Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (GameCube)

This page details one or more prototype versions of Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (GameCube).

Night MissionThe standard mission found in the demo. Day MissionA hidden daytime mission found in the demo. Unused Objects, Models & GraphicsFrom early versions of objects to stuff that never made it into the final.

Title Screen#

Proto	Final

The demo's title screen uses a static image, while the final's takes place in a dynamic scene. The "Press Start" text is slightly different, and the demo has text indicating it's a demo version.

The demo's logo has a few differences:

• The logo is overall slightly larger.
• The egg and crescent-shaped egg trail are larger, closer to the text, have thicker outlines, and curve more.
• The trademark symbol is slightly higher up and more to the right.

Technologies Screen#

Proto	Final

The ADX logo's colors were inverted, and the logo itself was moved up to make room for crediting Dolby. The demo is missing the note about the game being compatible with the Game Boy Advance Cable since it doesn't use it.

HUD Differences#

Proto	Final

• The health and lives icons have a different art style.
• The lives icon and counter is on the left underneath the health.
• The lives counter text is in white.
• There is no timer.
• The egg meter looks crude, has a shadow, and is missing the chicken emblem.
• There is no empty egg icon for the egg meter. If Billy isn't holding an egg, the egg meter moves off-screen.

Pause Menu#

Proto	Final

• The red and white in the "Pause" text are inverted.
• The outline around the "Pause" text is less distinct.
• The "Pause" text is closer to the top of the box.
• The menu items are slightly lower.
• The border for the pause menu is a simple yellow rounded rectangle, which is shorter than the final's orange box.
• The lives and Chick Coin icons are missing, and the health and egg meter are underneath the black overlay.
• The "Select" option is missing

Coming This Fall Screen#

Regardless of whether you lose all your lives or complete the level, a screen indicating the relative release date (at the time) shows up.

Other Visual Differences#

Proto	Final

Egg Rings look simpler and don't have spheres or connectors around them.

Proto	Final

Textboxes are simpler in the prototype. The indicator to move onto the next box is a double arrow instead of a B button icon.

Proto	Final

The B button prompt for talking to characters is simpler and less stylized in the prototype.

Proto	Final

In the prototype, performing an Egg Driver on some eggs has a squish effect that is not present in the final.

Proto	Final

The mission cleared phrase is "Mission is cleared" in the prototype. The final removed the "is" and made "mission" larger.

• The icon for targeting enemies looks different.
• There are simpler visual effects when throwing and dunking the egg.
• There are different visual effects when hatching an egg animal. Additionally, there is no text when they come out; instead, the camera rotates around them slightly and smoothly pans back to the player when regaining control.
• The visual egg meter on the HUD doesn't indicate the egg's health.
• The green plants present throughout the level are smaller and a duller shade of green in the prototype.

Music Differences#

All music in the demo is different than the corresponding songs in the final.

select.adx

Quite a few differences here. The "la la" vocals are in a different tone.

pirates1.adx

This song doesn't play at all in the demo. It sounds like an incomplete version of the night theme for Pirate's Island, which is likely why the demo opted for one of the day variants.

pirates2.adx

Some of the instruments are different, and some instruments in the demo are less prominent.

pirates3.adx

A similar situation with this one as well.

If looping on the music playback is disabled, some normally unheard outros for these songs can be heard. For the level themes it's just instrument release, but in the main theme there is a proper outro left unused!

Audio Differences#

Player#

• Billy's voice is completely different. The audio for his voice is very low, making it hard to hear over the music. He also says fewer phrases overall, such as no sound when dashing or dying, or variants for Egg Drive.

Comparison to final:

• It seems the devs intended for charging the rooster call to affect hatching, based on how long the button was held. However even in the 2002 proto this feature seems scrapped, as charging time doesn't affect how the eggs hatch.

Interestingly, voice clips for Rolly also exist in the proto, unused and different to final.

Comparison to final:

• Billy uses "Yay!" when starting an Egg Drive or when preparing for an Egg Toss instead of "Yahoo!" like the final. Similarly, situations were "Yay!" would be used in the final are "Yahoo!" in the proto.

