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Making Crash Bandicoot (PSX) by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin

S

Spiegel

Member
Andy Gavin (co-founder/ex-Naughty Dog) has been writing some bits of the process of making the first Crash Bandicoot on his blog.

He talks about the origins of the partnership with Sony, Crash (the character), the game and other things.

Part 1: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-bandicoot-part-1/
Part 2: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/03/making-crash-bandicoot-part-2/
Part 3: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/04/making-crash-bandicoot-part-3/
Part 4: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/05/making-crash-bandicoot-part-4/
Part 5: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/06/making-crash-bandicoot-part-5/
Final part: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/07/making-crash-bandicoot-part-6/

Jason Rubin has contributed with a comment on each part.

Bonus:

UZR52.png


http://www.agdc.com.au/04presentations/thu_jason_rubin.ppt
 
F

Fersis

It is illegal to Tag Fish in Tag Fishing Sanctuaries by law 38.36 of the GAF Wildlife Act
Thanks for sharing.
Just asked him about a Way Of The Warrior post mortem.
 
P

Pancakes R Us

Member
Thanks for this. I just got through part one. I loved the CB 1-3 games back in the day, along with CTR. What a shame the franchise has more or less turned to complete, utter shit these days :(
 
N

nincompoop

Banned
Wow, this is an awesome read. It provides an amazing amount of insight into the process behind the creation and development of one of the greatest game series of its era.
 
A

Adam Prime

hates soccer, is Mexican
Damn I'm pretty sure I never played the first two, I remember the water level from the third but I don't know if I ever beat it.

Which of the first three are the best to jump into on PSN?
 
R

Razor210

Member
Great read - thanks for posting.

This part from Jason stood out for me:
I asked Charlotte if she could close Crash’s huge smiling mouth making him seem less aggressive. I asked her to change Crash’s eyes from green to two small black “pac-man” shapes. And I asked her to make Crash’s spike smaller. And I told her she had less than 15 minutes. With what must have been her last energy she banged it out.

I held up the resulting printout 15 minutes later.
Click to expand...
 
M

Man

Member
Jason Rubin said:
Andy had given Kelly a rough idea of how we were getting so much detail through the system: spooling. Kelly asked Andy if he understood correctly that any move forward or backward in a level entailed loading in new data, a CD “hit.” Andy proudly stated that indeed it did. Kelly asked how many of these CD hits Andy thought a gamer that finished Crash would have. Andy did some thinking and off the top of his head said “Roughly 120,000.” Kelly became very silent for a moment and then quietly mumbled “the PlayStation CD drive is ‘rated’ for 70,000.”

Kelly thought some more and said “let’s not mention that to anyone” and went back to get Sony on board with Crash.
Click to expand...
Lol.
 
N

nincompoop

Banned
Adam Prime said:
Damn I'm pretty sure I never played the first two, I remember the water level from the third but I don't know if I ever beat it.

Which of the first three are the best to jump into on PSN?
Click to expand...
Crash Bandicoot 2 is pretty much as close to perfection as 3D platformers get. But you might want to play the original first, it's still really good but it feels a bit clunky in comparison to Crash 2, so you might not be able to appreciate it as much if you play Crash 2 first. It's also a bit more difficult than Crash 2, if you're looking for a challenge.
 
C

cilonen

Member
Great, I love stuff like this, thanks for posting. [I also really used to like Geoff Keighley's 'Behind The Games' (his MGS2 series was superb).]

Really cool to see how they were pushing the technical envelope of the PS1.
 
G

Goldmund

Member
Andy Gavin said:
In September and October of 1994 we were busy trying to figure out who this Willie guy was. We felt he should be goofy and fun loving, and never talk — on the theory that voices for video game characters were always lame, negative, and distracted from identification with them.
Click to expand...
Ain't it the truth! I'm not saying Gavin still sticks by this theory: I do. Whenever I get the option to mute voice acting in video games: I will. I like the in water ending from Silent Hill 2, the reading of the letter -- but that's it. I prefer what my imagination transforms text bubbles into.

Maybe it's difficult for me to be immersed in a game like Mass Effect, if my eyes are in constant rotation from listening to the voice acting. But it's not just that voices highlight tacky writing: they're non-visible and therefore can't easily be separated from memories of the real world.

Since text bubbles are a visible element of the unreal world, it's easier to accept them as a true representation of it. It's almost entirely visual. They feel integral, voices feel tacked on.
 
A

Azure Phoenix

Member
That was fascinating to read. I had no idea that so much effort went into creating the Crash games, being a latecomer to the Playstation the idea of a 3D platformer didn't seem new or special at the time. Watching some of those videos in the article sure bring back memories though, mostly memories of just how bloody difficult the games were!

It's shameful that the series has ended up in such a sorry state due to Universal.
 
C

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Adam Prime said:
Damn I'm pretty sure I never played the first two, I remember the water level from the third but I don't know if I ever beat it.

Which of the first three are the best to jump into on PSN?
Click to expand...

2 or 3. My personal favourite is 3, but for some reason GAF seems to consider 2 as the best. The first one is still a good game, but a bit clunky and unpolished compared to its two sequels.
 
