Long before Shadow of the Colossus gave us a game that include featured boss battles, there was a game that had a similar idea for the Sega Genesis called Spinny and Spike.
Spinny and Spike was being developed by the Sega Technical Institute and was to feature two characters. Those being Spinny and Spike with those characters fighting through various nightmares. Only two bosses were able made available including Snake, a robotic snake with two stages of combat and Junkyard Dog.
The game itself was planned by Steve Woita, Jason Plumb and Tom Payne with this game, along with Comix Zone and Sonic Spinball, receiving the go-ahead by then Sega of America President and CEO Tom Kalinske. Development would go on as planned, but not for long.
Shortly after development started, the three heads of the project were reassigned to the Sonic Spinball project as the game was scheduled for release during the Holiday 1993 season and was behind schedule. Unbeknownst to Plumb, Payne, and Woita, development for Spinny and Spike would continue while they were busy working on Sonic Spinball.
Once development for Sonic Spinball wrapped up, the three returned to working on Spinny and Spike, but to see some major changes. For starters, the project received a two new producers and a lead artist, while the new team changed the concept and went in a completely different direction. Due to this, Plumb and Woita left Sega after receiving job offers from Ocean of America.
Development on the game was scheduled to continue after their departures, but it was later deemed to be impossible to complete the game without Woita and Plumb. This was due to the team considering their code to be too individual and unconventional, and its efficient use would have first required a complete rewrite. Sega deemed this to be too costly and later cancelled the project entirely.
