Scribes – June 25th 2007
Yo, wazzup RARE,
Since my infant days as a toddler I have been fascinated with the video games world, watching my big sisters playing the Super Nintendo endlessly. But the most amazing games in visuals and overall gameplay were the games Rare created. Such games as Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct are definitely worth being recognized as perfect specimens of nostalgic excellence. And then things got better with the introduction of the good ol’ N64. Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, GoldenEye, Diddy Kong Racing and the list goes on and on. And CONKER’S BAD FUR DAY, pure gaming perfection, the most excellent game ever. EVER I TELL YOU. Truly throughout my life I have experienced the guiding hand of Rare. But still, I question you Rare, as is man’s inquisitive nature. Here are my questions. So here ya go… ready… good.
Does Rare have any plans of making a new, edgier, and stylistically better Killer Instinct game, be it on a home console or on arcade machine?
What about a new Mr. Pants game? Or Jet Force Gemini? Huh… well, tell me, huh?
Also, I think you guys should make some RPGs, good ones, not Final Fantasy knock-offs.
I guess that’s it, thanks for listening to me.
Tom from S.A. Australia
P.S. Please put this letter on your website.
All that build-up, and then it comes crashing down into the anticlimax of “are you making KI3 or JFG2 or an RPG”? I find myself irretrievably ensnared in the chest-high brambles of disappointment, and if I’m in a bad mood for the rest of this Scribes then it’s all your fault.
Purely out of contractual obligation, no, we’re not working on KI3, no, we don’t have a secret team in the basement finishing off JFG2, no, we’re not brainstorming an exciting sequel to It’s Mr. Pants and traditionally we’re not big players in the RPG market either. Until we’re ready to unveil some of the games beyond the new Banjo that we are working on, why not go back and sample some prime Rare goodness from the archives such as NES classics Time Lord or Super Glove Ball? (Right, that’s the last we’ll see of him.)
Hey Scribes,
Great job with Diddy Kong Racing DS, it’s by far my favorite game for the DS. Viva Piñata also looks great and it’ll be my first game when I get a 360 (assuming I get one before the new Banjo-Kazooie comes out). Anyways, I noticed something about the secret levels in Diddy Kong Racing DS. Three of them have a darker feel than the rest of Diddy Kong Racing, and two of them contain music from the cancelled Donkey Kong Racing for the Gamecube. Are these beta tracks from Donkey Kong Racing?
Dylan Mattern
Honestly? Haven’t the foggiest. Let’s ask.
“The new race tracks did not come from Donkey Kong Racing, nor did the music. They were created from scratch for DKR DS.”
That’s you told then. You and your alleged Donkey Kong Racing expertise. Thanks for responding to the call for DKR DS comments though (yes, boy, this is how we repay you).
Dear RARE,
I love Viva Piñata, right now I’m listening to the end credits on your site. I have some questions for you right now.
1. Are there other piñatas on Dragonache Island, and are they immune to sour candy? Did Mother drown (she was last seen clinging to the side of the boat) or has she found refuge along with the new denzinatas of the candy-coated abyss?
2. Just what is Seedos’s coconut? The seed for a prototype banana tree, or a surprise for the future?
3. Whenever Leafos lies about evolutions of the Rashberry, Badgesicle, Pretztail, and Cluckles is she pointing towards scrapped ideas or false directions out of the blue?
4. What kind of hideous substance is in Sour candy, and why can it only affect eight piñata species, and what is it with the Tower of Sour that makes it do what it does so awesomely?
5. Who laid the egg of the Dragonache, was it the proud couple of a Fourheads and a Dragumfly, or a lucky Cluckles, because they can only hatch its egg? And what is it with the terrain-based variants?
One last question. Like the lucky Newtgat, Taffly, Horstachio, Syrupent, Twingersnap, and Sparrowmint, will Viva Piñata “evolve”?
Thanks for your time,
Nick Cardone
Numbered lists so soon? Damn and blast… still, at least it’s all fairly punchy and straight to the point. I suppose it wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience for me to harass one of the game’s designers. Justin! Duty calls!
“You’ve numbered your questions 1 to 5 but each one seems to have many parts. Then there’s that cheeky extra question without a number at all. I think this is cheating, but despite you cramming so many questions into such a small space I’ll do my best to give you answers.
1. There are other piñatas on Dragonache Island. The old Diggerling isn’t a vegetarian (if you know what I mean). Very few piñatas are immune to Sour candy, it takes a very special creature to resist those nasty red sweets! I guess that one day we will find out what happened to Mother. She’s a tenacious lady and it would take more than a little shipwreck to finish her off.
2. Seedos likes to think his head is a coconut. A coconut is the largest seed he can think of and he really would like to be made out of seeds.
3. Yes.
4. Sour candy is Professor Pester’s secret formula. No-one really knows what he put in it. The Sour species are a result of some experimental work by Professor Pester. No doubt any piñata that he worked on could become a Sour but so far he’s only found time to work on these eight cases. I suspect that the Tower of Sour is carved from the wood of a tree that provides one of the essential ingredients for Sour candy. Sours can smell its sap and are convinced that the garden already contains a Sour so they don’t need to investigate.
5. I expect it was another Dragonache, although it must have been some time ago for the egg to be buried so deeply.
Bonus Question: we’re experimenting with evolution requirements, let’s keep our fingers crossed.”
Ahoy Cap’n,
Just wanted to congratulate the team for Jetpac Refuelled on XBLA.
