Gregg Mayles Thoughts on the Banjo-Kazooie Series

 

 

WHAT HAS GREGG MAYLES SAID ABOUT THE BANJO-KAZOOIE SERIES OVER THE YEARS ON TWITTER?

 

Gregg Mayles has not been present on Twitter for years, but it's still a good source of information. Here is a compendium of most things he had said about the Banjo-Kazooie series. This is written similar to a Q&A, but I'm taking tweets about each subject and placing them together.

Thoughts on a new Banjo-Kazooie Game

I think Tooie was close enough to Kazooie but added the 'two' element, anything like Threeie or Fourie is too far removed from Kazooie's name.

I have never said (another Banjo) could not sell well. My opinion has always been that a new Banjo game would have to offer something different, both to interest and challenge me as a designer and to appeal to new players who did not grow up with Banjo. The audience that didn't grow up with Banjo is larger than the one that did. The game would need to appeal to both sets of people for the best chance of success.

I have said I would not do another one unless I felt I could bring something new to the genre. There are elements from the 90's that would still work today but others less so. Look at the Mario platforming games, they are still true to Mario's heritage but they constantly evolve and look for new ways of entertaining players.

NO-ONE could genuinely want Nuts and Bolts 2. I’m not sure I could handle Bolts 2, it’s much easier making pirate games. That vehicle editor still gives me nightmares.

I'll be the first to admit I got carried away with the Tooie world design. Bigger and more complex is not always better. If I ever did another Banjo game I think I would would go for level design that is small and clever, best of both worlds surely?

 

The Making of Banjo-Kazooie Abridged

 

 

BACK IN 2007, RARE DID AN INTERVIEW WITH RETRO GAMER. ISSUE 36 FEATURED A "THE MAKING OF BANJO-KAZOOIE" SEGMENT. I READ THE FACTS AND I'LL POST THEM HERE.

 

While you can probably find the article on Rare Gamer, it's images are unreadable and some of the text is easier to read while squinting. I am not reposting the article word-for-word, that's illegal, just the facts as they come. I'll also post the concept art featured on the article, but a lot of it is sourced from places such as Ed Bryan and Gregg Mayles' twitter accounts.

PROJECT DREAM

• Project Dream started as an adventure on the Super Nintendo.
• Edson (incorrectly called "Edison"), was a boy that was replaced for being too generic.
• The 2nd character was a Rabbit that ran on two legs.
• The final version of the character was of Banjo.
• Captain Blackeye led a crew of no-good but also inept pirates.
• Project Dream took the ACM technology of the SNES to the next level, but it became obsolete with the Nintendo 64.
• Project Dream was only on SNES for a few months.
• Banjo had a backpack exclusively to keep his items in.
• A lot of code from Project Dream was reused for Banjo-Kazooie, this allowed Banjo and Kazooie to be completed in less than 15 months.
• Banjo-Kazooie was developed for 17 months total.
• The team grew from 10 people to 15. 7 Engineers, 5 artists, 2 designers and one musician.
• Nintendo never put pressure on the team to make Banjo-Kazooie successful.

 

 

ADDING KAZOOIE

• The game became a collectathon because every other platform game mascot was collecting at the time.
• Connecting collectibles to opening a game world led to completing pictures of it, which led to the missing pieces of the pictures being jigsaw pieces.
• Jinjos came from an unused idea of hard to get collectibles in Donkey Kong Country.
• Some of the ideas for Jinjos were they'd run away, or camouflage themselves instead of waiting around.
• Most of the collectibles such as Eggs, Feathers, Musical Notes and Honey were based around Banjo, Kazooie and the game's musical theme.
• The purpose of Banjo-Kazooie wasn't to make a better game than Super Mario 64.
• Nintendo did not understand Banjo-Kazooie's humor and had a difficult time with Kazooie's characterization.
• Nintendo emphasized very little control over Banjo-Kazooie.
• Initially Kazooie did not exist and only became a character when Banjo needed a double jump.
• The team wanted a sprint ability so they added legs coming from the backpack.
• A list of transformations were made prior to the levels being made, then the transformations were chosen that were interesting and fit the level theme.
• The purpose of Mumbo's Mountain was to make Banjo feel very small, they had previously just shrank Banjo but instead they came up with the termite transformation.

