donkey kong

Donkey Kong Country [SNES – Beta / Concept / Unused Stuff]

Donkey Kong Country is one of the most famous Rareware games made in Super Nintendo. The technology of Advanced Computer Modeling helped Donkey Kong Country makes a successful fame and great looking graphics.

But not giving much words, the old chimp, Donkey Kong, have been changed during the development. Shigeru Miyamoto first idea was to make Donkey Kong looks like the Donkey Kong Jr., from the NES, the RAREware employers decided to make Donkey Kong looks more strong and looking more “cartoonish” . The Final rendered image have changed, such as, less beefy and with a little less hair. Check the image below:
~You can click the image below to enlarge it~

Also, Robert Seddon has made us notice about a series of Donkey Kong Country unused stuff that some lovely geeks at DKC Atlas have found out in the memory of the game, like unused rooms and sprites. You can read the full topics in here, here and here. Thanks a lot to Robert for these links and  props to the DKC Atlas guys for the finds!

Thanks to Lucas and Gabrielwoj for the contribution!

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In the Video above, it’s possible to notice some differences:

-The Banana Counter was no limit, it would be possible a “collect all bananas” mode that was scrapped?;
-Banana Animations are a Little more faster;
-In Funky Flights, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong don’t jump too high in Final version;
-At 4:00 , there is a Concept Art with both Kongs using the Team-Up move, these was used later in Donkey Kong Country 2 and Donkey Kong Country 3;
-At 7:35 , when Donkey Kong in running with the Steel Keg, the checkpoint doesn’t activate. It was fixed in Final Version;
-At 8:07 , when the player gets s Life (Balloon), the sound effect is really different than the final version;
-At 9:00 , it’s possible to see a Debug Coding at the corner of the screen;
-At 12:03 , the First Level is Raining. Even if the player (in final version), does reach at the end and go back, this doesn’t happens;
-Some of the animations are a little more slow, and some others are too fast.

 

Donkey Kong’s Fun With Music [NES – Cancelled]

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Donkey Kong’s Fun With Music was a Sequel in a line of educational video game containing classic Nintendo Characters. These games intended to help kids while still being entertaining. This line of games included Donkey Kong Jr. Math, and Popeye no Eigo Asobi (A game Starring Popeye the sailor in which you learn about American Spelling). This game was canceled for unknown reasons. If you ask me it’s because kids weren’t being entertained.

Thanks a lot to NES World for some of these screenshots! According to the titles on the screen, the songs being played here are I’ve Been Working on the Railroad and “Inu no Omawari-san”, a well-known Japanese children’s song.

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Donkey Kong Racing [GameCube – Cancelled]

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A tech demo for a Donkey Kong game on the GameCube was shown at SpaceWorld 2001. The game was called Donkey Kong Racing and shown various characters, including Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and Taj the Genie racing on Ellie, Expresso, Rambi, Enguarde, and Zinger, and presumably, Necky, Army, and Chomps Jr. that had been introduced in previous Donkey Kong games by Rare. This project was going to be a spiritual sequel to “Diddy Kong Racing”.

Following the sale of Rare to Microsoft in 2002, Rare announced that they were concentrating their efforts on Xbox games. [Infos from Wikipedia]

From some rumors it seems that the Donkey Kong Racing concept was somehow ported to the original XBOX, minus the Nintendo characters. The game so became know as “Sabreman Stampede Racing“, with the Sabre Wulf cast of characters. The XBOX version evolved in something more than just a racing game and the “adventure style” that you can feel in Diddy Kong Racing was even more expanded.  Sadly not much infos are available on the subject, and in the end even the XBOX version was cancelled. An XBOX 360 port was started too, but never finished.  Some of the concepts of Sabremen Stampede 360 were reused as initial ideas for Banjo & Kazooie Nuts & Bolts.

As we can read in an  interview with Lee Musgrave:

It was a pure racing game, the underlying software mechanics were actually based on car physics, but it also incorporated the idea of riders jumping between different animals mid-race, to always be riding the ones that were bigger or faster . . . we had some awesome gameplay in place, and it was lots of fun – we even had a multiplayer version working – and when you fell off, you had to tap-tap-tap (HyperSports style) to run on foot and catch up with an animal. Fun, but it lost some appeal without the DK universe around it, and Microsoft were unsure of its potential with Xbox gamers I think.

italian_flag.jpg [spoiler /Clicca qui per la versione in Italiano/ /Nascondi la versione in Italiano/]Presentato per la prima volta sotto forma di filmato all’E32001, questo gioco sarebbe dovuto essere il seguito del lodato Diddy Kong Racing su N64. Come si può ben vedere dalle foto i mezzi non sarebbero stati più kart o veicoli convenzionali, ma animali presi in prestito dagli archivi dei vari giochi Rare, Donkey Kong Country, 64 e Racing compresi. Purtroppo il titolo a causa delle vicissitudini che travolsero Rare non ha mai superato lo stadio di filmato, almeno in pubblico. Non è chiaro neanche se parte del progetto sia stato inserito nel racing per GBA Donkey Kong Pilot, ma le somiglianze sono veramente minime e tutto lascia presagire che questo gioco non abbia lasciato tracce di se in altre pubblicazioni Rare. Piccola curiosità: le foto beta di DKR si possono addirittura trovare sul retro delle confezioni dei primi GameCube! [/spoiler]

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Donkey Kong 64 [N64 – Beta / Unused Rooms]

Donkey Kong 64 (also known with the work in progress title of Ultra Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong World or Donkey Kong Universe) is a platform developed by RareWare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 in 1999. The game is a follow up to the Donkey Kong Country trilogy on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. There were some rumors about the original release of the game for the 64DD, but in the end DK64 was released on the normal N64, using the 4MB expansion pack.

In the beta version of the game, the characters used “real” weapons models. In the final version they have “fruit” weapons, like coconut gun and peanut shooters. Also, various unused rooms and models were found in the game’s code thanks to hackers! You can see these in the gallery and videos below.

Also Mad Jack, the insane Jack in the Box that Tiny Kong fights in Frantic Factory in the beta was actually going to be called Junk-in-the-box and have the appearance of an old decrepit clown. The area he’s fought in isn’t Mad Jack’s either (info from Mario Wiki). It seems that that when they took him out, the toy box mini boss that Chunky Kong fights was put in instead. It does look like they are fought in the same room though. It also seems that Junk in the box would have shot fire balls (as Mad Jack does now) and would eventually become vulnerable to a TNT barrel instead of being electrocuted.

Thanks to Cubivore10 for the contribution!

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