You could have just put out the original with “enhanced” graphics like most of the Arcade titles, this would have kept most of us old Speccy owners happy, but no. You added on a completely new game, the only thing I don’t like about it is it’s better than the original. You could have easily put this out as a full priced title and it would still be better than most of the dross out there.
Thanks once again, and keep up the good work, it is very much appreciated.
Dan Burgess
Basically blasphemy, but there’s a nice sentiment in there somewhere.
The team says: “Why thank you Dan, great praise indeed but don’t say stuff like ‘full priced’ or the bean counters might just make us do that in future. Then you’ll be cursing us for charging too much for stuff we may, or may not (oh I nearly let it slip) be releasing in the future.”
OMG Scribes is teh groundless hint central!!1#
Dear Rare Scribe Peoples,
First, as I’m sure you are aware, you guys are awesome! Some of my all-time favorite games are Rare games, especially Banjo one-ie and Tooie, Viva Piñata, and DKR.
IMPORTANT QUESTION TIME!
1) I know the guy who did the music for the original Banjo games is doing the music for Banjo-Threeie. This is cause for celebration, but will Banjo-Threeie have that effect where, like, you go from one area to another and the music fades into a different style of the same theme. If not, WHY NOT! I LOVED THAT AWESOME EFFECT!
2) This time, is the music gonna be fully orchestra’d or not?
By the way, I think Banjo’s new visual style is just fine, I don’t care what some dudes on the internets say, it’s actually pretty cool, blocky Banjo.
With regards?
Stungun Jones
“Dear Stungun,” responds Grant, “I am planning on using some fades like the early games did, not quite sure how it’s going to work yet tho’, I’ll have to see!”
What about question two, Grant? Grant? Are you still listening, Grant?
“Still a bit up in the air as to full orchestra (á la Viva Piñata), another ‘I’ll have to see’ answer I’m afraid.”
Come on now, this isn’t how it works. When in doubt you’re supposed to either just lie through your teeth or twist a delicate fibre of truth into something unrecognisable and idiotic. What’s with all this honesty business?
Dear Scribes,
First of all, I am a big fan of Rare and its DKC series. I have a couple of questions for you.
1) In DKC 3 GBA, why is there no scrapbook with photo collecting and why is there no baddie parade at the end of the game?
2) In Diddy Kong Racing DS, why is there no option to use a button for the boost at the start of each race? I have seen this in an earlier screenshot of the game and it has obviously been removed. There are many complaints because of this. I didn’t like it all at first, but now I am fine with it.
I encourage Rare to make a remake/port of Donkey Kong 64 for DS. I have never played this game, so this would be a great chance to finally play it. I think it would sell extremely well. Everyone wants Donkey Kong platformer on DS.
Thank you,
Marko (Croatia)
Dear Marko, first of all, I am a big fan of numbered lists and wish yours had gone on for longer. I have a couple of answers for you:
“We didn’t add the parade as it drove me mad waiting for it to end. I think it took at least five hours to go through all the characters. We didn’t add the scrap book due to time, we felt adding a whole new world was more interesting for the player.
“I realise the start game changes have been quite controversial, when we started DKR DS the team all agreed we wanted to add some unique DS features to the game, so we did. I think the main problem is players are trying to use the stylus to spin, it was designed to be done with your finger.
“Conversion of DK64: who knows what will happen?”
I encourage you to make a remake/port of Anticipation in Croatian. I have never played this game, so this would be a great chance for me to not play it some more.
Hello again, Loveday.
I recently played through DKR DS, and I must say that aside a few issues (icons made with only the touch screen, the touch screen way of boosting), it was a very good game for what’s supposed to be Rare’s 1st DS game. No idea why the critics lambasted it like they did. Pity. It didn’t deserve it, much like a certain romp through a haunted mansion.
Anyway, I have a question that isn’t only puzzling me, but is puzzling “countless” others. In the beginning of DKR DS, the line “Certain characters licensed by Rare” can be read. Most Rare fans know that you own the rights to Tiptup, which is a given. However, who else from DKR DS do you guys own?
As an incentive to get some answers, take a gander at this non-rubbish Rubbish Picture Attachment. A recent Scribes writer (and personal friend of mine) by the name of “Katzii Yataki” sent me this Pants Amazing card for my birthday. Impressed? Disturbed? Taken aback? If you guys ever get into making Rare merchandise, “Sorry I Cheated On You” Mr. Pants cards should be of utmost priority.
May the Pants continue to bless Rareware,
Mark “darkmark8” Mazzei
As far as I’m aware – after asking around – all the major DKR characters who aren’t Kongs or Kremlings still belong to Rare. Which would make Diddy, Dixie, Tiny and Krunch the ‘licensed’ ones in this case. And that means we can still do the M-rated Bumper prequel story! Thank you Jesus!
Nice card… further possibilities should Mr. Pants expand into the event-based stationery market are ‘Thanks For The Novelty Underwear, It Made My Xmas’ and ‘Commiserations On Being Run Over Before Changing Your Week-Old Pants’.
Dear Scribes,
When I was younger I rented the game Banjo-Kazooie for the N64. I loved the game but decided to play the file that beat the game. If I remember you are left with four Jiggies. And there are a total amount of 900 notes.
Well I did something I think in Mumbo’s Mountain, or maybe some other place, and I unlocked a note door (or if already there) under the Grunty Picture in the entry way. On the note door it says 900 to enter.
