Rayman 1

[RayCarrot]

Thanks! Eventually we might even try branching out Ray1Map to support all tile-based Rayman games like the snes prototype and the GBC/GBA games. I need a break first though, cause I've been so incredibly focused on this for months now lol It's been fun though! And soon you'll be able to view the maps on raymap on web (and I'm adding them to the wiki articles now as well!)

Edit: I just noticed it jumped to a new page :p On the last page I made a huge post about discoveries from the Jaguar prototypes some people might be interested in

 

[Steo]

That's some really nice stuff regarding the Jaguar version, and it's interesting how other levels are present in the demo. It's amazing how 25 years later, new discoveries are still being made by people like yourself.

 

[PluMGMK]

- Only the Bzzit version of Moskito exists, so he is the one who chases you, unlike in the final Jaguar version where it's Moskito. It seems like originally there was only the Bzzit version, but then they split him into two bosses and made the second one red. Maybe the devs got confused as to who was chasing you and forgot to change his colors on PS1? It can't have been easy maintaining two completely different engines for the game (the Jaguar engine is completely different)...

Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that they had an oh-shoot moment late on in the development where they realized it didn't make any sense that the mosquito is friends with you and then later appears chasing you with spiky fruits and fights you again. I doubt everyone was properly synced up on a solution though, which is why it's still so confusing in the released game, especially on PC. I think spiraldoor said it best a decade ago… https://raymanpc.com/forum/posts/439218/

Btw, I can see certain parallels with the Sanctuaries in Rayman 2, where they were clearly going for an elemental theme, but then muddled the elements of fire and earth so much that it's difficult to tell which is intended where…

Other than that, fascinating as always!

 

[RayCarrot]

All Rayman 1 maps have now been replaced on the wiki with the new high quality ones from Ray1Map, new maps have been added to spin-offs and other versions and I've now updated the early production article to include the new findings

 

[Zinx]

- Only the Bzzit version of Moskito exists, so he is the one who chases you, unlike in the final Jaguar version where it's Moskito. It seems like originally there was only the Bzzit version, but then they split him into two bosses and made the second one red. Maybe the devs got confused as to who was chasing you and forgot to change his colors on PS1? It can't have been easy maintaining two completely different engines for the game (the Jaguar engine is completely different)...

Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that they had an oh-shoot moment late on in the development where they realized it didn't make any sense that the mosquito is friends with you and then later appears chasing you with spiky fruits and fights you again. I doubt everyone was properly synced up on a solution though, which is why it's still so confusing in the released game, especially on PC. I think spiraldoor said it best a decade ago… https://raymanpc.com/forum/posts/439218/

Btw, I can see certain parallels with the Sanctuaries in Rayman 2, where they were clearly going for an elemental theme, but then muddled the elements of fire and earth so much that it's difficult to tell which is intended where…

Other than that, fascinating as always!

Maybe that was the moment when the split between the ps1 and Jaguar codebase begun.
Who knows.

 

[StelzenBomber]

Michel ancel knows

Lets go ask him!

 

[RayCarrot]

From what we can tell it seems they split it up quite early on. The Jaguar prototypes match the early PS1 demos we have in a lot of ways. I also think the Jaguar engine is based on what they did for the SNES version, though I can't say for sure yet. I started looking into the SNES rom we have and the tiledata is near identical to the Jaguar version (I even think the collision types are the same, but I haven't checked all of them yet).

 

[PluMGMK]

Michel ancel knows

Lets go ask him!

About the mosquitos? I doubt he does tbh. I'd say the distinction between the mosquitos was made discreetly by artists fairly low down the ladder, and if he heard about it, it was just in passing. Could be wrong though.

From what we can tell it seems they split it up quite early on. The Jaguar prototypes match the early PS1 demos we have in a lot of ways. I also think the Jaguar engine is based on what they did for the SNES version, though I can't say for sure yet. I started looking into the SNES rom we have and the tiledata is near identical to the Jaguar version (I even think the collision types are the same, but I haven't checked all of them yet).

Now that's interesting! I was under the impression that the Jaguar version was a complete rewrite, given how different the SNES version looked. It's pretty funny that the Jaguar and SNES versions may be the same under the hood while looking so different, while Jaguar and PS1 look so similar despite being so different on the inside!

 

[StelzenBomber]

Michel ancel knows

Lets go ask him!

About the mosquitos? I doubt he does tbh. I'd say the distinction between the mosquitos was made discreetly by artists fairly low down the ladder, and if he heard about it, it was just in passing. Could be wrong though.

