chaotix, Sonic Shuffle and Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.
 * Fang the Sniper doesn't have its own cards from Sonic Triple Trouble and Sonic Drift 2 for some reason, even if there exists artworks of him in those games.
 * Sonic Battle and Sonic 06 are the only games that do not use the first level of the game as the background on their cards.
 * The Chao cards for Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 uses new artwork as opposed to the original artwork from the respected games.
 * Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 use the artwork present in their remakes Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle.