What Could Have Been / Bugsnax

The evolution of what Grumpuses (mainly Filbo) would have looked like.

Bugsnax was in development for seven years and the Young Horses team has been upfront that a good chunk of that time was just trying out lots of different mechanics and ideas until they landed on what ultimately became the final game. Eventually they gave some tidbits on what those ideas and dropped story and character concepts were.

Examples

• The Grumpuses were originally depicted as frogs with a variety of colors, theming better with the idea of them eating bugs. Filbo's embroidered plush frog is apparently meant to be an inside joke by the developers referencing his frog design. Right down to the prominent buttcrack.
  • Sheep and "jelly bean" Grumpuses were also considered as well.
• Filbo himself went through multiple designs and names before reaching his final form. He started as a nondescript blue monster named Chumbly, his frog design was named "Mayor", and then a design was produced that is closer to his final design but named "Norman."
• Early prototypes of the game used an on-rails Pokémon Snap-inspired mechanic where the player drove a food truck through Bugsnax habits and had to use their various traps and the environment to capture Bugsnax. Then... dismember them, peel them, and serve them as meals before the Grumpuses could eat them. It's just as horrifying as it sounds.
• Another early prototype featured the player firing a food cannon at the Grumpuses as part of a city-sim mechanic in Snaxberg. The player would need to feed the Grumpuses to alter their personality to complete the construction projects. At one point this city-sim version also included procedural relationships between the Grumpuses. The latter video also shows early versions of several of the final characters, plus other characters that would be dropped or reworked.
• There was originally a mechanic in the game that would keep track of the characters' fullness. This was either a leftover from one of the previous gameplay ideas or a way to show how much of their bodies are covered in bugsnacks. It was never used but a file for it is in the final game.
• The game has many different tools that didn't make the cut such as Balloon (a tool that makes things fly), Cannon (a projectile-based gadget that shoots a net), Drone (a possible upgrade to the unused balloon tool), Hose (an upgrade to the slingshot possibly), Lures (a possible early version of the sauce), and the Snak Motel (a possible upgrade to the basic Snak Trap, which may have involved Lures). There are also two other minor gadgets such as a Rock classified as a lure and an unused sauce, Honey.
• At one part of development, traps were meant to be chained together, such as sticking a balloon onto the basic trap to let it fly. This idea kinda exists in the final game in an unintentional function often used for cheating and speedrunning.
• The plot of Bugsnax was always intended to be surrounding a very dark secret, even with all these cute prototypes. Kevin Zuhn, the writer, hinted that it was meant to be even darker than what we got and revealed all in an IGN interview. The spoileriffic highlights:
  • Elizabert's original reason for disappearing was unintentionally causing Eggabell's death. In the original story, addiction to Bugsnax eventually turned the victims into something akin to zombies. Eggabell underwent this transformation, attacked Lizbert, and was pushed off the cliff at Frosted Peak, her corpse disintegrating into various Bugsnax upon her death. A distraught Lizbert would simply hide in a cave in shame - this cave is what later became the Undersnax in the final draft. The various video diaries of Lizbert and Eggabell were meant to help the player get to know Eggabell before her untimely death. Notably, one of the diaries in the final game has Eggabell telling Lizbert she'd "fall to pieces without (her)". Zuhn still wasn't satisfied as this version of the story left the player with no proper emotional connection to Lizbert or Eggabell and several of the other devs pointed out to Zuhn that Eggabell's death was a very uncomfortable invocation of the Bury Your Gays trope. Once it was decided that Eggabell is alive, the rest of the game's plot received rewrites as well, leading to the creation of the Undersnax and a significant plot expansion to the Frosted Peak content.
  • As mentioned above, the secret of Bugsnax was originally the Grumpuses turning into Bugsnax zombies from overconsumption. This originally led into three different endings - the first was a bad ending where every Grumpus but Filbo has turned into a Bugsnax zombie and Filbo would sacrifice himself so the player could live but with no evidence of the events that happened. The neutral ending was only marginally kinder - the Grumpuses who had stayed untransformed would be forced to fight off the transformed Grumpuses as the survivors escaped the island. The Golden Ending was all the Grumpuses staying normal and deciding to try and maintain their settlement anyway, just without eating anymore Bugsnax. These were all rewritten both because the devs didn't like the way that Grumpus zombies was a very unsatisfying "bad fate" for the characters' various arcs and that the "good" ending was actually a Broken Aesop that completely undermines any of their growth over the game.
  • The final sequence of the game originally featured a complex Tower Defense battle. This got dropped because the devs realized trying to teach a player a new mechanic at the 11th hour would be unfair. The actual final battle simply has the player using their existing Bugsnax gadgets only with lethal results.