
Gex (1997) - networked
https://games.greggman.com/game/gex/
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msarnoff
Seems like a good time to mention The Cutting Room Floor, an excellent wiki
that catalogs cut/unused content, debug features, and secret messages left in
video games.

The page for Gex [1] describes a good portion of the cut assets and secrets
mentioned in the article.

[1] - [https://tcrf.net/Gex_(3DO)](https://tcrf.net/Gex_\(3DO\))

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amatecha
Wow, that's an old blog post. At first I thought the comments with datestamps
of "16 years ago" were some kind of bug!

Pretty surprising this retrospective post was made only a couple years after
the game released -- usually people wait a bit longer to "spill the beans" on
development of games they worked on. :)

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nnfy
I think one true measure of a superb game development studio is the ability to
make a game enjoyable and interesting within the construct of the chosen
setting.

It would have probably taken much more than the small team they had initially,
but there's no reason in theory that they could have gone with their idea and
made an extremely rich game, with different play styles in each thematic
genre, for example.

Dark Souls does this well. Without modifying the properties of the universe,
each area requires modified strategies and this keeps the game fresh, and
clever, while staying within the confines of this medieval fantasy world.

Point is, you dont have to force platforming onto a game; but these guys were
doing this 20 years ago on potato technology with an understaffed team. I
didnt understand gex when I played it, but as a hobby game dev, I respect what
they accomplished.

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k__
I'm always baffled by the randomness in such productions.

I mean, what is even happening there from a business perspective?!

Okay, people want to make a game that gets big and sells merch, but then the
whole thing gets crazy, like nobody even thought about that they needed a game
that was SO good that everybody wants to buy merch for it.

~~~
subwayclub
The problem tends to stem from misplaced feedback, not intentional badness. In
this case the scenario is set by copy-pasting the dev cycle of previous games
onto a new one. The game gets designed from the surface(marketing, and
specifically marketing artifacts like the Gex character and a pitch that
dictates the design) inwards and so ends up with huge gaps in what it wants to
do versus what it actually does, and tons of stuff that gets thrown out as
unusable. And then new technology gets in the way.

I am actually finishing up a project that went very similarly, just at a
smaller scope.

~~~
ido
A lot of game studios are also not ran by professional management (especially
at the time, it's been slowly getting better in the intervening 20 years).
I've worked for many different companies & a lot of stuff is really just
decided/made up as they go without much process.

Even succesful studios like Rockstar are not necessarily well managed, often
success/money just papers over a lot of issues (plus burning out their staff
with insane working hours to compensate for lack of planning).

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AdmiralAsshat
>When I was interviewing at Crystal I was told that Gex was to be the next
Sonic. It was to be a huge hit, the newest mascot, one of those titles that
inspires all kinds of merchandising like toys and cartoons, pens, pencils,
notebooks, underroos, ...

Gex certainly _felt_ like it was designed by a marketing team rather than a
game designer with a vision. You could always tell by the "edgy" renders that
would show up on magazine covers and the like. It never really appealed to me.

On the upside, the Gex 3 engine was used as the basis for Legacy of Kain: Soul
Reaver, so at least we got that out of it.

~~~
cavanasm
To be fair, the mascot character was a fad at that point. There were a bunch
of stand alone games (because they didn't do well enough to get follow ups)
with character designs like that. Never played 3DO, but I played some of the
later Gex games on Playstation, and found it enjoyable enough.

~~~
bitwize
And they were all Sonic ripoffs. Nintendo had Mario, okay fine, but then Sega
had to come up with a character to "beat" Mario and that was Sonic. Then all
the other companies came out of the woodwork and _they_ had to have mascot
(with 'tude!) of their _own_ to represent their brand. So we got GEX and Aero
the Acro-Bat and... motherfucking Bubsy...

By the mid-90s, even Sega seemed discontent with Sonic headlining their brand,
so we also got Ristar, Tempo, Wild Woody, etc.

But the lesson the marketroids failed to take away from Mario and Sonic is
that this really only works if you have a strong _game_ , not just a strong
character.

