Rayman is a video game designed and published by Ubisoft. It was originally released in September 1995 for the Atari Jaguar and MS-DOS, and in November 1995 for the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. A port of this game was to be released for the Sega 32X, but when the system died off due to low popularity, the port was canceled. Rayman is a traditional side-scrolling platform game which revolves around the titular character’s quest to save his world from the evil Mr. Dark.
Early in its development, Rayman was going to be about an eleven-year-old boy named Jimmy. Jimmy takes advantage of the realms that he discovers within his computer to create a fantasy world called Hereitscool. When evil invades Hereitscool, Jimmy turns into a superhero named Rayman to save Hereitscool. This idea was scrapped, and Rayman is his own being in his own world in the final version. There were a few comments in the story, such as “Sorry folks, this apparently can’t last. Do you want to play or what?”, but they were cut for the final version.
[Info from Wikipedia]
In these old screens from the back of the box from the Jaguar version, we can see some beta-differences.
beta rayman video: there is no sound and also the life icons are different. The life is in the top middle along with 8 life dots and instead of the orbs count you have a blue guys count but in the final version life count is in top left at the edge of the screen and the blue orbs in the top right rayman can also walk on his hands in this video (not sure about the final version).
Thanks to The_IT_08, Wilco and kieranmay for the contributions!
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Videos:
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There was a bonus game you could get to by putting in some code at the beginning where you could play a Breakout clone that involved Rayman walking around on his hands. At least it was there on the Jaguar version.
Hate to have to be the one to say this, but that Jimmy/Hereitscool crap was actually the official story at an early stage of production. An article published in the Pix’n Love magazine confirmed this a couple of months ago. Luckily that story was scrapped before the game was released and is considered non-canon.
Thanks a lot for the info spiraldoor! :)
Regarding the conspiracy that Sony etc paid to delay Jaguar version, that often does the rounds:
M
‘Official statement’ from Ubisoft’s Frank Slater at the time, had him explaining that as this was Ubisoft’s 1st title on a then unfamilar platform, there was a learning curve which meant delays, these delays were not intentional, were’nt due to any strategic implications and had nothing what so ever to do with other versions now being annouced/planned.
It was as simple as Ubisoft taking the time to get the games quality right, they could of looked at realising it few months earlier, but quality would’nt of been so good, plan was to get it ready for production for July 17th and into stores 4-5 weeks later.
That was the company line regarding the issue at the time.
I can further confirm the @Jimmy Story’ was indeed inplace by time game was 1st starting to be shown to UK Press:
‘The game plunges you into the computer-generated fantasy world of Hereitscool, a product of the imagination of Jimmy, a 10-year-old boy.
Within this world Jimmy is the Rayman, a character with the power to animate objects around him.Rayman is striving to protect Hereitiscool from an evil presence threatening Jimmy’s make-believe world and save his imaginary friends before it’s too late’
This was the spiel Ubisoft were giving Press in Autumn’94.
Regarding the 32X version:
Was’nt this said to of been shown at the 1995 E3 show alongside the Jaguar/Saturn and PS1 versions?.
Only visual differences being the more limited colour pallete?
Bit more info to confirm there really was’nt some conspiracy from Sony to delay the Jaguar version so it would’nt launch earlier than the PS1 version and that in fact Sony did not see 2D as a key part of the Playstation marketing at all etc….
Michel Ancel: ‘When we did the original Rayman, Sony was telling us that it was’nt the right style for the current trend’
Source:Gamestm Issue 11.
It’s a direct quote from Ancel himself..someone with no direct links to Sony..so no bias or agenda.
So it’s not somewhat true..
Zoop totally different developer and comments relating to it should either be in article related to it or a misc general lost games update article, for sake of site clarity.
Thank you..
Press scan sent with original story in it.
Jeff Minter:The difference between 30fps and 60fps is quite distinct and clearly
noticable. US TVs display at a rate of 60Hz, and if you can do a
complete screen update at that rate then no matter how fast objects
move, the motion will appear totally smooth. The difference is
particularly noticable in fast-scrolling games like D2K – which is why
I’m busting my nuts to keep 60Hz throughout.
However, on the subject of framerate bullshit, I saw some blurb for an
upcoming game – it might have been Rayman – which claimed framerates
>60Hz! Which would be completely meaningless unless in the context of
a monitor with a higher refresh rate. Certainy pointless for a
videogame system designed to plug into a TV.
\
(:-)
/
Updates:Apparently Ubisoft annouced a 3DO version at some point, but when later asked why nothing had been seen of it since, they annouced it had been killed off in favour of the 32X version.
Ubisoft said they felt the 32X had a better chance at commercial success than the 3DO.
Post been removed but as for any conspiracy on Zoop on Jaguar…that proved just as straightforward to clear up..
Quick email to coder:
When we were doing the port, our artists (my brother Adam and a chap called Steve Field) came up with a more high resolution set of graphics that enhanced the game on the Jaguar vs the original PC version. (upside of porting to consoles, you’ve got a specific amount of memory and known chipset to work with, so you can optimise and design to use it all ;) )
From what I remember, the improved version was passed on for Hookstone (who we were doing the port for) to ok and apparently they liked it, but then we were told we had to stick with the original artwork as the upcoming Playstation port had to look the best of the bunch. I can’t confirm if this came down from Sony or Viacom specifically as I wasn’t in management.
I know someone who *might* be able to confirm either way, but I’m not sure if he would as there may be some lingering NDA/conflict of interest, but I’ll ask and see what he says ;)
Aaron
Aaron Fothergill
So we could of seen a version using higher resolution graphics on Jaguar.
Decision not to use that version could of come from Sony or Viacom. .