Crash Bandicoot Co-Creator Andy Gavin: Extended Interview | Ars Technica

[@itsameyoshio]

Let's have another 2 hour video where he talks about Jak and Daxter on PS2!

[@LudicrouslyLiam]

Yes.

[@BigtimerGaming]

Yes ! Jak and Dexter is the best

[@recklesflam1ngo968]

oh YES

[@mmmlinux]

Yes.

[@KevinJamesVideo]

This!

[@widdowson91]

Even if this was a 24 hour video, I still wouldn't get bored of hearing him speak.

[@MathieuLaflamme]

The type of person who doesn't talk for nothing. Kind of the opposite. He is so interesting.

[@afrog2666]

You must love the word "like", because it`s half of what he`s saying..

[@RandomInsano2]

A Frog Like of course I like “like”

[@angelorusso3219]

Very interesting... but I watched the crunched 30 minute video of this which also had a lot of graphic visuals to understand more in-depth what he was saying in technical terms. I'm not a programmer but always interested in how creators made these games and what limitations they had to work with. In 20 years I'd like to hear what limitations programmers had on the PS4 vs the PS7!

[@KoopaXross]

Watched this twice before. Gonna watch it again now after months.

[@randorandom]

Easily one of the most entertaining people you've interviewed for War Stories. Please do more of these extended interviews!

[@especiallyabsent]

I feel like I’ve seen this as the top comment for multiple people in this series

[@hugoclarke3284]

@null space If he ever felt inclined to teach it would be LISP or GOAL

[@xeostube]

Agreed!

[@sebastianelytron8450]

This man must be protected at all costs.

[@DeadbeatDuder]

100% agree. Such a good spirited, honest and pleasant person (judging from this interview) and think about the value of what's inside his brain! Such precious knowledge and a smart, problem solving mindset. He figured out things makers wouldn't share, and possibly some other things they even didn't know! And the main trait serving as the cause of that is essentially curiosity, in my opinion. Hunger for knowledge rarely stays unsatisfied.

[@OneTyler2Many]

Andy is from the golden age of video games where nerds made video games, not businessmen. He's awesome.

[@SwordGuy3924]

Nerds still are, But the market is oversaturated with the business men developers, nerds get drowned out

[@Autotrope]

Nerds still make video games, they're just called "indie games" now. The ones the businessmen make are the "AAA games"

[@Xfacta12482]

​@Autotrope The nerds are still making the game at the AAA studios, but the out of touch publishers call the shots cause they're the ones funding the development.

[@cuyxjrplays]

Yes the real creators not nerds but people who are so dedicated to this one thing making the best video game for people to play and enjoy now not so bro

[@cuyxjrplays]

Funny u say that because that’s when rap in the 90s started to get made more for a business and not a passion project

[@DanielGilchristYT]

I can't believe it. I watched the original upload of this and said "man I could listen to this guy talk for hours" Then you uploaded a video of him talking for hours. WOOOO.

[@disabledchatzen5276]

LITERALLY THIS

[@colormetwisted]

I would love to listen to this guy talk about jak and daxter as well

[@gstephenson9442]

Especially the fact they used the PS1 processor inside of the PS2 to do extra work. This guy and Naughty Dog in general are genuises

[@violahero4life]

@@gstephenson9442 Wth? No wayyyyy!

[@tvoyager7]

that would be amazing

[@ottolehto]

Yes!! This must happen 😎

[@califaern3sto]

​@gstephenson9442 thats impossible, that processor is either in back compat mode for ps1 playback or its turning into its original ps2 mode

[@whogavehimafork]

To this day I still find inspiration in Andy and Jason. I loved the Jak and Daxter games as a kid but it wasn't until I was grown that I actually really appreciated the unbelievable skill required to do what Andy and the ND team accomplished with the limitations of the PS2 hardware. I would watch a 2 hour interview of Andy talking about PS2 memory management/conservation alone

[@amrsalama911]

