Alas, poor Leo...
Thanks to a Mid-Development Genre Shift and post-reveal Development Hell, Goodbye Volcano High changed significantly from conception to final product.
Jurassic High
While the plot of "anthro dinosaurs dealing with the end of the world" was established early on, the first drafted version of the game, then known as "Jurassic High" was a humorous, ironic Dating Sim with three playable characters that had separate but interconnected storylines. Each character would have their own potential dating partners that could be romanced. Eventually, the developers realized they wanted to tell a more serious, grounded story, and the game shifted to a cinematic narrative game.
- Fang, who was the third player character designed, began as more standoffish and frustrated. When the devs reimagined the game as being told from Fang's perspective alone, their personality was softened significantly. This change was also reflected in Fang's design, which had a sharper punk edge and a longer snout.
- Rosa was also a potential playable character, with one of her possible relationship options being Stella. She's a secondary character in the final game, although her actions do have a major impact on Fang and Trish's relationship.
- The third playable character was a blue male liopleurodon named Leo. He was Reed's friend, he was on the Volcano High swim team, he was dealing with the recent death of his mother, and his romance options included Sage and Naomi. When the game was changed to have Fang as the sole player character, Leo was cut from the game.
- At one point, Stella had an entirely different design, with purple-blue scales and hair, black fingertips and spikes, and a slimmer body. She was described as having a bubbly personality and colorful wardrobe to contrast her body color, and she was an avid tabletop gamer. Ironically, in the final game, Stella is the only one of the eight major characters to not play Legends & Lore.
- The game's original UI, seen in a shot of Leo laying on his bed, had it more structured like a traditional Visual Novel. However, the game's visuals were still meant to be animated, although not to the degree that they were in the final game.
- The game's name was initially "Jurassic High", but was vetoed after copyright concerns regarding the Jurassic Park franchise were brought up. It was only after settling on a name for the school itself that the game's final name was chosen.
Other
- As detailed in this official interview from May 2021
, the game's developers brought in a new writing team and rebooted the game's narrative direction mid-development, with two of the noted changes from the original drafts being a change to Fang's motivations and a complete rework of Naser's character.- One major change to the tension between Fang and Trish was the direction of the band. Early promotional material shows that Trish was pushing for changes to the band, while Fang wanted to keep things as they were. In the final game, the dynamic is flipped; Fang is pushing to change the band's sound, while Trish prefers the old sound and is developing other interests and friendships.
- Naser's early designs show him with both wings fully grown, and within the game files, there's an image of him with both wings grown in the game's final art style, suggesting the change to him having a disabled wing came at some point between his design being finalized and the game's June 2020 reveal.
- Sage was originally going to be voiced by Daniel MK Cohen, but during story rewrites, Sage's identity as transgender was explored in more detail, and his voice was recast to Jensen Trani, a trans man.
- Naomi was originally the Student Counsel President and Naser was her assistant. In the final game, Naser is the Class President and Naomi is on the Yearbook Committee.
- There was meant to be a "Career Fair" subplot, with a few surviving gifs showing Fang imagining themself as a teacher and a doctor.
- Cut from the story was a subplot that explained that the reason Fang doesn't fly anywhere is because they don't have a license; dinosaurs with wings were required to be 18 and pass a flight exam before being allowed to fly.
- An early version of the episode 7 bonfire scene had Fang play a song for their friends. In the final version, Fang considers doing this, but struggles to compose something and chooses to talk things out instead. The song originally meant for this scene, "Constellations Unplugged", appears over the end credits.
- Concept art shows childhood versions of Fang and Naser that are absent from the final game. Notably, child Fang's hair is silver, meaning it was their natural hair color at one point before being changed to red later, and Naser's wings are showed to not have scars yet, meaning whatever caused his stunted wing growth hadn't happened yet.
- Legends & Lore was originally intended to have a battle minigame with a visual layout reminiscent of turn-based combat video games.
- Fey's powered-up form originally depicted them holding a white guitar.
- Alvin's official reference sheet is captioned as "Alvin, who never came to be," implying he was meant to have a larger role.
- Pretty Heroes was originally meant to be more prominent, with a character design sheet made for its lead character, Pretty Cloud, and an animated sequence of the main characters' Magical Girl Transformation Sequence.
- For the three major music performances (the audition, Battle of the Bands, and the final concert), there were plans for a dress-up minigame, where the player could decide on Fang's outfit. This is absent in the final game, although Fang does change outfits for the Battle and choices made in episodes 7 and 8 dictate which of two outfits Fang wears for the final concert.
- Storyboards for Episodes 3 and 4 revealed some scenes that were altered or removed from the final game:
- Episode 3 was meant to begin with Fang, Trish and Reed on the beach coming up with Battle of the Band poster ideas and talking the audition and Swamp Babies. Fang would then design the poster on their laptop and show it to Trish and Reed, before cutting to Fang imagining the band playing together on tour.
- Episode 4 had a scene where Fang looks at the college brochures, and the player could pick one of them to see Fang imagining what life would be like at each school.
