Super Monkey Ball Adventure

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Super Monkey Ball Adventure.

With Amusement Vision being merged with Sega for future projects like Yakuza in 2005, and the Monkey Ball franchise still running strong, Traveller's Tales was tasked to make the 3D action-oriented Super Monkey Ball Adventure in late 2004. Unfortunately, given the small development time and reused engine from Crash Twinsanity despite the Monkey Ball series not really being a platformer, it was found unfavorable in reviews due to poor gameplay and arbitrary design.

Sub-Pages#

Monkeys to Kongs and other NPC Development50 Monkey/Kongs? See how some were revised, or outright scrapped! Naysayer Design DevelopmentWith how intensive this process was, there were a lot of revisions.

Timeline#

• For the first 6 weeks, Traveller's Tales was tasked to come up with concepts to match the mandated designs for art. According to developers, the intended vision was similar to a Honda advert with bunnies, being "realistic, but cartoony and cute"¹. With the approval from this, TT was then able to continue further developing worlds, getting approval from Toshihiro Nagoshi relayed via Sega Europe's business advisors.²

• According to Paul Gardner (one of the directors), they only had about a year initially to further develop the game. It was extended by several months to further refine several elements, though he left the project at that point.³. Keith Webb also noted how the game initially was planned to be a prequel to SMB2 (with him even doing concept art of young Dr. Badboon and his assistant), though Sega insisted for the game to be based on the current main 4 in helping others, with no other species outside Monkeys and Apes. This led to the scrapping of 2 none monkey/ape characters; a fruit bat named WanWan, and a Whale King.

• Around the middle to later end of development, Sega asked TT to incorporate an antagonist. This presented an issue with the previous mandate of no alternate species, and took roughly 3 months and many design revisions to finally have a set of monsters based on the Spell Chants abilities. The initial design offered from Sega was having a wispy ethereal monster, though limitations in the engine eventually led to the more patched Nightmare Before Christmas-esque designs.⁴⁵

• With this set in motion, the game was finally announced by Sega on January 25, 2006.⁶ Interestingly, the game was announced for Spring 2006 instead of late Summer 2006, possibly due to expanded time in dev.

Stage Concepts#

Kongri La	Monkitropolis

• Concept art for most of the Hub Worlds was done by Tim Webster, with Paul Gardner and other TT senior artists refining plans and modeling it out for game. The hub world was designed in several stages, as seen for Moonhaven below.
• According to Keith Webb, Zootopia was initially very different in concepting compared to other stages. It was described as "Casino Night Zone", though wound up as an amusement park in the end.

Stage Development Process#

Block-out/Collision	Base/1st Texturing Pass	Final Texturing Pass

• For MoonHaven, Paul Gardner and Jason Millson worked together to craft a Victorian-styled steam-operated hub.⁷ Most of the research for gear meshing was done by the latter, with modeling the base mesh in the block-out phase and terrain done by the former. Once the base shape was done, other TT staff further detailed them, until the only thing left after final tex was objects, missions, lighting, and the skybox.
• UI also noticeably is different, with the radar being blue, and the life icon going from reused SMB2 icons to Adventure's own.⁸

Trailer and E3 Footage#

Between the release date, and a short period before E3, IGN and other game reviewers uploaded several trailers for the game as early as late Spring. Unfortunately, given that they're reuploads the actual dates are lost.

Earliest Trailer (Pre E3 footage)#

Notes:

• Despite the trailer being labeled for GameCube, it's actually the PS2 version, indicated by the PS2 button prompts and ball transparency.

Watch on YouTube

Early Over the Hills	Final Over the Hills

• Based on the UI, this is the earliest of the 4 sets of trailers. For font, the UI also uses Helvetica Neue, like SMB1/2 did, before becoming the bubble font
• Similar to the radar, the minimap has blue in the background, instead of final's red violet

Early Monkey Race	Final Monkey Race

• Heavy lighting and texture differences make the entire scene go from the bright yellow of the trailer to the cooler muted blue in final. Lights also blink in final for the starting line. Potentially this applies to early Monkitropolis as a whole, though the Hub wasn't seen in the trailer
• The Map for Course 2 has less chunks of the road missing in the trailer compared to final
• Item boxes also changes from the ones used in SMB2, to become the more mono colored dull red of final
• Lastly, UI again changed all font from the ones in SMB1/2 to the Bubble font

Early Monkey Cannon	Final Monkey Cannon

• Once again, UI uses the SMB2 fonts, along with a more slash styled font for the timer and player placement
• Items also use different icons compared to final, with some reused from SMB1/2
• The enemy tower meter was redesigned slightly in final

Early NPC	Final NPC

• Either due to rendering error or art change, the clothes of this NPC are entirely black in the trailer
• Minor line break difference. AiAi/the player's name is also capitalized differently
• The telescope is significantly more detailed in the trailer. In final the roping is gone
• Camera angle also is tweaked, showing more of the telescope

Early Entering Puzzle Level	Final Entering Puzzle Level

Early ZZ Stop finish	Final ZZ Stop finish

• There are no spot lights on the gate in the trailer
• The platform to enter levels was remodeled, looking less metallic in the trailer
• The skybox and lighting for the ZooTopia themed puzzle levels initially was similar to the Jungle Island Puzzle levels. In Final it's Dusk like the Hub World
• Particles surrounding the player once you finish or enter the level also are using bloom to glow. In final there's no bloom
• The Goal uses a design closer to the base one in SMB1/2. In final the popper ball for it is a lot shinier, and goal frames are slightly themed to the world

Jungle Island (Pre E3)#

Notes:

• By this point, the UI is roughly the same as final.
• Once again, this is mislabeled as the GCN version, despite being PS2's.
• There's no music in the hub world, and most NPCs are missing compared to final.

Watch on YouTube

Moonhaven (Pre E3)#

Notes:

• There's no music for the area.
• Aiai uses more voice clips when on edge (4), similar to SMB1/2. In final only 3 are used.
• Similar to the final PSP version, when dying during a mission, the NPCs will state their dissatisfaction at the player "quitting".

Watch on YouTube

E3#

Notes:

• Physics when bouncing on flowers seem more sensitive to movement.
• This is the first time the GCN version is actually seen.
• Jungle Island is the only hub world shown.

Watch on YouTube

E3 Minimap	Final Minimap

• The E3 version bizarrely has UI elements for the minimap missing, including the player icon.

E3 GCN Photo	Final GCN Photo

• The E3 version has no filter for when the picture is taken in the timed camera missions. Final this changed to (varying across ports) to have a grey filter.

Later Trailer#

Shown after E3. Watch on YouTube

Trailer Boxing Glove	Final Boxing Glove

• The Boxing Glove powerup in Adventure mode initially was yellow with metal banding like the metal powerup in Party Mode Monkey Boxing. In final it looks more like the traditional red boxing glove seen across the series.

Near Final#

Notes:

• Was used on the game's now-defunct website.
• At this point hub world mission music is finished.

Watch on YouTube

this is a glitch for the police mission using tetherball while in a puzzle level for story mode in Monkitropolis. the text on screen says `erball to b` or

teth"erball to b"ring back the monsters who escaped jail 

sometimes the game doesn't know how to clear the current mission text on screen.

References#