Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!

[Sonictrainer]

Quote

A new kind of Crash adventure featuring your favorite characters! Crash & Coco team up to put a stop to Dr Neo Cortex's evil plan to destroy the multiverse! 

In this new mobile episode, Dr Neo Cortex has dispatched mutagen henchmen across the multiverse to enslave all dimensions. With the help of his sister Coco, Crash must bash Cortex's minions back to their own dimensions! 

Run, spin and slide your way into madness with this new Crash Bandicoot game!

CLASSIC CRASH IN A BRAND NEW ADVENTURE

• Jump, slide and spin through the iconic tracks of the Wumpa Island
• Complete awesome battle runs
• Team up with Coco to find and defeat Dr Cortex’s minions

YOUR FAVORITE CHARACTERS ARE BACK

• Take on classic enemies and bosses including Mutagen Ant, Scorporilla, Nitrus Brio and Dingodile!
• Beware of the Buzzsaw turtles and spiders!

DISCOVER HIDDEN PATHS

• Explore lands & dodge the dangers of Turtle Woods, Lost City and Temple Ruins 
• Discover new paths and uncover new tracks for exclusive challenges and rewards

EXPAND COCO’S BASE & SAVE THE MULTIVERSE

• Unlock key buildings to create an arsenal of weapons: serums, bombs and even rayguns!
• Go on collection runs and gather ingredients and parts to upgrade Coco’s base 
• Load up with your nitro and frosty serums, bombs and rayguns!
• Battle run and bash the evil henchmen back to their own dimensions!

 

EDIT: New Name has been updated

[Red Hot Jack]

I haven't seen the videos yet, but it seems an auto-runner with stages, instead of an endless runner, this is already potentially interesting.

[Jango]

Oy, I was going to make this thread yesterday, but I was so tired Awesome job @Sonictrainer !

So, this kinda came out of nowhere. No trailer or official announcement yet.

I think it's a cool little game. Cool music, nice UI, nice animations. An open door for easter eggs and references. For what we could tell, the story resolves around different dimensions and multiverse. Apparently, all the Crash games that came after the original trilogy are being considered as "another dimensions" now. Interesting retcon. This explains why we're seeing enemies from Twinsanity and Titans. They're basically giving fan-service an actual story behind. I like it (if that's really the idea).

What we can expect for sure are loads of MTX, this is King/Activision after all. Althought the MTX were fairly avoidable in CTR Nitro-Fueled, I imagine they're going all in this time... 

I see that King kept the art style that leaked months ago, but tweaked a few things here and there. I quite like this blocky, more cartoony look for Cra... OH MY GOD WHAT THEY DONE TO DINGODILE'S FACE?!

Yeeahhhhh..... I mean. They could still change it, right? XD Also, Coco and Aku-Aku eyes are a biiiiiit far apart. It makes them look a little goofy.

Anyways, less about the character design and more about the art style. We still don't know if this is the style they'll be using in the unannounced console game aswell. I'm assuming they made the characters less fury, with simplified shading and blockier shapes to save on space and rendering speed? I know that are some very powerfull smartphones nowadays, but I think King wants to even your grandma's phone to run this thing.

Then again... There's this:

Can't say he's wrong tho'. I believe Toys for Bob's artists could be actually involved in this. Speaking of which, their leaked Crash designs look nothing like the ones used in this mobile game. So I guess (and hope) that those designs are in fact for the console game.

Do I intend to play this mobile game? Eh... Maybe? It looks like a fun little distraction. I'll not dive into it tho'. I rarely play games on my phone. Do I think this is gonna burn Crash's reputation? A bit, of course it's gonna be a MTX fest. But that's how it is. Even Mario couldn't avoid it, so yeah. Just woah with it.

[mayday2592]

The game honestly looks pretty good, and according to the big Crash youtubers and other big names in the fanbase, it plays well in this early state. As for the redesigns, theyre fine honestly. Dingodile's snout needs to be fixed which isnt that big a deal. And like Canadian Guy Eh, I'm expecting a version of these designs to be carried into the 2020 game.

[Winston]

Don't really play a lot of mobile games, but as a huge Crash fan, I'm pretty excited for this one and seeing where it goes. I'm sure they'll add more bosses eventually. I also like how they're incorporating elements from Twinsanity and Titans/Mutants into the game, such as Scorporilla being a boss. I really dig how they turned him into more of a "classic" Crash villain instead of just a species of mutants like in those games. It honestly fits pretty well with characters like Dingodile. I was afraid these things would be buried, and I don't really know if this is a popular opinion, but I like pretty much every Crash game even if they're not as consistently good as they were in the Naughty Dog games. Titans/Mutants certainly isn't a good Crash game, but it's a pretty alright game on it's own and I think elements from it can work such as them bringing in the species and trying to incorporate them as bosses. It's very interesting to see. 