Time-Stamps: [0:00:09] Chapter 01: The Naughty Dogs [0:03:20] Chapter 02: Westward Bound [0:06:35] Chapter 03: Choosing the PlayStation [0:12:50] Chapter 04: Breathing Life Into Crash [0:18:20] Chapter 05: Pushing the Limits of the PlayStation [0:28:47] Chapter 06: How Crash Found His Style [0:33:23] Chapter 07: The Vastness of the Third Dimension [0:40:30] Chapter 08: Getting to the Checkpoint [0:51:10] Chapter 09: Hacking The PlayStation [1:07:03] Chapter 10: Inventing the Data Chunk System [1:19:31] Chapter 11: The Boneless Bandicoot [1:29:35] Chapter 12: Keeping Up the Pace [1:38:12] Chapter 13: G.O.O.L. Language: Game Oriented Object Lisp [1:44:11] Chapter 14: The Benefits of Preclusion Data [1:49:35] Chapter 15: Playing Crash With Andy [2:00:43] Chapter 16: Releasing the Bandicoot [2:08:22] Chapter 17: Final Thoughts

[@sonicextremities9570]

Thank you!

[@lagcisco]

Andy's commentary is pure gold. I've had the great pleasure of working with Andy a couple of years, some of the best of my career. Super stoked this extended version is out now.

[@josemwarrior]

Who are you? Where have you been working at? @_@ c'mon, speak!

[@HauntedAbysss]

What games did you work on?

[@willpow05]

Liar

[@mlcs]

Bump

[@tehrater480]

Watching this extended version makes you realize how good of a job the video editors did on the main video to condense that much info into 30 min. Add onto the aaaaaaall the pictures, graphics, clips and diagrams that were put it to make it all easier to follow, and I'm super impressed by the quality of it and the amount of work put in. Kudos!

[@psychodesign2997]

4 weeks later and we have it folks. The extended edition is here. Thank you, Arstechnica and Andy for this interview.

[@jayrex690]

Ah man the last video where he was explaining how he managed to find extra memory space on the system and exploit that to be able to make a better game, was so good, his explanations and story telling was fascinating, the original Crash Bandicoot was and still is one of my favourite games, it's a timeless classic, and that video made me appreciate it all the more, so very much looking forward to watching this one!

[@cogs11]

MIT degree. To do such a software exploit. You have to know the hardware architecture really well.

[@Dropbare]

Videos like these solidify my opinion on old game developers. They were a level of genius that is no longer seen in video games, and such extreme optimisations to get as much as possible, even 'cheating' the systems given, are now a lost art. It's amazing how unoptimised, buggy, and bloaty many games are now.

[@themostballershiteva]

Drop As interesting as the hacks they used to do are, they are a nightmare to maintain. Now that there is an abundance of power, the balance has shifted towards making code more maintainable. This ultimately means much better backwards compatibility going forward.

[@JeremyGalloway]

That was an incredibly long sentence! Make sure to breath

[@jayrex690]

@@JeremyGalloway I've seen longer, commas are for breaths too ;)

[@tarwin]

I love how excited he is about everything!

[@AltimaNEO]

Yeah, I feel he had all this cool stuff to talk about, but no one "gets it"

[@neon9999]

I'm a computer scientist and I'm amazed at how good he is at communicating very technical details in a way that most people without specific computer knowledge could understand. Not everyone can do that effectively!

[@danutd94]

An artist not a businessman. Made games not money. Crash is one of all time favourites! Thanks Andy!

[@ThrashBandicoot666]

This video deserves to have 10x the amount of views that it does.

[@MartiniBlankontherest]

His knowledge of gaming history and his contemporaries make it so obvious why he's so good at what he does

[@Aidan.w]

One of my most nostalgic memories of playing Crash is the end credits when you first beat Cortex, watching Crash and Tawna fly away into that beautiful sunset. I specifically remember seeing Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin's names coming up on the screen and thinking how thankful I was to those guys for making such a special game. I didn't know anything about them at the time or even what they looked like, but I remember wondering what it must have been like for them to create Crash, and I just find it so amazing that all these years later we're able to watch a 2 hour interview with Andy and hear him explain in his own words how Crash was made. Words fall short of explaining how special this game is and the memories that come with it, and I'm sure most of us here who grew up with it will feel the same way. Thank you :)

[@mdude3]

