| Rayman | |
| Developer: | Ubi Pictures |
| Publisher: | Ubi Soft |
| Series: | Rayman |
| Genre: | Platform |
| Modes: | Single-player |
| Director: | Agnès Haegel |
| Producer: | Gérard Guillemot |
Rayman is a 1995 platform game developed by Ubi Pictures and published by Ubi Soft. It is the first installment in the Rayman franchise. The player controls Rayman, who must recapture Electoons and the Great Protoon after being told that Mr. Dark kidnapped them and uses its power to wreak havoc. Rayman gains new abilities throughout the game and the completion of each world requires defeating a boss with special abilities.
The game was designed by Michel Ancel, who originally designed Rayman as a teenager before being hired by Ubi Soft and started the initial development of Rayman. Ancel incorporated his childhood experiences and rendering tools into the game. During later development, the game begun to increase the number of developers and Ubi Soft decided to make it a launch title for PlayStation in North American and Europe to compete with Japanese platform games.
Rayman was first released on the Atari Jaguar on 1 September 1995, and It would also be released for the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and MS-DOS. It was generally positive upon release, with praise going towards its atmosphere and soundtrack. Some reviewers warned that the game's aesthetic belied its high difficulty level and others criticised its lack of interest and excitement. The game's graphics received differing responses from critics whether it's lush visuals were impeccable, or made it an outstanding game.
Rayman is a platform game that displays side-scrolling elements.[1] With the player controlling the titular Rayman, their level targets is to rescue Electoons trapped in cages, with six of them hidden in each levels. Throughout the game, The player can collected Tings, blue crystal which if one hundred were collected, they rewarded with an extra life. Betilla frequently interacts with Rayman as needed to give him new abilities such as the ability to fly, run, hang on platforms, a grabbing fist and a "telescopic fist", an ability acquired early in the game that allows him to punch enemies from a distance.[2]
The completion of each world requires defeating a boss with special abilities at the end of the level. Defeating them allows the player to move on to the next world.[3] After rescuing all of the Electoons in the first five worlds, the player can enter Candy Chateau, where they have to attack Mr. Dark. If the player loses their five lives, they would need to load their save file or restart the game. The player can interact with The Magician, who is hidden in various levels and can teleport the player into secret worlds where they either earn Tings or an extra life, if they finish the level in a given time.[4]
The people living in a valley are harmonious thanks to the Great Protoon, who maintains the harmony and balance in the world. However, Mr. Dark steals the Great Protoon and uses its power to wreak havoc, and this causes all the Electoons, small body of energy that revolves around the Great Protoon to scatter across the world. Betilla the Fairy, having been defeated by Mr. Dark as she tried to protected the Great Protoon, asks Rayman to help rescuing the Electoons and defeating Mr. Dark. After rescuing all Electoons, Rayman battles Mr. Dark, who suppresses Rayman's punching ability and traps him between walls of fire. At the last moment, the Electoons restore Rayman's powers, such that he defeats Mr. Dark. Upon Mr. Dark's defeat, Rayman recovers the Great Protoon, thus restoring balance to his world. Rayman then takes a vacation with friends and former enemies.
