Rare + DKC Script

For once, development history that isn't a trainwreck...sort of! Here we have one of the most iconic Game Companies in history, and one of the most iconic SNES Games that made Donkey Kong one of the stars of the Video Game Industry: Donkey Kong Country!

Before we begin on Donkey Kong Country however, we should discuss Rare's history. I'll spend a lot of time talking about this, as Donkey Kong Country is a culmination of Rare's incredible success in the game industry.

Originally founded in 1982 shortly before the Video Game Crash of 1983 under the name "Ultimate Play the Game" by Tim and Chris Stamper, few people outside of the retrocomputing community actually know of their connection or even success under this name. You may know them for the making of Jetpac and Sabre Wulf on the ZX Spectrum, but probably not that they later became Rare. If you do, it's probably for the graphics: during the 80s and 90s, the Stamper Brothers were known for knocking that aspect of gaming out of the park. They solely developed their games for the Spectrum, before outsourcing their ports to other platforms to other developers. They worked tirelessly on 18-hour work shifts, only taking breaks on Christmas. The work definitely paid off, making them incredible amounts of money.

Later, the Stamper Brothers formed Rare Designs of the Future - which is now known as Rare or Rareware - in 1985. The original intention was to develop "Ultimate" games without being subject to the buyout. This was also to take a focus on the Japanese Arcade Market, which was rapidly growing at the time. They were informed of Nintendo by their contractors, which later lead to them announcing their venture after disappearing from the industry for a while. Selling the Ultimate play the Game Brand to U.S. Gold, they went all in on this budding industry as their old brand fell to the wayside with mediocre games. This can be seen in old game review magazines criticizing Ultimate play the Game for their steep drop in quality.

During this time period, the Stamper brothers would begin to work with Nintendo in publishing games for the NES and Famicom. However, it got off to a rocky start. The NES had no Western developers at this time, and Nintendo declined them initially. Not one to get discouraged, after researching the NES's hardware for around 6 months, the Stamper brothers presented various game demos to Nintendo. Shocked at their efforts, Nintendo would purchase the licence for Slalom in 1987. This would became a smash hit, selling half a million units under the name "Vs. Slalom" in 1986. It would later be ported to the NES in 1987 as just "Slalom". This would also be the first game David Wise ever worked on, being one of the developers the brothers would headhunted for in their initial recruitment schemes. It would also be the first Rare game released on console. David Wise claimed that developing music for the NES was difficult, as he would have to write the Hex Values for each sequence before converting them into subroutines. This would be very tedious and time consuming.

Seriously, Rare's success on the NES is nothing to be questioned. Hell, they fought through the Video Game Crash as Ultimate play the Game with few problems. Rare would later release masterpieces such as Wizards & Warriors,  R.C. Pro-Am (their first million seller) and even oddities such as Jeopardy!. They soon became a very popular development firm, creating even the first WWF Licenced Game on NES, WWF WrestleMania, in 1989. They had an unlimited budget, and they would put it to work, getting onto Tradewest to use their Double Dragon licence to crossover with their Battletoads series. Rare was booming, and the incredible 90s Rare was coming.

But what about Ultimate? They eventually bought back Ultimate play the Game due to poor reception around 1989. Soon Rare would buy Zippo Games that same year, creating Rare Manchester as well. They developed 7 NES Games, including Wizards & Warriors 2 and 3. They used these new rights to outsource Solar Jetman using their newly acquired Rare Manchester, along with ports to the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga and Atari ST. The ports were later cancelled for unknown reasons, but they have been rediscovered and put online. Rare Replay also re-released Solar Jetman, exposing it to a very new audience. However, this would be the end of Ultimate play the Game. It was time for the Stamper brothers to enter the Arcade Industry. Nintendo would re-release Solar Jetman on their Playchoice-10 Arcade System as well in 1991, after its initial release in 1990. However, during this time period, Rare began to get greedy. Developer Ste Pickard claimed "Rare just wanted to make as many games as possible in their window of opportunity.". It's clear as day during this time period, as games like "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (released 1989) were published by LJN and developed by Rare. It's odd to think that a company with the reputation of developing awful NES games would work with one of the best companies of the 90s. Rare's games on the NES were rapidly becoming less creative and innovative, instead being turned for profits over anything else. The money got to the Stamper brothers's heads, and their "part time development makes a part time game" ethos was being disproven. What could they do?

