I'm begging more devs to do this: indie gives out the prototype of its great Soulslike – "Do not tell me if you run into a bug I will hunt you down I do not care"

Another Crab's Treasure, this year's shellfish soulslike, won over hardened FromSoft veterans and genre newbies alike with its sillier, lovelier take on the Dark Souls formula - and you can now see what it looked like years before all the crabtastic acclaim.

Developer Aggro Crab has dumped "the very first build of Another Crab's Treasure," made over three whole years before its 2024 launch. The free prototype includes the first-ever version of the adorable titular crustacean, who looks like he's awkwardly queueing for a pint, alongside the Pagurus boss fight who managed to sidestep its way into the main game.

"The prototype can be completed in about 3-5 minutes, so we better see some crazy speedruns," the Itch.io description reads. "What you sea is what ya get! Haha get it. It's like the whole ocean thing again. Ok but seriously have fun diving in. Remember that this was a prototype to show investors, not made for the general public. No takesies backsies if it does not run well!"

Another Crab's Prototype has all the charming quirks of the full game condensed into a shorter stint - human rubbish gets recycled as shells that you can block and parry with, for example. But the biggest difference is that the prototype also features a voice-over from a David Atennborough-like voice who narrates your every move as if he's also been sucked into the Stanley Parable offices.

It's a fun look back at what could've been and what the developers had in their heads when Another Crab's Treasure was in its most embryonic stage. Seeing those in-development, cut content, or behind-the-scenes materials is fascinating, and I wish more studios would unlock them to the public, too. If you're anything like me, then you might get a kick out of the Outer Wilds text adventure prototype from 2014, or the 23 game prototype collection from the team behind Content Warning and TABS.

Another Crab’s Treasure developers were so sick of clones that they resorted “to just making fun of the guy” who ripped off their crab-tivating soulslike.