Rayman Redemption

[dr_st]

but these suggestions should help making it even better.

Nah, leave it the way it is. Each game has its quirks. It doesn't have to be exactly like Rayman 1 in all ways. It's good enough that it's close. I agree with almost everything you wrote, but many of these can be legitimate design choices. It's not supposed to replace Rayman 1, but complement it.

The lower quality of Playtopia assets is understandable, but it's still a nice addition to the game, and has a unique atmosphere.

[Mortamon Saturn]

(B-but I like the look of Playtopia, the rotated fist animation and the "HD" minified Rayman... )

Ryemanni has stated years ago that Redemption is done and there won't be any more updates for it, so making suggestions of things to fix now is (sadly) wasting your time, especially when Ryemanni's last message here dates back to 2018.
Though, I do agree with some of the criticism and I'd add some nitpicks like the altered Hunter bullets, forgotten plum riding animation, missing original bonus levels, or the rushed ugly Picture City pirate redesign from update 1.1.0 (which happened because of a... certain Twitter user )...

As dr_st said, Rayman Redemption is its own experience with its own quirks, in the end there's still something to enjoy in the original official game.
Ryemanni has consistently been referring to Redemption as a "reimagination" of Rayman 1 (look at the Game Jolt description for example), so it wasn't meant to just do the same but better.


That doesn't make it immune from opinions/criticism of course, whether free or not, and I'd say the amount of work isn't an excuse either (even if the impressive number of years Ryemanni dedicated to it and his other fangames deserves nothing but praise! ), as criticism's intent isn't to harm but tell you how to do even better (well, usually, that is )...
But indeed, some may be genuine design choices from the dev (like point 1 as Playtopia is visually an hommage to the Welcome to Darkland fanmade expansion in every way, point 8 for all the complaints R1 got for its difficulty and how many players used the lives cheat, or 9 for what I'll elaborate upon below).
And for anything you may expect in that reimagined Rayman 1, someone else may have demanded the opposite. As Ryemanni said in the Postmortem stream (if I recall correctly), "you can't please everyone"... I can't begin to imagine the number of conflicting requests/complaints he got since Redemption's reveal. (Some people were even asking why the Rabbids weren't included... yes, that's why there are 2 cheats codes in Redemption saying "no" to them )

Though, for point 5, I do remember him acknowledging the flaw in Tarayzan's level, albeit it's not that the water isn't rising but not rubberbanding (which is why it's not keeping up with Rayman), which is a feature he added to ReDesigner years later (as a bet for losing a speedrun race against Glackum).


Things like point 9, especially in the context of something "easily fixable", would require to redo most of Redemption's level design as it was thought to account for the gameplay of having all of the powers and an infinite helicopter glide.
That change is actually an interesting idea when Rayman 1 actually was originally designed with the player starting with all of the powers, as revealed in L'Histoire de Rayman (if I'm not remembering it wrong ). Here, the satisfaction of earning them has been replaced with unlocking the Pink Helpers, Gold Rings, power-ups such as the Paint Fist, and the upgrades in the shops.

Not to mention having to redo dialogues and rethink Betilla's role (which could bloat the story a bit here with the new extra characters and dialogues)... I'd also personally argue that this wasn't much of what should be called "character development", as it's just the character getting stronger (not even achieving it himself as it's through someone else's powers). Rayman can just do more things in gameplay, his character in terms of personality hasn't grown or changed in any way from that. This is more of a reward to the players than anything, as a game design incentive for them to progress.
Rayman showing empathy and kindness to Bzzit after defeating him, on the other hand, was something very worthy of being called story writing in my eyes, which is something Ryemanni did fix from the 2019 Gameplay Demo (where the scene had been replaced by a bland emotionless dialogue, as I critiziced in my playthrough of the demo back then).

[Hunchman801]

Hey guys Remember he made it for free.

I'm sure that everyone is well aware of it, but like Saturn said, it does not make the game immune to criticism, especially when it's constructive criticism and people loved the game anyway. There's no question its creator did a great job here, and healthy discussions about the tiny things people did not like only show how much they actually care about the game.