General Sounds#

Multiplayer Menu

• Sounds for when a player selects the same character, but are barred from doing so.

Full Egg Jingle

• The jingle for eggs growing to full size is slightly different.

Emblem Spawn

• The sound played when the Emblem of Courage appears is different, being deeper for pitch in the proto.

Egg Dashing

• Egg Dashing is muted in the proto for gameplay, though there is a sample meant for the move. It simply is rolling sped up, vs final where it's a burst rush with particles added visually.

Egg Kick

• Egg kicking is muted in proto for gameplay, though has a clip meant for it. It's more impactful compared to final.

Rescue Mission Bomb

• The bomb object for the rescue missions or multiplayer in final has a different sample unused in the proto.

Elder Rooster Crow

• Before the Elder crows after you save him, he coughs. In the proto it's notably human sounding, while final has it be a short cluck.

Egg Animals#

• In the demo, only Clippin and Richie can be accessed. The other functional egg animals in the Proto deliberately have their sound samples in the MPB sound bank muted.

Clippin

• Note: The attack launch sound is muted in the proto despite this sample being placed. This faucet sound is likely a placeholder.

Richie

Enemies#

To do: Current tools corrupt certain samples, so they are missing for some entries even though the audio clip exists (Been death, King Gelly clips). Add them when better tools are made.

While the proto only features the Gelly grunts, Gray grunts, and Larpees (Day Mission), the sound banks indicate that the other standard enemies were already implemented, each having audio. Notably all sound different for hit/death cry compared to final, while King Batter additionally uses a different rising sound compared to final.

Grunts

Big Dora

Gator

Larpee

Been

Big Anton

King Batter

Arma

Ribbim

Other Differences#

• Bridges are extremely glitchy when it comes to audio. They will play a sound many times in succession when you step on them, and rolling an egg over them sounds as if you broke a rock or other piece of scenery. However, you can't normally get to any bridges in the demo level.
• There is no sound when Menie-Funie talks to Billy at the start of the level.
• The crows don't make sounds after coming out of defeated enemies, despite the audio sample already being in the MPB sound bank.

Unused in Proto Audio#

• There are some exclusive clips in the proto that are nulled in final.

Score Screen#

Rank D "jingle"

• Seems like they initially were going to shame the player if they got a poor rank...

Tallying Score

• Alternate pinball clanging sounds, likely for tallying score. The tally sound used in final already exists in an entry before this.

General Differences#

• There is no animation for Billy starting out the level; he's just there.
• Billy's idle animation is slightly different. His hands start open, and he closes them into fists over time.
• When hanging from a ledge, the only action Billy can do is jump from it. In the final, this is the only action Billy can do when grabbing hand bars, but for ledges he can choose to drop or pull himself up; however, he can't actually jump from a ledge.
• Billy's animation for commanding an animal friend is different. He simply raises his arm up, similar to his animation when befriending animals.
• Egg movement is buggy. Sometimes, you'll accelerate very slowly upon grabbing an egg, and other times it won't reset certain action states, such as performing a dash.
• Billy's position while grabbing the egg is extremely buggy. If Billy hits collision that the egg can go through, he'll be visibly separated from the egg but still be rolling it. This is easily noticeable if you slowly stop your egg while it's falling off a ledge.
• Billy can freely walk on steep slopes as if they weren't steep. This includes the slope at the start.
• The draw distance is shorter in the prototype.
• Level geometry, such as trees, disappears when the camera is far away from it instead of smoothly fading out of view like in the final.
• You can sometimes clip through objects if you perform a Bounce Jump and hold towards the object.
• You can't roll with R after doing a Bounce Jump.
• You can't throw your egg with B after doing a Bounce Jump.
• The visual egg meter on the HUD fills up extremely slowly.
• The entire phrase "Let's Go!" is displayed when starting a level instead of them being separate.
• Chicken Elder Uri-Uri is called Patriarch Chicken Uli-Uli in the night mission's briefing, but Uri-uri everywhere else.
• The Rooster Call is called the Egg Echo.
• Animal friends make a high-pitched "squeaky" sound whenever they walk and make no sound when you run them over with an egg.
• There is no cutscene for the Chicken Elder's egg breaking if it gets destroyed. Instead, it just plays Billy's generic failure animation.
• On boot, the Sega logo shows up, followed then the technologies screen, followed by the Sonic Team logo. In the final, the Sonic Team logo shows up right after the Sega logo.
• Some egg spawns are mistakenly slightly above their nests.

