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Bloons Tower Defense 5 (Adobe Flash)/Unused Graphics and Animations

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This is a sub-page of Bloons Tower Defense 5 (Adobe Flash).

This cactus is UNDER CONSTRUCTION
This article is a work in progress.
...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.
Hmmm...
To do:
  • Find out which update removed the extra tower graphics, and which update(s) removed the early UI
  • Maybe compare the early UI to the final where applicable?
  • More removed graphics:
    • Several explosion animations

Early UI

Older versions of the game contained graphics for an early UI, which were taken out of the game incrementally over the course of various unknown updates. These graphics still exist in Bloons TD 5 Deluxe, due to it being based on an older version of the game.

These early menu graphics use a vastly different and more generic style, and were likely laid out very differently than in the final. They're also filled to the brim with placeholder text.

BTD5-EarlyLogo.png

An early logo, done in a style much closer to Bloons 2 than the final logo. Interestingly enough, Bloons TD 6’s logo is formatted like this one; the number is as big as the “Bloons” and the “TD” text combined and is not under the “Bloons” text like the final logo.

MainMenu

BTD5-EarlyMainMenu.png

An early main menu/title screen, which sports the early logo and two buttons: "Play Game" and "Resume Game".

MenuBase

BTD5-EarlyMenuBase.png

A blue rectangle with the early logo placed above it. Possibly intended to be a backdrop for other menus. While the rectangle fits neatly within the game's 800x600 resolution, the logo extends 213 pixels above that, so this graphic may have also been intended to move around in some way.

ProfileMenu

BTD5-EarlyProfilesPink.png


BTD5-EarlyProfilesYellow.png


BTD5-EarlyProfilesGreen.png

An early profile menu, with pink, yellow, and green profile icons. No equivalent of this menu exists in the final version of this game, though one was later created and used for BTD5 Deluxe. This menu likely predates the creation of Ninja Kiwi's account system, which probably made supporting multiple local saves redundant.

BaseBottomPanel

BTD5-EarlyBottomPanel.png
An early status bar. The final game doesn't have a status bar like this, as the audio settings and the player's name, rank, and Monkey Money are instead relegated to different sections of the main menu. This early status bar also has a "Main Menu" button, which doesn't exist in the final, though it was likely not needed due to how the final game's UI is arranged.

BaseSidePanel

BTD5-EarlySidePanel.png
An early list of menus: "Track Select", "My Towers", "Power-Ups", "Challenges", "Premium", and "Medals". The final game doesn't have an equivalent to this.

SelectTrackMenu

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...
An early track selection menu. This menu seems to be less complete than the others, as the buttons to select tracks at the bottom are missing. The final version of this menu is arranged very differently, and doesn't have descriptions for tracks. This early menu uses "Candyland" as a placeholder track name; ironically, a track with this name was added in the December 14, 2015 update, which released on the game's third anniversary.

GameModePanel

BTD5-EarlyGameModes.png
An early game mode menu, featuring easy, normal, and hard mode buttons with simple monkey doodles. In the final game, the sandbox button is on the right, rather than on the left.

MyTowersMenu

...blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...
An early tower details menu. The final version of this menu shows the selected tower's entire upgrade tree, while this version only shows the next upgrade that the tower will unlock.

PowerupsMenu

BTD5-EarlyPowerupShop.png
A shop for buying "power-ups". These were likely precursors to the Special Agents seen in the final game; a relic of this is that Special Agents are referred to by the rather generic name of "consumables" internally. This early concept was seemingly revived for the sequel, which replaced Special Agents with "Powers".

ChallengesMenu

...blah blah blah blah blah blah blah?
Likely an early menu for Special Missions, though this menu appears to just be a more complete version of the aforementioned track selection menu.

PremiumMenu

BTD5-EarlyPremShop.png
An early premium item store. Other than the title text, it's identical to the "power-ups" shop.

MedalsMenu

BLAH.
Seemingly an early achievements menu. No equivalent of this menu exists in the final version of this game, though one was later created and used for BTD5 Deluxe. This menu also likely predates the account system, which has its own achievements system that the final game opts to use instead.


Vignette

BTD5-EarlyVignette.png
It's a vignette. It's not clear where or how this would have been used. Not much else to say here...

(Source: Original TCRF research)

UpgradePannel

BTD5-UpgradePannel.png
This is the only early graphic that was never removed! Likely because it is located so far away from the others. The early tower upgrading panel features a much smaller upgrade thumbnail box, a buy upgrade button, a pointer at the side similar to the one from the previous game, "Lolograde" placeholder text for an upgrade name, and an enormous sell button. You may notice that the sell button is not in the style of the other things, which means that it overwrote something. This appears to be confirmed when checking its name string in this graphic's frames, which is "locked", meaning it overwrote a upgrade locked icon.

