Sonic the Hedgehog is a mascot character developed by Sega in 1991 and seen first in the video game series Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic was designed as direct competition against Nintendo's very popular flagship character Mario, who first appeared in 1985. Sonic's popularity has continally grown since 1991 and the character was soon seen in other media besides video games. Like many other popular game characters, Sonic inspired a board game licensed to Milton Bradley Company, which very broadly mimics the play of the first Sonic video game.