It's not supposed to replace Rayman 1, but complement it.

I think that's an important point that's too often overlooked. I've seen many conversations where people ask which version of Rayman 1 they should play first, and some answer "Redemption". I strongly believe you should start with one of the original versions, and only then play their reimagination. It'll make you appreciate the improvements even more, but also make you realize why the original game is such a great title and how even a top-notch reimagination still cannot overshadow it entirely.

[The Jonster]

Redemption should not even be talked about when it comes to which Rayman 1 game is the best. I see it in the same vein as I see Revolution, great games but aren’t better than the originals.

Besides if one were to play Redemption first and then one of the Rayman 1 versions people would fail immediately in Pink Plant Woods due to not knowing certain powers aren’t actually in his toolkit yet.

[lucky3]

Unfortunately, Raymanni (now "Ryemanni") hasn't been active here for years. You'd have more chance telling him anything from his social networks.

Too bad, I wanted to reach out to him but it seems there's not even an email address somewhere on his website to contact him. I have no accounts on the social media he's on. What's wrong with the good old mails? Weird epoch

"I'm sure that everyone is well aware of it, but like Saturn said, it does not make the game immune to criticism, especially when it's constructive criticism and people loved the game anyway. There's no question its creator did a great job here, and healthy discussions about the tiny things people did not like only show how much they actually care about the game

Yeah yeah, but when someone makes a free game at this pro level, close to perfection, took years in his life, with a 0$ budget, solo developer, it doesn't feel decent to say "hey I didn't like the blue pixel here, and the red one there, could have been better. But I have liked and played your game for free, thank you".

[Hunchman801]

Yeah yeah, but when someone makes a free game at this pro level, close to perfection, took years in his life, with a 0$ budget, solo developer, it doesn't feel decent to say "hey I didn't like the blue pixel here, and the red one there, could have been better. But I have liked and played your game for free, thank you".

That's true, but isn't that just what people said here?

[Mortamon Saturn]

I've just realized that the Toy March track from Playtopia was remade for Scoop Kick!, the official game Ryemanni released in 2022!
Listen to the Crusty Carnival theme! (4:14)



As you may notice just from some track names in this soundtrack, there are also some tributes to The Dark Magician's Reign of Terror, with the Freezy Freezer and the bonus Brutal Burial Ground worlds!
The first also contains a level called "Cold Reception" (like the first level in RDMRT's Freezy Freezer) and boss enemies who can perform an helicopter jump with their "hair", and the latter which was added for an Halloween update is almost entirely an homage to the Brutal Burialground, even featuring ghost enemies and a fruit version of the Reaper boss!
Speaking of the Crusty Carnival world, it has keys inside bubbles which have a sprite highly similar to the decorative bubbles in Redemption's Candy Château...

The game has also a few official Rayman references, like level 1-4 being titled "The Grape Escape"
The unlockable character Eggplant-Man is a full-on reference to Rayman (even down to his pose when winning!), although his noseless appearance reminds me of a certain monster created by Ryemanni

[hoodlumsworld]

It does say you maybe shouldn't trust Noseless Eggplant after all.

[PluMGMK]

Oh sorry, I'd missed this! It is rather unfortunate that the Origins site in 2010 decided to associate Rayman with aubergines, considering the "other" meaning for that which became well-known with the onset of emoji use in the western world

[NyaNyaLily]

Hi, during cleanup I noticed I still got like nearly 3 huge boxes full of physical Rayman Redemption copies. They look like this:


They might be still way more than 200 copies in total. I am trying to give these away, should anyone here want to take them over hit me up in the dms!

Are they free?
:3c

(How and why are the physical copies?)

[Snagglebee]

Are they free?
:3c

(How and why are the physical copies?)

Apart from shipping fees, they're free. They exist because I was crazy for physical copies.

[Mortamon Saturn]

I did more digging in the Gameplay Demo of Rayman Redemption and noticed two early unused variations of the Designer and Junior checkpoints skins!
The Designer one isn't very interesting as it was just stretched the wrong way, but the Junior photoboard was completely different as you can see below!

