Random gaming trivia and shit

[ASoulMan]

In the first Spyro game, Spyro was originally green, but was changed to purple so he wouldn't blend in with the grass in the hubworld.

And Crash Bandicoot's orange color was chosen through a process of elimination by Naughty Dog. They compared different colors with various backgrounds to see what did and did not work. In the end, they decided to use the color orange. Did I also mention that Crash Bandicoot was jokingly called "Sonic's Ass Game" during development because the camera was positioned behind Crash?

 

[XYZpdq]

Also at one point in time there was a VERY impressive port of the original game being made for the gameboy. Surprisingly they actually managed to recreate most of the games content for the gameboy while keeping most of the gameplay the same. But for reasons I can't rember they abandoned it after some time.

The GBC one? I got the rom of the GBC one a while back. It's a really interesting experiment in porting a PS1 game for an 8bit handheld, works surprisingly well.
It's not _good_ but it's an impressive try. Like that port of Dragon's Lair for GBC.

 

[Hodor]

The GBC one? I got the rom of the GBC one a while back. It's a really interesting experiment in porting a PS1 game for an 8bit handheld, works surprisingly well.
It's not _good_ but it's an impressive try. Like that port of Dragon's Lair for GBC.

Yeah, it's shit. But it's technically impressive shit.

 

[Doctor Tracksuit]

Yeah, it's shit. But it's technically impressive shit.

That reminded me that there was a Gameboy version of Diablo in the works. No reason given as to why it was cancelled, but it would have been neat. We did get a PS1 version, afterall.

 

[Linako 2.0]

I think my favorite video game mystery is the unicorn fountain in Ocarina of Time. Ocarina of Time was originally going to have an expansion pack which added in more dungeons and story to the game, that was going to be on the n64 disc add on thingie. But due to the disc drive thing apparently being shit it eventually ended up being canceled and turned into Majora's Mask. The only real evidence of the expansion left in the game is a cave in Zoras domain that can't be accessed because kid Link can't dive deep enough to reach it, and the water is frozen over as adult Link. The room inside the cave looks like a sorta unfinished fairy fountain with a large unicorn In the center.

Do you know the reason why there are a lot of prominent female Characters in Ocarina of Time?
Well apparently, the games was going to have some dating sim elements. hence why most of the prominent female characters so an interest of some sort to link.

 

[Watcher]

In Thief the Dark Project in the level "the Sword" you have to steal a magical sword in this mansion from this rich nobleman named "Constantine". His level features guards that wear a unique uniform (although this isn't seen as strange since every level has differently uniformed guards).

Later

Spoiler

Constantine hires the player to steal a magical object called "The Eye" and after you get it he removes the protagonist's right eye and leaves him for dead in his mansion. He also reveals he is basically the "Satan" of the game's lore called the Trickster.

You then encounter creatures called "Ape Men". Who wear the same uniforms as the guards did.

This implies that the same guards you met in "The Sword" later become hideous monsters in the remainder of the game. It's a very subtle implication and the game never outright tells you it's the case.

 

[c-no]

In First Person Lover (a game from a tennis player named Bjorn Borg that got fame thanks to a parody of Hatred's trailer) there is a group of protestors that is a reference to Westboro Baptist Church.

 

[Conrix]

I just realized that I own 15 total versions of the Doom games.

I counted from the Wikipedia page that there are 21 official versions of the first game (Ultimate Doom included) and countless fanmade ports.

Also Kingdom Hearts was supposed to be a game that was like Super Mario 64; it started with Tetsuya Nomura overhearing a conversation in an elevator about developing said SM64 clone and hearing a comment that only Disney characters could hold a candle to Mario's fame. Square Enix and disney shared the same building in Japan at the time and the rest is confusing, convoluted, autistic Action-RPG history.

Oh and Sora was gonna be a furry with a chainsaw sword.

 

[Count groudon]

In First Person Lover (a game from a tennis player named Bjorn Borg that got fame thanks to a parody of Hatred's trailer) there is a group of protestors that is a reference to Westboro Baptist Church.
View attachment 20114

Yeah and the game even makes a bleak remark about the church when you approach them, Saying that "some people just can't be saved from hatered" or something.

Also I believe the games final boss is Vladimir Putin riding on a bear, and you defeat him by making his bear fall in love with him. Great game!

 

[c-no]

Yeah and the game even makes a bleak remark about the church when you approach them, Saying that "some people just can't be saved from hatered" or something.

Also I believe the games final boss is Vladimir Putin riding on a bear, and you defeat him by making his bear fall in love with him. Great game!

Googling the last part, it kinda does confirm the thought of First Person Lovers final boss being Putin. That may as well count as another piece of trivia.

 

[Watcher]

The Marathon trilogy was made on a very interesting engine. It employed something referred to as 5D space.

Specifically certain areas in the maps would exist in the same place, just not at the same time. Meaning you could have two hallways intersect and you'd never notice unless you brought up the map or the designer made it blatant.

There is a map in Marathon 2 referred to as "5D Space" that is just 2 specific areas overlayed ontop of one another that never intersect. The two hallways in this screenshot keep going and never occupy the same space.

Later game engines like Build and Source did the same thing but with a trick where they used portal technology to teleport the player to another area entirely and they just made it look like it was in the same space. But Marathon was coded specifically to do it all legit.

 

[Watcher]

 

[Assorted Nuts]

Almost every Bioware game has comedian Mark Meer playing one of the characters, Commander Sheppard from Mass Effect being the most notable.

