
Crash Bandicoot: An oral history - Tomte
https://www.polygon.com/2017/6/22/15820540/crash-bandicoot-an-oral-history
======
ali_af
Andy Gavin wrote a series on the creation of Crash Bandicoot [1]. It covers
some of the intricate details and compromises of developing for the
Playstation. It's one of my favorite pieces of writing, definitely recommend
it to anyone who likes development articles.

[1] [http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-
ban...](http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-bandicoot-
part-1/)

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danso
As someone who never played Crash Bandicoot, I immediately did a text search
for "Baggett" to see if Dave Baggett mentions the bug that literally comes up
in every online discussion about craziest debugging stories ever [0] and is
the first thing I think about when I hear Crash Bandicoot mentioned.
Surprisingly, it doesn't, but Baggett has a bunch of other interesting
anecdotes about his work. CB doesn't look like my type of game, but ever since
buying a PS4 (had a PS2 previously), I've snapped up Naughty Dog games based
on my high estimation of their development quality (and, well, the high review
scores that their games always seem to get).

[0]
[http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DaveBaggett/20131031/203788/M...](http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DaveBaggett/20131031/203788/My_Hardest_Bug_Ever.php)

~~~
bitmapbrother
On a related note, Dave Baggett is also the co-founder of ITA which sold to
Google for a reported 700 million.

~~~
danso
Yeah, everything I've read from him has been interesting/inspiring. I even
joined Quora because that seems to be his social media platform of choice (or
was, at the time):

[https://www.quora.com/profile/Dave-
Baggett](https://www.quora.com/profile/Dave-Baggett)

He's been on HN a few times in the past too:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dmbaggett](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dmbaggett)

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lispm
Not mentioned: written in Allegro Common Lisp (for the IDE on SGIs) and
Scheme/GOOL running on the Playstation.

~~~
aaron-lebo
I was waiting for the first lisp-related comment. You win, lispm.

The new remaster is a completely new engine apparently, so it's gone.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/6imvro/a_remaster_wi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/6imvro/a_remaster_with_no_old_code_crash_bandicoot_was/dj80wtb/)

~~~
lispm
Had to be recreated without access to the original source code? How sad.

~~~
snuxoll
Most of the source would have been fairly useless for the project anyway, but
it would have been neat to see them write a new GOOL interpreter or compiler
and reuse a large part of the original game logic.

~~~
justinjlynn
I can't even begin to imagine the nightmare writing such a thing would be, and
then trying make sure it worked correctly...

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racl101
Man, if it weren't for Mario 64 and what a game changer that game was, perhaps
more people would remember Crash Bandicoot and that it was a pretty good game
in its own right.

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sbierwagen
>That was just Crash 1. Two was even worse! [Laughs] Three was pretty bad,
too. For me, from August of '94 to December of '98 was one entire, giant
crunch.

What a waste. I can't really think of any game or game series that would be
worth four _years_ of crunch.

~~~
pandaman
Do you have a hobby? Would you consider time spent on a hobby a waste?
Especially in this case, where Andy and Jason went from what's called now
"indie" (the last game they've made before Crash was the Way of the
Warrior[1]) straight into the big AAA. Most people in the games industry won't
ever have a chance to do this.

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Ya4mSkDMI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Ya4mSkDMI)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _Do you have a hobby? Would you consider time spent on a hobby a waste?_

If I was required to do it for 16 hours a day every day, hell yes I would.

~~~
pandaman
Some people's hobbies are things like mountain climbing or sailing. Those take
many days/months at 24 hour a day. Some even do multi-day camping/skiing
trips. Some even do vacations in other countries. These are all 24 hour a day.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Nobody _enjoys_ crunch time. No one sleeps under their desk for three months,
seeing their family one day a week, and thinks "I'm living the dream". They go
along with it because they believe it's necessary to continue their career in
gaming.

~~~
pandaman
People are different. I for one cannot imagine somebody enjoying running a
supermarathon. I cannot imagine enjoying running any distance, tbqh. Yet, I
see people running on the streets and read about people doing crazy running
events and training for marathons etc. Do they do this to advance their career
in running? I have no idea. Seeing the vast majority of them not getting paid
anything and only spending money on running equipment I'd say they are pretty
stupid if they do.

On the other hand, I know that some people enjoy making games. I am one of
them. I had stayed up 30+ hours few times chasing bugs not because somebody
forced me but because it's more fun than sit at home and watch TV (or run, or
make ships in a bottle or whatever people with different hobbies do in their
free time). You don't believe it's possible to enjoy your job? If it's true,
it's pretty sad actually.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Of course it's possible to enjoy your job. I never said otherwise. If people
weren't passionate about making games they'd never put up with crunch time.
And certainly I've enjoyed caffeine-fueled multi-day hacking sessions.

I have never heard of _anyone_ who claims to enjoy extended crunch time. There
might be an outlier somewhere, but I doubt even that exists. At best there's a
shared sense of exhausted accomplishment when you're finally done. (Unless you
get laid off as soon as the game ships.)

Crunch is not why people make games. Crunch is the price you have to pay to
_keep_ making games. Or at least that's what the people who make the schedule
say.

~~~
pandaman
It seems to me you are implying that somebody put extended crunch time on Andy
Gavin and he had to put up wit it? Please look up who is he.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Not really the point. Read the section OP quoted, "YOU JUST DIDN'T LEAVE". Do
any of those people sound like crunch was fun to them? They liked working on
the game, and some of them reminisce about the crunch time like old soldiers
telling war stories, but I don't see any positive adjectives in there. About
the nicest thing anybody said was "when you're young you don't feel it that
much," which is pretty faint praise.

~~~
pandaman
I replied to the comment quoting Andy specifically. Other people might be
having different opinions. I am sure there are people who hate crunch and some
at the Naughty Dog might be them. There are tons of such people in EA or
working on the Aplle's factory in China for sure but I am not discussing their
opinions, which were not mentioned in this thread.

------
mlasson
Andy Gavin: "[SGI's] stuff from the early '90s was all filled with this giro
shading, as it was called, where things all looked like plastic, like colored
plastic."

"giro shading" ? What is he referring to ? Is it a real thing ?

~~~
kieranelby
Perhaps it was another term for gouraud shading?

~~~
aidenn0
Almost certainly a transcription error, since "giro" is fairly close to the
pronunciation of gouraud.

------
6stringmerc
This makes me want to look up the history of Earthworm Jim, because Sega &
surrealism.

~~~
eriknstr
You might also be interested in the backstory of the video game Ecco The
Dolphin.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xUvhUK8Dv8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xUvhUK8Dv8)

