Unused Content

There are several examples of unused assets within most Ao Oni versions. Sometimes these materials are present in one version, but removed within the next.

Graphical Materials

Numerous unused graphical materials exist in Ao Oni.

Some of the unused assets appear to predate even version 1.1 due to Ryota appearing in them, suggesting that they possibly could've been used in the pre-alpha stage of Ao Oni's development cycle or simply being scrapped before ever being implemented at all.

Examples

An unused sprite of the Oni showing it carrying the rope ladder. This is the only finished frame of the sprite.

An unused sprite showing the Oni leaving the well after the second ladder has been placed, relating to the fact it tries to climb up after the party at the end of Version 1.1. This could be unused because the Oni is too small in this graphic.

Unused doors, which appear similar to the doors on the second floor in Version 3.0 and the door that the oni's shadow passes across in all versions.

An unused title screen found in Version 1.1.

Unused sprites for a drowned Ryota, except out of the water and bathtub.

All of the unused part of Ryota Drowned, it seems that at the top, there is an injured Ryota injured, below Ryota Drowned used in Version 1.1, and below, an undead Ryota, injured/drowned Ryotas out of the bath.

The entire first photo of the galery, as seen, there's only one frame of moving oni with rope ladder.

Hiroshi encountering the corpse of Ryota. The unused sprites are seen here.

Unused Tooth Oni sprite sheet in Version 5.2. This sprite was updated from Version 3.0 with unique side sprites, meaning it wasn't a leftover. Unknown what it could've been used for.

A possibly unused image of Mika oni with teeth. This may have been intended to be used when she finds Hiroshi hiding in a closet. This is the only character oni sprite that has visible teeth.

Unused character sprite from version 5.2. This was likely meant to be used in the ending, where other students enter the mansion.

Audio Materials

A small number of audio tracks and sound effects exist in Ao Oni games. Most of these are simply Files from previous versions carried over to newer ones, but Version 1.1 had two unused audio tracks.

Version 1's Unused Tracks

BGM0088.ogg
saiv.mid

The background music, "BGM0088.ogg," was also used in another popular RPG Maker game, Ib. Most likely stock music for RPG Maker.

Bikkuri.wav

The sound effect, "bikkuri.wav," is used only in Version 1.1 when the player discovers Ryota's dead body in the bathtub, but in future versions it was removed. The sound was taken from the visual novel Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, which is in some ways similar to Ao Oni.

Gameplay Materials

Not many things exist in Ao Oni's files that are unused, at least in the field of gameplay. An obvious unused portion is the fact that the characters have all had HP (Hit Points) and MP (Magic Points) since Version 1.1. This is because the game was created in RPG Maker XP, hence all characters have RPG stats. In Version 1.1 to Version 3.0, the menu screen also had such options as "Skills," "Equip" and "Status" which were removed in later versions.

One gameplay mechanic used in Version 1.1, that was taken out in later versions, is the amount of damage that will pop-up whenever the oni touches the player. This is due to the "battler_attachment" script which sets the function "self.battler.damage_pop" to "true" in Version 1.1. In future versions, it is set to "false."

Also in Version 1.1, there is one item in the game's data that was never used, the scissors (はさみ, hasami). It seems the player would find this item after Kazuya attaches the rope ladder to climb down into the underground tunnel, and during the time where Hiroshi and Megumi is heading toward the exit. The scissors were used to cut down the ladder in the final segment of the game. However, it was never implemented, and instead, they just drop the ladder down.

An oni

Perhaps one of the most interesting scrapped things was an unused oni design meant to appear in Version 5.2. According to a 2009 blog post by noprops, this oni was scrapped due to difficulty in animating a natural walk cycle for it. The oni was seemingly not finished enough to even have left over graphics in the game. It's unknown what it's ability would've been but it was likely replaced by the Roach Oni.

Gif of the Oni that was attached to the blog post.