I think the microtransaction stuff is coming from the wait times, correct? It surprises me to see that Coco isn't playable or there isn't any costumes for Crash, but it's only available in certain territories so far so maybe that stuff isn't accessible yet. With Coco being the lab person though, I don't know if she could be playable but it'd be cool. It'd also be nice to get Nina as playable considering she played somewhat similarly to Crash in Twisanity. Doubt that would happen since Cortex is the villain, but maybe she'll get in as a boss eventually. But yeah, that's all I really have to say about it. I think it'll be a pretty decent mobile game. If any game series fits a hallway runner type game, it's Crash. 

[Eurisko]

So is this like the Sonic Forces Speed Battle on mobile but its Crash Bandicoot instead?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 hour ago, Eurisko said:

So is this like the Sonic Forces Speed Battle on mobile but its Crash Bandicoot instead?

It's Temple Run or Sonic Dash. It isn't based around multiplayer races like Speed Battle is.

If you want a better idea of what it'll be like, Zangya's Looney Tunes Dash sounds fairly similar - endless runner gameplay, only split up into levels instead of seeing how far you can get:

 

[Eurisko]

ahh Yeah I played a ton of Sonic Dash for a while. It lost it's novelty quite quick.

Mobile games are what they are I guess.

[Sonictrainer]

There's a new trailer!

Quote

Crash Bandicoot: On the Run! is coming soon, directly to your phone. The new runner will include classic bosses, new levels, custom skins and more.

 

[Jango]

That's a cool trailer! Catchy music too. Everytime I see something new about Crash I get this feeling of "still can't believe he's back in the spotlight". This gotta be one of the best comebacks in gaming. I hope they can keep up with another 3 solid years before we start seeing signs of drought. Activision will milk him for sure, but right now, things are pretty balanced in my opinion. 

I don't hate the designs, but I don't love them either. I prefer Crash 4 by a mile.

Judging by this interview, these guys at King are even more hardcore than Beenox:

 

GameSpot: Crash Bandicoot was always a runner. But now you're coming into this established "runner" genre. What was that transition like?

Jarrett: Whenever I was first thinking of this game, we had an early prototype, which was a way to elevate the runner. And that was like to have something that wasn't an endless runner, but could have a lot of depth and height in the environments and see how far we could really push it, and to also have a strong sense of progression.

So when I found out that could be a possibility to work with a Crash game, it just fit like a jigsaw piece together. One of the things that I really like about Crash Bandicoot: On The Run is that, besides being a new adventure, you unlock all these lands from the past 20 years of Crash's history. And every single land has completely new mechanics and new enemies and bosses. And that's something that I think that Crash is famous for, is just all those different mechanics as you progress through the game.

I think it's starting to feel like almost like the Crashiest Crash game ever, in a way, because we're drawing from 20 full years of Crash games. And as the story is about all these multiverses and Doctor Neo Cortex is pulling through all these bosses. We're able to pull through all these enemies and all these bosses that definitely existed in any Crash game before us.

What were your goals in elevating the runner genre? What did you see as the shortcomings of the genre that you wanted to improve on?

So there's a few things. I think one is just having different mechanics, different feelings, as you go through as if you're running through different lands. That was always really important for us. So it felt like the more you play the runner, the more that you unlock and experience new things.

And instead of having an endless run, there are these lands that you can actually explore. So making those decisions like, "Oh, I'm going to go left because I know that item is down there." Or, "Oh, I'm going to go through the cave. And then through the secret path on the right because I know that's where I can find these special items." We want you to have this sense of exploration that has never been seen in runners.

That's interesting, runners aren't usually known for having a sense of place where you can make a mental map in your head.

I'd love to players to be able to share that information. So if something new appears in the land, you'll be able to say, "Oh, [this secret] is past the giant bear statue." If you go and see that giant statue, and you'll know exactly where that is because you started learning that land. So socially you'll be able to chat about areas and where secrets are turning up.

The trailer showed more variety of moves than I would have expected from a runner. How do you approach having that level of finesse, but also keep the controls simple and easy to pick up?

We're making sure it runs at 60 FPS. I think it has to, in order to make it feel smooth. The different moves that he has, I mean, you can play Crash and Coco at any time in the game, which I think is really cool. Both of them have belly flops, they can spin. Crash has such a nice pace and a nice rhythm to him as he goes.

It's thinking of ways about how the player can chain those moves together to do really fun things. And then our animator, who's incredible, he puts these nice little touches in. So if you just let Crash just run without touching the screen and you're running for a while, he'll turn back and wipe his brow. Or when he jumped on the mushroom, he'll just look back at you and just smile. So it has all these little tweaks to kind of really get over his crazy and but goofy, mischievous personality.