I walked through the door to find myself in a big circular room filled with lava, and a skinny pathway going around. Some point on the pathway there is a picture of Grunty standing behind a lava world with four missing Jiggies in it. Well back then I was little, so I didn’t know how to put in Jiggies at all.
I really wish for a response from you. I like you guys so much I played all your games and bought an Xbox just because of Conker!
Thank you for reading this letter and taking a couple of minutes/seconds out of your lives.
Adam
I wish I knew what you were asking. Or maybe I don’t. Let’s see if someone from the team can dispel the confusion.
“He’s referring to the final Jiggy picture that was an optional extra prior to the final Grunty battle. After the Quiz (the lava with the skinny path) there is a door requiring 900 notes. Beyond this door is a small Jiggy picture requiring four Jiggies. If you fill this picture in you get a super duper double strength energy bar – designed to reward players prior to their showdown with Grunty. There, you’ll sleep soundly now.”
There’s never any guarantee of that, considering last night I dreamed John Barrowman went on a gun rampage in a supermarket because he’d remade Z Cars only to achieve record low viewing figures. Interpret that one if you can (let me guess: it means I’m gay).
Dear Scribes,
Earlier today, I was casually shopping at a Food Emporium, which is a pretty big supermarket. Anyway, at the checkout counters, there were DVDs and stuff for real cheap. Like, we’re talkin’ the first Spider-Man movie for 10 dollars! Anyway, I decided to take a look at what’s behind one of the DVDs.
Eh… 50 First Dates. OK movie, but…
Oh boy, some generic fishing ga-
OH MY GOD IT’S GRABBED BY THE GHOULIES BRAND NEW FOR ONLY 10 DOLLARS
Needless to say, I bought it immediately. I never played it before, and having heard good things about it (not limited to Leafos’s dialog in Viva Piñata talking about it) inspired me to buy it. Plus, it was a Rare game. I couldn’t go wrong! I can’t wait to play it. I’m writing this letter having just arrived home five minutes ago!
Steve Q.
Volleyed back to an understandably excited Banjo/Ghoulies team leader…
“Someone buying a new copy of GbtG? Now that is good news! Even better that our crafty not-so subtle advertising in VP did the trick. I think we’ll try that tactic in all our games from now on – so don’t expect to see any actual gameplay in the new Banjo as the bear will just be talking at length about why everyone should buy Viva Piñata.
“As it has taken me ages to respond to this letter you’ll probably have played (and hopefully completed) the game by now. Hope you enjoyed it!”
Ten dollars is pretty good going. I found Genma Onimusha for four quid the other week. Felt right at home as it’s got basically the same controls as Knight Lore.
Dear super-ultimate-fantastic-champion,
Hi, I’d just like to introduce myself; my name is Darren Borg (feel free to make fun of my surname, any references to the movie The Fifth Element are more than welcome), I’m nineteen and live in Australia (feel free to call me a witchetty grub-eating buffoon while you’re at it).
I’ve been playing your games ever since Donkey Kong Country 2 and Donkey Kong Land on the Super Nintendo and Game Boy. You guys have created the most awesome games ever, and that goes for the music as well! So atmospheric… so adventurous… bravo. But the thing is I actually didn’t know you guys created all the games you did until I accidentally stumbled across your site looking for the Rock Solid MP3.
It’s a shame that I only just found out about your site until just last year – I’d love to read all the previous Scribes that never got uploaded when you moved to Microsoft. Couldn’t you upload all the previous Scribes in its original format? Just think of it as a nice tribute to the previous site designs you’ve had. Or maybe put up the old Uncle Tusk pages since I and many others never got to read ’em?
Also: I remember someone from the Grabbed by the Ghoulies Tepid Seat asked Wilhelm if he/she/it finished Banjo-Tooie (as in it would be quite hard to accomplish). Well, I’d just like to say that I’ve completely finished Banjo Pilot, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge, Banjo-Kazooie (except the secret eggs and ice-key), Banjo-Tooie, the Donkey Kong Country series, Donkey Kong 64, GoldenEye 007 (haven’t got every single cheat, but most of them), Perfect Dark (again, haven’t got every cheat, but just pretend I didn’t mention that part), Conker’s Bad Fur Day and Conker: Live & Reloaded. And it wasn’t even that hard or time consuming (well, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie and Donkey Kong 64 took a little while, but that’s a good thing! The more gameplay the better!).
I plan on being like all the other constant flow of mentalists who pour rubbish letters into your inbox. I can so tell you’re pulsating with enthusiasm just hearing those words so I’ll send another letter soon but I thought I’ll just throw this one crazily out to you so I can introduce myself. Bless you Mr. Loveday, Bless you.
Darren Borg
Ha ha, your surname’s Borg. Oh no, we’re going to be assimilated! Ha ha ha. Oh no, watch out! Ha ha.
Can’t complain about having some new blood around here. Sometimes I think we only have about a dozen people reading the website these days, and they’ve all been reading it since 1998 and the only reason they haven’t stopped is because they’re too scared of what might happen. Consider that a cue for all you other lurkers to send in inspiring and constructive letters on all manner of pertinent latter-day issues, even if it does mean I have to get off my arse and do Scribes again before November.
Speaking of which, I appreciate that not everyone got to see the older editions of Scribes/Tusk, but I just can’t go reformatting them all every time we change the site design (especially as there were 65 editions of Scribes alone at last count). We’d never get anything new done. And we wouldn’t fool anyone with the ‘tribute to past designs’ excuse, they’d just look rubbish. I say again: Wayback Machine.