Rayman was created by French video game designer Michel Ancel, who has first designed Rayman in the 1980s when he was a teenager as he was learning to draw, compose music, and program to pursue his dream of making video games. Ancel would later formally revisit his initial designs and begin to work on Rayman for the Atari ST and worked alone on every aspect of the game.[5]
By 1988, French video game publisher Ubi Soft, founded two years earlier by the five sons of the Guillemot family, had hired around six developers and operated from Montreuil. Ancel was one of Ubi Soft's early hires, having caught the attention of the Guillemot brothers for his animation skills. Yves Guillemot encouraged Ancel to pitch ideas for new games, which led to a meeting between Ancel, programmer Frédéric Houde, designer Serge Hascoët, and Gérard, Yves, and Michel Guillemot after Ancel and Houde had teamed up and worked on the Rayman concept further and they present a "totally strange" design of a large trombone that the player had to imagine themself inside and an animation system that Ancel had developed for roughly six months, which Hascoët praised for its fluidity. Despite being in the research and development stage, Hascoet pushed for the game to enter formal production, and Michel Guillemot agreed to take it on.[6]
Rayman would received the greenlight in 1992, and Michel Guillemot gave Ancel and his team artistic freedom. The game's styling was inspired by Celtic, Chinese, and Russian fairy tales as well as Ancel's childhood, having spent a lot of time by rivers, chasing insects, and climbing large trees. When Ancel started work on the game, he began with trees and strange creatures. In the early 1990s, Ancel became interested in rendering tools such as Autodesk 3ds Max. It inspired him to incorporate it into the character animations with 60 Hz animation, which Houde said was very impressive at the time when other games used sprites that animate at five frames. This resulted in the designs of Rayman himself, with his name alluding to the aforementioned technique.[7]
Before embarking on the creation of the settings, characters and animations, Ancel and Houde recruited an illustrator Eric Pelatan, and artist Alexandra Steible, who came from an animation studio and was assigned to drew rough models of animations and once the models has been worked on, Steible studied each of the models in its smallest details for them to be digitised.[8] Ancel originally envisioned the game's story to involve Jimmy, a human boy who creates an imaginary online world named Hereitscool. After it becomes infected with a computer virus, Jimmy travels into the world and inhabits the body of his in-game avatar, Rayman, to defeat the virus. The idea was scrapped during later development. Ancel defined the main idea of the game he wants to create as "a colourful platform game, breathtaking graphics, concrete animations, fantasy, humour and, above all, great playability". During development, four people worked on each world, the levels of the game, and the synchronisation of Rayman's attitudes. Rayman later became the game that its designers had envisioned, which they considered a success.[9]
Ancel also noticed that public interest in the Atari ST had started to wane and decided to made the game for the Super NES CD-ROM, a CD peripheral for the 16-bit Super Nintendo Entertainment System. However, in 1993, Nintendo cancelled the peripheral before its hardware was produced which causes cancelling the SNES version of the game.[10] On 3 July 2017, developer and programmer Omar Cornut released the build online with Ancel's permission.[24]
Rayman was generally positive upon release, with reviewers praising its animation, atmosphere, and soundtrack as Eurogamer felt it was "no shame in admitting" that it received positive reviews.[25] Tommy Glide of GamePro described the game as one of the best for the Atari Jaguar and commended it as a showcase of the console's capabilities, but considered it to be inferior to the PlayStation version. He also appreciated the precise controls on account of the constant jumping, ducking, and dodging involved in the gameplay.[26] Captain Squideo, also of GamePro, commented that the PlayStation version was a "dazzling delight" and proclaimed it to be one of the most visually appealing games of the time.[27] Next Generation, though noting a lack of original gameplay elements, and that the game separated itself from many other platform games and had a true sense of depth and playability.[28] Entertainment Weekly writer Bob Strauss felt that the game may be the one that "ennobles the adolescent world of video games" and the likes of Disney animated films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Strauss also stated that the game is a must-have for those with a fifth-generation video game console.[29]
Many reviewers commented on the game's difficult gameplay despite the innocent visual presentation of the game. Electronic Gaming Monthly wrote that the Atari Jaguar version was an outstanding platformer on its own terms but paled against the PlayStation version due to the lower audio quality and slow responsiveness of the controls. Sam Hickman of Sega Saturn Magazine criticised the Sega Saturn version because he felt that the game designers decided to create too many levels of the same gameplay and then tried to hide them by adding weapons and making some of the levels really difficult. Hickman stated that if a person were watching someone else play the game, they could easily be tricked into thinking this was the best game for the Sega Saturn for a while. However, its lack of interest and excitement led the game to be "plain irritating and damned difficult".