Demo:


Final:


Demo:


Final:

The unused one was more unique, but it looked sort of off I guess, so Ryemanni probably scrapped it.

There are also many things from the final game which aren't featured in the demo, like boss huds for many bosses (including Mr Dark's classic form or the early version of Spider Master, but excluding Moskito as there's the icon for the cut Livingstone Boss/Woodbot which was supposed to replace him at that point in the development). There are icons for one Magician challenge of most worlds (including Dark Magician's Challenge) despite the demo only featuring Swinging in the Jungle and Maracas Madness, with most of them being different from the final game!
As usual, everything will be documented on Rayfanpedia!

In the complete game, I've also noticed an unused music file intended for Joe's Wares! Indeed, the file "sndMusicJoeShop.wav" (which is just the Jaguar version of the Eat at Joe's beach theme) does not play anywhere in the game, as the shop instead uses the Jaguar main menu music like the other similar locations.

Probably just an oversight, or Ryemanni may have forgotten to remove the file if he decided the menu music was more suitable.
There's also a small music file titled "sndMusicToysMini1.wav" (lasting 0:27 seconds) clearly intended for Playtopia, but I don't recognize it from anything and I have no idea what its purpose was... Maybe an early scrapped music for that new world, but who knows...

Oh sorry, I'd missed this! It is rather unfortunate that the Origins site in 2010 decided to associate Rayman with aubergines, considering the "other" meaning for that which became well-known with the onset of emoji use in the western world

Well... Rayman does have quite the huge aubergine... uh, features I meant!

[The Jonster]

Ngl i would have preferred the unused Junior one. The letters look much more innocent rather than them trying to give death glares to each other.

[PluMGMK]

Oh sorry, I'd missed this! It is rather unfortunate that the Origins site in 2010 decided to associate Rayman with aubergines, considering the "other" meaning for that which became well-known with the onset of emoji use in the western world

Well... Rayman does have quite the huge aubergine... uh, features I meant!

Yes, I had thought of that too – in that sense maybe it was indeed quite fortunate!

[Mortamon Saturn]

I think that today is a good time to remind you that Rayman Redemption's PC version has been cancelled so the game can be ported to the Commodore 64 instead!
https://gamejolt.com/p/i-have-decided-t ... a-qcgu6pmh

[ItzalDrake]

Too bad this was just an April Fool's joke, I would have loved it if this C64 port was real

[Mortamon Saturn]

On the other hand, I can take this opportunity today to confirm that Rayman Redemption 2 is indeed very real and you can get it right now on your PlayStation, as confirmed by the creator himself!


Of course, all of those big reveals have been documented on Rayfanpedia!
https://fan.raymanpc.com/wiki/Main_Page
At least for today

[Mortamon Saturn]

Hello everyone! Today is a very special day, because this marks the 5th anniversary of Rayman Redemption!
Yes, already 5 years of Rayman 1's fantastic fan remake! And, to brighten up your mood in case these news are making you feel old, I have prepared a surprise for all of you!

Introducing Rayman Redemption RayTuned*:
A WIP collection of soundtrack swapping mods that aim to bring other versions of Rayman 1's OST to Redemption, as well as games that inspired the fangame such as Raving Rabbids GBA!
(*Yes, the name is a pun on "retune"/RayTunes! And yes, we'll change it if you think it sounds stupid! )
Redemption is an amazing fan remake that features many audio settings to bring some nostalgia to your experience such as different Tings, Fist or Yeah sounds... but I always felt another level or customization was missing since 2020... the music!

DOWNLOADS:
To start off, the Jaguar and Rayman Advance soundtracks are already available!
Redemption Atari Jaguar Soundtrack Mod
Redemption Rayman Advance Soundtrack Mod


The Jaguar mod, as you would expect, replaces nearly of Redemption's soundtrack with the tunes from the Atari Jaguar version of Rayman 1! Redemption already had a few Jaguar tracks (including an unused one for Eat at Joe's), but now you can hear all of them in the remake!
You can now enjoy Moskito's Nest and Mr Dark's Final Showdown -the original versions of Jaguars in the Jungle and Battle for the Great Protoon- in Redemption!