Why haven’t you finished Sabre Wulf, It’s Mr. Pants and JFG? Rescuing the Tribals in JFG is all about ‘bonus gameplay’.
Oi!!
(I’m sorry, but this is urgent and I had to drop the niceties.)
Let’s say, hypothetically, I owned a Wii. Let’s also say that DKC2 were to eventually come to the Virtual Console, upon which I would spaz out and, in a fit of joyous epilepsy, drop eight Wii Points its way.
First of all, would the Monkey Museum still include that funkadelic Chief Thunder poster and KI arcade cabinet, or would the old Microsoft-owns-it beast rear its ugly head and require it to be blatantly edited out like many features in Virtual Console games? Incidentally, I would probably buy it anyway.
Secondly, are you guys getting any money off of the first DKC port? I certainly hope so. It’s just that many developers whose games are getting put on the VC have evaporated long ago (cough — Sunsoft! Blue Sky! — ahem), and I don’t see how, consistently, anybody gets any money except the publisher. If you did not profit from Donkey Kong Country 2 coming to the VC, while many of the original team members were still working for you, that would decrease my desire to buy the game considerably, after I paid them so graciously in the SNES days.
Thank ye for yer time, arrrr! When/if DKC2 washes up on the Wii, I’ll talk like a scurvy pirate for the rest o’ me life, arrrr! And ne’er pick up no wenches, arr… OK, I think I’m gonna stop.
JetDog
Have to say we haven’t found MS to be precious about things like the KI cameo. Subsequently, the DKC team leader says: “I doubt whether anything would change in DKC2. Actually you can check for yourself as I believe it has recently been released.”
And on the subject of hard cash: “In the complex money-go-round of royalties and profit, we menial developers are never sure if we are getting paid for such things – in fact I don’t think we get paid at all apart from free cans of fizzy pop and as many packets of Love Hearts as you can eat.” I hope that fully answers all your questions.
Dear all-knowing, all-powerful, all-Rare Scribes,
First of all, I’m happy to say Grabbed by the Ghoulies arrived safely in my door-less mailbox. I’m also happy to say I had a lot of fun with it. I don’t know why people said it was disappointing. To be honest, Diddy Kong Racing DS was a bigger disappointment. It just felt a little… gimmicky. Not bad for a first DS try, though. Did Nintendo push you to remake DKR or was it your decision?
To segue into a future Banjo related question, after playing DKRDS, I noticed the absence of a very important honey bear. Are you not allowed to put Banjo on a Nintendo console because Microsoft owns you? Or — dare I say it — does Microsoft OWN the Banjo-Kazooie franchise? I shiver at the possibility… Imagine, Banjo being forced to code the latest edition of Microsoft Word while being whipped by Steve Ballmer every time he made an error…
In more Banjo related madness, I’m glad I got an Xbox 360 before even the thought of the bear and bird duo exploding onto my TV screen in brilliant 1080i. Unfortunately, I don’t have a Hi-Def TV yet, but I promise, just for you, Rare, I’ll get one on the release of Banjo-Kazooie 3 to increase the amount of excitement and nostalgia. Plus, it’s the trilogy to my second favorite video game of all time. Sorry, Super Mario Bros. took the #1 spot, but Conker’s BFD is my #8 between the original Half-Life and Super Smash Bros. Melee. You should be honored. I mean, “honoured.”
Wow, fourth paragraph! Something important this time: Due to Microsoft’s products barely ever working like they’re supposed to, my 360 melted the edge of my Special Edition Perfect Dark game disk. If I send it to you with an awesome drawing of Mr. Pants juggling flaming chainsaws on a unicycle, would you give me a replacement?
Bryan Skinner from the Land of Uncle Sam
PS Oh, forgot something. I was wondering, me living in America at all, if it was possible to attend a college here while interning for you overseas. Would I have to attend a college there to intern with the best game developer ever?
“Both Rare and Nintendo wanted DKR DS, we both felt it would be a really great game to add to the DS’s ever-growing portfolio.” That’s the official line from the level-headed boys on the Rare DS team. “The reason Banjo (and Conker) were removed from the game is mainly down to complicated legal stuff, far too boring to go into further.” Moving on then…
No, we ain’t sending you no replacement game discs, Frank. Not because we’re lazy and judgemental, although we are, but because we don’t handle any of that manufacturing and distribution business so we don’t have any replacement game discs. Talk to Mr. Microsoft, although you may want to hold off on the libel when you do that. And send us the drawing anyway (you could send it to Microsoft, but I suspect they’d see it as a form of psychological bullying rather than bribery).
PS I asked our HR department, and it seems it is possible “subject to satisfying the criteria for and being granted the correct work visa and passing our own selection process for internships”. And not being a terrorist, Communist or mentalist.
You fine stallions,
I have recently become aware of a distinct lack of decent Baron Von Ghoul renders on the internet. Quite disgraceful, really – a villain of such class should be treated with greater recognition and respect. The old Ghoulies tepid seat feature offers one, but it ain’t too big. Anything hiding in the Rare archives that you could bless us with? The self portraits from the Baron’s Quarters would be, like, even more awesome.
Still a fan.
watkinzez
We are fine stallions, aren’t we? Thanks for noticing. Have a big old render.
From the Ghoulies team: “Shameful isn’t it? For such a quality boss bad guy with a silly name to be so criminally underrepresented. All I can say is – hold onto your game those that still own it (i.e. probably about 17 of you) as they will become cult classics that you can flog on eBay for big dollars in about 20 years. I’ve personally got a garage full at home and I’m hoping to retire on the proceeds.”