 

OTHER CHARACTERS

• Bottles was based on the thick-rimmed glasses kid that was clever that could be found in every school.
• Gruntilda was inspired by Grotbags from Emu's Pink Windmill Show.
• The game originally featured voice acting but voiced dialogue in video games was new and they didn't want the character to not fit how people see them.
• The team couldn't name Kazooie, Kazoo, because of trademark issues.
• Donkey Kong 64 was supposed to be more serious than Banjo-Kazooie.

 

 

 

WORLDS

• The backgrounds of some worlds were very large that they needed to cut them into several 64 x 64 piece textures.
• They used a decal technique that blended areas and layered textures onto each other giving them a detailed look which looked great in contrast to the simple clean characters.
• Banjo-Kazooie pushed the Nintendo 64's memory hard, the game suffered from many memory issues.
• To avoid memory issues, the game itself reshuffles the memory consistently making it easier to put more polygons and textures on the screen.
• The worlds were made to be larger than life but still believable in a fantastical way.
• Treasure Trove Cove was based on everything a deserted island would have: crabs, pirates, wrecked ships, sandcastles, and buried treasure.

 

SCRAPPED WORLDS

• Fungus Forest and  Mount Fire Eyes weren't needed.
• Hammerhead Beach was related to Stop 'n' Swop.
• Fungus Forest became a level in Donkey Kong 64.
• Mount Fire Eyes was incorporated into Hailfire Peaks.
• Glitter Gulch Mine and Witchyworld were transferred to Banjo-Tooie.
• After completing the game the players would unlock a new game mode to play as Tooty.
• Tooty's game mode takes place after Banjo-Kazooie where Banjo is hit with Grunty's spell and turned into a frog.
• Tooty then goes back to through the levels to find enough Mumbo Tokens to transform Banjo back.
• Grunty's spell was changed so it missed and the idea for the Mumbo Tokens was going to be reused in Banjo-Tooie.
• Gregg Mayles went on a forum to tell people the truth about Stop n Swop but was dismissed as a fake.
  
• They regretted making Banjo-Tooie so big that fans complained, but personally thought everything was better.
• They believe the unnamed Banjo-Kazooie game (which would be Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts) retained a lot of the stuff Banjo-Kazooie fans liked about the original two.

 

Compilation of Beta/Cut Level Names

 

THIS ISN'T ABOUT MISSING CONTENT JUST THE NAMES. MAYBE YOU SHOULD TAKE THEM FOR THAT FAN GAME IDEA?

 

Nintendo Power Issue 099 first reported on 16 worlds for Banjo-Kazooie. Many of those 16 worlds made it in. But there are a few names that came up in the article for worlds that never made it:

• Mount Fire Eyes
• Mount Fire Eye (according to Nintendo Magazine Issue 59)
  
• Fungus Forest
• Hammerhead Beach

Though Hammerhead Beach might just be the beta name for Treasure Trove Cove. I could never find the source or  the origin of the name for Giant's Lair.

 Project Dream / Banjo-Kazoo had the entire game scrapped. Only one level is ever named and that was by Grant Kirkhope. Here is a list of the levels, most are my interpretation of reading Gregg Mayles' handwriting. Asterisk means that I am guesstimating.

• Prickly Pear Island
• Balloon Crossing
• Banjo's House
• Beach 1-3
• Bear Cave
• Bear's Beach
• Big City
• Blackeye's Base
• Bridge
• Cherry Grove*
• Cherry House
• Cockeye's Lookout
• Desert 1-3
  
• Dolphin Race*
• Eskimo Camp
• Factory
• Fantasy 1-3
• Fantasy Race
• Flies*
• Forest 1-3
• Frog Land
• Grape Grove*
• Grape House
• Ice 1-3
• Ice Race
• Jungle 1-3
• Jungle Race
• Lava 1-3
• Lava Race
• Lemon House
• Lighthouse
• Mall*
• Mine 1-3
• Mine Camp
• Molehill (x4)*
• Mr. Lazabout*
• Oasis Caravan
• Orange Grove
• Orange House
• Spooky 1-3
• Strawberry Grove*
• Strawberry House
• Swamp 1-3 
• Temple 1-3
• Tiptup*
• Vase Tribe*
• Water 1-3
• Water Race

 Not much is known for Banjo-Tooie, the only beta name I've come across was from notes about the music uploaded by Grant Kirkhope: Hagland. In the original Glitter Gulch Mine concept art it referred to Isle O Hags as Witch Island.