Two mascot platformers from the side-scrolling, Sonic ripoff period that
really delivered on their promise, gameplay wise, were _Jazz Jackrabbit_ and
_Rocket Knight Adventures_. Both of those had consistent gameplay, a tight
feel, and neat mechanics that made them fun. Hence why I still remember these,
but tend to forget all the others...

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duncan_bayne
Maybe I have the sense of humour of a five year old, but Wild Woody sounds a
_lot_ too NSFW for a kids gaming mascot.

~~~
bitwize
I think that was kind of the point. He was a hideous CG pencil, and his attack
was rubbing things out with his eraser ass. Cringe and gross double entendres
all around. Of course inappropriateness was a hallmark of Sega's 3edgy5me
days; Sonic was originally supposed to have a sexy, blonde, human girlfriend.

~~~
duncan_bayne
That's horrific in several ways, and in particular brings to mind the old joke
about porcupines.

But it must have been a fairly old concept. I was a big Sega fan as a child,
owning the original Sonic for the Master System, and don't remember any humans
except for Dr. Robotnik.

~~~
bitwize
It was nixed by a Sega of America staffer named Madeline Schroeder, who did a
lot of streamlining and de-crufting the Sonic concept before the game was even
made.

Oddly enough she would go on to establish Crystal Dynamics, the studio that
made GEX. And Sega would go on to ship Sonic with a human in _Sonic the
Hedgehog_ (2006).

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ballenf
The 6x investment needed to move from 16bit to 32bit, in the author's
estimation and experience, makes me understand the trend toward 8-bit retro
games a little better. Even if no modern "8-bit" games are that in anything
but name and _some_ graphics only.

I've been hoping in vain for a couple years that the trend toward faux "8-bit"
would pass as a fad, but it seems to really have become a niche with staying
power.

Is there something I'm missing that's driving this trend? Or am I alone in
preferring line art or other styles over "8-bit" graphics?

~~~
tcfunk
The curious thing about this is that vector graphics for 2d games is soooo
much easier to make than pixel graphics. It scales better, it's easier to
animate, and it's easier to edit.

Pixel art requires hand-animating each frame of each sprite. Want to change
something about the character? You're now changing 20 frames worth of that
same something.

~~~
Narishma
They may be easier to make but I find 2d vector graphics tend to look very
bland and generic.

~~~
virgil_disgr4ce
My thoughts exactly. It's really hard to get any kind of interesting textures
with vector graphics.

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frik
I first though it was about "Gex: Enter the Gecko" 1998 (a Super Mario 64 like
early 3D platformer):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gex:_Enter_the_Gecko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gex:_Enter_the_Gecko)

But the article was about Gex 1995 (2D platformer):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gex_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gex_\(video_game\))

Trivia:

"Gex Enter the Gecko" (3D, part 2) used the same 3D engine as Tomb Raider 1
(from CORE Design). Crystal Dynamics improved the engine with every game (like
Legacy of Kain) and in the end Crystal Dynamics won over the Tomb Raider
franchise with Tomb Raider Legend (2006), where as Core Design's engine fork
looked old-school by then and basically killed the company. Even to this day
"Rise of the Tomb Raider" is still based on that engine, obviously much
improved over those many years. (source: check the Wikipedia pages)

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petetnt
Thanks for this, never read this before! I still remember how back in '95,
after I had had my mind blown with titles like Tekken and after seeing it
hyped in so many magazines, being so disappointed at what Gex actually was.
Biggest disappointment since Vortex on SNES, heh.

~~~
petetnt
And while the 3d sequels were at least somewhat competent 3d platformers, it's
pretty crazy that Gex had a playboy sidekick in the third one. (Somewhat NSFW
[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/18/20/93/18209312f22639374c84...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/18/20/93/18209312f22639374c84847996a5ce08.jpg))

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jccalhoun
Very interesting read. However, I'm not sure why a game where you do stunts to
make money is "a lame concept" but getting sucked into a tv isn't?

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khedoros1
The point was that the second concept is more fantasy-like, so the level
designers can get away with using more classic video game design elements.

If he's supposed to be a stuntman on a "real" movie set, they'd have to
explain why their wild west set has magical floating platforms flying around.

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jrs95
This was one of my favorite games as a kid. Loved the whole style of it.