Soon, Rare would take aim at the SNES as their new money spinner. Investing in Silicon Graphics's "Graphics-Ready" Computers to make use of their three-dimensional model technology, they became the most advanced game development company in the UK. During this time, Rare's greed would begin to calm down. The Stamper brothers were experimenting on their new toys, making various experimental demos. They worked on SGI Challenge workstations, making use of their investments. While it's unknown what model they specifically they worked on, it could be a Challenge 10000 during the end of its life before the POWER Challenge took over. The Model would likely be the Graphics Ready model. Regardless, they used their new technology to develop a Boxing Game Demo, although development never progressed far.

Soon enough, staff from Nintendo (I don't have any names, sadly) arrived at Rare and were apparently impressed at the demo, most likely the graphics given the direction Rare would later take. Genyo Takeda from Nintendo would later be dispatched to Japan to convince Hiroshi Yamauchi to buy what would later be a 25% share in Rare Limited. This stake would rise to 49%, making them officially second-party developers at Nintendo. They were considered to be key developers at Nintendo by this point, enough for them to offer a catalogue of their characters to use for a 3D game. The Stamper Brothers asked for Donkey Kong.

And thus, Donkey Kong Country began development in May 1993, with an 18 month development cycle. The Stamper Brothers enlisted the help of David Wise to work on the game, along with designer and writer Gregg Mayles, who began working at Rare with the Battletoads series. You'll notice the similarities in art style with the original concept art. During this cycle, many ideas would be thrown around from Donkey Kong's design to whether Donkey Kong Jr. would be implemented. The original name was Donkey Kong: Monkey Mayhem, codenamed "Country".

Developers at Rare scrambled to begin planning for this game, excitement brewing. Nintendo were confident in the game's success, giving a monumental marketing budget of $3.76 million. They were going in, and they were going to ensure that Rare could not screw up. They went to the extent of recording a VHS Tape for Nintendo Power Subscribers, where Josh Wolf would host an inside look at the development of Donkey Kong Country. Rare expanded from 84 to 250 developers, with 20 of them working on Donkey Kong Country during the development cycle. Ideas were thrown around, but not everything could be added.

Rare would ensure that Nintendo's investment did not go to waste. They went all in on realism, going out to even film gorillas to see how Donkey Kong should move. In the end, they made the character move more like a horse than a gorilla, but in the end it created iconic movements that solidified Donkey Kong's character even to this day. There were signs of dispute between Rare and Nintendo however, specifically with Shigeru Miyamoto. This started with the redesign of Donkey Kong Jr., which Nintendo disliked and demanded to be reverted or changed to a new character. This was honored, and Diddy Kong was born out of it. Miyamoto was also very apprehensive about Donkey Kong's design, wanting to wear a tie and to use a hand slap in some form. Rare, however, wanted realism. Eventually, these changes were appended to the game towards the end of the development cycle, creating a mix of realism while maintaining the original charm.

Meanwhile, Gregg Mayles was working on designs for enemies. He wanted the game to have a wartime feel akin to his Battletoads style. With this, the Kremlings were born. But, where did this go? Remnants exist in the game with some of the enemies still wearing helmets or camo suits, but what about the rest? Well, it fell off the concepts really. This was likely to make the game more family friendly, and could be why King K. Rool became such a comical villain. Plus, the game's name is a different way of saying "Stupid Ape". Would a serious tone really have worked?

Originally, King K. Rool would be a much more grand ruler, named Krudd. With a very serious design and a very imposing presence, this would have set a much more serious tone over the game. This character would become Kommander K. Rool on 4th March 1994, and eventually King K. Rool later on as the military theme fell out of favor. Despite these radical changes, the boss fight against King K. Rool had a single scrawl for planning, and barely changed when implemented. The biggest change was that rather than doing sit-drops to try and squash the player in the second phase, he simply jumped around.

