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User:Darkaiser/Prerelease:CTR
This page details prerelease information and/or media for Crash Team Racing.
Contents
Sub-pages
 | Press Kit The earliest images of the game. Crash is racing alone, but somehow he is able to lose to himself. |
| B-Roll Official B-roll footage and the interviews they're edited with. The HUD is now present, but doesn't work properly. |
| E3 1999 The earliest publicly playable version, seen at E3 on May 13-15, 1999. |
| June Builds Builds very similar to the demo versions, which take place in June. |
| July Builds The game is now more finalized, and almost every track is complete, except for Oxide Station. |
| August Builds The tracks are now complete, but the game's still lacking features. |
| September Builds The final weeks of development. |
| Japanese Builds These builds are very close to the final game. |
Concept Arts
Scientist Oxide
The first drafts of Oxide when he was still planned to be a mad scientist.
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| A generic-looking scientist. | A small doctor wearing an object similar to a gas mask. His eyes and eyebrows kinda resembles his final design. |
Another similar design, except this time he is even smaller. |
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| He has a human face, but the body retains the previous design. |
Similar to his second design. But now, his face is even similar to the final design. |
A creepy-looking tall, skinny doctor. |
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| A scientist similar to the first design but using a mechanical arm. |
A crazy-looking mad scientist | A big fat doctor. |
Alien Oxide
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| Close resembling the final design, except the head clothes are different. |
Another variant with a different head design. His eyes and eyebrows kinda resembles his final design. |
Classic portrayal of extraterrestrials as little humanoid-like creatures with antennae on their heads. |
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| The first revision of the final design. Multiple versions of this Oxide were drawn. |
Some sort of engine attached to his head with exhaust pipes coming out of the back. |
The same engine is attached here, but now he is also wearing a gas mask. |
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| Similar to the first design, except with a longer trunk. |
Cut Character Myth
Years ago, there was a rumor about a supposedly cut character from Crash Team Racing. It all started when a misterious character was found as a sketch in series artist Bob Rafei's portfolio of CTR character designs. Said picture of a blue hippo in a pilot outfit was simply described as Trippo. Everyone immediately assumed he was an unused character for CTR, since it was grouped with pictures Bob did of Nitros Oxide. But contrary to popular belief, the hippo character (populary known as Fasty or Trippo) was never intended for CTR. He later stated in an interview that the character design was just a mascot idea sketched for the Trippo Airfare search engine, lumped by mistake with other CTR sketches.
Bob Rafei: "If I recall correctly Trippo was character design I did for a friend who was developing airfare search engine and was looking for a mascot of sorts, and not part of CTR designs. I should have placed it in another category, but honestly, I've been too busy with BRB projects and family to keep up the site!"
Game's Storyline
Originally, the story was designed to be much more deep and darker, where Nitros Oxide was planned to be a mad scientist like Cortex, in a bid to conquer the world, again. But eventually, it seems the developers decided it was too complex for a racing game, and everything was scrapped in favor of a wacky and simpler storyline.
Early Plot
"Neo Cortex isn't the only insane inventor on the Three Islands where Crash Bandicoot lives. Dr Nitros Oxide is about to unleash his own form of madness in an attempt to take over the world. After he suffered a terrible accident as a child, Nitros Oxide was transformed into an ultra-fast freak of nature. He challenged the inhabitants of the island to a racing tournament and retired undefeated after ten years of failing to find any genuine contenders for his crown. Bored and restless he turned his attentions towards taking over the world.
Learning of this, Dr Cortex has gathered both friends and lifelong enemies together in one united attempt to defeat Nitros Oxide once and for all. If just one of them can out race him, maybe they can stop him from operating The Hyper Activator – a power beam machine capable of turning the entire planet into a super fast speed zone. Each of the new contenders is now intent on taking the Hyper Activator for his or her own purposes – while Crash and his friends want to prevent it getting into the hands of a mad scientist, there's a whole slew of evil wackos who want it to grant them control over the world.
They decided to challenge each other in a series of races to find out who was the fastest, and most worthy, to face Nitros Oxide in the final showdown. The race to save the planet had begun!"
