Early in development, the main character of Rayman was a 10-year old boy named Jimmy who created a world called Hereitscool inside his computer. When this world was threatened by Mister Dark, Jimmy was sucked into his computer and became Rayman. Most of this plotline was quickly abandoned.

The game was originally planned for release on the Super Nintendo, and featured a 2 player co-op mode and different graphics. Although it was nearly complete, Ubisoft decided to move the project to CD-ROM based consoles, and hired cartoon animators to improve the game's graphics.