3 ms·

What a great video. Beyond the slick presentation with all the cool animations, it really captures what Andy's like as a person. Amazing talent of course, but a

What a great video. Beyond the slick presentation with all the cool animations, it really captures what Andy's like as a person. Amazing talent of course, but also an almost perverse joy in doing things you're not supposed to be able to do within the constraints you have. This brought back so many memories, including heroic stuff Andy and Mark did on the character animation that I had completely forgotten about. I also personally postdated the discussions about how to deal with an extra dimension -- I joined soon after work on Crash (then "Willy") began -- but that part was super interesting. (For those wondering: I worked on Crash 1 and 2 with Andy, Jason, and the other mid 90s Naughty Dogs.)

mdonahoe 7y ago
This is you, right? https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DaveBaggett/20131031/203788/My_Hardest_Bug_Ever.php https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DaveBaggett/20131031/203788/... I really enjoyed that story. I had a random question about this: I remember Crash 1 had a password-based "save" system where the player could skip ahead to a level if they entered the password for it. Was the creation of that system motivated by the as-of-yet-unsolved memory card bug? Or was it just standard practice to support players that didn't buy the memory card? I can't remember many games using something like that, but it was a long time ago.
- dmbaggett 7y ago
  That is me, yes -- thank you! Actually the password save capability was mandated by Sony. At that time they wouldn't approve your game if you didn't offer a card-less save mode. I guess they thought requiring people to have memory cards made the base system too expensive. Fun fact: the code to convert the bits of saved game state to PS controller buttons used modular exponentiation, as in the RSA algorithm. Carl de Marcken suggested this method; I asked him to recommend something because at the time I really didn't know anything about hashing or crypto. There's an HN post somewhere from a guy who reversed engineered it. After Crash I joined Carl at ITA Software (now Google Flights), where he was Chief Scientist.
  - ridv 7y ago
    Link to the post referred to in case anyone else is curious https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9376793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9376793

mdonahoe 7y ago

This is you, right? https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DaveBaggett/20131031/203788/My_Hardest_Bug_Ever.php https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DaveBaggett/20131031/203788/... I really enjoyed that story. I had a random question about this: I remember Crash 1 had a password-based "save" system where the player could skip ahead to a level if they entered the password for it. Was the creation of that system motivated by the as-of-yet-unsolved memory card bug? Or was it just standard practice to support players that didn't buy the memory card? I can't remember many games using something like that, but it was a long time ago.

dmbaggett 7y ago
That is me, yes -- thank you! Actually the password save capability was mandated by Sony. At that time they wouldn't approve your game if you didn't offer a card-less save mode. I guess they thought requiring people to have memory cards made the base system too expensive. Fun fact: the code to convert the bits of saved game state to PS controller buttons used modular exponentiation, as in the RSA algorithm. Carl de Marcken suggested this method; I asked him to recommend something because at the time I really didn't know anything about hashing or crypto. There's an HN post somewhere from a guy who reversed engineered it. After Crash I joined Carl at ITA Software (now Google Flights), where he was Chief Scientist.
- ridv 7y ago
  Link to the post referred to in case anyone else is curious https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9376793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9376793