Clarifying some of the things Andy says in the video because it's been 25 years and all: - Crash's model in Crash 1 is actually 732 polygons by default (638 during spin anim and 260 during explosion anim, etc - a change in any polygon color or vertex mapping means a new model is generated, and keep in mind not all of these polygons are necessarily visible). Crash 1 can actually render ~3 crash models at once in a single frame (@25FPS) before just crashing completely but that can obviously vary as Crash is mostly an untextured model (only textures being the shoelaces, back and in early versions the nose as well) and there's all the other object code and physics calculations. - 43:31 the first three levels made that actually shipped are Cortex Power, Generator Room and Heavy Machinery. Obviously the "over the shoulder" one is Cortex Power. - 44:33 obviously the sewer levels are from Crash 2 but a similar type of level was also in Crash 1 in some of the 3D levels. - 1:13:59 Levels in Crash 1 use around 20 to 22 pages in memory, which equates to ~1.25MB to ~1.375MB of RAM used up on that alone (texture goes to different places). Crash 2 normally uses one less page than Crash 1 (21 at max instead of 22). It's actually a bit more complicated than that (there are "fake" virtual pages that aren't made up of 64kb memory) but this suffices. - 1:26:00 the bitstream compression talked about here was actually added in Crash 2. Crash 1 animation compression simply takes some data loss (in fact, there must have been a bug with this compression program at some point because every axis in Crash 1 has the same dynamic range for each model when the engine supports each axis having a different range per model), and always spits out 6 bytes per vertex - Crash by default would use 381 vertices, so that's a whopping ~2.24kb per frame of animation, and certain animations/characters used even more vertices: the burn animation uses 831!. The Crash 2 compression allows for per-vertex dynamic axis ranges, but even animations that did not use that compression would only use up to 3 bytes per vertex which is already half the size. In comparison: Crash's burn animation (which is the same in all 3 games) is split into 5 chunks in Crash 1 but fits in a single one in Crash 2.

[@djmips]

how do you know all this!?

[@iNerdier]

I’ve heard that the original source code for crash has been lost which is a huge shame, it would be lovely to see how you actually did all this in lisp/assembly.

[@mickael486]

um.. thanks, dude. whoever you are.

[@xan1242]

@@djmips a thing called reverse engineering

[@djmips]

@@xan1242 yeah but I want to know more about the scene , posts, forums all that.

[@Emmbedd]

This interview is pure gold

[@ClayHalo]

One of the best game-related interviews I've ever seen.

[@aarongreenfield9038]

I'm pretty sure this is the first time I ever watched a 2 hour KZbin video.

[@RyTrapp0]

Allow me to introduce you to one Joe Rogan...

[@robertquigley8119]

The lorne lanning extended interview on this channel is equally as interesting and entertaining as this one :)

[@fullpolish]

Try Peterson and you'll be amazed how fast you can consume a 60-hours course

[@AltimaNEO]

I really love to hear stories about game development in the early-mid 90s. Something about that time is very fascinating to me. Maybe its because it was the wild west of 3D gaming, or because games consoles seriously started getting big and expensive. You needed big budgets, SGI work stations, and a crew beyond just 3 guys in a garage. As a result, though, Im super fascinated by SGI machines and 3D graphics/modelling. I hope to be able to play around with an SGI someday.

[@MFewwy]

Please do more interviews like that, very intelligent and knowledgable person. Good job

[@supersquare]

I agree, he's such a joy to listen to

[@Bradley_Lute]

I was playing Crash Bandicoot Warped for the first time in over 20 years while watching this and it is still an experience. It plays very nicely. I tried playing Tomb Raider 2 a while back and it was so pixelated it was hard to tell what was going on. I could barely make it past the very beginning of the level. Crash Bandicoot is such a legacy and still very playable to this day on HD screens. It is such a vivid part of my childhood. I love the series. After Mario and Sonic, this was the next big thing in platform gaming. It really stands up next to Mario 64. Bravo to this team for making it work. A lot of 3D platformers at the time really didn't work.

[@esotericVideos]

I really like watching the videos themselves, but these full interviews are even better.

[@wojiaobill]

this guy is not just a great programmer, but he also understands the industry so well, and is very, very well articulated. such a great interview

[@cogs11]

The previous video where he talked about the technicals was the most amazing thing I ever heard. CTR was my first Naughty Dog game. I looked up Andy Gavin's past and I saw MIT. That explained the innovative approach. Years later it still fascinates me how engineers come up with solutions to hardware limitations.

