Crash Bandicoot/Unused Objects and Behaviors

This is a sub-page of Crash Bandicoot.

Unused Crate Type

Similar to the falling TNT boxes used in the Koala Kong boss battle and the falling empty boxes used in the level end screen when you're missing boxes, there is a falling box variant of the pickup (?) box, and it drops fruit. This type was used in April 8th, 1996 prototype of the game, in Ripper Roo's boss battle, which has falling TNTs and falling pickup boxes. The box spawn code for normal boxes was overhauled in the Japanese version of the game, so using this crate in that version will crash the game most of the time.

Guard Dog

The guard dog (code: Dog_C, graphics: GD15V+GD15G) is a completely unused enemy present in the files for "Heavy Machinery" only. Two of them are placed in the level, and don't seem to appear in-game as they immediately kill themselves and enable their no-spawn entity flag. To make the dogs functional, that code needs to be removed or commented out. The guard dog lies in wait until Crash approaches it (defaults to 6 meters of distance), upon which the dog will "shrink", signalling that it is angry and ready to attack. If Crash gets 1 meter closer than the anger distance, the dog attacks, moving down a set path at an alarmingly high speed, startling anyone unprepared. The dog hurts Crash on contact, unless he's spinning, in which case the dog will knock Crash back, similar to spinning rolling monkeys, iguanas, or Papu Papu. Like most other enemies, it can be killed with a jump or another enemy being flung at it, or with invincibility.

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  The first dog's location.

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  The dog is prepared.

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  The dog attacks. Naughty dog!

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  The second dog's position.

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  The second dog goes through platforms, as they weren't there when he was first placed.

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  As seen in an editor. The dog has brown fur, a yellow belly, a black collar, grey jaw, a large red tongue sticking out, short pointy ears, and a robust build. Like most incomplete objects in Crash Bandicoot, it is completely untextured.

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  The dog with its collision box shown, and a grid for reference.

Unused Cortex Power Entry Door

A gigantic door which is supposed to appear at the beginning of "Cortex Power" and can be seen in earlier builds, which does not normally appear in-game as it does the ol' "delete itself on spawn" trick. It was probably removed due to being rather redundant, and also having clipping issues with the scenery on the sides.

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Unused Mafia Slim + Door Behavior

The mafia Slim has code to permanently (until the level is exitted) unlock a certain type of door. In the final game, the Slim on the left path at the start of "Cortex Power" links to a door which only appears in earlier builds of the game such as the April 8th, 1996 prototype, leaving this behavior unused.

Unused Level-Specific Mafia Slim Behavior

The mafia Slim, which only appears in the level "Cortex Power", has specific behavior for "Heavy Machinery" as well. If a mafia Slim were to be placed in that level, it would differ in that the angle in which the bullets are shot at (upwards or downwards) can vary by 90 degrees in either direction, as opposed to the usual 30. The mafia Slim would also move around less while shooting (4 degrees in either direction instead of 16 degrees).

Unused Level-Specific Platform Behavior

The moving platforms and drop platforms that appear in levels like "Generator Room", "Temple Ruins", "Rolling Stones", "Boulder Dash", etc. are set to be solid from below only in the level "Toxic Waste", even though these platforms do not appear in that level.

Unused Barrel and Pinstripe Shadows

Both the barrels in "Toxic Waste" and Pinstripe in his boss fight spawn a shadow object, however the shadow object is specific for each of those. Unlike regular shadows, which are 3D models with a round white texture (which appears black with subtractive blending), these shadows are 2D sprites and with specific shaping for these objects. While they are fully functional, they do not appear in-game as they do the "sideways paper" trick of being rotated by 90 degrees, and therefore being completely perpendicular to the game camera, as sprites always face it, which makes them effectively invisible. The rotation can simply be removed and they will appear. They were probably removed for not giving a good enough impression of a shadow without doing true shadow projection, which itself takes a lot of processing power. Although a shadow for the barrels would definitely have been very useful...

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  The barrel shadow sprite.

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  The Pinstripe shadow sprite.

Unused Old Barrel Type

An older version of the regular barrels used in "Toxic Waste" can be found in BaraC. These old incomplete barrels spawn a (functional this time) barrel shadow and are always half a meter above their path spline. They accelerate over time and quickly reach an alarmingly high speed, likely an oversight due to incompleteness, and don't have the slight random bounces that the yellow barrels do. They also deal regular damage like most enemies instead of the usual squash damage. The code that turns spawned barrels into these old barrels is placed right after the code that turns spawned barrels into the new barrels, meaning it never runs and is therefore left unused.

Unused Boulder Fences

While only two are used in the final game, six fences for the boulder levels exist and can be used: small, medium and large versions of the low and high fences. The final game only uses the high-small and low-large obstacles, the rest go unused.

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  High-medium fence (JunOC-14).

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  High-large fence (JunOC-15).

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  Low-small fence (JunOC-16).

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  Low-medium fence (JunOC-17).

Unused Warthog Obstacles

The levels "Hog Wild" and "Whole Hog" have code for boomerang and native heads obstacles (VilOC), and the latter level has the sound effect for the boomerang, which can be seen in the May 11th, 1996 prototype of the level. Different to that build, the boomerang also projects its own shadow to make it easier to locate. No graphics for these objects exist in the final game, however.

