British developer
Eurocom had made a name for themselves developing licensed video games, with the team deciding to begin creating self-owned original properties. The first major attempt at this was
Sphinx. The original
Sphinx concept began as an
animated film pitch created in 1999 by Spanish animation group Anibyte, which had worked with Eurocom on the CGI cutscenes for
40 Winks. When they failed to find funding, Anibyte brought the project to Eurocom and it was redesigned as a game. Already present were a Sphinx character, Anubis, and some monsters. Production began in 2000, lasting three years including a pre-production period lasting six months to a year. The title was picked up by publisher
THQ, who had worked with Eurocom on a number of their earlier projects. The team wanted an exotic setting, briefly considering an "
Arabian-style" design before settling on Ancient Egypt after the mummy design received positive feedback from the staff. The characters and enemies were designed by Julian Romero. Composer Steve Duckworth described the music as having a "Western orchestral sound" blended with Arabian elements. Voice acting was wanted by Eurocom staff, but THQ turned it down as unnecessary, something staff members felt was a mistake and alienated some players unused to the
Zelda-style voiceless cutscenes. According to staff member Mat Sneap,
Sphinx was being designed as the start of a potential franchise, with both sequels and multimedia expansions under consideration. A dual character system was different gameplay styles was present from early production. The gameplay was compared by staff member Rob Loftus to
The Legend of Zelda, with the aim being for a similar experience on other consoles. The team's aim was to create a gameplay and art design that would appeal to a wide audience similar to
The Legend of Zelda. The team were aiming at a generally even balance between action, platforming and puzzle solving. The basic design did not change throughout development, though the role of the mummy increased in prominence based on positive internal feedback. The two protagonists had their personality built into their gameplay, with Sphinx being a "brash" person with action, and Tutankhamen being more comedic and timid. The in-game character animations were based on videos the animators took of themselves performing various actions. The team created a custom engine for the game, later called EngineX. Designer Darren Weekes described this as a difficult aspect of production, as the tools were "alien" compared to third-party engines such as
Quake. Maintaining 60 frames per second during all gameplay was a priority for the team. It was noted that the team had to work around memory limitations when creating the game's environments. Priority was not given to a specific platform with the game instead being designed to play to each console's strengths, though it was stated the team were taking advantage of the
GameCube's specifications for more advanced in-game lighting. Early promotional media touted seven different world environments, including an underwater realm called Akaria and the jungle-dominated Sakkara. Both Akaria and Sakkara, and some associated gameplay sequences and mechanics related to both Sphinx and the mummy along with late-game events, were cut or condensed to make the planned release date. ==Release==