[@peterjansen4826]

The shorter version of this is what made me subscribe to this channel. I never played the game but I am interested in the developmental process and the software/hardware issues.

[@peterjansen4826]

@Can't Think of a Name I agree and he showed it with their technical innovations with RAM-swapping and quantization and throwing away non-required data.

[@Tenkenka]

Have you found some sort of article that tells how he accomplished that?

[@twilightshadow1795]

I loved this interview. And I would pay for a book on the making of the art/design of Crash.

[@Dropbare]

4th time watching this. I hope to see more from him (about other games for example!) He's a beast.

[@Maerkues22]

Looks like i'm in for a treat!

[@Chibiwobot]

Thank you i was really waiting for the extended version.

[@JoyOfSatan]

This is such a good interview, the passion this guy has for his work is so charismatic

[@PhilippeSymons]

This was great! I would love to see a similar interview for Spyro.

[@AbrahamLure]

There are a few interviews on Spyro out there already, but none to this detail. I'd love to see Insomniac developers talk about the first 3 Spyro games.

[@chrissoucy1997]

I would love if he came back for a second episode to talk about how he made Jak and Daxter on PS2. It is the first game I ever played in my life so it is a special franchise to me.

[@Designmanagerco]

If Andy Gavin has a masterclass of game design and how to start off, I’d totally be in for it.

[@Table53]

This is just a fantastic interview, great level of technical information for non-game devs while being fascinating the entire time. Good work, Andy.

[@judgeomega]

i cant believe this is over 2 hour long. i got so caught up in all the interesting stories the time just flew by. this is easily the best 'making of' documentary or whatever you want to call it that iv ever seen

[@Presario3440]

It is so inspiring to listen to this man. I desire his passion. He really loved his project and it was so brilliant. Truly admiring

[@leorelic]

he's simply father of my favorite franchise ... i wouldn't become a gamer without Crash

[@RanHam]

You can tell he invested alot of his life on that project. Finally got a chance to share the story.

[@InredibleMrH]

I LOVED hearing him talk so much about the technical side of his creation. A lot of people focus only on solving the design problems, and that is very interesting in its own right. However, when you're solving a problem related to design, your solution will always be inherently constrained by technical limitations. Technical innovation allows for more freedom in design innovation. Andy is a genius, and his being so articulate only accentuates it. Fantastic watch.

[@Brianf66999]

Didn't know I needed this interview. So interesting, could've listened for days. Can't wait for more!

[@ThatRandomFastingGuy]

They have a back catalogue called "War Stories" :).

[@SonnyFrisco]

I could listen to this guy simplify incredibly complicated 90's tech to me all day.

[@SonnyFrisco]

Digital Foundry, get on these originals in your retro show

[@magictoast15]

This guy is really good at explaining all that technical stuff in a way that people like me who don't know anything about computer science or game design can understand.

[@joelonsdale]

I have literally no interest in Crash Bandicoot, but Andy is absolutely fascinating!

[@aceofspades001]

We need the Jak and Daxter version of this !!!!

[@Absolynth]

I love how Crash will always represent a very specific time in gaming when we transitioned from 2D to 3D, and we didn't really know what else to do other than make a 2D platformer, but in 3D! It was awesome seeing the Pixar quality remake, and how 3D graphics came full circle to honor it's origins. The only way I 'hacked' my PS1 was opening the disc tray during certain games loading screens, and replacing the disc inside with a music CD of my own choosing, and the game with all assets loaded into memory, the only disc function is to load wav tracks for background music. Custom soundtracks in certain games this way lol You know it's funny, I still remember my techy brother when we were kids in the 90s and he was explaining to me how Naughty Dog accomplished Crash Bandicoot and how fascinatingly unique it was at the time. Even back then we knew what they achieved here was special.

[@beejwalden2009]

This is one of the best interviews I've seent yet

[@seth64_]

we need another interview all about jak and daxter please 😭😭

[@xeostube]

This was fantastic. There wasn't quite as much more in the extended cut as the 4x increase in length suggested, but it was still totally worth the listen.

[@niki75]

I love how he's talking about the playstation 1 technical stuff, and how the game sorta kinda worked in general like it was yesterday.