The Advance mod, replaces the entire soundtrack with the tunes from Rayman 1's Game Boy Advance version, plus a few from Raving Rabbids GBA for the Playtopia tracks! You can now enjoy again the original versions of The Musician's Song or Mountain Spring which were remade for Redemption, if you really missed them! Same goes for The Toy King, which became Child's Play in the new Playtopia world!

In both cases, I even went as far as replacing the music you hear in the TOBEYOND cheat code's easter egg!
You can find their tracklists in their folders! Please refer yourself to RayTunes and the Redemption soundtrack to test all the audio named in the text file.
I must however warn you that this isn't fully 100% accurate to the original games, as them and Redemption don't use music in the same way (such as The Magician Challenges being replaced by the levels' themes in Advance), and Redemption removed quite a few track variations from the original Rayman, which are as follows:

-01 - Ubisoft Presents
-10 - Hold on tight!
-12 - Suspense ~The Flood~
-29 - The Mountain Streams
-55 - (Movie) Title Screen {first notes are used for sound effects like achievements}
-77 - (PS1) Jungle Beat 2
-80 - (PS1) Mountain Beat 2
-All the remaining tracks from R1-based edutainment games, extra previews, and beta tunes. "74 - (PS1) Betilla's Voice" is used for Betilla's voice samples, obviously. Most of them ended up added to Rayman ReDesigner, including "82 - (PS1) The Musician's Song".

And without the source code we can't exactly mod the game to add more possible files playing in these specific contexts... so don't be surprised by what may appear to be "odd" choices or weird behaviours at times as I had to account for some themes playing in vastly different settings...
Still, make sure to provide your feedback about any issues you may find or for better track replacement suggestions, as testing all of the possible music contexts in the game takes literal HOURS and is in the process of teaching me how to speedrun the game!
For now, consider these to be "versions 0.1.". I may also make another version with replaced sound effects in the future, if possible.

But still, I aimed to be as accurate as possible while only doing changes where relevant (I did try to tone down the amount of times you hear Mr Dark's Dare in Advance tho like for Space Mama ), and I made sure to replace the Redemption-exclusive tunes with the most suitable equivalents.
Trust me, if you hated hearing Mr Dark's Dare in like 40% of Rayman Advance, then you're gonna learn to hate it even more here, because it's the only one that really works for most action or Mr Dark/Darktoon-themed contexts!
I must also remark that many files for themes playing over other music had to be replaced by pure silence in order to be accurate, including notably the PS1 drum tracks.
Due to lack of text, the intro will also be nothing more than a slideshow of pictures without any story... I'll try to add the relevant text in a future update if possible, or just bring back the original intro if you'd prefer that regardless of immersion with the rest of the soundtrack.
It is advised to use the recommended settings listed in the relevant text files, such as Jaguar/PC Ting sounds, and most of the Classic settings for the audio. For example, quick respawn is preferable to be "On" for Advance as the original game had quicker deaths and no jingle, while the opposite is preferable for Jaguar for its unique death jingle (which leaves a bit of a silence here, unfortunately). I made the volume higher than Redemption's standard on purpose so you can have more freedom using the in-game music volume setting.


INSTALLATION:
To install one of the mods, you just need to replace Redemption's "audiogroup1.dat" and "data.win" files with those from the mod you want! So, make sure to backup the original files for the sake of convenience (you can safely create a subfolder for your soundtracks within Redemption's folder, for easier switching).

The data.win is optional as it only replaces the title sound effect with the Jaguar/GBA's boot up jingle, silences the cheering crowd whenever defeating Space Mama (as this one is a sound effect instead, for some reason), and the Rayman 2 music sample in the TOBEYOND easter egg with a similar track from Rayman 2 N64/Rayman 3 GBA.
So don't add the data.win if you use any mod altering the graphics or sound effects, as it's obviously not compatible... However, Injector mods that do not interfere with the edited sounds such as RaYCiSS, are 100% compatible as they directly inject the modded sprites into the data.win without replacing it with another file altogether. So for example you can combine my custom data.win with that original pirate restoration mod if you wanna use both!

