Crash Bandicoot

Mysteries - Prototype

Introduction and General Differences

Games go through several stages during development, with the final release being the only one commercially available to the general public. Unfinished game prototypes are sometimes exposed due to one or many different reasons, and even though that isn't supposed to happen, it makes it easy for anyone to distribute copies of them.

Researchers got a hold of a Crash Bandicoot prototype some 13 years after the game was released. This page explains many differences found in a prototype version of the game, the most ancient playable version in the history of Crash to be set into the wild.

You can view an extensive side-by-side comparison of each level in this YouTube playlist by dessertmonkeyjk.

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Naughty Dog
The Naughty Dog logo screen, presented before the menu. It has some information regarding the company. Anyone who's played the final version knows that in its place, there is a completely different, animated logo instead.

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Submitted by drx
Title Screen/Tawna
- The title screen looks nothing like the final one. It shows Cortex and Brio about to give a smiling Tawna the old Cortex Vortex treatment. This is what everyone always assumed to have happened after the game's intro, but it's cool to actually see it after all this time. Needless to say, the Vortex had no effect on Tawna.
- All characters are animated sprites. Cortex types on the computer and looks at the player. Brio pushes the lever, which makes Tawna's seat go up and down, occasionally looking at the player too.
- Despite the text "LOAD GAME", this button actually leads to the password menu. There is no way to load or save the game onto a memory card.
- Tawna's colour scheme is very different from the final one: blue mascara instead of grayish purple, brown fur instead of orange, a pink shirt instead of a red one and a green skirt instead of a blue one. She appears like this in every instance of the prototype, including icons.

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Submitted by psx-collector
LOADING
The original loading screen for the game.

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Game Over
A placeholder Game Over screen. The letters are static, but you do get to see Crash fleeing from Cortex like in the final version.

Audio (submitted by psx-collector): There is no music in the game and many sound effects are missing, such as most characters' voices.

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Submitted by drx
Map Screen
The level select screen wasn't always done in 3D. The prototype version had a top-view 2D map, which was actually rather neat. It also shows a nice Aku Aku icon that isn't seen anywhere else in the series. You could zoom in and out to see the three islands or choose one to visit. Boss fights were represented by their respective icons, but no levels were named at the time.

Gems (submitted by psx-collector): Gems aren't present in the prototype. It's unknown if they were planned from the start or added later for replay value.

Level design: All levels have different designs in the prototype. Some of them are pretty close to what you see in the final version, while others, such as Sunset Vista, are quite a bit different. Additionally, due to the absence of Gems in this version, there are no secret passages.

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Submitted by psx-collector
Fonts
The fonts used in this version are quite different.

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Submitted by psx-collector
Boss Bar
An early, uglier boss bar was used at some point. The final bar has the boss's icon and his name written on colourful clusters, and it's also displayed on the top-left side of the screen, as opposed to the bottom-right.

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Submitted by drx
Mask Sparkles/Tawna Mug
- Aku Aku had little sparks of various colours dripping from him. In the final version, they're all yellow and pop out rather than dripping, and they're only present when Crash gets two masks.
- The Tawna icon had different colours, to match her appearance in this version.

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Submitted by psx-collector
Warp Vortex
Warp vortexes looked very different in the prototype. Rather than a bright, yellow, swirly light, they used to be a bunch of colourful, rotating sparkles, which looked much simpler.

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Submitted by psx-collector
CONTINUE
Checkpoint crates usually let out the words "CHECK" and "POINT", with the letters from each word floating off-screen in one direction. Here, however, the word "CONTINUE" appears instead, and the effect is rather different, with the letters floating up in a swirly motion. The sound effect is exclusive to the prototype.

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Submitted by psx-collector
POW
- Shown here is the removed POW Crate. When broken, colourful sparks come out and all the crates in the vicinity are broken by them. This doesn't always work perfectly as some crates are randomly left intact.

TNT: The TNT crates don't display a countdown when they're set, and the countdown's speed is a bit different, but they're identical otherwise.

Aku Aku mode: The invincibility you get from picking up 3 Aku Aku masks lets you break Crates by touching them as usual, but it won't do the same for running under them. This makes it harder to break floating crates placed above trampoline ones, since these last ones get broken as soon as you jump on them.

Whoa: Losing a life doesn't make the screen go black or zoom in around Crash. The same thing can be seen in the final version, but only during boss fights.

Gate spinners: The spinner platforms in gate levels are more finnicky with collision detection. You have to specifically touch them while spinning to make them work, making this type of ascent much harder. The final version is a bit more lenient and makes the platforms spin if you miss them by a short distance.