[@crosswick]

This is now my favourite computer science / game design 'lecture' - great job, thank you. What a craftsman!

[@BigtimerGaming]

Thank you Andy Gavin for making your games unique. Still playing the Jak and Dextar games to this day even though I’ve beaten them countless times. Hands down my favorite games

[@Yupppi]

It explains a lot when he mentions studying in MIT. This man is quite a genious in his own right. It's interesting how he mentions youtube compression, where it's been so aggressive that people are now uploading their 1080p content in 4k just to get a decent picture and audio. The algorithm basically destroys everything you have even in 1080p.

[@litjellyfish]

Yuppi well that is bad compression. In general video compression today is hugely impressive and gets even better day by day. It’s insane the quality they manage to squeeze into the little space. Issue is the amount of data that they need to store to they intentionally put such a hard compression rate which yes sometimes results in so so results. It’s all about reality and compromise of cost and value. Take also a look at old KZbin clips and you will se how far things have gone So the algorithm does actually not destroy at lot. It’s just the data constraints that forces it to so as much magic it can under those circumstances

[@Yupppi]

@@litjellyfish I know :) it's just a very inefficient solution because it makes people nullify the whole idea of the system.

[@litjellyfish]

Yuppi well people will always hack around it. Still the majority of uploads will not hack it = those who really makes an effort will have uplift and at the same time they will limit the data needed :) So it’s still very efficient. How would you have solved it instead ? Would be cool to hear your point of view :)

[@supersquare]

What an absolutely inspiring interview! Andy Gavin is a legend, he just emanates passion and dedication

[@hauntedhotdog]

So entertaining and educational. Andy is a very charismatic speaker and I could literally listen to 4 or 5 more hours of him talking about the early days of 3D gaming.

[@lukesfilmltd]

This is one of the greatest videos of all time. the knowledge imparted here is timeless. And Gavin you are a Legend!

[@Rooboid]

Great extended coverage of the development process, truly unbelievable work on Andy and the teams part to revolutionise the impact of 3D graphics and art direction in gaming.

[@AvariceOverlord]

Oh wow a two hour version? I knew there had to be more to the last interview and now I am really glad there was!

[@Xeshiraz]

This is what you get when you let a guest talk. Great interview!

[@BulletProofKiD]

Im attempting to clock the games now as a 28 year old on my shiny new ps5. Im having a great time . Cheers Andy. Top bloke

[@marioskoutras6583]

Suddenly, the quarantine feels better!

[@No-mq5lw]

The little thing about this interview that I have to point out is that he forgot the names for DirectX and Vulkan, but can remember Apple's proprietary gfx api.

[@slazerlombardi]

man's a genius...

[@mickael486]

Merely a sign of how old he is.

[@InredibleMrH]

Lol I love it. It's funny how there are specific things that just become ingrained in a person's mind.

[@ThatRandomFastingGuy]

He's old guard bro.

[@No-mq5lw]

@@ThatRandomFastingGuy I was indirectly mentioning that he works more with Macs and therefore was more accustomed to Metal, not age. Vulkan is nearly the same age as Metal, and DirectX launched about 24 years ago.

[@matturner6890]

I can see how this guy would be a great boss: He's great at holding people's attention and describing his vision.

[@cyberangel82]

What a smart man. I would love to have a grandpa like him. I could listen to him for hours on end.

[@brandbusters183]

This is my Wetdreams this Content is unbelievable to get information this Detailed, we would never find out things about developement. People think it would be boring but it is incredible Interesting, this is absolutely Phenomanal.

I was introduced to ND in 97 through a PS1 demo disc that had Crash Bandicoot. Over 20 years later I've LOVED and enjoyed EVERY Naughty Dog game since. Your legacy is cemented, thank you Andy!

[@jayrex690]

Naughty Dog's track record is absolutely amazing, their creations are almost always hugely successful console sellers, very innovative stuff as well, definitely one of the best developers in the industry for almost a solid 25 years now, and listening to Andy's passion for games you can tell why. I for one hope their run continues for a long time to come, can't wait to see what their next new IP might be!!