S

SSJ1Goku

Banned
It may have been this very Sonic’s ass problem that caused Naka-san to “cop out” of making a true 3D game called Nights for Saturn. I also believe, but have no proof, that he felt so unsure of the move to 3D that Sega didn’t want to risk Sonic on that first experimental title. Instead they created a new character. This lost Sega the goodwill that Sonic would have brought to the three way game comparison that eventually ensued. That ended up working to our favor.
Click to expand...
Interesting
 
Erebus

Erebus

Member
I also concocted a crazy algorithmic texture packer that would deal with the fact that our gorgeous 512×240 mode left us with too little texture memory. And the even crazier – way crazier – virtual memory system required to shoehorn the 8-16 meg levels the artists created into the Playstation’s little 2megs of RAM. Dave meanwhile had to invent insane bidirectional 10x compressors to help get the 128meg levels down into 12, and figure out some tool for managing the construction of our gigantic 3D worlds.
Click to expand...
That's why I love NaughtyDog, these guys are true geniuses and always ahead of their time.

Btw thanks for making a thread about this, OP.
 
T

TheOGB

Banned
Been reading this since it got started, a lot of cool info in it. Makes me want to bust out the PS1 and play through CB2 again.
 
J

jett

D-Member
That was a really interesting and entertaining read, I hope part 6 is coming!

It's really funny reading how terrified they were of Miyamoto and his upcoming "3D Mario". :p
 
D

DMeisterJ

Banned
Pretty awesome read...

Seems like from the beginning, the folks at ND have always been about using all kinds of trickery and tomfoolery to extract as much as they can from any piece of hardware they work on. That's always a good thing.
 
A

ascii42

Member
I had forgotten how technically advanced Crash was. It's funny how a lot of the level design was so that the game would run.
 
J

jett

D-Member
Neat how a lot of the game design applied to Crash remains in Uncharted, like being able to jump off a ledge even after you're technically no longer on it. :p
 
N

Nintendo Ate My Children

Member
Rumors going into E3 spoke of Nintendo’s new machine, the misleadingly named N64 (it’s really 32 bit) and Miyamoto’s terrifying competitive shadow, Mario 64.
Click to expand...

I know the Jaguar wasn't really 64 bit, but this is the first time I've heard someone say the same thing about the N64. Not that it matters, but is this right?
 
C

ChronicleX

Banned
Nintendo Ate My Children said:
I know the Jaguar wasn't really 64 bit, but this is the first time I've heard someone say the same thing about the N64. Not that it matters, but is this right?
Click to expand...

Yes. It is a 32 bit machine but just like the jaguar but there is 64 bits in it, most of it unused because there was not enough ram in the machine to make use of it, hence that whole expansion pack shizzle was required to make certain games run. I thought everyone knew this by now.
 
S

Salsa

Member
jett said:
Neat how a lot of the game design applied to Crash remains in Uncharted, like being able to jump off a ledge even after you're technically no longer on it. :p
Click to expand...

If we are talking pixel perfect, this is crucial in basically every accesible platformer/game where you have to jump.

Well except for Megaman.
 
A

Azure Dream

Member
Stunning read, especially how they made the levels. I was never a big Crash player back in the day, and when I did mess with it, things like the blind angles and obscuring environment details bugged me. Now to know how necessary that was at the time, I have a lot more respect for it.

And they reminded me of some of the earliest Mario 64 screens. It's been a long time since I've seen them, but they were really "Mario's in the middle of nowhere", I seem to remember a lot of blue fog in one of them.
 
K

kenta

Has no PEINS
Really enjoyed reading these and it sounds like there are more on the way, which is cool. The technical talk was refreshing even though I didn't understand all of it
 
A

adelante

Member
Its graphics wowed me back in the day (even more so than Mario64 when it came to certain levels like the lush jungle), truly one of the more impressive titles that ever came out on that system
 
Sub_Level

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
entrement said:
I loved the ND PS1 Crash Games. The controls were pixel perfect.
Click to expand...

Yep, except for the box bridges (one in the first level and one in Cortex Power IIRC).
 
N

Ninja Scooter

Member
had no idea about that higher res video mode the PSX had, though with the tradeoff of less textures. Now it makes sense why Crash looked so much sharper than most every other PSone game at the time. Wonder if any other games made use of it.

anyway, good read. We don't get enough behind the scenes stuff like that on games and I find them fascinating. Loved the doc on God of War 3 too.
 
S

soultron

Banned
Great read. The way they bent the system to run Crash was my favourite part.

A part of me is sad that the industry has moved away from the small team mindset (for AAA titles) because it seemed like a really fun and exciting time to be around in. We can still do smaller team stuff, but it's only really plausible for XBLA/PSN/mobile-type games.

Looking forward to part 6!
 
T

Tain

Member
Ninja Scooter said:
had no idea about that higher res video mode the PSX had, though with the tradeoff of less textures. Now it makes sense why Crash looked so much sharper than most every other PSone game at the time. Wonder if any other games made use of it.
Click to expand...

Playstation hardware was pretty unique in the huge number of resolutions it supported. There are a handful that run at higher resolutions than Crash. And then there were games that ran at 256x224!
 
N

Ninja Scooter

Member
Anticitizen One said:
I really wish Naughty Dog could somehow make another Crash Bandicoot game (and get Jason Rubin involved as well).
Click to expand...


just from reading that blog, they seem like super ambitious guys, and something like Uncharted is probably what they would have loved to make in 1995 if they had the technology.
 
V

Vinci

Danish
ascii42 said:
I had forgotten how technically advanced Crash was. It's funny how a lot of the level design was so that the game would run.
Click to expand...

That was a great deal of game design back in the day. Read through some of the older Iwata Asks interviews, and you'll hear stuff like that all over those discussions. Tons of shortcomings put to clever use.
 
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