Unseen Differences

This is a sub-page of Proto:Spyro: Year of the Dragon/Crash Bash & Spyro Demo.

Due to how early this demo is in development, there are a multitude of changes outside of the levels seen to the player. Most of these changes are in the form of unused and unseen text, though there are a few functional changes which goes unseen to the player in the demo.

Level Names#

The internal list of level names contains a few which were renamed before the final version of the game.

Curiously, in Honey Speedway, Sparx calls the level "Honeycomb Speedway". This is likely a leftover from when the level was named differently. In all versions of the game the level values represent the world they are located in (i.e. Midnight Mountain levels are 4x, since Midnight Mountain is the 4th homeworld) and what type of level they are (that is, x0 are homeworlds; x1, x2, x3 and x4 are all 'normal' levels; x5 are speedways; x6 are critter levels; x7 are boss levels; and x8 are Sparx levels). Notably, the only levels missing from this version are Sparx levels and bosses.

Egg Names#

The Atlas name for a number of different egg challenges was changed between different versions of the game.

None of the five unused text strings found after the rest of the eggs (for example, "Stop, thief") are found within this demo. They're present in every other version of the game, though.

Other Atlas Content#

While the Atlas is usually inaccessible, it can be accessed through hacking. Many of the Atlas's textures fail to appear, and it doesn't function as it's supposed to. The Atlas is still internally referred to as the "Guidebook" in this version, like in Spyro 2. Usually this would be seen on the pause screen, but due to the limited pause screen presented in the demo version, this usually goes unseen. Despite this, the word "Atlas" is still clearly visible on the book's front cover during its opening animation. Some of the gem and egg counts given by the Atlas itself appear to be reading garbage data and so generally speaking the numbers in the Atlas aren't to be trusted, but there are some things we can confidently confirm from the Atlas contents, as well as from the data itself.

• The Sparx Worlds option is absent from the Atlas, and each world is said to contain 37 eggs instead of 36, suggesting these worlds were considered to be part of the homeworld they are accessed from. Indeed, accessing the Sunrise Spring page in the Atlas confirms that Crawdad Farm would have been included amongst the Sunrise Spring worlds and this is further confirmed by early screenshots from just after this point in development.
• The "Super Bonus Worlds" option is also missing from the Atlas at this point in development.
• The epilogue appears to have not been implemented yet - later demos contain epilogue text in the code, whereas this demo does not. Not only are Skill Points not yet present, but there's no Atlas page for them yet either.
• The option to warp to a level using Sparx's abilities is not yet present, as indicated by the lack of any text string referencing this option.

Gem Counts#

According to the Atlas, the total gem count is 10,000 instead of the final game's 15,000. This is also supported by the fact that all three levels contain only 200 gems as opposed to the final game's 400.

Gem counts per-level for the Atlas are stored in an array where each byte represents the number of gems, in hundreds, that are contained within each level. Explicitly, the array for this version is as follows:

02 02 02 02 02 03 02 00 01 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 00 01 04 04 04 04 04 03 04 00 01 05 05 05 05 05 03 05 00 01 00

This translates into the following:

Moneybags#

Watch on YouTubeMoneybags goes completely unseen to allow the player full access to the areas presented in the demo. Despite this, his data still exists in this version, and he can be forced to appear through hacking. The demo also contains all the gem values he asks from Spyro, even for levels which aren't included in the demo. Due to the decreased gem counts, the requirements from Moneybags are also lower. The internal list of gem values for both the demo and the final game are listed below, along with what levels they probably correspond to (the level names are not included with the list, so it is assumed the list remains in the same order as the final game - all that is confirmed is that Molten Crater's place on the list is the same as the final game). Curiously, the list is shorter in the demo version, and hence both Frozen Altars and Crystal Islands have no associated gem values. While the latter level was probably still heavily unfinished at this point, it's known that Frozen Altars existed very early on in development; so either the cat hockey minigame was not complete yet, it didn't require paying Moneybags at this point, or it used one of the other gem values as a placeholder. Most notably Agent 9 costs only 100 in this version as opposed to Bentley's 400 in this version and the 1300 gems required in the final game - it may be the case that the final 100 on the list was actually just used as a placeholder for all the gem values that hadn't been decided on, yet. The list also roughly corresponds to the order in which the levels were created, and so it seems to represent the order with which Moneybags was added to the levels. For example, it is known that Cloud Spires was roughly the 10th level created during development - Brian Allgeier's second level - and Spooky Swamp was the 2nd level created, after Bamboo Terrace.

Music Array#

The array used to identify which track plays in each level uses mostly placeholder values in this version.

The three tracks in the demo are:

• 00 - Sheila's Alp (Unused)
• 01 - Fireworks Factory
• 02 - Enchanted Towers

The music array used in the demo is as follows:

01 02 01 01 02 01 00 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01

Like the final game, the array is 40 values long despite there only being 37 levels. This array translates to the following:

• As expected, the Enchanted Towers theme is used in Sunny Villa and Seashell Shore and the Fireworks Factory theme is used in Molten Crater.
• For some reason, despite not featuring in the demo, Sheila's Alp correctly uses the Sheila's Alp theme. This could suggest the level was considered for the demo at some point.
• The rest of the levels all use Fireworks Factory as a placeholder.

Other Unseen Differences#

• The "WHERE TO?" menu seen when accessing the Balloon / Whirligig / Rocket in the final game is called "HUB2HUB" in this version. Most of the menu is unchanged, with the exception of the last 3 bosses, replaced by "BOSS 2", "BOSS 3" and (surprise!) "BOSS 4". The text colour of the boss names is yellow, while in the final game, it is green.
• Some skateboarding trick names were also changed, and others were added. None of them are seen in-game, as the course record challenge is inaccessible.

Other Unused Text#

• The following... explicit debug string appears shortly after the previous one. Again, this doesn't seem to appear in other versions of the game.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck - out of memory for book vram

• Like demos of the earlier Spyro games, the following string can be found with the demo timeout code:

Bye Bye.....It's Been Fun

• Each demo version contains some kind of version number. All other demos contain the same number, while this one is slightly different.
  • The string is actually located in two places in memory - both on the level select screen and in the save game information. In the (NTSC-U versions of the) final game, "BASCUS-94467SPY3_1" takes the place of this string, indicating that this may have been used as a save file identifier for this version.
  • One may also speculate that this is an indication of the build date of this particular version - May 25th 2000 - as other information from the game's development points towards this build being from late May to early June.

SPYRO_3-v.5.25.a