| Rayman | |
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Original cover art |
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| Developer(s) | Ubisoft (PlayStation, Atari Jaguar, PC, Game Boy Color & DSiWare) Ubisoft Montpellier (Sega Saturn) Digital Eclipse (Game Boy Advance) |
| Publisher(s) | Ubisoft |
| Designer(s) | Michel Ancel (lead designer) Alexandra Steible (characters) Vincent Gréco (lead programmer) |
| Composer(s) | Stéphane Bellanger Pete Anthony |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, PC, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Network, DSiWare |
| Release date(s) | |
| Genre(s) | Platform |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | |
| Media/distribution | CD-ROM, cartridge |
Rayman is a platform video game published, produced and developed by Ubisoft and is the first game in the Rayman series of videogames. Originally released on the PlayStation in 1995, it was re-released for the Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn and MS-DOS in 1996. It has also been ported to various formats, such as Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Network and DSiWare. A version was planned for the Sega 32X, but was cancelled due to the system's short lifespan.
In Rayman's world, a mystical object known as the Great Protoon maintains the planet's harmony and balance. One fateful day, the evil Mr. Dark steals the Protoon, causing the world to fall out of balance and scattering all the Electoons that gravitated around it across the world, where they are captured by the strange creatures that appear due to the phenomenon. With Betilla the Fairy defeated in her attempt to stop Mr. Dark, it is up to Rayman to free the Electoons and defeat Mr. Dark and his minions.
Rayman is a side-scrolling platform game in which the player character is the titular Rayman, who must travel through five worlds (Dream Forest, Band Lands, Blue Mountains, Picture City and The Caves of Skops) to free all of the caged Electoons, of which six are located somewhere on each level. Only when all the Electoons are freed will Rayman be able to reach and confront Mr. Dark at his lair in Candy Chateau.[2] Each world has one of Mr. Dark's boss minions which Rayman must also defeat.[3] The player must traverse the levels and reach the end goal, a signpost with an exclamation mark on it. Since all of the game's levels in the game are divided into several parts, the goal post also acts as a transition to the following part of a level. The player is given a certain amount of lives, which are lost when Rayman is hit by an enemy or falls into water or a pit. If all lives are lost at any point, the "Game Over" screen will appear, in which the player can continue or quit playing. Scattered around each level are small, sparkling blue spheres called Tings. If Rayman picks up 100 of them, he gains an extra life and the counter resets to zero. When Rayman dies, he loses all of the Tings he collected.[2] The player will come across a variety of other power-ups and bonuses, such as a golden fist, a faster punching fist, a power to restore Rayman's lost life energy, and flying blue elves that will shrink Rayman down in size to access new areas.[2] Tings can also be used to pay a Magician found on certain levels to enter a bonus stage, in which Rayman can win an extra life if he collects all of the Tings within a certain amount of time.
In early stages of the game, Rayman has the ability to walk, crawl, make silly faces and punch enemies. He obtains additional powers during the game (telescopic punching, holding onto ledges, grappling onto flying rings, flying with his hair as helicopter blades, and running) from Betilla the Fairy, while others are given temporarily from his friends that are used for a specific levels only.[2]
The Rayman character came from sketches in 1994 made by Michel Ancel under the influence of Russian, Chinese and Celtic fairy tales. Ubisoft decided to support Ancel's project, and funded everything they had into it.[4] The absence of limbs on Rayman was due to various technical limitations encountered. In its early development, Rayman was produced for the Super Nintendo console which featured a two-player mode. Ubisoft decided to move the project to a CD-ROM console, and the developers hired animators from a cartoon company that considerably improved the graphics. When Super Nintendo's CD-ROM feature was canceled however, the game moved to the Atari Jaguar for its superior hardware. The PlayStation version came later in the development, developed by Ancel's team.
Rayman features detailed cartoonish graphics, smooth animations at 60 (or 50 in PAL regions) frames per second, and the use of up to 65,000 colours.[5]
The Atari Jaguar version, which was the original version but eventually arrived a week later than the PlayStation one, features some unique/absent areas and absent gameplay mechanics compared to the (themselves largely identical) PC/PlayStation/Sega Saturn CD-ROM editions. For example, in Blue Mountains, the level Mr. Stone's Peaks is missing the second area entirely (where Rayman has to cut 2 ropes with his hair before a stone ceiling pushes him into the water). Also, in Picture City, the level Eraser Plains' third area has been changed to a completely different place, and one of the last bosses (Space Mama) is completely absent. The last world, Candy Chateau, was also largely restructured for the other versions. Rayman's ability to shrink (with the help of creatures called Flying Blue Elves), and to slide on bells in Band Land or ice in the Blue Mountains, were absent on the Jaguar, only being added in later versions. However, for both ports, there are some extra things, there is a pong minigame, Moskito shoots blue fireballs, bomb explosion have a glow-effect and smoke, and Mr. Skops' lava has glowing/smoke effect. Finally, since the Jaguar version was stored on a cartridge, not a CD, it featured considerably lower-quality music than the Red Book audio of the others, which also received similarly enhanced sound effects. The Jaguar version of the game is considered to be a console pusher due the use of the power of the console, and is considered one of the best games on the system.