Unused Native Shield

The native wall levels "The Great Gate" and "Native Fortress" contain code and graphics for an unused native shield object which bounces Crash high up. It's perfectly functional, barring the lack of sound effects. The shield was probably cut due to being made redundant by the iron spring boxes. Its spawn ID is WalOC-1.

Unused Bridge Plank

BridC-0 is an unused type of bridge plank. It's used in the cliff level in the April 8th, 1996 prototype, and all of its code remains in the final game. There are no available graphics for it, however.

Slime Leftover Color Code

The slimes spawned from Brio's potions in his boss fight set their color to red (0xFF, 0, 0) when they spawn, but since the graphics for the slimes use a different type of animation which cannot be dynamically colored, there is no effect on their appearance. This color behavior is leftover from earlier versions of the game, where the color of the slimes indicated their vulnerability.

Unused Pillar Array Behavior

A pillar array (the object that sets up and spawns the spinning orbiting platforms) with spawn ID RuiOC-1 will spawn pillars that wave up and down, which is never used.

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These pillar arrays are re-used in Crash 2 and retain all of their used - and unused - behavior, including this bobbing.

The entities for the pillar arrays in "Temple Ruins" and "Jaws of Darkness" have data for a path (multiple positions) as opposed to just a single position, even though the pillar array objects do not move across a path. All of the path's points are in the same spot, however.

Unused Sound Spots

Scattered all throughout the levels "Temple Ruins" and "Jaws of Darkness", near background flames, are various objects with spawn ID RuiOC-13. In earlier versions of the game, they play a flame torch ambiance sound effect, though the sound effect and the code to play it have been removed for the final release, making them just a small waste of memory and processor power.

Unused Ruins Platform

The levels "The Lost City" and "Sunset Vista" contain data for a platform which goes completely unused. This platform is relatively simple: it goes down when Crash lands on it and then tries to come back up. Its default parameters for friction and strength are quite bad and it's very easy to repeatedly jump on the platform and have it go below the death plane for Crash. Its simplistic nature is probably the reason it's never used, as it doesn't do anything particularly unique. Its spawn ID is RWaOC-6.

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  Crash about to land on the platform.

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  Crash lands on the platform.

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  The platform returns to its base.

Unused Orbiting Platform Array Variants

The oribiting see-saw platform arrays in "The Lost City" and "Sunset Vista" which spawn the respective platforms can spawn them in 8 different formations, although only formations 0, 5 (identical to 0) and 7 are used, leaving five of them unused.

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  Formation 1.

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  Formation 2.

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  Formation 3.

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  Formation 4.

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  Formation 6. This is used in the April 8th, 1996 prototype.

Unused Lizard Variant

LizaC-0 is an unused green lizard variant. This lizard always looks at the player, and always jumps on the same spot, with minor tracking on the Z dimension. Just like the other two lizards types in the game, the jump height and active range can be set using the 1st and 3rd spawn parameters respectively.

Unknown Unused Kong Object

The file KongC, used for the Koala Kong boss fight, contains code for an object (KongC-1) that is never used. This object is invisible, and is offset by a random amount in the X and Z axes. It selects a random amount of time from 1.5 seconds to 5.5 seconds to spend in a dummy animation, which then repeats forever, thus doing nothing. It is first "seen" in the May 11th, 1996 prototype, where Kong spawns three of these. In the E3 demo however, they have no code other than returning as soon as they spawn, rendering them just as useless there.

Unused Kong Boss Phases

A few elements in the Koala Kong boss fight have defined behavior after Kong has taken at least four damage, which cannot be normally accessed as the boss only has four health points.

After Kong takes four damage, he will spawn a TNT on his third and fourth steps while carrying a boulder (or boulder throw), on the opposite side of the first step's TNT and on the opposite side of that TNT respectively.

The minecart spawner has a pattern for when Kong has taken four and five damage:

• 4 damage: Spawn cart, wait 2 seconds (repeat 3 times), wait 6 seconds.
• 5 damage: Spawn cart, wait 1.2 seconds (repeat 4 times), wait 6 seconds.

Unused Castle Gate Variant

The castle levels ("Stormy Ascent", "Lights Out", "The Lab", "Fumbling in the Dark", "Slippery Climb") have code in CasOC for an older variant of the iron gates which opens verrrrrry slowly (takes about 9 seconds), creaks for half a second and shuts down very quickly. These can be seen in the April 8th, 1996 prototype in "The Lab", where they use spawn ID CasOC-3. In the final game, this spawn ID is wired to the same code as CasOC-1 which is used for the more functional doors.

Unused Castle Floor Variant

The open-close trapdoors in "The Lab" come in 2 variants: timed, which open and close based on the in-game timer, and triggered, which require action boxes to open. Each of these variants has two spawn IDs, which determine whether the graphics used for the floor are the floor with polygons on the front or not (this is to prevent clipping issues when the floor is right after some other type of floor). In the final game, the triggered floor with no front polygons is never used.

Unused 2D Lab Assistant Setups

The way the lab assistants in the 2D castle levels ("Stormy Ascent" and "Slippery Climb") throw their potions is determined from a small list of setups, one for "Stormy Ascent" and another for "Slippery Climb" (which is also the default). Setup 1 for "Slippery Climb" is not used, and neither are the default setups for each of the levels.