For those who didn't see it already: Concept artist Guillame Bonamy has recently uploaded seven pieces of artwork which he created in 2005 for the then-upcoming Rayman 4. The site is at http://g-bonamy.com/, in case you wish to view it for yourself. Full credit to CoCoXo from RaymanZone for bringing this to our attention. Here are the images (click them to view the full-size versions):
R4 palais temporel 5 — I'm guessing "Temporal Palace" was going to be an R4 level, perhaps something akin to the Sanctuaries in Rayman 2. The knowledge that Rayman receives from the Yellow Lums in R2 says that Polokus went "to the place where all the gods of all the worlds meet" so that together they could dream up time; I think that the Temporal Palace may be this place, or at least have some connection to it.
R4 monde organique 5 — "Organic World"; this world, as many of you are aware, made the final cut of the Game Boy Advance version of RRR1, and now it seems quite clear that dingodile555 was on to something when he suggested that RRR1 GBA was close to the original R4.
N Room3 — This image shows Rayman in a cavern in Picture City — another world that turned up in RRR1 GBA. I'm guessing that river is made of ink, and those pencils are meant to evoke stalacmites, stalactites and columns.
R4 Background cite image 4 — This Picture City image has a huge amount of R1-originating detail in it, from the thumb-tacks to the flying pencil sharpeners to the mountains in the background. The books shown in this image were not present in R1, but they did turn up in RRR1 GBA.
R4 Background Ciel — This Band Land image also has some excellent little details, such as the bongos and wrong notes in the distance and the cymbals from Mr Sax's Hullaballoo. And look at those little shining, floating objects littered around the picture — they're obviously meant to be pickups of some sort. Tings? Lums?
R4 Background Ciel Color — An amazing colour rendition of what Band Land was to look like.
R4 Jouet 03 cl 2 — A world of toys, in a style that would not look out-of-place in R1. This world was merged with Picture City to create the "Child world" seen in RRR1 GBA. The presents in the background seem to recall the Candy Chateau.
~Now, it has become clear that, at some point in its development, Rayman 4 was intended to be very similar in style to Rayman 1. An R4 that gave this much attention to the continuity of the series would have been a very good R4 indeed. A shame.
