differentiate the game, several gameplay mechanics were changed about halfway through development, primarily the focus on one main playable character. The development team renamed the main character "Jinx" based on his bad luck and his knack for getting into terrible situations, but faced legal issues with the name. The character was renamed "Vexx" out of the notion that he would try to turn his bad luck onto his enemies. Vexx's design changed several times during development. Designers initially submitted ideas for a character that Acclaim would be proud to have as their own brand mascot. The development team soon came to the conclusion that the character should be designed around the gameplay mechanics, and not the other way around. As Coles explained, "Mario is not a great character because he's Mario and he's designed out of nowhere. He's Mario because of the games he's been in and people have grown to love him." After creating the core gameplay mechanics, Acclaim did focus testing and worked on finalizing the design, taking inspiration from many sources. Vexx's gauntlets, for example, were inspired by a character's gloves from the comic book series Battle Chasers, and the team found them perfect for applying effects to give them the moveset they wanted. Though the development team tried to create a focused story for the game, they intentionally left Vexx's backstory open-ended so as to allow players to more freely identify with the character as an everyman hero. Technological development Technology development on the game began in the first half of 2000, with the first game assets being created in November 2000. Early work on Vexx was done on PC, since the then-next generation consoles had not been released yet. The game was always planned to be released on all three platforms, but the team found it easiest to transition to the Xbox, due to its use of the same development tools. As development progressed, the team branched out and had people working on all three versions simultaneously. Acclaim tried to play to the strengths of each console, supporting, for example, Dolby Digital on Xbox and Dolby Pro-Logic II on the PlayStation 2 and GameCube. With the exception of these and minor tweaks involving the platforms' controllers, the three versions are identical. Vexx was developed at the same time as Turok: Evolution, and though the games were developed by different development teams at Acclaim Studios Austin,