The trailer mentioned weapon crafting as well. Can you share more details on how that works?

I think in the trailer, you'll see that he's got a bazooka. But one of the things that we've done in Crash Bandicoot: On The Run is to have a base to the game. And that's an area of raw progression and it's where Coco is using scavenged Neo Cortex tech to create machines. And she uses these machines to make things, weapons. And it's these weapons that her and Crash use to bash these bosses back to different dimensions.

And so how the game plays is that you play Crash or Coco, you run around these lands, collecting the ingredients, that are then used at the base to kind of craft these weapons. The other cool thing about the base is you can actually unlock new areas of the base as you progress through the game. You'll start to see there's kind of little clues in there of things that you can build that will take you to kind of classic Crash adventures and classic Crash game play. But it's also a place to show off your trophies.

How many bosses from the old Crash games are we going to see?

Oh man, so we are pulling really deep. One of my favorite ones is that in, I believe it was 1998, there was a Tiger Electronics 99X handheld. And that has a boss on it called Mr. Crumb. This is probably a bit cheeky of us, but he's kind of a fan favorite. People were petitioning to get into a Crash game. So we thought, "Oh man, we have to have him in our game." That's quite a deep lost boss that is going to appear in our game.

And then because of themes of portals, we can bring in a lot of old bosses and fan favorites as we actually create the game. When you create the mobile game, it has to last for years, right? Releasing it is when you really start working on the game because then you're writing seasons. Having all this Crash history to pull from is just like it's great.

So you'll be adding more bosses and more seasons. How is that going to work? And can you talk at all about how monetization will work?

Yeah, it's absolutely free to play. It would have been really easy to monetize Crash through lives, right? I mean, that's a common thing in free-to-play games. But we decided not to do that in this game, mainly because dying in Crash is kind of fun. He has all these great death animations. And also as a runner, and based on Crash, you want to take risks to get certain items. And I didn't like the idea of you being punished for dying for taking those risks. So if you die in our game, you are not penalized at all. You keep everything you've collected and we encourage you to take crazy gameplay risks to kind of do things.

We're looking at adding battle passes for the game. And we're hoping players will invest in the game through customization of Crash and Coco. But we're still working on monetization at the moment. We're definitely not planning to do the obvious, which is to put energy in the game or to monetize through lives.

And how will new seasons work?

The current plan is to, as the game gets past launch, we're releasing some steady theme seasons with new stories and new kind of crazy plans from Cortex and various other characters. And there'll be battle passes attached to that with customization.

A lot of games that have ongoing content need to offer new things to the players who are most invested and most experienced at it, so it gets harder and harder. How do you look to appease the players who are Crash masters while also keeping a nice onboarding process for new players?

One of the things that we have at the moment [is] challenge runs. These runs are for hardcore Crash platformers, right? You unlock time trials, you unlock challenge runs. These are there for the more diehard players. So I would say the core of the game is for everyone, and then there's these really cool challenge runs for the more daring players.

This is sort of coming out during a resurgence of Crash. There's a new Crash console game coming. Has there been any cross-pollination in terms of story tie-ins or art assets?

We exist in the timeline where every other Crash game exists in our timeline. In the future, we might have some sort of cross-pollination. And I think altogether, it's just so great to work in and play in this Crash world.

What makes now the time for Crash? We had a slow build up with fan demands and the cameo in Uncharted. Why now?

I mean, I think he's a loved character. I think he's this crazy, like a goofy, mischievous, yet heroic danger-loving hero. And then you've got Coco, who's highly intelligent and she's just as heroic as Crash as his younger sister. I think they're just really beloved. I mean, I know everyone on my team. We all played these games 20 years ago. And when we announced to the team that we were working on Crash, a lot of us felt a kind of heritage of this game. Sometimes the right kind of game genre comes along and the right kind of prototype comes along and it just fits perfectly.

This will basically be Sonic Runners + CTR Nitro-Fueled in terms of fan service.

[Your Vest Friend]

I'm more shocked they remember Sonic Runners to be honest.

[Jango]

7 hours ago, Your Vest Friend said:

I'm more shocked they remember Sonic Runners to be honest.

Oops, that was me saying, it got itself inside the quote xD

[Sonictrainer]

New Trailer

 

[Sonicka]

Yup, looks like a decent enough runners game to me with all the trappings  

Surprised they didn't go with the reverse with Crash running towards the camera instead - slightly missed opportunity there as that would probably work better for this medium than in the console levels.