Unused Tower Graphics

Turbo Charge

The Boomerang Thrower has unique art for its Turbo Charge upgrade. Despite existing in the files since launch, these graphics have gone completely unused, as, for unknown reasons, this upgrade instead uses the same graphics as the Bionic Boomer. These were later restored in BTD5 Deluxe, however.

These graphics also exist in Bloons TD Battles and Bloons Monkey City, where they also go unused in the exact same manner.

Portable Lake/Portable Lake Pro Idle Animation

The Portable Lake and Portable Lake Pro have an unused idle animation named Loop, which would've played while idle. The Portable Lake Pro's animation appears to be somewhat broken, as the spots in the middle disappear on some frames. However it is likely just a blinking eye animation.

Pontoon/Pontoon Pro Build Animation

The Pontoon and Pontoon Pro have an unused splashing animation named Build, which would've played upon placing the tower.

Aircraft Carrier Animation

The Aircraft Carrier has an unused animation of its planes being launched. This was used in earlier versions of the game, and is still used in Bloons TD Battles and Bloons Monkey City, but was oddly disabled in the July 22, 2015 update. Seeing as this update also altered the art for the Destroyer and Aircraft Carrier slightly (making the monkey larger), it's likely the animation was disabled, either accidentally or on purpose, in the process of this change.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Mini Plane Animation

The Aircraft Carrier's mini planes have an unused takeoff animation as well, which might be the second part of the Aircraft Carrier animation since that animation comes to an odd stop. Interesting, the mini planes are called Bomb Aces in the files despite shooting darts. An upgrade named Bomber Ace for the Monkey Ace would be in the sequel.

Monkey Ace Landing and Takeoff Animations

The Monkey Ace, it's upgrades, and oddly the Monkey Ace from the Sniper Monkey's Supply Drop upgrade all have unused animations for when placed(takeoff) and when sold(landing).

Removed Graphics

In the July 22, 2015 update, a very large amount of unused art was added to the game's files, probably by mistake. Most of it was subsequently removed in an unknown update. Some of these assets seem to be from early in development, while many others are taken directly from BTD5 Deluxe.

Towers

Bloonchipper

The Bloonchipper from BTD5 Deluxe.

Monkey Engineer

The Monkey Engineer, Cleansing Foam, and Sentry, also from BTD5 Deluxe.

BTD5 Deluxe Agents

The Special Agents from BTD5 Deluxe.

Overclock Wrench

A wrench cursor with a blue aura, from BTD5 Deluxe when the Overclock ability is activated to select a tower.

Bloonchipper Suction

Suction animations for the Bloonchipper. Even in BTD5 Deluxe, these animations were never used; they didn't exist in its files. Strangely, the last frame of each of these animations is blank.

BloonjitsuScarf

BlonjitsuScarfBTD5.png

This is a copy of the Beekeeper's band on its back, but with a different name. It's appearance reveals that the 4/0 upgrade for the Ninja Monkey, Bloonjitsu, was going to get a scarf on the back of it's ingame sprite, just like on its portrait.

Beekeeper Tower Upgrades

Beekeeper upgrades!..from BTD4? It is unknown what these were used for.

Interestingly, on the Fast Deploy Beekeeper upgrade, there is an upgrade mark, a feature from BTD4! It's presence might imply that the sprites are very old, because in all prerelease trailers, towers already had appearance changes to show upgrade difference.

BeeSwarm

BTD5-BeeSwarm.gif

This graphic is odd, but it's probably related to the ones above. The final Beekeeper Swarm ability is not a set animation; it just spawns up to 100 bees. This graphic is also very small for an ability that's supposed to cover the entire screen, so maybe it was originally a close ranged attack.

BloonBushOld

Early Final
Prickly! Yet more prickly!
Early(still) Final(still)
Prickly! Yet more prickly!

An old design for the Bloonberry Bush special agent used in earlier versions, which is thinner and doesn't have sharp edges. It is still used in the special agent ingame tab for the Bloonberry Bush icon.

DamageFX

Early Final
DamageFX.gif BTD5-HeartCrack.gif

An older version of the hearts lost effect when losing lives in the Protect Monkey Town special mission, which is less animated and much simpler.

BunchOMonkeys

An odd-looking pile of Dart Monkeys. It has two animations: Build and ThrowLoop.

Interestingly, in the game's files, the icon for the Super Monkey Fan Club upgrade is also named BunchoMonkeys (the only difference being that the "O" is not capitalised). This strongly suggests that this scrapped tower was once the Dart Monkey's activated ability, but was replaced with the Super Monkey Fan Club in the final game.

