The origins of the PlayStation-exclusive Infamous series probably aren’t what you expect. Sucker Punch Productions cofounder Chris Zimmerman told GameSpot that after moving on from the Sly Cooper games, the studio’s idea for what would become Infamous had a lot in common with Nintendo’s Animal Crossing series.

“The original idea for Infamous, believe it or not, was that it was kind of Animal Crossing, but you were a super hero,” Zimmerman said. The Animal Crossing franchise is known for its deep social features, and similar elements were planned for the original vision of Infamous.

“All kinds of crazy stuff like that,” Zimmerman said. “We worked on that for about a year in that direction. So much more stylized, much more cartoony than what you end up seeing. We worked hard to see if we could make that work.”

Zimmerman explained that Sucker Punch did a lot of interesting experimentation with this version of Infamous and even created multiple prototypes.

One of the game’s original pitches had players fighting a gang of purple gorillas who were stealing balloons. However, “it really wasn’t coming together” and Sucker Punch instead shifted focus to the version Infamous as we know it today.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any images of this very early version of Infamous to share.

The next installment in the Infamous series is this month’s Infamous: Second Son, which launches March 21 exclusively for the PlayStation 4. For more on Infamous: Second Son, check out GameSpot’s just-published coverage from our trip to their studio in Bellevue, Washington.