Most PC versions of Rayman had the music and backing SFX tracks for each world combined into one CD audio track, which was repeated throughout most levels within those worlds; including the data track, this made for a total of 20 or 25 (multi-language versions) tracks. In contrast, the PlayStation and Saturn versions contained each track as a separate CD audio track, and changed the track played depending on the sub-level and its intended atmosphere; this totalled 51 tracks.
There were also differences in sound effects and levels between the games; for example, Rayman's exclamation of "Yeah!" upon reaching the exit sign and thus completing a level is simply a vocal sample on the PC, a vocal with a musical backing on the PlayStation, and possesses a slightly more developed backing on the Saturn.
The audio tracks for Rayman on the PlayStation are as listed. They can be heard by using the CD Player function of a Playstation or Playstation 2, or using any conventional Audio CD Player. Note that the names of levels that are listed are given for the first appearance. Also note that the tracks on the CD are NOT in chronological order of gameplay.
Later, on September 28, 1997, Ubisoft released an updated version of the game for the PC. This bundle had the original Rayman in its entirety, as well as a level editing package, known as Rayman Designer. The package contained 24 original levels, with the same gameplay but a few new concepts: now Rayman has to collect 100 Blue Tings in a level before he can finish it. A few other features were added, like colored tings that trigger special events, additional objects and a timer to show the player how fast they can complete this level. With Rayman Designer, players could make their own levels and share them with others via the Internet, a feature that did not particularly catch on.
The British Focus Multimedia edition of Rayman Gold does not include the music tracks at all, because said company does not have the original source of the music tracks; the game should have redbook audio tracks. Since the soundtrack was quite popular with fans, this is a significant error of omission.[19][20]
Around a year after that, Ubisoft released Rayman Forever. It contained everything from Rayman Gold, plus a bundle of 40 new levels designed by fans, a video entitled The Making of Rayman 2, and a fridge magnet. However, various sections of the soundtrack were erased in an effort to save space on the CD.
Another compilation, entitled Rayman Collector was released in late 1999, exclusively to France. It featured all of the levels from Rayman Gold and Forever (i.e. the levels from the original game, Rayman Designer's 24 New Levels, and 40 levels from Rayman by His Fans), as well as 60 new levels by Ubi Soft themselves (titled 60 Niveaux Edits, "60 new levels").[21] It also includes the video The Making of Rayman 2. A bundle with the same configuration of levels was released in the Netherlands, titled simply Rayman. This version is not rare, unlike Rayman Collector. Lastly, the collection, or at least the latter two bundles of levels, were also released as Rayman 100 Niveaux[22].
As it was designed for IBM PC-compatibles running MS-DOS (and Microsoft Windows in the case of Rayman Designer aka Mapper), the game does not run natively on non-Windows systems, or computers running a non-DOS based version of Windows (Microsoft Windows NT and its successors 2000, XP, Vista, 7 and family). However, the open-source DOS emulator DOSBox provides one way to remedy this; and to save users having to configure said program themselves, downloadable patches have been released that allow the game to be played on various other OSs.[19]
The online digital distribution service, GOG.com, sells a pre-configured copy of Rayman Forever for $5.99 that will run on modern versions of Windows without further modification.[23]
Rayman was ported to the Game Boy Advance with similar qualities to the PlayStation and PC versions (there are a few missing levels). The music, however, is of lesser quality, due to the GBA's limitations. The game was edited to be easier. Examples are: Rayman has extra life point, which gives him four from start. His sprite is big, so things cannot harm him from above, flickering time is longer, and any items collected are also retained on death instead of resetting to zero on each death.
In 2005 Rayman Advance was bundled with the GBA version of Rayman 3 on a single cartridge entitled Rayman 10th Anniversary.
On May 20, 2008, the original PlayStation version of Rayman became available on the UK PlayStation Store for £3.49. This is the same as the PSOne version and runs on the PlayStation Portable under emulation. It runs on the PlayStation 3 as a PlayStation game.
Rayman was ported to DSiWare for the Nintendo DSi handheld console. This version featured reduced difficulty, implemented via an increased number of health points and bonus items, and also had the in-level music edited to loop rather than simply end and begin again (though some music tracks were removed).
Ubisoft also released Rayman for Game Boy Color, which contained all the Rayman 2 music and worlds, but had the storyline of Rayman.
Several games have been made by individual fans and whole communities. Many were originally complete clones, but some were later remade with new graphics while still imitating the engine design. Game engines have been written in languages including ActionScript,[24][25] Game Maker Language,[26] JavaScript, and C using the PSP SDK.[27] An unreleased fan project focuses on creating a sequel in 3D.[28]
Rayman was awarded both "Best Music in a CD-ROM Game" and "Best Animation" in Electronic Gaming Monthly's 1995 Video Game Awards.[29] The game sold 900,000 copies in two years.[30] It is also the best-selling PlayStation game of all time in the United Kingdom, with around 5 million copies sold, beating Tomb Raider II and Gran Turismo in the country.[31]
Rayman was followed by many successful sequels that do not continue the original story. Rayman 2: The Great Escape was released followed by Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, Rayman: Hoodlum's Revenge and Rayman Origins. Several spin-offs have also been released, including Rayman Arena, Rayman Rush and the Raving Rabbids series.
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