Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (Windows)

Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg
Developer: Sonic Team Publisher: Sega Platform: Windows Released in US: 2009 Released in EU: May 31, 2006 This game has unused graphics. This game has unused models. This game has unused text.

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The Windows version of the cute 3D platformer, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg was Europe-only at retail, but quietly got an American digital release three years later. This version of the game has a lot of extra files and has most files loose instead of inside the .prd archives of the GameCube release. In particular, there are a number of unused, prototype files which don't exist in the GameCube version of the game. Most actual files are 1:1, even being Big Endian like the original files would have to be for the GameCube.

Unused Stages

There are a few stage models present only in the PC release of the game. It's not immediately obvious all differences between the final and proto versions for all maps, but there are some maps that don't exist in the normal game at all. These are the stg_battle_red unused vs map and stg_practice testing map. Alongside these are map models for stg_test (red/Dino Mountain), stg_test2 (blue/Pirates Island), stg_test2_n (blue/Pirates Island (Night?)), stg_test07 (purple/Blizzard Castle), stgtest08 (blue/Pirates Island Boss). There are matching camera, object, and enemy layouts for 'test' maps 1-8 and 'short' map 1 , along with design layouts (detail objects) for test and test2, an enemy layout for test00 and a camera for test with no numbering.

stg_battle_red

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This seems to be an unused vs stage for the red area, aka Dino Mountain. However it's named stg_battle_red instead of stg_red_battle for the used version. It actually does have matching object layout data, camera data, etc. but unfortunately it's all nulled out and essentially empty.

stg_practice

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This is a testing stage that's pretty much just a flat area with some stairs and bordering walls. While it likely contained a notable object layout at some point, there's now only data for the render model, BSP info, and collision.

stg_test07 / stg_purple - Blizzard Castle

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A comparison between the prototype and final versions of Blizzard Castle. The most clear change is the lack of one egg railing near the back of the map.

Unused Object Models

Similarly to stages, there are several unused character, enemy, or object models in files exclusive to the PC port

Objects

Light Gates

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  Light Gate Texture

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  Dark Gate Texture

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  Light Gate Ingame

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  Dark Gate Ingame

In addition to the usual Dark Gates to bosses, the game was apparently going to feature Light Gates that worked much the same way for an unknown purpose. They use duplicates of the model the Dark Gates use, but with different texturing for each area, except Giant palace, as well as a duplicate of the blue one without a color naming. Interestingly, the global texture ids indicate that the Light Gates were actually created before the Dark Gates. Copying a Light Gate archive over the Dark Gate model archive will result in a 'functional' Light Gate, as pictured, though the effects are still the Dark Gate's as the effects are set from elsewhere.

Items

Special Combs

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In the main game, all combs Billy can collect simply use the same model as default recolored. Here it seems they planned to have more unique varieties based on powerup, but was scrapped.

(Source: ShadowBlitz)

Egg Animals

iwhale

This unused Egg animal seems to be intended to be an ice element animal like Ricky or Oritta. It has fully completed animations.

(Source: ShadowBlitz)

Enemies

ge_e01w - Test Dummy

A test dummy model with target mark. Seems to be for debugging. Has a basic animation set.

ene_am04

Has an identical model to the Giant Palace egg chicks. Has files in the same format as final, used enemies, but isn't placed in any maps.

(Source: ShadowBlitz)

Unused Text

To do: Find and rip Japanese graphics.

Present in the game are leftover Japanese INI files, suggesting there may have been plans to release this port in Japan.

There's also console version leftovers, such as messages related to progressive scan and 50Hz/60Hz. Oddly, these messages exist in Japanese as well (50Hz/60Hz selection is not commonplace in Japan, where consoles were historically NTSC-based).