could not be coded in the editor, and had to be coded manually for each level. Enemies were created as pre-rendered sprites. Senn lost 25 pounds and became severely ill from overworking on X-treme. Other staff included composer Howard Drossin, lead artist Ross Harris, artist/designers Fei Cheng and Andrew Probert, and designers Jason Kuo and Richard Wheeler. Hirokazu Yasuhara, who designed the Genesis Sonic games, also contributed. According to Senn, his team was completely different from the STI teams led by Naka; this, combined with their inexperience, "set up seeds of doubt and a political landmine waiting to go off if we didn't produce amazing results quickly." Wallis expressed frustration with the team structure, and felt that internal politics hampered development. Coffin felt the division of responsibilities would ensure every element was perfect. Difficulties arose from the design. According to Wallis, the game would combine 2D side-scrolling with "the ability to have him go into and out of the screen", which created unexpected problems in implementation. Senn said a primary problem was transitioning Sonic simple and fast controls to a 3D environment: "The simplicity of movement, particularly moving very quickly, was now gone. Seeing far enough into the distance, not getting stuck on obstacles, and trying to maintain that sense of free speed was very difficult." 3D graphics were new, and developers were still learning how they would affect controls and gameplay. Programming for the Saturn proved difficult; as Alon could not get his engine, developed on PC, to run fast enough on Saturn, Morgan outsourced the port to Point of View Software, a third party company. Disputes within Sega In March 1996, Sega representatives from Japan visited STI to evaluate progress. At this point, X-treme was already behind schedule. Senn and other sources indicate that the key visitor was president Nakayama, though Wallis recalls executive vice president Shoichiro Irimajiri. The executive was unimpressed by Senn and Alon's work, as the version he saw, ported from PC to Saturn by Point of View, ran at a poor frame rate. Senn, who said the visitor "came storming out practically cursing after seeing what they'd done", and Alon attempted to show their most recent PC version, but he left before they had the opportunity. The visitor was impressed by Coffin's boss engine, and requested that X-treme be reworked around it. Concerned about the need to create essentially a new game before the