Grand Theft Auto is currently one of the most profitable media franchises of all time, but the first installment of this IP may be far different than many people imagine. Development process GTA 1 starts with version demo technology for a game dinosaur.
At one point during Grand Theft Auto 1’s difficult development process, the game that launched the GTA franchise was a 3D graphics demo that demonstrated the feasibility of the technology. The initial build allows players to control a dinosaur, stomping around the city and destroying buildings. However, things changed when developers started adding car went into the game thinking that driving a car could be a lot more fun.
The above interesting information comes from an interview with developer Colin Macdonald, who talked about his time working at DMA Designthe predecessor of Rockstar North. “One of the original programmers at the DMA, Mike Dailly, ran a technology experiment to show what buildings look like in 3D from top to bottom,” Mr Macdonald said. Basically, the build is a dinosaur game.
However, that changed when the city was completed. “Mike Dailly then added little cars driving around, bringing life to the city,” Macdonald recalls. And someone had this brilliant idea of what it would be like if we drove one of the cars instead of the dinosaurs and suddenly GTA turned into a car game.”
However, after this decision was made, GTA development still did not go smoothly. DMA had absolutely no idea what to do with the game, even if they got rid of the dinosaur. The game was called Race ‘n’ Chase for a long time. And then someone realized: “oh, let’s try getting the player out of the car, running around, jumping in and out of other cars”. That was truly the defining moment of Grand Theft Auto. Fast forward 25 years later, and the above decision helped make the series a success.
