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Proto:Crash Bandicoot: Warped/Test Drive Demo

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This is a sub-page of Proto:Crash Bandicoot: Warped.

Hiddenpalace.org logo.png  This prototype is documented on Hidden Palace.

The "Test Drive" demo is the earliest public demo of Crash Bandicoot: Warped, released as a standalone demo disc in Toys "R" Us stores. It features Under Pressure and Midnight Run. The modification date of the files suggest that this demo is dated around July 29th, 1998.

General Differences

Gameplay

Demo Final
Crash3-Protos WarpRoomThumbnail.png Crash3 WarpRoomThumbnail.png
  • The Time Twister's portal graphic features a totally different design for the load/save screen. The fifth chamber also seems to be missing.
  • A white screen is used for loading transitions, rather than a distorting vortex effect.
    • The music does not fade out when entering a portal either.
  • Music tracks are in mono.
  • Aku Aku has a red nose in his default state. Due to an oversight, his nose is miscolored gray in the final game.
  • Crystals, gems, and relics don't play the choir sound effect, nor do they drop firework particles when collected.
  • Checkpoint crates lack the chime sound when opened.
  • Aku Aku floats on the right side of the character when they are facing away from the camera, rather than on the left.
    • He also does not float alongside the character when riding Pura, causing him to fall behind offscreen most of the time or even obstructing the player's visibility at certain times.
  • Fruit slot crates always give 9 Wumpa fruits instead of 20.
    • Blank slots will give a single Wumpa fruit instead of nothing.
    • Collecting the extra life won't cause the crate cycle to alternate between two patterns (Nothing - Fruit, Nothing - Fruit - Life).
  • The yellow aura visual effect is missing when Aku Aku is summoned or lost.
  • The spinning crate hologram on the box counter has a lighter shade and is always transparent.
    • When all crates are destroyed, the clear gem will show up as soon as the box counter appears onscreen, regardless of where the player is. In the final game, the gem will only spawn when the player gets closer to the box counter.
Demo Final
Crash3-TestDrive IronStopwatch.png 300px
  • Stopwatches were originally iron crates with a clock graphic on them, taking the form of an outline crate before retrieving the level's crystal.
  • The dynamic difficulty adjustment system can only provide one Aku Aku mask regardless of the number of deaths, identically to Crash 2 and the PAL release.
  • By hacking, the pause menu can be accessed, revealing some differences:
    • The Powers tab is entirely absent from the pause menu.
    • The gem stats indicate a total of 40 gems in the game instead of 42.
    • The Relics tab displays the totals of all relic types at the same time, rather than only Sapphire by default when nothing is collected, and displaying the rest if you have at least one of them. The displayed relic is also always a Platinum.
      • Relics are sorted from the lowest tier to the highest (Silver, Gold, Platinum), whereas in the final game it is from the highest to the lowest (Platinum, Gold, Sapphire).
    • The controller vibration option is called "Shock" instead.
    • The "Calibrate" option from Crash 2 is still available here.
    • Vibration and calibration options are available at all times, regardless of the controller used.

Time Trial

Crash3-TestDrive TimeTrialResults.png

By hacking, it's possible to access Time Trial mode in a primitive state. Elements from regular gameplay will remain the same - there are no time crates at this point, fruits and lives are not removed from the path, and none of the original crates are replaced aside from regular checkpoint crates.

  • Sapphire relics are known as Silver relics instead. Logically, they are silver-colored (not to be confused with Platinum relics, which are white).
  • The content of the crates is also unchanged, providing Wumpa fruits and extra lives as usual.
  • The iron clock crate does not disappear from the level when the player moves too far ahead from it.
    • When activated, the crate returns to its outline form.
    • No ticking and cha-ching sound effects play when activating the clock crate.
    • There is no "Entering Time Trial" onscreen notice the first time you start the time trial.
    • After activating it, if the crate despawns by moving far enough away from the it and then coming back, the crate will become functional again and activating it will reset the timer.
  • There is no clock icon next to the chronometer.
  • Starting the time trial with Aku Aku doesn't remove any Aku Aku masks in possession.
  • Lives are normally lost if the player dies in this mode.
  • There is no Restart Trial option in the pause menu. The only way to restart the trial is either by dying, or after finishing the level.
  • The end-of-level screen when finishing the time trial is very barebones.
    • The chronometer moves slowly to the center of the screen, and it does not become bigger.
    • The time trial leaderboard is missing.
    • When a relic is received, the relic will go offscreen after a second just like all other collectibles, whereas in the final it stays onscreen until the screen fades out.
    • The game will always give you the option to either retry the time trial or return to the warp room. The final game always forces you back to the warp room when the first level relic is obtained.
      • The retry option reads "Restart Level" instead of "Restart Trial".
  • On the Enter Name screen, there are no sound effects when navigating or selecting an option. The screen also takes a little longer to show up.
    • There is a "Cancel" button to ignore the saving of a new record. Selecting it will discard the current time, making it possible to get a relic without any recorded times.
    • Inserting the last initial won't bring the player to the "Done" button automatically.
  • The music volume will decrease during the Enter Name screen just like in the final game, but it will not reset to normal when restarting a level. This effect is cumulative and one can make the volume go down to 0% by repeating the time trial multiple times.