MonkeySidekick

A tower that resembles Super Monkey Junior from Bloons Super Monkey 2. It has two animations: Idle and Loop, both of which are very similar to Super Monkey's animations.

Spider

A creepy-crawly spider tower. A scrapped Special Agent, perhaps? Its graphics appear to be unfinished, as they lack shading. It has a single generic attack animation.

Funnily, the art for this tower didn't go to waste, as it was later repurposed for Bloons Monkey City—a slightly altered version with red stripes and no eyes appears on the title screen during Halloween. Since Bloons Monkey City was released in 2013, it's safe to say this tower has existed since 2013 or earlier.

VenusFlyTrap

This tower is... strange. It has two animations: Loop and Exit. It was planned to appear in an Bloons Monkey City premium building, but sadly, that was scrapped as well..

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Projectiles

SignalFlare

Possibly related to the Mortar Tower's Signal Flare upgrade. In Bloons Adventure Time TD, there is an upgrade for C4 Charlie named Signal Flare that launches a signal flare into the sky and decamos all bloons on screen. Seeing that it looks extremely similar to this graphic, it can be inferred that at one point, that is how the 0-4 Mortar Tower's ability functioned, but changed possibly because it would be too weak for a Tier 4.

SpikeBallRoll and SpikeMineRoll

Rolling animations for Spike Factory upgrades Spiked Ball Factory and Spiked Mines. Either they had a different attack originally, or had a different ball placing animation.

FlamingBomb

Judging by this graphic's filename, it seems the bomb from the 0-3 Monkey Buccaneer was originally affected by the Dreadnought premium upgrade, which only affects darts in the final game. The bombs can already pop lead bloons, so it is pretty clear why it was scrapped...

BigBertha

This graphic possibly belongs to the 4/0 Mortar upgrade, The Big One, as the name of this graphic is a reference to the 42-centimetre kurze Marinekanone 14 L/12, a heavy mortar-like howitzer built and used by Germany during World War I, which was popularly known as the Big Bertha. This graphic is also the same as The Big One's bomb.

BTD5 Deluxe Projectiles

Various projectiles from BTD5 Deluxe.

FireBreath

Early Final
*sizzle* *crackle*

An earlier version of 0-3 Monkey Apprentice's fire projectile, which is more animated but much simpler. The upgrade's final fire projectile is also divided into multiple sprites rather than spawning and dissipating in the same sprite animation.

Web

Likely meant to be the aforementioned Spider tower's method of attack.

MonkeyStormPro

The Pro version of the Super Monkey Storm. The final game uses art of the regular Super Monkey for both the normal and Pro versions of the Super Monkey Storm for unknown reasons.

MonkeyStormTrail

Early Final
BTD5-MonkeyStormTrail.gif BTD5-MonkeyStormTrailFinal.png

An early trail effect for the Super Monkey Storm. The final version is not animated and opts for a simple gradient instead.

Grenade

A grenade. Probably meant to be an explosive projectile, but it's not clear where this was meant to be used.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Miscellaneous

Backgrounds

In very early versions of the game, an unused folder named backgrounds existed in the files, which contained alternate renditions of some of the game's tracks. Unlike the final game's maps, which use Adobe Flash sprites for more flexibility, these renditions are simple raster images, which is similar to the method used to render maps in the previous game.

This folder, and all the images inside it, were removed in later versions.

The image of Archipelago is by far the most interesting, as it actually seems to be a work-in-progress version of the track. This version of the track is missing several details, including the treasure chest, the shipwreck, and various environmental details (rocks, water ripples, etc). Additionally, the path in this version seems to be a water current, unlike the path in the final version, which is a dotted line reminiscent of those found on treasure maps.

Otherworldly Achievement

BTD5-Otherworldly.png
In the January 27, 2012 update, several achievements were added to go along with the addition of daily challenges, including an achievement named "Otherworldly", which was worth 1200 AP and required completing 365 daily challenges consecutively. Due to the cruel and unusual requirements for this achievement, it was, by popular demand, outright removed in the May 17, 2012 update (long before it became possible to obtain it), leaving its icon unused.

Quest Reward Icons

Unused quest reward icons, featuring the towers and Special Agents from BTD5 Deluxe, which is quite odd, considering quests never made it to that game...

Castle Flags

BTD5-Flag1.gifBTD5-Flag2.gif
The flags seen on the Castle track are animated, but for unknown reasons, the game only uses the first frame of each flag, leaving the full animations unused. Similar animations were later used on the Castle track in the mobile version.

(Source: Original TCRF research)