 I've datamined Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and found what information I could. It appears that Jiggosseum had its name changed, the first two are the beta names, the last is a scrapped world:

• LOGOlympics
• World of Sports
• Weird West

Outside of beta names, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts has several worlds that are joke names for worlds that are implied to exist in the Banjo-Kazooie universe:

• Tooty Land
• Sewers of Severity
• Hoedown Town
• L.O.G. City
• Trashton
• Boringshire
• Yawnshire
• Vomit Volcano
• Gottenham
• Dulby County
• Dingpot Town
  

 

In Liam Robertson's video on Grunty's Curse / Grunty's Revenge we can see several beta names and cut worlds, I believe Breegull Beach stayed consistent throughout development.

• Cottage Farm
• Soggy Bog Swamp
• Freezing Fjord
• Dire Dockyard
• MohendraBanjo
• Jungle Ruins
• Jungle Temple
• Fiery Furnace
• Lava Labyrinth
• Grunty's Stronghold
  

Tin Foil Hat: Timeline of Rumors for a new Banjo-Kazooie Game

 

WILL THERE BE A NEW BANJO-KAZOOIE GAME THIS DECADE? OR IS THIS A MASSIVE BANJO-COPIE?

 

2013 "leak" featuring the game Banjo-Kazooie: Gruntyland, first reported in 2012 by Banjo-Comet.

2017

In October 2017, the Xbox Live API leaked revealing several titles in the works such as MechWarrior, Perfect Dark, and Battletoads. Klobrille, the one who had initially reported on it found a file called Banjo/20A potentially alluding to something Banjo-Kazooie related but he isn't confident.

2018

We saw the anniversary of Banjo-Kazooie, where nothing actually occurred except cosmetics for Sea of Thieves and merchandise.

2019

Vergeben reports that Banjo and Kazooie are going to be in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. A listing on Amazon Germany featured a Banjo-Kazooie game coming to the Nintendo Switch and removed four days later. Days after Vergeben's leak Banjo and Kazooie are announced for Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Playtonic Games tells gamers they are not working on a Banjo-Kazooie game as rumored.

2020

Craig Duncan tells Games Industry.biz that they have not abandoned their legacy IP and are willing to work with other companies that can do the games justice, which they have for Battletoads and Perfect Dark. This leads people to falsely assume that DoubleFine is working on a new Banjo-Kazooie, which they have denied multiple times. Phil Spencer tells Kotaku, that Banjo-Kazooie development is up to Rare. Banjo-Kazooie is accidentally added to the Wii U virtual console release schedule and promptly removed by Nintendo.

2021

Nintendo releases a trailer for Banjo-Kazooie coming to the Nintendo Switch Online service in October. Overall it was a very quiet year.

2022

Dimitris Giannakis, a developer for Nightdrive Studios tells the Nate the Hate podcast that there are rumors of a Banjo-Kazooie game in development, hearing it from multiple people and it will soon be announced.

2023

Nate the Hate tells ResetEra that a Banjo-Kazooie game was greenlit in early 2022, and is in active development. Another prominent Xbox influencer, TimDog, said that this was false. Phil Spencer confirms that he knows Banjo-Kazooie fans want a new game, "Banjo fans, I hear you."

In June, the Banjo-Kazooie trademark was assigned from Rare to Microsoft, giving them 100% control of the franchise.

In August, the website, BanjoKazooie.com updated but is still inactive.

2024

 Nate the Hate tells ResetEra that the new Banjo-Kazooie game is being reworked from its original vision and scope for the better.

 

Image from a cancelled Banjo-Kazooie project found in David Rose's old portfolio.