Argonaut goes into more detail on their Croc prototype that inspired Nintendo to create Super Mario 64

Argonaut had a very strong relationship with Nintendo for a number of years. There was a time when the company was contracted for three 3D games, which would be StarFox, Stunt Race FX, and StarFox 2. After that, the studio got to work on another 3D prototype of their own. Argonaut's Jez San explains that project in a Nintendo Life interview.

...we offered them our next game, which was effectively a 3D Mario World with a Yoshi character. We had designed the worlds for a 3D platform game, which we called 'Yoshi' something, and we had a prototype and showed them what it could look like. It was basically taking Super Mario World, and putting it in 3D. They were blown away by it, but they decided it was a bigger opportunity to cut us out and do it themselves. That’s when they started doing Super Mario 64 and we switched our game into what would become Croc.

Crazy how things turn out, isn't it? Argonaut's prototype wowed Nintendo, and pushed them to create Super Mario 64. Argonaut went on and turned the prototype into Croc, which certainly had its fans, but didn't exactly light up the charts. Makes you wonder what would have happened if Argonaut got to flesh out their original prototype alongside Nintendo!