This article originally ran in Back Alley Games Issue 15, May 2025

The SICK-MC, only known to the most dedicated SICK fans, is an unreleased portable add-on for the original SICK. Due to the konsole’s failure, it was scrapped.

Justin Herrick, a devoted historian and game developer, has unearthed all known information on the MC and has even restored and expanded one of its planned launch titles, SICK RACING.

Limitations in the original design of the MC have made recreating the console itself unrealistic at this point –the lost prototype reportedly required eight D batteries for 40 minutes of play time– but Herrick was able to get their restoration of SICK RACING running on the original SICK.

The SICK RACING demo cartridge exists in Herrick’s collection, but because of the lack of a console to play it on, the only access they had to the source material was through datamining.

The game is a low-poly 3-D racer set in a future Chicago, in true late ‘90s fashion, in the year 20XX.

Herrick says they were excited about the 3-D style of the original assets, as it’s not a style they often work in.

“I haven’t done anything 3-D in years,” Herrick said. “[It] felt like a good way to get experience again.”

The restoration was produced mostly in Godot, a language that Herrick said provided no problems and allowed them to feel consistently productive. That ease also allowed them to continue work on the project while traveling for work.

“I got to spend an entire afternoon working on the game from the private research room of the Central NYC library, which was unbelievably stunning,” Herrick said.

They ended up finishing most of the in-game racers’ ships on the flight home.

Of the absurdity of that situation, Herrick said, “Telling the flight attendant that I didn’t need any snacks while I see her confusedly looking at a giant 3-D pizza slice on my computer screen was a highlight of the flight.”

A giant pizza slice isn’t the only uniquely-Chicago aspect of the graphics, either. Herrick said they spent a lot of time during development in Logan Square taking pictures of “good crunchy city textures” and then recreating them in Blender.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the unorthodox development process, Herrick said they think they were able to accurately capture the “startup vibe” of the original demo. Not every part of that process was smooth, though.

“I didn’t devote enough time to making the actual gameplay feel fun,” Herrick said. “[The] scope was still too large given how much learning I had to do.”

As with any other racer, the physics engine was also an issue, something Herrick said took away from the final product, which they admit was somewhat rushed in order to meet the deadline for the SICK showcase.

Setbacks like this aren’t uncommon, but they don’t take away from what SICK RACING is, namely the last remaining links to an often-overlooked portion of the SICK’s history. Herrick’s work is invaluable in the preservation of the SICK-MC, and that shouldn’t be forgotten.

Speaking about their project as a whole, Herrick said:

“I find myself having nuanced feelings about my work. On [the] one hand, I am really happy with what I was able to produce. In a lot of ways, I accomplished what I set out to do, but when I look at what was finished at the end of the day, all I can really see is what was cut or changed.”

SICK Racing can be played on itch.io: https://jah2488.itch.io/sick-racing