Dear Sebircs (seemed like a palindrome),
This idea will save your company. What’s that? You don’t need to be saved? Let me start over.
This idea would make me happy. Episodic Conker. I am unable to play other platformer games because they don’t measure up and frankly the Conker jokes do get old when you hear them for the 20,000th time. I enjoyed Kameo but let’s face it, Conker > Kameo. And don’t try to tell me Kameo is supposed to be an RPG. Adding fruit upgrades does not a RPG make.
The paragraph above gives me away as American. Any suggestions to help me seem more British? You guys and your accents and strange slang always seem so smart.
To summarize, when making a platformer remember the following; more fart jokes, more squirrel, and less elf girl with wings.
I good you bid evening.
Me
Well, it’s a new suggestion, at least – which is more than can be said for this week’s 14th email about KI3 or GoldenEye on Live Arcade. The rumblings I heard from the erstwhile Conker team on this subject didn’t exactly make it sound like the safest bet since Paris Hilton crying herself out of jail early, but hey, I suppose it was worth asking.
By the way, the wings are more important than you think. That’s another one of those cheeky Scribes responses that may be total arsejuice or may actually make some sense a few years down the line.
Dear UncommonMerchandise,
I’ve been a real long time fan. But I have a few questions:
1.) We all know that the two extra Jiggies were for the inexperienced players who couldn’t get all of them, but, I can’t recall if you’ve answered this, why are there so many extra Mumbo tokens? There’s over 30 of them! What’s up with that?
2.) I really really wanted those darned B-T shorts. Would you perhaps have an extra that you would be willing to sell* to me? I would really appreciate that.
*By sell I mean give
3.) We’re ALL excited about B-3. But, I want more screenshots/sketches/drawings someone’s two-year-old did. Actually, you guys don’t take to kindly to requests. So I’m going to try some subliminal advertising. Go Into Very Evil Underground Ships, Pleading In Cowardly Sadness. Yes. There we go. (Mwahaha.)
Mine Falsely,
A Horse With No Name
You people and your decade-old game questions! Tusk would have had a field day.
“1. Can’t remember to be honest. I think we just wanted the Mumbo transformations to be easy to get.
“2. I actually have a spare pair on my desk right now. I was supposed to try and get a fellow employee to wear them in a recent footy match against Lionhead but forgot. Send us your address and you can have them, although any odd stains you find in them are your responsibility.” Oh no, not spontaneous giveaways – that’ll get the other competition L00SARZ foaming at the mouth.
“3. So are you saying you want some footage that looks like a two-year-old did it? You’ll have to wait a bit longer until we unleash more information on Banjo in his latest (and greatest, I modestly predict) adventure. In fact, once we start you’ll probably be sick of it in no time.”
Dear Scribes,
Congrats on the many nominations for Viva Piñata, the award for Leafos’ voice work, and creating Jetpac Refuelled to be excellent. Actually, when I recommended it to a friend, I called it a sophisticated Geometry Wars with heart. That’s pretty close to it, don’t ya think? And without further ado:
Cat Litter) As for the Killer Plant Ghoulies whose soil pots shattered on the cutting room floor of GbtG – why were they pruned from the final game?
Berry Skittles) Eyedol’s ending in Killer Instinct doesn’t make any sense. Car crash? Billy? Bracelets? Did someone from the team create the monster’s ending after consuming some illegal fungus? Is it something to do with the epic struggle between Eyedol and Gargos? Care to explain that one?
Those Oreos with the extra icing inside) DKRDS is tied as the most accomplished remake/special edition Rare’s done to date, along with Conker: L&R. Bravo! However, there is one problem that irks me and it’s as bad as censoring the Poo Song. Spinning the tires while trying to watch the top screen for the “GO!”, then tossing my stylus like a mini-javelin so I can steer the damn car doesn’t work for most people with the limitation of owning two arms. Octoman has no problems with the game though! Why wasn’t there an option for the classic manual boost?
Green Apples) Yay! Jetpac Refuelled is out! Here’s a quickie: How many folks from the team will have the “Infection” Achievement to begin with?
Gee, looks like I accidentally spliced my Scribes letter and my shopping list. Ah, well – I’m sure there are letters with crappier formatting. I’m off to some assemble some rockets while keeping an eye out for the Rare Coin so I can unlock DK64. Oh, nearly forgot, not knowing the title for the new Banjo game’s driving me batty. Thanks a lot. Until I dig up more random stuff,
Zenek
I’ve restored the missing ‘L’ to Jetpac Refuelled for you. Somehow you managed to make the exact same typo twice. Let’s not mention it again.
Goldfish Food) “I think it was mainly due to the fact that they were immobile. In a game which required the baddies to chase you all over the house, the static plants that patiently waited for you to be stupid enough to venture close enough for them to attack seemed a bit limited. Also many of the areas that they were due to feature in were also cut (the graveyard that formed part of the church / graveyard / catacombs area that was accessed from the garden and came out in the cellar if I remember rightly).”
Fruit Polos) It makes a lot more sense if you’ve seen Blanka’s ending in Street Fighter II. But you’re entirely at liberty to think of it as some meandering drug-addled paranoid rant.
McVitie’s Boasters) Been there, tackled that – see Marko’s letter elsewhere on the page.
Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes) “I’d say you about got it with your statement, but Geometry Wars is no less sophisticated – gotta love that game, so hard but so good! As far as Infection is concerned, three of the dev team, erm… ‘Infected themselves’ before passing it onto anyone who wanted to play with them. This started a little rash of XBLA players getting the achievement, see if you can find someone to give it to you.”
My shopping list is clearly superior to yours. I wanted to put ‘Millipede Food’ rather than ‘Goldfish Food’ to give a shout out to my giant millipede – the pet of champions – but you can’t actually buy packaged millipede food so it would have been DECEPTION.
Hello Scribes,
I must thank you for your reply concerning Donkey Kong’s enemies, the Kremlings, in the last Scribes. But what’s truly amazing is that developer PAON has revealed two Kremling children as playable characters in their upcoming game, DK Jet. A simple coincidence, of course, but I was bowled over nonetheless. It appears the people at PAON are showing a lot of love and respect for what you’ve done with Donkey Kong over the years.
I’ve one question. Do you keep model sheets of the characters you create? It would be fantastic to have reference sheets of Diddy and Dixie Kong, but King K. Rool is one I’d particularly love to see; it’s quite difficult for me to draw him correctly. I understand you may have built his 3D model from scratch instead of making a reference chart first, but it would be nice to know. Hopefully there are no legal complications involved, but if there are, I apologise.
Matt Jones
The ‘Rare comments on games by other companies’ scandal continues! DKC designer says: “I am personally looking forward to playing DK Jet, although it will undoubtedly feel a little odd to be playing someone else’s game featuring characters that were created at Rare. Hope it’s good!” Okay, not that scandalous.
As for your other question, I think I have a fair idea of what the answer’s going to be, but let’s check…
“Model sheets? Ha ha ha ha, that’s a good one. Back in those days I think the accepted technique was to do a little sketch on any piece of paper lying around and then if it looked OK, start modelling it. These days we have all sorts of fancy things like concept artists – although I suppose they do come in useful sometimes, e.g. the whole Viva Piñata look.”
Alright Scribes?
I had me a little bit of a thought today (it hurt). You know you remade Conker’s BFD for Xbox? You know it was originally titled Conker: Live and Uncut, and was supposed to be a remake, with stuff you cut out of the original N64 version reinstated? And you know that, for whatever reason, a short while before release you changed the title to Conker: Live & Reloaded, and it featured no extra bits (in the single player story mode), and was actually more censored than on the N64? And you know that annoyed the fans and that, and it sold appallingly (apparently)? Well…
Why not do a sort of re-release, but of the originally intended ‘Uncut’ version? Now, the reason would be poor sales, etc (and apparently some stuck-up American shop called Wal-Mart refused to stock it? W*nkers). Well, here’s the idea; Sell it as a download over Xbox Live Arcade! No manufacturing pish, so lower costs, and you won’t have to worry about store policies getting in the way of delivering the full uncut version, ’cause you’d be selling it straight to us punters who want it. No greasy, filthy middle-men. AND it’d easily be the best thing on XBL Arcade, by miles. You could even scrap the online bit, and just re-release (the uncut version of!) the single player.
‘Cause, while it was heart-breaking to see that it was actually more family-friendly than the original N64 version, it was fecking beautiful all the same. However, because of the cuts, the N64 original is still the definitive version, I’m afraid. Would be brilliant to play what was originally intended for Xbox. So what do you reckon? Worthy idea? I thought it was.
Thanks for everything, Rare ^_^
Martin Scott
Nice use of the word ‘pish’. I don’t think we even have to censor that one.
It probably is a worthy idea in theory – the cuts weren’t part of the original plan, or we’d never have called the ruddy thing Live & Uncut to begin with – but the logic of re-releasing the game on a system which already has a (backwards) compatible version just for the sake of introducing a few minor changes (which would probably fall foul of approval processes all over again) is a bit fuzzy. You personally might give it the thumbs-up, but there are plenty who wouldn’t. They’d demand we stopped wasting our time and remade Battletoads and Killer Instinct in HD then sent them beta GoldenEye cartridges and put Banjo back in DKR. Probably. Live & Reloaded didn’t sell ‘appallingly’ either, you feisty little troublemaker.
Dear Scribes,
To stray away from the inevitably large amount of Jetpac Refuelled questions/comments that will be scribed (is that right?) here…
1. Was the Piñata team in any way responsible for the polar bear Piñata shown in the Viva Piñata TV show? 4Kids couldn’t have possibly come up with this on their own, because with a name like Polollybear, which while not up to the caliber of Mr. Pants, definitely screams out “Rare did it”.
2. Regarding the back of the Diddy Kong Racing DS case, there is some print near the bottom that reads “Certain characters licensed by Rare.” Does this mean that Rare owns someone in the game other than Tiptup? Or is that line just a fanciful way of telling everyone to get the hell away from the communistic turtle?
RawkHawk2010
- VP team: “Yes, the Polollybear is a Rare creation. There’s some Pengums and a Jeli to come, too. Naming characters after candy-based products isn’t as easy as you think. When we started naming the first few characters it was easy, but once we had used all the obvious candy references our progress slowed somewhat. Even once we have a name we are happy with, it has to pass through the menacing gauntlet of legal and copyright checking. Only then can such wondrous creations as the Polollybear make their way into the world.