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Image submitted by psx-collector
Bonuses and Passwords
- All bonus rounds looked like Brio's, and they all had Tawna at the end.
- Upon reaching the end, Tawna doesn't present you the completion percentage like usual. Instead, she gives you an early type of password that used character icons. These passwords are 6 characters-long and don't have a screen of their own. There is also no text regarding completion percentage.

Hog Wild: Asides from the different level design, there is no curtain at the end of the level. You can see the boar simply disappear and Crash being transported to another level.

Road to BWAAAAGH: Like in the final version, the red planks in bridge levels collapse as soon as you touch them. In the prototype, however, they aren't marked with a hole in the middle, making it harder to distinguish them from planks you can step on.

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Submitted by psx-collector
Polygons Out
This is the level Lights Out, which is hard to tell because of the lack of certain structures and textures. Aku Aku doesn't appear in the white ghostly, lantern form like he does in the final version.

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Submitted by psx-collector
Cortex Power Entrance
As shown here, the door to Cortex Power used to be quite different. Walking past it reveals a second door with the Pinstripe safety warning usually seen in Generator Room.

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Submitted by psx-collector
Early "cam-bots"
The "cam-bots" seen in Machinery levels look completely different. Their behaviour is still the same, though.

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Early monsters
These enemies behave the same, but look bluer and their eyes are different.

Early bats
The bats in city ruins levels still fly between hanging ones, but defeating the hanging ones won't prevent more from coming in, or turn the remaining ones into Wumpa fruits.

Switch Boxes: The switch boxes (those marked with an exclamation mark) keep their bouncy properties after they're activated, and they lack the animated effect of the exclamation mark disappearing.

Unwinnable Bug (submitted by psx-collector): There is a bug in the Brio boss fight that prevents the game from being finished. After his health drops down to nothing, he keeps charging at Crash, and with every extra hit he takes, he charges a little faster (until he becomes impossible to avoid). This happens occasionally in the final version too, but here it seems to happen all the time.

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Submitted by psx-collector
Sunset Vista
The design of this level used to be vastly different and even harder than in the final version, with a lot of unforgiving platform placement and an overuse of rotating torches. Like in the final version, it's also the longest level in the game.

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Submitted by psx-collector
Heavy Machinery
This video shows many of the general differences pointed out earlier in this page, as well as different design in many places.

No free masks: Boss fights in the final version give you two Aku Aku masks to help you, but this feature wasn't present in the prototype yet. The Cortex boss fight does feature a mask pick-up, though.

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Ripper Roo
- Ripper Roo is a bit tougher to defeat. Not only does he jump slightly faster, but there are also random crates dropped into the floor tiles every so and then, including TNTs.
- Ripper Roo's laughter is sped down when compared to the final version.

Koala Kong
The big coal lumps you need to spin back at Kong won't automatically home in on him. They always get sent to the middle, so if Kong isn't already there, you'll need to wait or else you'll miss the shot.

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Submitted by psx-collector
Nitrus Brio
Another video, showing the boss fight with Nitrus Brio. Asides from the general differences already pointed out, here are some specific to Brio:
- The blobs are red and invulnerable when spawned. After chasing Crash for a while, they stop and become green and vulnerable. Waiting too long during this phase makes them turn yellow, before quickly shifting to the red phase again. The final version is much easier, since they're always green and vulnerable despite being able to move.
- The boss bar always corresponds to the number of blobs present on-screen (except after Brio transforms).
- The lightning actually flashes the room pitch black instead of making it bright.
- After Brio transforms, his health bar shows three remaining health points as in the final version, but you actually have to hit him six times more to defeat him (something not shown in this video).

Cortex
The Cortex boss fight plays virtually the same, but the purple shots are coloured red. There is also an Aku Aku mask you can pick up, as you don't get two of them automatically like in the final version.

Level order: Level distribution is a bit wonky in the prototype. See below (and compare to the final version's order):

1st Island
N. Sanity Beach - Jungle Rollers -The Great Gate -Hog Wild -Upstream - Papu Papu - Rolling Stones - Boulders - Native Fortress - Up the Creek - Ripper Roo

2nd Island
The Lost City - Temple Ruins - Boulder Dash - Sunset Vista - Jaws of Darkness - Koala Kong

3rd Island
Cortex Power - Heavy Machinery - Generator Room - Toxic Waste - Pinstripe Potoroo - Road to Nowhere - The High Road - Lights Out - Slippery Climb - Nitrus Brio - The Lab - Fumbling in the Dark - Stormy Ascent - Cortex

Note that Whole Hog and The Great Hall are missing, and there is an unseen level named Stormy Ascent. Find out more about this level here. It's the only level with the same layout as in the final version (found via hacking), suggesting this was as far as the team worked on it, removing it some time after this prototype had been built.

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