Banjo-Kazooie
Format: N64 Publisher: Nintendo Release: 1998


GM: It started off as Project Dream. We wanted to do a Zelda-esque game with the new technology [used in DKC]. But it was right at the end of the SNES’s lifespan, so that plan lasted for little more than a couple of screenshots before we moved on to what was then the Ultra 64. It became clear we couldn’t have the same 2D look, so we had this proprietary 3D mesh system, a precursor to a proper polygonal engine. We had a boy character with a sword - this average kid who got pulled into a magical adventure, fighting against pirates - but they all quickly disappeared, apart from the main antagonist, Blackheart, who pops up in the Banjo games. The boy just didn’t fit, so we experimented with other characters. We had a rabbit for about three days before we decided he had to go. The last character we came up with was a bear wearing a backpack.

MB: Banjo was a bit like a character we’d had in Donkey Kong before Donkey Kong. It wasn’t the same character, but he was a bear. And the thing about the backpack: we’d been in Japan for a show and a lot of kids were wearing backpacks just like that. Almost a vinyl shiny material. They made it over here a year or two later, but then, in Japan, all these kids of school age were wearing them as fashion items.



GM: We got to the point with the proprietary engine where we just couldn’t make it work - it was pushing the hardware too much. We tried to simplify, making it a 2D game like Donkey Kong, but with some 3D depth so you’d have choices to make. But then Mario 64 came along, and we thought: ‘Ah. Back to the drawing board we go.’ So we scrapped everything we had, rewrote our engine, and retained the Banjo character. Kazooie came along later. One of the things we wanted was a double-jump, but it looked weird. Someone suggested that a pair of wings should pop out of Banjo’s backpack to give him the extra boost.

Then a little later on we realised that the bear had to run faster because it was taking ages to get around the levels - so we had these legs pop out of his backpack. We put two and two together. That’s how Kazooie was born. And after that it was like pushing the boulder down a hill. The rest of the game was built around the character’s abilities. I think we spent about 16 months on Dream and then we swapped to Banjo - it only took about 14 months from start to finish, including actually writing the 3D engine as well.


Jet Force Gemini
Format: N64 Publisher: Nintendo Release: 1999


GA: At the end of Jet Force, didn’t Tim [Stamper] suggest going round the levels to collect all the Tribals?
GM: That was something we had planned for the first Banjo. The witch was originally supposed to turn Banjo’s sister into a frog, and Banjo would then have had to go round all the levels again. But we thought we’d never get it done in time.
GA: Probably a good thing we didn’t.
GM: But we just put it into Jet Force instead.
GA: Much to the chagrin of some players, no doubt.
GM: If you plotted a graph of our collectibles, I wonder at which point we should have stopped. I think we reached the peak of collecting with Dinosaur Planet [AKA Star Fox Adventures]. After Banjo we came up with something called Supercollector in which the entire object of the game was just collecting things.


Donkey Kong 64
Format: N64 Publisher: Nintendo Release: 1999


MB: Didn’t you do the rap, George?
GA: Did you have to bring that up? It was myself and Chris Sutherland - who was also the voice of Killer Instinct and Banjo. He’s very mild mannered, but the moment you get him in a recording studio he completely changes personality. He turned into gangsta rap man, moving around the studio doing all the gangsta hand gestures. The rap probably went on a little longer than it should have done. After the game was released, I was going down the escalator in Schwartz, the big toy shop in New York, and I could hear the DK rap. I was like: ‘Oh, God - it’s followed me here.’ But it was actually great - there were a bunch of families round the N64 and the kids were all dancing and clapping their hands. I breezed past and took the escalator to the next floor.

Part two of this retrospective will be published on the site tomorrow, covering 2000 to present.