SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom/Prerelease Content

SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom/Prerelease Content
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Prerelease Content
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Developed By	Heavy Iron Studios (GC, PS2 and Xbox) Vicarious Visions (GBA) AWE Games (PC)
Published By	THQ
Series	SpongeBob SquarePants
Platforms	GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Game Boy Advance and PC.
Release Date	October 21st, 2003
Genre	Platformer (GCN, PS2, Xbox, GBA) Point and Click (PC)

Battle for Bikini Bottom has a large amount of unused content, most of which coming from early levels. This is because each level runs on a different engine, which is why the game's physics can be inconsistent. We recommend you visit The Cutting Room Floor pages here.

GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox Versions

Unused Textures

There's a ton of unused textures, most of which come from early levels or menus. Textures will be ripped from the Xbox version unless otherwise stated.

Early Menu Textures

mnu03.HOP has a lot of early menu icons, in the final, the menu mostly uses 3D objects.

• ui_underwear is an early icon of the underwear, which can be seen in some pre-release footage and screenshots

• ui_spatula_grey, ui_spatula_gold and ui_spatula_glow contains three images of spatulas.

• ui_shinyobject contains an early icon for shiny objects.

• ui_sb_doodle and ui_sb_doodle_fill contains two images of the classic SpongeBob doodle, with no obvious purpose.

• ui_anchor contains an image of an anchor with no obvious purpose, it was later used in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie as a texture for Patrick's Macho Throw.

• ui_krabbypatty is an image of a Krabby Patty with no obvious purpose either.

• ui_bubblemeter contains an image of a bubble meter that could've been used for SpongeBob's attacks, similar to magic attacks from The Legend of Zelda series.

• ui_pineapple_on and ui_pineapple_off contains images of a pineapple with an arrow, this was replaced with Jellyfish in the final.

• ui_bubble_small contains a opaque, small bubble.

Temp

• Found in the files of nearly every level a texture file named temp, which was obviously used as a placeholder texture.. Strangely, there are some boxes in several levels hidden somewhere with this texture. It is also found in The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer.

Early Text Box

• Found in the files for Jellyfish Fields is text_bg_temp, which was likely a placeholder text box.

SpongeBall Arena Credits

• Found in the files for the SpongeBall Arena are credits will some funny text.

MuscleBob BuffPants?

• While technically not unused, the full texture is never seen. This texture is the one used for SpongeBot SteelPants eye's in b303. Interestingly, it has the filename, chr_sb_musclearms, which matches SpongeBob's chr_sb05, meaning SpongeBob was possibly meant to use them from the episode, "MuscleBob BuffPants."

Miscellaneous Textures

• temp_platform_3x3_texture is a texture in rb02, it's just a purple rock texture that was obviously used as a temporary.

• tongueboard_test_sand is a texture that can be found in some levels. It was used as a placeholder slide area texture.

• This sign can be found in the textures for the pressure plate (plate_pressure), it was likely used as an early indication for when it was active. This can also be found in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

• In hb00 is sky_cinematic_morn, which was going to be used before SpongeBob wakes up. The final game uses cinematic_skydome_night all the way through, making this go unused.

• Found in bc05 is spotlight_button, which has no model associated with it. Interestingly, it uses the early button texture, suggesting this was scrapped early.

• bathroom_door is a texture found in hb10. This is used in Rock Bottom, though there it's combined with the rest of the bathroom textures.

• A texture for Patrick's bed can be found in hb04 under the name pat_bed. Like the spotlight, there's no model.

• bubble is the early version of bubble texture seen in most early gameplay footage. The texture itself can be found in boot.HIP. It is also used in the final game, but it isn't used as the bubble textures used in attacks.

GameCube Only

• basic_button and basic_button_grn are two early button textures found in Goo Lagoon's New Folder and Working (see below)

• Early Throw Fruit textures, found in Goo Lagoon's New Folder and Working.

• An early Bubble Bash target icon, found in Goo Lagoon's New Folder and Working.

Unused Models/Objects

How the barnacles am I meant to use these?

Two misplaced shelves in SpongeBob's pineapple.

Unused Levels

Screaming for Ice Cream

Found in the files of the GameCube and Xbox versions is db05, which is an odd, unfinished candy-themed level. The GameCube's leftover compilation files names this "patrick_dream," while the final level is db06 and is internally referred to as "patrick_mind." This level has several oddities, including inside-out texturing, broken checkpoints, misplaced and inactive objects, missing sounds and no skybox. But perhaps the most interesting thing is the use of early assets such as early tikis and "press (BUTTON) to go to (LEVEL)." There is a functioning golden spatula in the level, and collecting it will work as any other golden spatula does when collected.