 

[Count groudon]

Hotline Miami was originally gonna be called Super Carnage, and before that it was named Cocain Cowboy. There actually was a playable demo for Super Carnage posted on the dev team's forum, but the download link no longer works. The game was very similar to HM, featuring a lone light-haired protagonist taking on buildings full of heavily armed thugs and killing them all in brutal ways. The key difference however was the fact that Super Carnage didn't have the masks that Hotline Miami is known for, instead the protagonist got perks from wearing different outfits instead. And whereas HM' s default mask is Richard the rooster, Super Carnage's default outfit had the protagonist completely nude, which unlike richard had the perk of granting extra bonus points for completing the stage with it. And finally, Jacket's signature varsity Jacket is actually based on an outfit from the first game that the designers particularly liked, as well as being a homage to the movie drive where the violent protagonist also wears a distinct jacket.

 

[ASoulMan]

Michael Berlyn, creator of Bubsy, had no experience with drawing environments in 3D, which explains a lot on why Bubsy 3D was such a mess from top to bottom. He blamed the release of games such as Super Mario 64 during the time for the failure of Bubsy 3D (though we all know the real truth on why it fucking sucked). The team wanted more time to develop Bubsy 3D after seeing SM64 at a trade show, but Accolade wanted to push for the game's release since they were already pretty late in the development cycle.

Also, Berlyn claimed that Bubsy 2 had almost killed the "franchise". It should be noted that he was not involved in Bubsy 2's creation.

 

[Watcher]

And Crash Bandicoot's orange color was chosen through a process of elimination by Naughty Dog. They compared different colors with various backgrounds to see what did and did not work. In the end, they decided to use the color orange.

Something I just noticed is that Crash also wears blue jeans. Blue is a color complement to Orange.

Michael Berlyn, creator of Bubsy, had no experience with drawing environments in 3D, which explains a lot on why Bubsy 3D was such a mess from top to bottom.

This just seems like an excuse on his part. Much of the developers of Goldeneye 007 had never worked on a video game prior to the project.

He blamed the release of games such as Super Mario 64 during the time for the failure of Bubsy 3D (though we all know the real truth on why it fucking sucked). The team wanted more time to develop Bubsy 3D after seeing SM64 at a trade show, but Accolade wanted to push for the game's release since they were already pretty late in the development cycle.

Again more excuses. The game would have failed regardless of Super Mario 64 due to it's horrible camera and undetailed abstract environments that were well under what the PS1 would later be capable of.

Much of the problems of Bubsy 3D can be easily be attributed to just being an early 3D game. But it still isn't an excuse considering other PS1 games found ways to get around it. (like Crash Bandicoot setting the camera behind the main character and moving it automatically). While Nintendo had shittons of budget they also spent ages on getting the camera juuuuust right with the game. (Reportedly Miyamoto spent hours chasing the bunny in Super Mario 64 and tweaking the movement solely to make movement in the game feel good).

 

[Johnny Bravo]

Michael Berlyn, creator of Bubsy, had no experience with drawing environments in 3D, which explains a lot on why Bubsy 3D was such a mess from top to bottom. He blamed the release of games such as Super Mario 64 during the time for the failure of Bubsy 3D (though we all know the real truth on why it fucking sucked). The team wanted more time to develop Bubsy 3D after seeing SM64 at a trade show, but Accolade wanted to push for the game's release since they were already pretty late in the development cycle.

Also, Berlyn claimed that Bubsy 2 had almost killed the "franchise". It should be noted that he was not involved in Bubsy 2's creation.

Bubsy 2 is also considered the "best" game in the series because of the superior art design and extra abilities. He simply hates it because he wasn't part of the team. Berlyn himself is a lolcow of years gone by.

 

[Watcher]

On that note...
-Quite a bit of games have roots in devs' DnD games. This ranges from obvious like in Ultima and TES, to surprising like in Doom and Daikatana.

There's actually a reason for this. A lot of game developers during the 80s and early 90s were players of Dungeons and Dragons.

Bare in mind this is when video games were not a whole lot more complicated than Super Mario Brothers. And independent game design was not something that was financially viable for a lot of people. Computers were ludicrously expensive at the time and there weren't dedicated "game design" courses taught in schools. You had to study computer programming and computer science.

Dungeons and Dragons for a lot of people was a way to create a "game" and have players play it. Doom's history revolving around D&D is actually not very surprising in this context.

When the developers at Id software were making games like Wolfenstein 3D, they all lived together in the same house and played Dungeons and Dragons together. Carmack was the Dungeon Master. The way it goes is in Carmack's game there was an ultimate weapon called the "Dai Katana". The basic premise of the game is that the party had to stop this hoard of demons from invading the world and killing everything. Towards the end of the game John Romero was given the opportunity to get the Dai Katana but also risk opening a portal to Hell and having the demons invade. He took the chance, he rolled and lost. And the portal to Hell was opened and everyone died.

This was what inspired the premise of Doom. The name of John Romero's post-Id FPS "Dai Katana" came from the ultimate weapon in Carmack's game. Specifically the moment where he "risked it all" since he was making his own studio.

 

[ZehnBoat]

This was what inspired the premise of Doom. The name of John Romero's post-Id FPS "Dai Katana" came from the ultimate weapon in Carmack's game. Specifically the moment where he "risked it all" since he was making his own studio.

and romero made everyone his bitch and he lived happily ever after.


but i can't leave without my buddy superfly.

 

[Overcast]

Final Fantasy IX's development team was situated in Hawaii. You can kinda tell the game had a bit of Hawaiian influence in certain parts, from the Chocobo themes, to the hidden Aloha equipment during the Chocobo Hot'N'Cold sidequest.