24th August 2024, 1:29 PM
More details behind "what could have been", if only they'd just given in.
As it turns out, Rare's developers HAD in fact considered using a memory pak, but when it was brought up, many just lost interest. They prefer bringing something new, new technical tricks and gameplay ideas rather than just doing something that's already been done. So, the idea of using a memory card was dismissed as "boring", basically. This is one problem with an innovative culture. By and large, it's a great attitude for a development company to have, but sometimes the known really is the better solution, and to give up on an idea that otherwise still would have been an incredible way to link together games just because the technology itself was "boring" simply... is frustrating as a player.
Here we have the official letter sent from Nintendo proper with their concerns over Rare's suggested feature:
https://x.com/Paul_Mach1/status/1352746405182504960
Now, on the one hand I hate Twix, because there's no easy way to just see a timeline of someone's posts. But on the other hand, this specific image is very informative. Nintendo was concerned about the risk of damage, foreseen changes to RAM behavior, and lastly a specific latch condition that could cause the N64 to overheat and potentially cause a fire, which while unlikely, couldn't be ruled out in the time remaining to develop the game.
Here we have an interview regarding the stamp & cramp: https://www.raregamer.co.uk/games/paul-m...interview/
This interview is amazing! The technical details show that not only COULD this work, the way they'd designed it, it was very reliable! Basically, Banjo Kazooie has a routine that regularly sets bits in a 64-bit wide address, and clones that repeatedly in a specific area of RAM while making sure it's still there every single frame. Having the data replicated over and over with a routine that checksums every repeated entry constantly guarantees the data is all present and intact at the instant of power-off. From there, after numerous tests, the data degraded in a reproducible reliable way, with enough of the cloned flags remaining for the reading cartridge to find enough to match the expected checksum values and work up to 23 seconds after power down. They intended to simply tell players to swap the carts within 10 seconds to give them a safe buffer within that tested tolerance.
Alright, but of course, Nintendo were also completely right in their assessment. Later revisions DID change the behavior, making data degrade far faster. There WERE dangers in people rushing to swap the carts too fast and harming their own equipment, and then there's the latch scenario that could have caused a fire.
They also very explicitly didn't want to use a password system to unlock, because of course that was going to be shared in magazines and online and allow "cheating". But, when Nintendo put the death sentence on it, that's exactly what they were forced to do. Now, if only they'd had the game unlock passwords for every egg and the key which could then be input BACK into those later games, they'd have had a full back and forth system. As it was, all these codes did was let you get those items in BK, but at least it was something.
But, there's more than that. The ending of course let us know they intended this to work in Banjo Tooie, and breakdowns of DK64 revealed intents to use stop and swop there too, however Rare had big plans that encompassed pretty much every single future planned N64 game! Conker's Twelve Tails, Perfect Dark, Donkey Kong 64, Banjo Tooie, Jet Force Gemini, and Dinosaur Planet all would have linked together with Banjo Kazooie! The ice key was meant as a "super unlock" reward only after unlocking all six eggs across those planned six games. Now, that listing of specific examples is speculative on my part, but I base that on the projects they were working on at the time (before Dinosaur Planet got delayed and converted into Star Fox Adventures, and before Conker's Twelve Tales became Bad Fur Day). Of course, Goldeneye, Killer Instinct Gold, Diddy Kong Racing, and Blast Corps predated Banjo Kazooie and thus couldn't be included (though apparently Diddy Kong Racing and Banjo had overlapping development windows, so that one was still possible). Mickey's Speedway was a licensed game and tying the system to that would have potentially caused issues down the line, so that leaves the others as the big six for each egg. Presumably, the ice key itself as a reward would be used to open a further secret in all six of the other games? So, first those games would each unlock one egg back in Banjo Kazooie, which when collected could be sent back to that specific game to unlock something specific to that game. If players unlocked all six eggs, the key would then be unlocked as a reward, and this key could be sent to one or all of the other games to unlock a second big reward.
As it turns out, the game DOES still have all the coding for Stop & Swop. It both does a read of sections of RAM on boot to see if flags left by other games are present, and also does that trick of encoding those flags after every frame. In retrospect though, can you imagine Perfect Dark adding yet MORE to the end of every cycle that the system had to do? At least for the sake of that one game's performance, it was for the best this method wasn't done.
But again, I'm left thinking it was a big mistake on their part to at least not include a second code after inputting one of the egg/key unlock codes into the game. There should have been passwords left behind, allowing them to be traded across a lot of N64, and since it's a code, even some Gameboy games. (They ended up using the transfer pack for stuff like that instead... and how disappointing that Rare only ultimately used that code system as an alternative unlock for some existing cheat codes.) And again, ultimately if they KNEW Nintendo had shut down the option before the game had even gone gold, they really should have programmed in memory pack support and solved the problem right then and there.
https://www.raregamer.co.uk/games/stop-n...ospective/
And now, more details. There's a golden DK statue that's supposed to go on a very specific unused lit pedestal in the game, and it was likely a reward involving sterp & derp.
