The player must navigate the valley, defeat enemies with abilities gained throughout the game, and free captured Electoons, also encountering a boss at the end of each thematic world.

The game was met with a positive reception, with praise going towards its atmosphere, visuals, and soundtrack composed mainly by Rémi Gazel.

Some reviewers warned that the game's aesthetic belied its high difficulty level and others criticised its lack of interest and excitement.

He conceived the character as a teenager in the 1980s, when he was learning to draw, compose music, and program to pursue his dream of making video games.

[20] In 1988, his animation skills led him to be one of the early hires for the nascent publisher Ubi Soft, which at the time was operating with from Montreuil with six developers.

One of Ubi Soft's founders, Yves Guillemot, encouraged Ancel to pitch game idea to the company leadership.

[21] He worked one his own developing a game prototype based on his concept of Rayman for the Atari ST, including six months spent on building an animation system.

Although the presented technology was in its research-and-development stage, Hascoët pushed for the game to enter into production, which Michel Guillemot agreed to take on.

[21] Rayman was greenlit in 1992, and Michel Guillemot gave Ancel and his team artistic freedom due to his determination.

[21][22] The game's style was inspired by Celtic, Chinese, and Russian fairy tales, as well as Ancel's childhood, having spent a lot of time by rivers, chasing insects, and climbing trees.

[23][24] Before embarking on the creation of the settings, characters and animations, Ancel and Houde recruited the illustrator Eric Pelatan and the artist Alexandra Steible.

[25][3] Ancel initially envisioned a game revolving around the human boy Jimmy, who creates the online world Hereitscool.

[26] Ancel defined his intent as seeking "a colourful platform game with breathtaking graphics, concrete animations, fantasy, humour and, above all, great playability".

[56] Tommy Glide of GamePro described the game as one of the best for the Atari Jaguar and commended it as a showcase of the console's capabilities, although he considered it inferior to the PlayStation version.

[57] Captain Squideo, also of GamePro, commented that the PlayStation version was a "dazzling delight" and proclaimed it to be one of the most visually appealing games at the time.

and considered it to feature "wonderfully clever gaming elements, engaging and humorous characters, terrific music, and heaps of whimsy", although he faulted the lack of frequent save points.

[17] Lawrence Neves of GamePro felt it was what players wanted for the Sega Saturn and compared it favourably to previous platformers, such as Bug!

[64] According to Gamasutra, Rayman Advance's sales neared 600,000 units during the first half of the 2001–2002 fiscal year alone and then reached 770,000 copies by the end of March 2002.

[20] Its also established itself as Ubisoft's first legitimate successful game and empowered the company to go public in 1996 to raise more capital for its internal development efforts.

[68] Rayman was brought to the Game Boy Color in early 2000,[69][8] to Palm OS in September 2001,[11] to the Nintendo DSi in December 2009,[12] and to iOS in February 2016.

[73] Rayman Redemption, a fan remake by the Finnish developer Ryemanni, features additional worlds, levels, and minigames.

[75][74] Retronauts writer Stuart Gipp wrote that at first, the game was very impressive, especially being compared to Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX and Sonic Mania.