Now to downloa... WHAT?... 21st March 2021? Blimey. That's almost a full year after the (Beta?) release in certain territories. I will have forgotten about this again by that time. XD

 

[Sonictrainer]

A new ad shows off Mr. Crumb's new look

[mayday2592]

Still can't get over all the fanservice in recent Crash games since 2016. Who would have thought we see one of the most obscure characters in  the series show up as a result of fan demand? 

[Sonicka]

1 hour ago, Sonictrainer said:

A new ad shows off Mr. Crumb's new look

Interesting wording. 'Iconic' eh?  

[Sonictrainer]

Fake Coco is also in the game...

[Sonictrainer]

Season 1 of COTR is featuring our favorite racing alien.

[Teoskaven]

Tried it out on release since i pre-registered. It's alright, nothing too exciting for the moment, but i believe it's a decent start for this type of game.

[Sonictrainer]

We have some concept art

[Jango]

Mr. Crumb looks so awesome. Wish they could bring him to a main game or even CTR NF (I still have hope heh).

[Sonicka]

The main question I have is... who is Mr Crumb? I’ll take a random stab that he’s from some Crash Mobile game or Tag Team racing... maybe? 

Is the Gorilla/snake one new or a deep dig archive find as well?

Anyway, been playing this today. And I absolutely hate it.

I enjoy coming to crash’s defence but there is no getting around this. I understand this is a F(r)ee to pay mobile title - but it makes really makes CTR look golden in comparison. It presents the exact the type of mobile shenanigans I despise. 

What’s worse is I think the base temple run style gameplay is fine, the presentation is lovely, and the music is great.

What I don’t enjoy is having figure out how to click around a menu map screen for 50% of my time trying to work out why I need “X” amount of “potion items” to play the level, but you need to make the “potion item” first... and this can take time or you can “pay” to speed the creation up. But then you also need to grind in endless runner levels to collect or pay for “X” amount of “crafting items” to make said “potion items” ...and the “crafting items” also only “regenerate” after time and n the endless runner levels unless you pay for time to speed up this up. And when you do eventually craft items these can take upwards of 5 minutes to craft unless you pay to speed this up with in game currency which quickly depletes... unless you buy more of course. 

And this is before trying to play the main game of short 1-2 minute levels - which are fun but usual run of the mill runner with a boss/enemy to dispatch at the end.   

I’m also slightly confused by the multiverse tie in story as this was done already (and better) in crash 4... but whatever.

I also don’t know why it’s called “on the run” (apart from the obvious) - Crash runs towards the enemy to dispatch them if anything. I still think they missed a trick by not including running towards the camera levels. 

It’s a shame, I think I’d have more fun with this if they could have kept the predatory crafting/monetary system away from the game and included a simple mission based structure. Otherwise I will say that the fan service is clearly strong with this one. 

[Sonictrainer]

48 minutes ago, Son-icka said:

The main question I have is... who is Mr Crumb? I’ll take a random stab that he’s from some Crash Mobile game or Tag Team racing... maybe? 

He's the main villain of Crash Bandicoot 99x.

...however, I don't blame you if don't know who he is considering even I haven't played this before.

To make a long story short, he's a rich man who haunts his mansion after dying to protect his riches and even has some henchmen to help protect.

However, Crash was the only one to enter the haunted mansion, defeat Mr. Crumb and his minions, and supposedly get the treasure.

One of his henchman, called Thorn Thing, is also in Crash on the Run!

48 minutes ago, Son-icka said:

Is the Gorilla/snake one new or a deep dig archive find as well?

Scorporilla is one of the Titans from Crash of the Titans & Mind Over Mutant.

48 minutes ago, Son-icka said:

I’m also slightly confused by the multiverse tie in story as this was done already (and better) in crash 4... but whatever.

I mean...they're actually using characters from past games as Mini-Bosses & Bosses instead of just 5 or the occasional cameo like in Crash 4.

...also, it's an excuse to have the elemental color swaps of characters in the different remixed Levels.

[Sonicka]

Thanks - I'd never have known about Mr Crumb - that really IS a real deep dive to the bottom of the Wumpa crate XD

I understand the use of using the Crash multiverse, it's as you said and brings in characters from everywhere I guess (and perhaps to better use than from what I expected Crash 4 to do). I just found it so random that there was a quick exposition story drop before the game started alongside "we made potions to send the enemies back". It's... so odd. But then this is a mobile title I suppose so story doesn't matter that much. Buying the bucks for creating those nonsensical potions does.  

I do think that's something a potential Crash 5 could improve on - now they've gone further towards the multiverse with a time travel angle, I would love to see this idea mined even further by exploring the previous offshoots of the series like Wrath, Twinsanity, any of the racers, the Titan Series etc... as I was slightly disappointed there was no real character crossover in Crash 4 that covered this.