Obviously, your game must be up-to-date (version 1.1.4) or this -most likely- won't work!


"BUT HOW DID U DO IT!?":
So, you may now wonder how to mod this game's audio? Well, it's very simple!

0. Backup Redemption's files.
1. Grab a tool that can read/edit Game Maker-based apps like Redemption such as UndertaleModTool!
2. To edit the music, open the "audiogroup.dat" with the tool. To edit the sound effects, open the "data.win" with the tool.
3. Look for the "Embedded audio" section. This contains all of the game's embedded sound/music tracks.
4. Select one of the embedded sounds. You should have four options: "Import", "Export", "Play" and "Stop". You can use the last two to test the audio file. Additionally, you can extract all of the game's audio by going to "Scripts" > "Resource Unpackers" and by using "ExportAllSounds.csx", which will allow you easily try out all of the files or to directly edit them.
5. Make yourself a selection of audio files you wanna use to replace the game's content, and convert them to ".wav" format (Audacity is a great tool for that and for audio editing). If you're wondering, Redemption's encoding standard for its wav music is "Signed 16-bit PCM" (at least according to my testing by comparing with the original RayTunes files). You do *not* even need to rename the files!
6. Select the embedded sound(s) you want to replace and use the import feature to pick your wav file(s). You can use "Play" to test if it changed successfully!
7. Once you've replaced everything you wanted, just save the file through the "File" menu or through the prompt when exiting the app. Make sure not to change the audiogroup1.dat/data.win names or Redemption won't be able to find them!
8. Replace the game's relevant files and boot up the exe to try out your mod. Check if everything is as you intended!
9. PROFIT!

Feel free to use this knowledge to make your own music mods, you may even substitute Rayman's music with something from other platformer franchises for example! I'd love to see what you can come up with!


THE MASTER PLAN©:
So, here are the currently planned and likely/unlikely soundtracks for Rayman Redemption RayTuned™!

-Rayman Classic (Rayman 1-only tracks): COMING NEXT!
-Rayman Beta (PS1 Beta tracks + Redemption early tracks): WORK IN PROGRESS
-Rayman Jaguar: RELEASED
-Rayman GBC/Rayman 2 Forever: VERY LIKELY
-Rayman (GBC) Pocket PC: EXTREMELY LIKELY
-Rayman Advance: RELEASED
-Rayman Ultimate + Redemption OST: WORK IN PROGRESS
-Rayman Junior OST Mix + Rayman by Rémi: LIKELY
-Edutainment games: UNLIKELY
-Rayman 2 The Great Escape/Revolution: UNLIKELY
-Rayman 2 N64: VERY UNLIKELY
-Rayman M/Arena/Rush: EXTREMELY UNLIKELY
-Rayman 3 Hoodlum Havoc: UNLIKELY
-Rayman 3 GBA + Hoodlums' Revenge: LIKELY
-Rayman Raving Rabbids console/DS: EXTREMELY UNLIKELY
-Rayman Raving Rabbids GBA: VERY LIKELY
-Rayman Raving Rabbids 2/TV Party/other Rabbids games...: NEVER
-Mobile games: EXTREMELY UNLIKELY
-Rayman Origins: LIKELY
-Rayman Legends: VERY UNLIKELY
-UbiArt mobile games: EXTREMELY UNLIKELY
-Rayman The Dark Magician's Reign of Terror: LIKELY

If something wasn't listed, you can be pretty sure it won't ever happen...
I may also consider making similar mods for ReDesigner if there's enough demand for it, as the custom track system makes the idea kind of redundant... Anyway, the method for modding the latter is the same as Redemption, except the files for the sound effects are in a second audiogroup since the latest updates.


I hope you'll enjoy and tell me if I can improve anything! Have fun!
Happy 5th birthday, Rayman Redemption!