Crash NST is a remake, or remaster, or remaster ++ (the internet war rages on) of the first three Crash Bandicoot games originally developed by Naughty Dog. We developed it over 13 months with a team of ~40 using VV’s internal Alchemy engine and Lab toolset.

What I worked on:

Crash 1

  • The Great Gate

  • Boulders

  • Native Fortress

  • The Lost City

  • Boulder Dash

  • Sunset Vista

  • Slippery Climb

    Crash 2

  • Crash Dash

  • Crash Crush

  • Bear Down

  • Unbearable

  • Road To Ruin

    Crash 3

  • Under Pressure

  • Bone Yard

  • Dino Might!

  • Deep Trouble

  • Eggipus Rex

Recreating a level:

Each level consisted of the following tasks:

  • Creating, scripting, and timing all hazards

  • Laying camera splines and matching shots to original game

  • Placing crates, pickups, and collectibles

  • While another team was responsible for creating all AI enemies, level owners handled placing the actors and defining their movement boundaries

Our toolset used components to define entity behavior in a way similar to how Unity works. Combined with a powerful visual scripting system, it empowered designers to be able to create systems and content without leaning on engineering for everything. I enjoy creating clean, reusable systems that other designers can use, so I took the initiative in making a set of movement and hazard components that could be mixed and matched to define many of the game’s hazards. This image is a simple movement component that uses only nodes without frame delays to prevent groups of movers from drifting out of sync. Variables with carets are public and can be changed on a per-instance or per-archetype basis.