From what we can tell it seems they split it up quite early on. The Jaguar prototypes match the early PS1 demos we have in a lot of ways. I also think the Jaguar engine is based on what they did for the SNES version, though I can't say for sure yet. I started looking into the SNES rom we have and the tiledata is near identical to the Jaguar version (I even think the collision types are the same, but I haven't checked all of them yet).

Now that's interesting! I was under the impression that the Jaguar version was a complete rewrite, given how different the SNES version looked. It's pretty funny that the Jaguar and SNES versions may be the same under the hood while looking so different, while Jaguar and PS1 look so similar despite being so different on the inside!

I mean when jaguar and ps1 code was differentiated

 

[Zinx]

Inspired by this recent discussion, I fired up my copy of the Hebrew Rayman Junior (that teaches math), and found that the translation broke some aspects of the game. There exist levels where you are supposed match numbers to their pronunciation. One such level has you find all the numbers that have "one" in their name.

For instance, you are supposed to select numbers like 102 ("one hundred and two"), or 1513 ("one thousand, five hundred and thirteen"). However, in Hebrew, these would be pronounced differently, without explicitly mentioning the word "one". It would be like "hundred and two" or "thousand five hundred and thirteen".

It seems that the localization teams simply did one-to-one translation in most places, and as a result, if you go by the proper Hebrew names of numbers, you cannot properly complete this level. You really have to know the English names. There may be more such levels, but this is the one I noticed. Pity that they didn't playtest it thoroughly.

I tried running the Hebrew version of the game but couldn't get any sound to work with Dosbox.
Do you have any idea how to fix this issue?

 

[Steo]

I had a similar issue with the Linux version of Dosbox, while the Windows version seemed to work through Wine. I forgot to actually look into this again mind you.

 

[dr_st]

I'm on Windows and it just worked for me. It came prepackaged with a a preconfigured DOSBOX. Hardly a legal distribution, so I'm not sure I should share it here, but assuming you are a Hebrew speaker, search for "מסע אל העבר"...

 

[Hunchman801]

Amazing finds regarding the Jaguar prototypes! One question though, is the entire game in the files (yet inaccessible), or just some of it?

 

[RayCarrot]

For the earliest prototype it's just the single map. In the later one there are functions to load levels from all worlds, like so:

Jungle: 14 levels
Mountain: 4 levels
Cave: 2 levels (second one is invalid)
Music: 5 levels (0 and 1 are the same)
Image: 2 levels
Cake: 2 levels:
Fix: 3 levels (third one is invalid)

Only the Jungle and Music levels have map data though. The rest of the functions basically just tell where in memory to load the graphics (of which only some exist, like the fish from Eat at Joe's).
The seventh world is used for the worldmap, Breakout etc. btw. Not sure if I mentioned this before, but oddly in the final Jaguar version Mr Dark is always loaded in the world map - not sure why. It's the same Mr Dark as the final boss.

 

[PluMGMK]

Interesting… Isn't VIR.ETA loaded in every world in the other versions (even though the DES is only in Cake)?

 

[RayCarrot]

Interesting, you're right. Oddly it's not in allfix though, but duplicated into every world. I wonder what plans they originally had for it. The PC versions are the only version which aren't optimized, so they have some leftovers

 

[Zinx]

For the earliest prototype it's just the single map. In the later one there are functions to load levels from all worlds, like so:

Jungle: 14 levels
Mountain: 4 levels
Cave: 2 levels (second one is invalid)
Music: 5 levels (0 and 1 are the same)
Image: 2 levels
Cake: 2 levels:
Fix: 3 levels (third one is invalid)

Only the Jungle and Music levels have map data though. The rest of the functions basically just tell where in memory to load the graphics (of which only some exist, like the fish from Eat at Joe's).
The seventh world is used for the worldmap, Breakout etc. btw. Not sure if I mentioned this before, but oddly in the final Jaguar version Mr Dark is always loaded in the world map - not sure why. It's the same Mr Dark as the final boss.

Lol I imagine the final boss stage randomly appearing while you travel on the world map.

 

[Gordswitch]

I’ve seen some pictures of a cut boss from Rayman resembling a racist caricature of a black man. Is France generally more lenient on that kind of taboo humor?

 

[RayCarrot]

I thought we'd found everything in the PC version which was unused, but I guess not Turns out they were experimenting with allowing sprites to rotate, something the R1 engine is not build to allow at all. This was later used in the 2D version of Rayman 2.

Video:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1287041948088401920

As you can see it's pretty broken, but still impressive it works! All that needs to be done is change an object's type to TYPE_SLOPEY_PLAT.

 

[StelzenBomber]

Impressive

I thought there were sprites that could rotate
Guess not