As it turns out, Rare's developers HAD in fact considered using a memory pak, but when it was brought up, many just lost interest. They prefer bringing something new, new technical tricks and gameplay ideas rather than just doing something that's already been done. So, the idea of using a memory card was dismissed as "boring", basically. This is one problem with an innovative culture. By and large, it's a great attitude for a development company to have, but sometimes the known really is the better solution, and to give up on an idea that otherwise still would have been an incredible way to link together games just because the technology itself was "boring" simply... is frustrating as a player.
Here we have the official letter sent from Nintendo proper with their concerns over Rare's suggested feature:
https://x.com/Paul_Mach1/status/1352746405182504960
Now, on the one hand I hate Twix, because there's no easy way to just see a timeline of someone's posts. But on the other hand, this specific image is very informative. Nintendo was concerned about the risk of damage, foreseen changes to RAM behavior, and lastly a specific latch condition that could cause the N64 to overheat and potentially cause a fire, which while unlikely, couldn't be ruled out in the time remaining to develop the game.
Here we have an interview regarding the stamp & cramp: https://www.raregamer.co.uk/games/paul-m...interview/
This interview is amazing! The technical details show that not only COULD this work, the way they'd designed it, it was very reliable! Basically, Banjo Kazooie has a routine that regularly sets bits in a 64-bit wide address, and clones that repeatedly in a specific area of RAM while making sure it's still there every single frame. Having the data replicated over and over with a routine that checksums every repeated entry constantly guarantees the data is all present and intact at the instant of power-off. From there, after numerous tests, the data degraded in a reproducible reliable way, with enough of the cloned flags remaining for the reading cartridge to find enough to match the expected checksum values and work up to 23 seconds after power down. They intended to simply tell players to swap the carts within 10 seconds to give them a safe buffer within that tested tolerance.
Alright, but of course, Nintendo were also completely right in their assessment. Later revisions DID change the behavior, making data degrade far faster. There WERE dangers in people rushing to swap the carts too fast and harming their own equipment, and then there's the latch scenario that could have caused a fire.
They also very explicitly didn't want to use a password system to unlock, because of course that was going to be shared in magazines and online and allow "cheating". But, when Nintendo put the death sentence on it, that's exactly what they were forced to do. Now, if only they'd had the game unlock passwords for every egg and the key which could then be input BACK into those later games, they'd have had a full back and forth system. As it was, all these codes did was let you get those items in BK, but at least it was something.
But, there's more than that. The ending of course let us know they intended this to work in Banjo Tooie, and breakdowns of DK64 revealed intents to use stop and swop there too, however Rare had big plans that encompassed pretty much every single future planned N64 game! Conker's Twelve Tails, Perfect Dark, Donkey Kong 64, Banjo Tooie, Jet Force Gemini, and Dinosaur Planet all would have linked together with Banjo Kazooie! The ice key was meant as a "super unlock" reward only after unlocking all six eggs across those planned six games. Now, that listing of specific examples is speculative on my part, but I base that on the projects they were working on at the time (before Dinosaur Planet got delayed and converted into Star Fox Adventures, and before Conker's Twelve Tales became Bad Fur Day). Of course, Goldeneye, Killer Instinct Gold, Diddy Kong Racing, and Blast Corps predated Banjo Kazooie and thus couldn't be included (though apparently Diddy Kong Racing and Banjo had overlapping development windows, so that one was still possible). Mickey's Speedway was a licensed game and tying the system to that would have potentially caused issues down the line, so that leaves the others as the big six for each egg. Presumably, the ice key itself as a reward would be used to open a further secret in all six of the other games? So, first those games would each unlock one egg back in Banjo Kazooie, which when collected could be sent back to that specific game to unlock something specific to that game. If players unlocked all six eggs, the key would then be unlocked as a reward, and this key could be sent to one or all of the other games to unlock a second big reward.
As it turns out, the game DOES still have all the coding for Stop & Swop. It both does a read of sections of RAM on boot to see if flags left by other games are present, and also does that trick of encoding those flags after every frame. In retrospect though, can you imagine Perfect Dark adding yet MORE to the end of every cycle that the system had to do? At least for the sake of that one game's performance, it was for the best this method wasn't done.
But again, I'm left thinking it was a big mistake on their part to at least not include a second code after inputting one of the egg/key unlock codes into the game. There should have been passwords left behind, allowing them to be traded across a lot of N64, and since it's a code, even some Gameboy games. (They ended up using the transfer pack for stuff like that instead... and how disappointing that Rare only ultimately used that code system as an alternative unlock for some existing cheat codes.) And again, ultimately if they KNEW Nintendo had shut down the option before the game had even gone gold, they really should have programmed in memory pack support and solved the problem right then and there.
https://www.raregamer.co.uk/games/stop-n...ospective/
And now, more details. There's a golden DK statue that's supposed to go on a very specific unused lit pedestal in the game, and it was likely a reward involving sterp & derp.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)