Misbehaving Mutt – Naughty Dog LLC, game developers of the Crash Bandicoot series
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/Creature:Misbehaving_Mutt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_Bandicoot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naughty_Dog
Thank you to Dylan J. for pointing me in the right direction.
Lady Cortexia needs help. Her crystals and gems have been stolen by someone who left a weird Tiki Mask in their place. She has found that stolen items are often taken to a fence. Coincidentally, there is a fence at the Collie Ranch. She sends your Wizard to recover her crystals and gems.
Gem Pickett, purveyor of Gem Pickett’s Illegal Good Surplus has what you need. She just procured some crystals and gems from her old buddy, Crash the Bandit Coot. She won’t mention Crash’s calling card of leaving Tiki Masks at his crime scenes and she certainly isn’t going to tell you that Crash is hiding in the Woebegone Territory. Misbehaving Mutt is Crash’s minion.
Crash the Bandit Coot: “Look at them: crystals and gems! Now at last I can take over the Spiral.”
Misbehaving Mutt: “How… exactly?”
Crash the Bandit Coot: “With the crystals… or maybe the gems. I think there’s a vortex. Hang on, I’ve got this written down.”
Misbehaving Mutt: “There’s a Wizard here, boss.”
Crash the Bandit Coot: “What? How? Step on their head!”
Naughty Dog, LLC (formerly JAM Software, Inc.) is an American first-party video game developer based in Santa Monica, California. Founded by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin in 1984, the studio was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2001. Gavin and Rubin produced a sequence of progressively more successful games, including Rings of Power and Way of the Warrior in the early 1990s. The latter game prompted Universal Interactive Studios to sign the duo to a three-title contract and fund the expansion of the company.
After designer and producer Mark Cerny convinced Naughty Dog to create a character-based platform game that would use the 3D capabilities of the new systems, Naughty Dog created Crash Bandicoot for the PlayStation in 1996. Naughty Dog developed three Crash Bandicoot games over the next several years. After developing Crash Team Racing, the company began working on Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy for the PlayStation 2.
The company’s first PlayStation 3 game, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, was released in 2007, followed by several sequels and spin-off titles. This lasted until Naughty Dog announced a new intellectual property for the PlayStation 3, The Last of Us, which was in development by a secondary team at the studio and released to critical acclaim in 2013 which spawned a franchise. The Last of Us Part II was released for the PlayStation 4 in 2020 to similar acclaim. The studio is developing Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet for the PlayStation 5.
As a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment, Naughty Dog is best known for developing games for the PlayStation consoles, including the Crash Bandicoot series for the original PlayStation, Jak and Daxter on PlayStation 2, and Uncharted and The Last of Us on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5. Before this, they also developed games including Dream Zone, Keef the Thief, Rings of Power and Way of the Warrior.
Naughty Dog is home to the ICE Team, one of Sony’s World Wide Studios central technology groups. The term ICE originally stood for Initiative for a Common Engine, which describes the original purpose of the studio. The ICE Team focuses on creating core graphics technologies for Sony’s worldwide first party published titles, including low level game engine components, graphics processing pipelines, supporting tools, and graphics profiling and debugging tools. The ICE Team also supports third party developers with a suite of engine components, and a graphics analysis, profiling, and debugging tool for the RSX. Both enable developers to get better performance out of PlayStation hardware.
The current list of all the (known) Wallaru references are located here.
Although I am well versed in Pop Culture references but I do not claim to have caught them all. Let me know your favorites in the comments and if I’ve missed one you caught, let me know so I can add it to the list.
Text for this article is excerpted from the linked wiki pages
Misbehaving Mutt image is from Wizard101, and is copyright of KingsIsle Entertainment.
Naughty Dog logo is borrowed from Wikipedia. It is TM and (c) Naughty Dog LLC
Naughty Dog software image is borrowed from Play Station Lifestyle, images are copyright Naughty Dog LLC
Image usage qualifies as fair use under US copyright law.
Vulcan Stev's Database 