Development Text#

There's a file called GCAX.conf, which looks to be a config file for the AX sound library. This file is not present in the final version.

;----------------------------------------------------------
; GCAX(AX SNDLIB)の設定
;----------------------------------------------------------
; 書式
;
; セミコロン以降はコメントになります
; 改行コードは、LF(Unix)、CR(Macintosh)、CR+LF(MS-DOS)いずれも可です
; コメント以外に日本語を入れることはできません
;
; 数値
;   0       ゼロ
;   0[0-7]*     8進数
;   0x[0-9A-Fa-f]*  16進数
;   $[0-9A-Fa-f]*   16進数
;   [1-9][0-9]  10進数
;
; <s>
;   ホワイトスペース (スペースまたはタブ)
;
;----------------------------------------------------------
;AramBank - ARAMバンクサイズの設定
;AramBank <s> バンク番号 <s> バンクサイズ
;----------------------------------------------------------
;ARAMのバンクの大きさは、プログラム実行中を通じて固定になっていますが、
;このファイルで設定することで、実行開始時に変更することができます
;
;なお、ARAMにロードされるのは、波形データのみです
;
;----------------------------------------------------------
;   ARAMバンクサイズの設定
;----------------------------------------------------------
AramBank     0  670000
AramBank     1  850000
AramBank     2  700000
AramBank     3  800000
AramBank     4  910000
AramBank     5  500000
AramBank     6  500000
AramBank     7  400000
AramBank     8  0
AramBank     9  0
AramBank    10  0
AramBank    11  0
AramBank    12  0
AramBank    13  0

;----------------------------------------------------------
;   リバーブ設定
;----------------------------------------------------------
ReverbHTime               1000  ;msec
ReverbHPreDelay           10    ;msec
ReverbHDamping            80    ;%
ReverbHColoration         50    ;%
ReverbHCrosstalk          30    ;%
ReverbHMix                100   ;%

;----------------------------------------------------------
; GCAX (AX SNDLIB) Settings
;----------------------------------------------------------
; Format
;
; Anything after a semicolon will become a comment.
; LF (Unix), CR (Macintosh), and CR+LF (MS-DOS) may all be used as newline characters.
; Do not write in Japanese except in comments.
;
; Numerics
;   0       0
;   0[0-7]*     Base 8
;   0x[0-9A-Fa-f]*  Base 16
;   $[0-9A-Fa-f]*   Base 16
;   [1-9][0-9]  Base 10
;
; <s>
;   White Space (Space or Tab)
;
;----------------------------------------------------------
;AramBank - ARAM Bank Size Settings
;AramBank <s> Bank Number <s> Bank Size
;----------------------------------------------------------
;The ARAM bank's size is fixed during the program's runtime,
;but you can change its size at launch by setting it in this file.
;
;Note that only waveform data will be loaded into ARAM.
;
;----------------------------------------------------------
;   ARAM Bank Size Settings
;----------------------------------------------------------
AramBank     0  670000
AramBank     1  850000
AramBank     2  700000
AramBank     3  800000
AramBank     4  910000
AramBank     5  500000
AramBank     6  500000
AramBank     7  400000
AramBank     8  0
AramBank     9  0
AramBank    10  0
AramBank    11  0
AramBank    12  0
AramBank    13  0

;----------------------------------------------------------
;   Reverb Settings
;----------------------------------------------------------
ReverbHTime               1000  ;msec
ReverbHPreDelay           10    ;msec
ReverbHDamping            80    ;%
ReverbHColoration         50    ;%
ReverbHCrosstalk          30    ;%
ReverbHMix                100   ;%