There is an onion-looking object that can hurt the player, just like any other enemy or bad object would. It was likely meant to topple down as a challenge to get past a certain area.

Although the robots in the level are normally inactive, there is a way to make them attack you. When activated, the Chuck robot goes to the center of the level; he was probably programmed to do this as part of the level's challenge. He also behaves slightly differently, such as waiting less between throws and his aim being more direct then usual, which suggests that the robots in this level follow an earlier version of the final games code. The Xbox version also has an extra power-up within its files, but it's unclear what its intended purpose was.

101 Spatulas!

If you activate the chuck robot on actual hardware, the game will freeze when the chuck's torpedo hits something.

The level has a build date of July 23rd, 2003, while the final is September 17th, 2003.

Unused SpongeBot SteelPants Phase

The Xbox and GameCube versions have an extra level in the B3 folder, b302, which contains and unused phase of the fight. The game normally crashes due to broken collision files for the arms, but can be fixed by replacing them with empty, "dummy" files.

The level has unused models for dumbbells and weights, but there are no files for a hit point bar. SpongeBob's friends are in the level as NPCs, including Mr. Krabs even though he was never shown in any of the cutscenes for the used phase. Other NPCs like Robo-Plankton, several citizens, and robots are also in the level, but appear to be broken.

Based on the muscle arms, this unused phase was probably going to occur after SpongeBot SteelPants was defeated for the first time (Kah-Rah-Tae! mission). It also appears that Patrick was going to be the character who was going to fight SpongeBot MusclePants instead of SpongeBob, due to Patrick having the ability to throw (the arms could be popped by throwing rocks scattered about the level). In the final game, The Small Shall Rule.. Or Not is the final mission, and the muscle arms are only seen before and after the last area of the game.

The build of the level was dated August 7th, 2003, while the first phase used in the final game is dated September 16th, 2003.

Early Goo Lagoons

The GameCube version has two extra folders in the GL folder, both named New Folder and Working, both of which contain an early Goo Lagoon. The "Working" one was saved only one day after "New Folder," meaning both are nearly identical. They can be accessed by swapping the early GL01.HOPs with the final's. Swapping the HIP files will result in a crash due to the early SIMP files missing 4 bytes.

The early versions use many early assets, including Soccer Balls instead of Throw Fruit, differently texture buttons etc. The game also has a tendency to crash on hardware, on Dolphin the emulator will say something went wrong, but the game will continue to function.

There are many differences between these two areas and the final Goo Lagoon:

• The lighting is very different from the final game.
• Some of the textures are broken/missing.
• The throw fruit are soccer balls (they don't show up due to script differences, though Patrick can still throw them and use them to hit buttons; they will just be invisible).
• The flying and thunder tikis use earlier models.
• The early hint sign with Gary is used rather than the red question mark sign.
• The robots seem clumsier and probably use a different variant of code.
• SpongeBob and Patrick will not make their out of bounds animations when out of bounds.
• The NPC's lines are different, and due to using the final version's .hip (and thus the final script files) will cause an error that makes SpongeBob's audio dialog repeat, however this can be fixed through simple file swapping.
• The fat fish you can jump on looks different.
• The buttons say "push" but only when pressed.
• There are several missing sounds.
• The toll-gates use the earlier model labeled "stop".
• The cutscenes are glitchy, however it may be that they were not intended to be glitchy and are a likely result of .hip swapping.
• The "New Folder" version has an odd sound for the umbrellas.
• Patrick makes no trampoline animations.

The "Working" one has a build date of May 12th, 2003, while the final has a date of September 18th, 2003.

Early Menu

It's possible to get to an early version of the pause menu by swapping the files of a level with mnu03.HIP and mnu03.HOP. Once you pause the game, an early version of the pause menu will appear, which will be overlapped with the final's menu. There's a lot of interesting stuff here, including Spanish tasks names, early assets and a deleted level called "Glove World," which was removed in favor of the Goo Lagoon Peer.

Unused Videos

Found in the GameCube version are two unused .blk (video) files, which are just unused logos.

The Xbox version has two unused xmv files, which are leftovers from Scooby Doo: Night of 100 Frights, this is because Battle for Bikini Bottom was built off the game.

Game Boy Advance Version

• A graphic of Hans with flames coming out, which could be a reference to the song "Underwater Sun" from the episode "Party Pooper Pants."

• Placeholder graphics for a door, a warp, and possibly dialog. These can also be found in Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation S.O.D.A, which was also handled by Vicarious Visions.

Windows Version

• The image "background" (stored in root\Sceneart\menu01.omt) is likely a placeholder for the final titlescreen. It is even in the same OMT-file as the images used for the final one. Differences between the two versions are the "Chum Bucket" text, which uses a totally different font, and the lack of the game's logo in the left-up-corner.