Reviewers raised differing opinions on the game's graphics. GameSpot writer Jeff Sengstack compared the game to Donkey Kong Country or Pitfall! and considered it to feature "wonderfully clever gaming elements, engaging and humorous characters, terrific music, and heaps of whimsy", although he faulted the lack of frequent save points.[30] GamePro writer Lawrence Neves felt it was what players wanted for the Sega Saturn and compared it favourably to previous "hop-n-boppers" Bug! and Astal. He noted that while the graphics and music sometimes seem childish, the challenge is oriented towards veteran gamers. He also felt the lush visuals were impeccable and made particular note of the version's between-level effects.[31] Next Generation praised it's graphics, optimization, challenge variety, and charming player character, and said the game made a good change of pace from other PC releases.[32] Next Generation found the Atari Jaguar version impeccable, saying that "with its vast color palette, detailed sound effects, and overall playability, there is nothing about Rayman for the Jaguar that falls below the mark of excellent".[33]
By the end of 1995, 400,000 copies of Rayman had been sold in Europe. It has sold 900,000 copies.[34] In 2006, the game would become the best-selling PlayStation game in the United Kingdom. According to Gamasutra, Rayman Advances sales neared 600,000 units during the first half of the 2001–2002 fiscal year alone and then reached 770,000 copies by the end of March 2002.[35] [36]
The commercial success of Rayman later spawned a franchise with several sequels, including (1999), and some of the game's elements influenced Rayman Origins. The game was ported to the Game Boy Color in 29 March 2000 for North America and in 24 July 2000 for Europe, Palm OS in 1 September 2001,[37] Nintendo DSI in 7 December 2009,[38] and IOS. Rayman was one of twenty games on the PlayStation Classic, which was released on 3 December 2018.[39] The titular character Rayman would become one of the most recognizable video game characters since upon its debut and Rayman was in discussion to become the Atari Jaguar mascot.[40]
Rayman was ported to the Game Boy Advance as Rayman Advance by Digital Eclipse and released on 11 June 2001 for North America,[41] and on 22 June 2001 for Europe.[42] Rayman Advance received mixed reviews. Next Generation stated that it's gameplay remains the same, with Rayman travelling throughout the game's "lush, colorful environments ranging from a jungle and a moonscape to a musically-themed wonderland" and it's music and controls are solid.[43] Eurogamer writer Martin Taylor praised that the game's visuals are impressive and probably one of the most visually appealing for the Game Boy Advance available at the time.[44]
Rayman Redemption, a fan remake by the Finnish developer Ryemanni, features additional worlds, levels, and minigames.[45] After three years in development, it was released via Game Jolt for Rayman
Ancel recalled the number of developers working on Rayman began to increase from two developers to over 100 people. The team made the decision to produce the game for the Atari Jaguar, a console that the team felt could handle the graphics they wanted. During later development, the team decided to port the game to the PlayStation and Sega Saturn due to its better 2D capabilities.[10] Ancel noted that as he remember working on the game for the Atari Jaguar when the PlayStation was announced which he indicates that "[e]very year there is something new arriving - a new console, a new market" and developers have to rush to adapt.[11] Ubi Soft decided to also make Rayman a launch title for the North American and European releases of the PlayStation. Yves Guillemot sought the game on the PlayStation to outclass competing platformers from Japan by releasing it simultaneously with a new and powerful system.
In late 1994, magazine advertisements announced Rayman as an exclusive title for the Atari Jaguar.[12] Later in development, versions for the 32X and 3DO were also announced but were never released.[13] Rayman was first released on 1 September 1995 for the Atari Jaguar in Europe and on 9 September 1995 for North America.[14] [15] It was also released around September for the PlayStation,[16] [17] [18] and in November for the Sega Saturn.[19] The game would be released on thr MS-DOS in December 1995 for Europe,[20] and in the North American version was released in April 1996.[21] In October 2016, an early build of the prototype for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which had been considered lost, was rediscovered by Ancel, who posted pictures of it on Instagram.[22]
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