Words can't express how far the developers went to push these pre-rendered graphics, pushing the SNES to its absolute limit as Rare have always tried to do. There's even unused frames in the game that show much more fluid animations for some minor enemies or friends, such as for Rambi. Donkey Kong's kick from DK64 can also be found, as well as an animation entirely for turning. This game has so much...stuff! This game was so detailed.

While DKC has a lot of development history, it is sadly very easy to sum up: military theme got scrapped, was meant to be more serious, and there was some developer disputes. Simple, but interesting. What do you think Donkey Kong Country could have been? Do you like the idea of a more serious King K. Rool? What do you think about how the Stamper Brothers went about their business in the 80s?

Sources:
DW = David Wise
GM = Gregg Mayles
- https://kotaku.com/early-donkey-kong-country-art-shows-realistic-enemies-a-1729190577 concept art
- https://twitter.com/Ghoulyboy/status/1028887321695936513 GM
- https://twitter.com/Ghoulyboy/status/1028887321695936513 GM
- https://twitter.com/Ghoulyboy/status/1028997737071689728 some interesting facts
- https://twitter.com/David_Wise/status/981228037302837248 regarding limitations on music DW
- https://twitter.com/David_Wise/status/940515439649665024 original intention regarding Stickerbush Symphony DW
- https://twitter.com/Ghoulyboy/status/1027946702270021638 King K. Rool's name, Shuri, Rambi inspired by Bambi GM
- https://twitter.com/Ghoulyboy/status/1029309065002983424 concepts from DKC for The Rool. GM
- https://twitter.com/Ghoulyboy/status/1031066675511263232 concepts from DKC2 GM
- https://twitter.com/Ghoulyboy/status/1031815252869099520 militarized kremlings, used a separate sheet for movement ideas GM
- https://twitter.com/Ghoulyboy/status/1029314106690596868 Name Origin came from codename GM
- https://twitter.com/Ghoulyboy/status/1027417058265493505 King K. Rool's name never stood for anything GM
- http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/38417/remembering-donkey-kong-country-exposed Development VHS (Hosted by Josh Wolf!)
- http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/02/month_of_kong_the_making_of_donkey_kong_country the making of the game, boxing game demo, etc.
- https://computerarchive.org/files/computer/magazines/retro%20gamer/Retro_Gamer_Issue_043.pdf Retro Gamer No.43, suggests Diddy Kong was originally Donkey Kong Jr. but the design deviated away from this. It also goes over stage design choices.
- https://uk.ign.com/articles/2010/06/17/e3-2010-shigeru-miyamoto-likes-donkey-kong-country-after-all?page=3 Shigeru Miyamoto Rumors
- https://www.retromags.com/magazines/usa/gamepro/gamepro-issue-65/ Miyamoto's involvement
- https://archive.org/details/nextgen-issue-003 Next Generation Magazine No.3, US Marketing Budget of $3.76 million ($6,415,975.71 with inflation)
- https://web.archive.org/web/19980705022318/http://www.rare.co.uk/recent/games/dkc/dkhistory.html Rare Sketches for Donkey Kong, signifying the design disputes.
- https://uk.ign.com/articles/2008/07/28/ign-presents-the-history-of-rare Rare History under Ultimate Play the Game
- https://archive.org/stream/Crash_No._51_1988-04_Newsfield_GB#page/n34/mode/1up Stuff regarding Japanese Arcade Industry
- https://web.archive.org/web/20090517035002/http://gtw64.retro-net.de/Pages/s/Creators_Solarjetman.php Solar Jetman cancelled ports
- http://www.vgmonline.net/davidwiseinterview/ David Wise discussing sound composition
- http://www.squareenixmusic.com/features/interviews/davidwise.shtml David Wise discussing his work on Slalom
- https://tcrf.net/Donkey_Kong_Country_(SNES) TCRF's unused content from the game.