“For your amusement, I took a look back at some of the (‘less successful’) naming suggestions for the Horstachio (Horse). How do Lollyclop, Anisteed (Hang on, that was mine – Ed) or Minstang sound? For the Pretztail we had Popfox (actually our first choice), Slyrup, Furbet and most bizarrely – Vulpineapple. Personally I think it was a shame that the Parrot was sensibly called a Parrybo rather than the more flamboyant Piecesofaftereight.” - You people are obsessed with that line. Isn’t the Vulpineapple revelation enough for you? ISN’T IT? No? Well, we’ve already answered the ruddy question anyway.
To whom are somewhat indifferent,
In response to Scribes: Dec 8, 2006.
A few months ago I contacted you about our excellent new project Teddy Bear and Robin. Apparently you took this as a challenge, and quickly responded with your Banjo-whatevery nonsense. After much deliberation between myself, my team, my armchair, and the Marzipan Moneymaker Man we have decided to secede the Bear and Bird Buddy Adventure market to you and start an all-new project. Battle of the Toads, the world’s first frog-based punch-em-up, should be out by the end of 2007. If you have any plans to enter this market yourselves, you would be well off to announce it now before we beat you to the punch.
As promised, here is an RPA of myself wearing a 15 second arse along with my BotT dev team. I admit that the mask took nearly 17 seconds to draw, but I think the intricate detail is well worth the extra time spent. If you end up pulling my new project out from under me by announcing your own amphibian adventure, I might have to resort to sending you pictures of Weetabix dressed as Mr. Pants. And that would just be weird.
Joe “Still looking for Uncle Tusk” Bourrie
I think deep down you know the same trick won’t work twice, Boorish. We’ve got enough to be getting on with – the frog-based punch-’em-up market is yours to exploit for the foreseeable future. And there’ve been enough free-and-easy promises of RPAs lately that one more won’t make any difference.
I like the mask though, or at least I would if it was a real mask. The only other thing that’s missing is an unlikely or whimsical location in the background. Come on people, where’s your sense of adventure? Best photo of somebody wearing an obscure Rare character mask in a very public or unusual place (and I mean a genuine photo – we’re pretty sharp at spotting Photoshoppery) wins… er… what haven’t we sent yet… a packet of Jammie Dodgers. Get to work.
Hey peoples;
I just had a quick question. I was gearing up for the release of DKR DS by yanking out my dusty N64 and playing the original, and upon beating it I noticed something I never caught before; the credits list a “C. Sutherland” as doing some of the voicework.
That wouldn’t be Catherine Sutherland of Power Ranger fame (Pink Ranger seasons 3-5), would it?
Jarel Jones
That would be Chris Sutherland, long-term Rare employee and go-to voice man currently serving time as PM (not Prime Minister) on the Piñata team. So no. Although it’s highly amusing that you mistook him for a pink Power Ranger.
Chris’ suggestion goes as follows: “If you check the credits on your copy of N64 Banjo you’ll notice that C. Sutherland occurs there too, hinting that it might not be the female Power Ranger…?” Although that’s a bit of a wonky argument because as I pointed out, (s)he could easily have been the inspiration behind Tooty or Mrs. Boggy.
Ahoy Cap’n,
Just wanted to send in some love over Diddy Kong Racing DS. I’m loving every second of it. One player is as awesome as I remembered from the N64 version but is made even superior by the extras. The online multiplayer is simply flawless. DKRDS eats Mario Kart DS in this department. Fast match-ups, five online players, more modes, track editing etc. Kudos to that! Job well done, guys! But of course, there are a few setbacks and a few questions have arisen from my experience with this primatical racing gem.
1. What happened to the sound effect of the boost strips? In DKR64, the sound effect was a huge blazing ‘whoooossh!’. In DKRDS however, this sound effect has been replaced by what can only be described as a malfunctioning toaster.
2. Whose bright idea was it to replace Taj’s powerful Arabian accent from DKR64 with an accent that sounds like you’d find in an Asda/Tesco Tannoy announcement?
3. Again, with Taj, what happened to the Indian-esque music when you talk to him?
That’s the only three problems I have with DKRDS, and I would love an explanation!
Other than that, I’d like to congratulate the people who have made me feel like a kid again, back in the days of the N64! 🙂
Patrick
P.S. Diddy Kong Racing DS = Best online game ever. Fact.
Bless you, Patrick. If we weren’t British and genetically repelled by all non-urgent physical contact we’d hug you. Further aspersions regarding the state of humanity in the 21st century follow in these answers from the DS team.
1) The Whoooosh SFX is still there and bigger/better/badder than ever, but it’s done at the same frequency as that wasp anti-chav device they put outside newsagents, so that only dogs and fake Burberry peddlers with ASBOs can hear it.
2 & 3) DKR N64 was developed by people brought up on Mind Your Language. DKR DS was developed by people terrified by Gulf War footage, and what happens if you’re a Danish newspaper editor attempting satire. 1990s Taj needed to enter the 21st century.”
Hi you folks with Rare talent,
I was a big fan of yours during the N64 days primarily for your platforming. Although this might make me seem like a gamer with narrow interests, the main reason I got a Cube at launch was for three upcoming games: the next Zelda, the next Mario, and the next BK.
I was disappointed when you were sold to Microsoft and I never picked up an Xbox. But right now I’m trying to decide between an Xbox 360 and a Wii and your string of great games like PDZ, Kameo, and VP, are making the decision tough for me — and obviously the bear and breegull duo make it tough too. To top that off, I played Zelda: TP for the Cube already, thus lessening my reasons for a Wii. Yet Mario Galaxy, Fire Emblem, SSBB, and the new control intrigue me. So I’m torn. Because of this I have two questions:
1. Do games like Viva Piñata, Kameo, and the new BK run alright on Standard def TV???? I know they won’t be as good as they will be on HD, but as long as they aren’t tough to play with the lower def TV and look better than last gen, I’ll be happy.