[@markippo]

Yeah, but I don't like last 3 games (Lost Legacy included)... Don't get me wrong, technically they're very well done, but in terms of gameplay, characters ' creation and narrative, they're extremely cheap and lazy. Druckmann could do with The last of us whatever he wanted, but why turning uncharted from fast-paced Indiana Jones type of game to story of whining plastic people? Simply don't know...

[@yorkshire_tea_innit8097]

Really really inspiring. The approach to problem solving, there just arent limits to the depth of investigation with this guy. Very inspiring.

[@pyzmark]

I wanted to hear his take on the Saturn, which the edited video didn't have. This one did. Thanks!

[@MelodiesZone]

Thanks for this. The original upload of this was one of the best developer interviews I have ever watched.

[@epicon6]

Thank you for the extended cut. The first two Crash Bandicoots are like a religion to me :)

[@domenicdefusco6328]

This has to be one of my favorite recently published videos yet.

[@spacemonkey377]

Anybody remember the T-rex and Stingray demo on playstation

[@TheBurzhuy]

Being programmer myself I enjoy listening to Andy, such an interesting story

[@WickedlNl]

Awesome, keep the extended interviews coming \m/

[@aceofspades001]

No politics, no agendas, just pure talent and passion to create fun games.

[@Vario69]

We are devolving as a society

[@Yixdy]

Well yeah, duh, is a children's platformer game about a made up marsupial. There were other games that had plenty of political intrigue in their stories around the same time though, and if you couldn't tell then I guess that's on you

[@HauntedAbysss]

Absolutely love crash bandicoot. I bought two three and CTR day one. Beat all of them 100% twice Thank you ... seriously from the bottom of my heart for such a wonderful time

[@elistratton1071]

I would love to hear him and others talk about the PS2 hardware in more depth!

[@RaffaeleSansone]

Great! Already on my watch later playlist. So much to learn from this guy.

[@pedroth3]

Would like to see a video with spyro game devs

[@mrkthmn]

I didn’t realize there was an extended cut till it was linked at the end of the edited cut so I watched this one second. I have to say, I found the experience of the edited cut better cause of the visuals and it was just a great edit! However, it was awesome to get all the extra info from this longer version as well.

[@Sun0fABeach]

Virtual memory, compilers, domain specific languages, compression algorithms, z-buffers, ... I love how many computer science disciplines went into making this game!

[@agustinblasco9100]

I absolutely loved this! Cheer my quarantine up release all the long versions!

[@VirtuelleWeltenMitKhan]

Oh wow, there is a extend version of this awesome interview?

[@titaniumdiveknife]

Love this guy!

[@Andrew84UK]

Perfect timing! I loved your interview with Andy so will enjoy this immensely

[@GerryG91100]

Thank you so much for these interviews

[@lonotalonota5779]

You can just tell this guy is a seasoned academic on the topic of compsci.

[@KmF0X]

Those complete interviews are a blast, i'd love to see more of that kind of stuff about old games, it's fascinating how people were creative around limitations

[@tehberral]

The sign of a good storyteller for me is someone who speaks fast, yet you never lose track of the story or the ideas they're talking about. This and the Lorne Lanning interviews to me are great examples. Even I as someone who doesn't know much about programming and very little about game design was able to follow.

[@BrownOpsLeak]

Yes, and also saying “like” every 10 seconds. Excellent.

[@BigtimerGaming]

Andy Gavin please bring back these style games I’ve been waiting years for a new Jak and Dextar game. Loved everything about Jak and Dexter, Dextar, Jak 2 and Jak 3. The stories and gameplay were so amazing. if we never get a Jak 4 I am so thankful for the others😊

[@davidgriffiths2223]

Great story, you can see his passion about the project and the problem solving even year later.

[@Vorundor]

I LOVE these extended interview! Any chance of making one with David Jaffe about Twisted Metal/GOW?

[@alex_and_er_g]

Thanks AT and Andy. This is just fantastic. Could listen to hours more.

[@inchworm9311]

This guy is a great teacher

[@ordelian7795]

Just hearing how excited he is to talk about these groundbreaking achievements they were able to perform on the PS1 makes me wonder how excited he and the team was when they were doing it at the time. They knew they were making a game that would blow all others away on the PS1. If there's one thing humans enjoy, it is doing something amazing while others have no idea that you're doing it.

[@josephporter3357]

Could he provide the Stravinsky promo edit to post? That would be great.