Crash Twinsanity Sequel Pitch
After completing Crash Twinsanity, Traveller's Tales Oxford began discussions about developing a sequel to their game. They tried to pitch another game to Vivendi Universal, featuring recycled assets from their previous title.
According to Keith Webb in an interview to Crash Mania, there was talk going around of a game based on a TV show, with a channel surfing premise. The story was that Cortex would deliver a new TV and a remote to Crash's house, disguised as a gift, but actually being a trap, which would have taken Crash to various, deadly TV shows, like a wild west show, a black and white old cartoon, or a cooking show with Rusty Walrus. The one idea that got the furthest in development was a medical drama, in which Crash would have had to evade enemies, who were coming at him with huge needles, all while rolling through the corridors on hospital beds.
The pitch didn't get far, only a few design proposals and AI tests were ever produced. This is what Keith Webb said about their ideas back in 2012:
According to Keith Webb in an interview to Crash Mania, there was talk going around of a game based on a TV show, with a channel surfing premise. The story was that Cortex would deliver a new TV and a remote to Crash's house, disguised as a gift, but actually being a trap, which would have taken Crash to various, deadly TV shows, like a wild west show, a black and white old cartoon, or a cooking show with Rusty Walrus. The one idea that got the furthest in development was a medical drama, in which Crash would have had to evade enemies, who were coming at him with huge needles, all while rolling through the corridors on hospital beds.
The pitch didn't get far, only a few design proposals and AI tests were ever produced. This is what Keith Webb said about their ideas back in 2012:
"If we were going to get to do a proper sequel to Twisanity, there was talk going round of doing a new game based on a Television show premise. Cortex would deliver a new TV and remote control to Crash's house disguised as a gift. When Crash switched it on, he would have been sucked into various TV shows, and each level would have been a different show... like a wild west show, or a black and white old cartoon. The one that was brainstormed the most was that Crash would get sucked into a medical drama, and would involve enemies coming at him with big needles...and rolling through the corridors on hospital beds. I think Rusty Walrus (my favorite character, BTW!) would have had his own cooking show as well, with more crazy chasing action!!"
– Keith Webb, January 22, 2012, source: Crash Mania (old)
Videos
What's worth mentioning is, according to former Crash Twinsanity developer, John Matthew McCain, there were scenes put together after Crash Twinsanity was released, as part of a pitch to the publisher to try and get a sequel signed.
"This is a never before seen test level containing a selection of AI behaviours from Crash Twinsanity. The scene was put together after the game was released, as part of a pitch to the publisher to try and get a sequel signed.
Some of the behaviours, like the Tribespeople hunting the mushrooms, were made by myself early on in the development of Twinsanity to test our excellent AI system.
The only reason I still have this video is because I was given it by our AI coder on a CD as a leaving present when I left the TT Oxford studio!"
– John Matthew McCain
"Here we can see a behaviour that was never in the game. The native tribespeople would go out into the world and hunt mushrooms and carry them back to their hunts. I made this behaviour early in the development of Twinsanity to test our excellent AI system. The animation of the Tribesman searching for mushrooms through his binoculars was reused in the final game when they were hunting for the player."
– John Matthew McCain