Rayman Designer

Rayman is a side-scrolling platformer. The player controls Rayman, who must navigate six thematic worlds. Each level hides six cages of captured Electoons that Rayman can free. Additionally, he can collect blue crystals, "Tings", and gain an extra life whenever he has obtained 100 of them.

If the player loses their five lives, they would need to load their save file or restart the game. Rayman occasionally gains new powers, including the ability to fly, run, and hang from platforms. Modifications to his detached hands include grabbing and punching distant entities, the latter known as the "telescopic fist".

Rayman lives in a valley that, thanks to a magical orb known as the Great Protoon, has the people and nature living in harmony. One day, Mr Dark steals the Great Protoon and defeats its guardian, Betilla the Fairy. As a result, the Electoons that used to orbit the Great Protoon scatter and many are imprisoned by villains that appear in the Great Protoon's absence. Upon Betilla's request, Rayman sets out to recover the Great Protoon and free the captured Electoons.

Mr Dark observes as Betilla guides Rayman though his quest and eventually kidnaps her. Rayman, having retrieved all Electoons, confronts Mr Dark in the Candy Château. However, Mr Dark takes away Rayman's telescopic fist and traps between walls of fire that close in on him. Electoons return Rayman's fist at the last moment, such that he can defeat Mr Dark and retrieve the Great Protoon.

Rayman was created by French video game designer Michel Ancel. He conceived the character as a teenager in the 1980s, when he was learning to draw, compose music, and program to pursue his dream of making video games. In 1988, his animation skills led him to be one of the early hires for the nascent publisher Ubi Soft, which at the time was operating with from Montreuil with six developers. One of Ubi Soft's founders, Yves Guillemot, encouraged Ancel to pitch game ideas to the company leadership.

He worked one his own developing a game prototype based on his concept of Rayman for the Atari ST, including six months spent on building an animation system. He teamed up with Frédéric Houde and, during a meeting with Serge Hascoët, Gérard Guillemot, Michel Guillemot, and Yves Guillemot, the duo pitched their idea using "a picture of a big, giant trombone and you had to imagine the player inside". Although the presented technology was in its research-and-development stage, Hascoët pushed for the game to enter into production, which Michel Guillemot agreed to take on.

Rayman received a generally positive reception upon release, with critics praising its animations, atmosphere, and soundtrack. Eurogamer felt there was "no shame in admitting" that it was reviewed favourably. Tommy Glide of GamePro described the game as one of the best for the Atari Jaguar and commended it as a showcase of the console's capabilities, although he considered it inferior to the PlayStation version. Electronic Gaming Monthly similarly wrote that the Atari Jaguar version was an outstanding platformer but paled against the PlayStation version due to the lower audio quality and slow responsiveness of the controls.

Glide appreciated the precise controls on account of the constant jumping, ducking, and dodging involved in the gameplay. Captain Squideo, also of GamePro, commented that the PlayStation version was a "dazzling delight" and proclaimed it to be one of the most visually appealing games at the time.

The commercial success of Rayman established a successful franchise with several sequels, including Rayman 2: The Great Escape (1999), and some of the game's elements influenced Rayman Origins. Rayman was Ubisoft's first game to achieve considerable success, and it empowered the company to go public in 1996. Ancel was honoured by the French government for his work in 2006. The character Rayman became a recognisable character after the game's release, especially his popularity surviving the transition to next-generation consoles, and was once considered to become the mascot character for the Atari Jaguar.

Rayman was brought to the Game Boy Color in early 2000, to Palm OS in September 2001, to the Nintendo DSi in December 2009, and to iOS in February 2016. The Game Boy Color version was one of a number of Ubisoft games for the platform that utilised the "Ubi Key" feature, allowing players to share data between games via the system's infrared port and unlock extra content. Rayman Advance, a variant for the Game Boy Advance developed by Digital Eclipse, was released in June 2001. Next Generation noted that the game remained largely the same as the original and lauded its graphics, music, and controls.