To enable Time Trial mode, replace the following array of bytes 7e 0b 81 08 7e fb e1 11 with 00 00 00 2f 00 00 00 2f. This disables the check whether you have the level's crystal.

Level Differences

Under Pressure

  • The background lacks the city details, and is more of a navy-blue color.
  • The submergible has a longer cooldown between torpedo shots.
    • You cannot fire torpedoes by pressing X.
  • The wall collision inside the tunnels with rotating electric blades is very finicky.
Demo Final
Crash3-Proto Pufferfish.png Crash3 Pufferfish.png
  • The pufferfish are purple instead of red.
  • In Time Trial, the chronometer visually freezes for a few seconds when Crash loses a mask while being electrocuted.

Main Level

Crash3-TestDrive Seagrass.png
  • A wrong texture under the start point can be seen applied incorrectly when the camera pans over at the beginning of the level.
  • The clock crate is placed in the background, before the first stack of basic crates.
  • The rock formation in the upper right corner of the level outside the first electric tunnel was altered a bit.
  • The first slot crate contains a life in the cycle pattern.
  • There is more seagrass at the bottom of the first descent.
  • A rock formation is missing under the small tunnel afterwards.
  • Seagrass is present before the first checkpoint.
Demo Final
Crash3-TestDrive Submergible.png Crash3 UnderPressureSubmergible.png
  • The first submergible is placed further away from the tunnel exit.
  • The two sharks above the trio of coral reefs covering crates are placed slightly to the right, which was likely changed due to the second one overlapping with the mine ahead.
  • There is an iron crate inside the third tunnel, right before the final checkpoint.
  • There are rock formations above and under the exit portal tunnel that were removed in the final game.

Midnight Run

  • You cannot sprint by holding R2.
  • Pura has a round shadow when he is not being ridden.
    • His leaping animation plays a bit slower.
  • Hanging life crates are ? crates but with extra lives. They also do not automatically give you the contents within.
  • Barrel wagons are smaller as the model is not stretched.
  • The columns on the upper floor of the towers have incorrectly assigned or oriented textures.
  • The tick made when breaking crates while you are sprinting gets higher and higher, as if you were racking up combos.
  • Invincibility frames won't protect you against enemies and hazards.
  • In Time Trial, the chronometer won't stop ticking after reaching the end of the level, making it possible to reach the maximum limit of 9:59:96.

Main Level

  • Coco jumps out of the portal facing towards the camera.
  • The clock crate is placed in the middle of the level just after Pura, rather than behind the second oriental lab assistant.
  • The box counter is placed further to the center.

Soundtrack Differences

The tracks are early variants of their respective themes, featuring different melodies or rhythm.

Level Demo Final Notes
Atlantis
It has different mixing and glitches out at the beginning.
China

Unused Graphics

Character Icons

Crash3-Protos CrashIcon.png Crash3-Protos CocoIcon.png Crash3-Protos CortexIcon.png

Under Pressure contains an additional texture page (Wrp4T) for one of the warp room textures. It includes a few unique graphics, such as the floor textures, button numbers, memory card save icon, and most notably - early icons for Crash, Coco, and Neo Cortex.

Crash's icon is a higher-res variant of his life icon (a re-drawn version of which is in fact used in the Japanese version), Cortex re-use his boss portrait from Crash 2 (albeit with minor differences, such as eyes and head shape being a bit larger), and Coco seems styled after Crash 2 in terms of size and shading.

Ocean Background

Crash3-July17 OceanBackground.png

Among the global texture pages next to the warp room portal graphic, there is a texture of an ocean that may have served as a placeholder texture for the warp sphere.

"B" Texture

Crash3-TestDrive WarpRoomLetterB.png

An unknown texture with a B on it can be found among the leftover warp room textures. Its purpose is unclear, although it may have been a placeholder for boss level buttons at some point (assuming the B stands for "BOSS"), as it shares the same palette as the regular buttons.

"C" Texture

Crash3-TestDrive LetterC.png

A texture for the letter C (lifted from the iron checkpoint crate), likely for the same purpose as the lone exclamation mark sprites that pop out of action crates when they are hit.

Early Level Names

All level names can be found in the game's code, even though they go unused. By using a memory viewer, it's possible to see all the strings of text used in the pause menu, including some different level names:

Demo Final
Dino Might! Bone Yard
Aye Matey Makin' Waves
Bone Yard Dino Might!
Roadkill Road Crash
Sphynxter Sphynxinator
Fast Forward Future Frenzy
N/A Gone Tomorrow
N/A Orange Asphalt
N/A Flaming Passion
N/A Bug Lite
N/A Ski Crazed
N/A Area 51?
N/A Rings of Power
N/A Hot Coco
N/A Eggipus Rex

All levels from the fifth chamber onwards are missing aside from Mad Bombers, meaning that no new levels have been added to the game since the July 17th, 1998 prototype.