2. Will the third Banjo-Kazooie be better than Super Mario Galaxy?? If so why????
Dan Streib
I really don’t think there’s any need for four question marks at a time. It’s grammatical sickness, Daniel. You sound like an axe murderer.
VP team lead: 1. I think they should be fine. We do test them on different types of TV to make sure they are OK. I thought VP looked horribly blurred until I realised that years of staring at colourful characters on TV screens has ruined my eyesight. Although I’m not as bad as ‘Bottles’ Farmer.
2. Of course it might be. Even though we have had seven years to come up with a name but still can’t. Personally I think (in a PR neutrally approved way) that both games will be jolly entertaining.”
Dear Scribes,
Good GOD! WHY OH WHY OH WHY!!!!! WHY Did you make Jetpac Refuelled soooo HARD???????
I’m struggling to get off level 9 – and that’s when starting on level 9. I’ve not even seen past level 11 despite numerous hair-pulling attempts.
1) Why did you go with one hit kill instead of an energy bar?
Due to the inertia of the Jetpac, there are always going to be moments when touching an enemy is inevitable and unavoidable – the most infuriating of which is when changing direction you get that slight moment of delay where you’re just hanging there, and then a bloody enemy just spawns on top of you… nothing you can do but scream and die.
2) Why do you steal all weapon powerups when you die?
This is like something from the dark ages… I’ve NEVER understood the logic of this in any game ever throughout the history of gaming!
3) Why did you make the screen bigger than the viewing area?
I don’t understand the logic in this at all – even when I set the viewing area to 100% in the options, still the screen area is hidden off the sides of the viewable area on my TV…
4) Why no difficulty setting?
So by now you are probably thinking, “well this guy’s just rubbish!”. I may well be… but then clearly so is 90% of the people out there playing the game… by making the game this difficult as default, you are clearly alienating the majority of your potential market and only appealing to the tiny select few hardcore 2D shoot-em-up fans (ironically the very reverse attitude of what I have come to expect from Rare).
As an oldie who clearly remembers the original Jetpac, I was overjoyed to hear about this game, even more so when discovering that the original was to be included with it… yet I now feel completely ripped-off… as a consumer there is nothing worse than shelling out money on products which you will never see…
Please please please open up this game for us more casual gamers.
Many thanx for your time and efforts,
ADE
You think that was a long letter? I edited it down to about half the size, and I’ve edited down these even longer team responses too. Strap yourselves in.
“OK, so let’s look at your ‘questions’ one by one, shall we…
1) Because giving Jetman an energy bar is madness for one, and would break the game to boot! Remember, this is a retro twitch arcade game and not Fluffy Puppy’s Adventures in Bog Roll Land – maybe we’ll make that next. Bad guys take 1.5 seconds to spawn and don’t become dangerous to Jetman until the spawn effect is complete, this is more than enough time to get out of their way even with the reflexes of a sloth. Oh, and if you’re carrying a rocket part or fuel canister you can take one hit without dying.
2) Maybe if you spent a little more time playing Jetpac than complaining about it, you would have realised that the weapon configuration is more important than its power level? The difference between maximum laser power and the ‘pea-shooter’ you start with is only a few percent, but it looks more, so you assume it’s more, interesting. You can quite easily start on level 128, wait for all the baddies to spawn, die and still complete the level without using an EMP or collecting a laser upgrade.
3) Eh? I think you have your logic a little backwards here. The viewing area refers to the amount of possible screen area the game takes up, not the amount of game we display on your particular TV – we have no way of knowing what your TV can display. You need to set your viewing area to less than 100%, keep tweaking it down until you get little black borders on the left and right of your TV screen then you can ALWAYS see Jetman. For the record we always take great care to ensure our games work on all TVs from 60″ HD plasmas to scabby old CRT portables.
4) Three good reasons are because it would break Live Leaderboards, Achievements and Ranked Matches. The other very good reason is because we took a long time balancing the game based on focused user feedback during the final development phase and felt we pitched the game about halfway between the hardcore and the casual gamer. Now that the game is out in the big bad world this balance does seem to be about right.
“Ripped off? Charming! We give you a completely reimagined version of the game together with online play and the old version too, for only £3.41 – the original on its own cost more than that in 1983, did we rip you off then too?
“Maybe Jetpac Refuelled is just not for you after all, and for that we are sorry, but on the upside most people seem to be really enjoying it. Try looking over some of the tips in our Game Guide and on the forums – they’ll certainly help you, if you still want to try.”
Dear Scribes,
Where the hell is ‘Snakes in Space’ (Snake, Rattle ‘n’ Roll 2)? I’ve been waiting 17 years now, it had better be pretty damn good.
Matt
PS: Don’t give me that Sneaky Snakes excuse either.
Hauled out of Snippets due to the length of the response! I radiate indignation.
The man (largely) responsible says: “Even by our standards, a delay of 17 years is a bit much. As I can’t use the Sneaky Snakes excuse, how about I try the Viva Piñata excuse? If you clear your garden so that it’s a desolate wasteland, then get your friends to send you a couple of Syrupents, you’ll (kind of) have two snakes on something that looks a bit like the surface of a planet in space. Until the flowers start growing and crazy Seedos stumbles in, that is.”
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