Q. Who is Dr. Nitrus Oxide?
"A. Dr. Nitrus Oxide is a mad scientist obsessed with speed. In fact, he is so obsessed; he has hatched this terrible plan to speed up Crash's world, even though it will destroy all life on the planet, including Crash, Coco, and Dr. Cortex! Everyone has their own reason to try and stop the evil doctor... but nobody is fast enough to defeat him on the track, the one thing that will demoralise him enough to slow him down and make him vulnerable. Maybe, if they all compete together, one of them will become good enough in their Racer to give Oxide a run for his Hyper Activator."
Hyper Activator
Q. What’s the Hyper Activator?
"A. The Hyper Activator is a diabolical device that Nitrus Oxide has built to speed up the entire planet. When it is switched into overdrive, minutes become seconds and days become hours. Oxide, who was born hyper fast, will finally be comfortable with the world at this new speed. The rest of the citizens of the world, however, will be lost in an endless, mind-wrenching blur as everything around them zooms past at super speed. If this happens, Oxide will be able to do whatever he wants with the planet. All of the characters in Crash Team Racing have the same goal: Learn to race well, defeat Oxide, then Grab and then Destroy the Hyper Activator device attached to his vehicle."
Kart Customization
According to many interviews and pre-release articles, a feature called "Gold Wrenches" was planned to be a collectable prize in Adventure mode. The player would receive them by beating a level or boss in order to upgrade the kart's performance. The reason why they were scrapped was probably due to time constraints and interestingly, the files for different builds of the game seem to reveal this feature might never have been implemented into the game to begin with.
This article also mentions you would receive relics by beating N. Tropy in Time Trial mode, although there is no proof supporting this idea.
In CTR customise your karts in three categories: TYRES, EXHAUST, and ENGINE.
- TYRES – There are 3 levels of Tyres that determine a kart’s handling
- STREET – This is what you start with. Good all round tires
- SLICKS – Much more responsive than Street Tires
- MONSTER – Hug the road with the greatest of ease!
- EXHAUST – There are 3 levels of Exhaust that determine a kart’s acceleration
- DUAL – This is what you start with
- FREE FLOW – Now some real get up and go!
- TURBO – Super 0-60 assisted power!
- ENGINE – There are 3 types of engines that determine a kart’s top speed
- 100cc – This is what you start with
- 150cc – More horses when the going gets tough!
- 250cc – More beast than beauty. Not for the timid!
Q. What vehicles are available in Crash Team Racing? Does Coco still get to ride the tiger?
A. The tiger, who is named Pura, is actually one of the racers. All of the characters in Crash Team Racing ride in the same stock Racer. Their weights and talents change the base abilities of each of the racers, however. In addition, players can customise the three main abilities of their Racer: top speed, cornering, and acceleration, by competing in the Adventure mode of the game. These powered up vehicles can then be saved to the memory card and moved into the multi-player arenas.
Jason Rubin also reinforced this feature to Electric Playground during an interview at E3 1999:
Adventure mode is where you start with a normal car and you have to go through all the tracks in the series, and then sometimes do a multi track, sometimes you do time trial tracks, and slowly but surely you build up enough power, and enough actually gold wrenches to buy acceleration, to buy turning, to buy top speed, and though you go against Nitros Oxide, he is a big bad guy.
— Jason Rubin
The European website also mentions the "Lugnut's garage", which it's believed it was going to be the menu where the player would be able to customize their karts.
•Tune and upgrade the tyres, exhaust and engine of your karts in Lugnut's garage
Unused Ice Themed Track
Rob Titus, former Naughty Dog developer, created a track reusing the assets from the other snow tracks. The track was 98% done, and was eventually shown to Jason Rubin and Evan Wells. But they didn't have time to debug it, thus, the track didn't appear on the game.
Yes, I created a short figure 8 track that was all ice. It crossed over itself and was so fun! I was reusing the snow level assets and I had it about 98% done. It took me about a day to do. Showed it to Jason and Evan, but we didn't have time to debug it. It was very fun.
— Rob Titus
