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How Crash Bandicoot Hacked The Original Playstation | War Stories | Ars Technica

Ars Technica · interview · Watch on YouTube

Game history & retro gamingGame programming & enginesSoftware performance & optimization

What it is

In Ars Technica's War Stories, Naughty Dog co-founder Andy Gavin explains how the team squeezed Crash Bandicoot onto the original PlayStation. They overwrote Sony library code in RAM, built custom animation compression, and streamed assets around slow seek times.

Why Hacker News recommends it

It is one of the most frequently recommended videos on HN for old-school game development hacks under tight hardware constraints.

  • 13 people recommended it
  • 9 different months
  • 7 strong recommendations
  • first 2020, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “I'm loving this series from ARS, another great one about Crash Bandicoot”

    Crash devs overwrote Sony libraries in RAM to gain memory.

    lathiat, 2020-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Myst Almost Couldn't Run on CD-ROM [video]”

  2. “This is part of a great series of interviews with the developers of some of the most influential games in history.”

    Part of a great series of developer interviews on influential games.

    jonas21, 2020-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Myst Almost Couldn't Run on CD-ROM [video]”

  3. “Immensely interesting video!”

    Immensely interesting look at developing for original PlayStation under constraints.

    dzeix35wc363CzC, 2020-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis”

  4. “The interview with Andy Gavin on Crash Bandicoot is great, even though I never played the game”

    Great interview with Andy Gavin on Crash Bandicoot.

    mmm_grayons, 2020-09 · Strong recommendation · in “Amnesia is now open source”

  5. “his episode on Ars Technica's War Stories was awesome.”

    Awesome episode featuring Andy Gavin as a hacker's hacker.

    bmitc, 2022-01 · Strong recommendation · in “OpenGOAL: Port of Jak and Daxter, written in GOAL, a custom Lisp by Naughty Dog”

  6. “There is a fantastic video of one of the original Naughty Dog developers”

    Naughty Dog developer on unconventional tricks for 3D on PS1.

    zzanz, 2024-09 · Strong recommendation · in “Graphics Tricks from Boomers”

  7. “I also highly recommend the "War Stories" video for the making of Crash Bandicoot”

    War Stories episode on the making of Crash Bandicoot.

    mscdex, 2026-06 · Strong recommendation · in “How we made hit video game Prince of Persia”

  8. “Andy Gavin has a great interview on the technical-side of developing Crash Bandicoot [0]”

    Great interview on technical side of developing Crash Bandicoot.

    eindiran, 2020-03 · Recommendation · in “The Polygons of Another World: Atari Jaguar”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: crash bandicoot, naughty dog, playstation, memory optimization, game history

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