Rare co-founder Tim Stamper has uncovered one of the company’s lost treasures in his home — a working development cartridge that holds a copy of Twelve Tales: Conker 64, the famously cancelled platformer for the Nintendo 64. The game’s cancellation was an anomaly for the studio, which was at the height of its powers in the N64 era, pumping out hit-after-hit. The cancellation of the family-friendly Twelve Tales would give way to the now-legendary and far more grown up Conker’s Bad Fur Day.
Twelve Tales: Conker 64 was first announced as Conker’s Quest at E3 1997, but was criticised at the time for its proximity to Rare’s other family-friendly games like Banjo-Kazooie and Diddy Kong Racing. Its similarities to Banjo in particular prompted Rare into a fateful change of direction, retooling the game to fill it with toilet humour, sex, drugs and violence in an effort to appeal to an older crowd. A few assets from Twelve Tales would make into Bad Fur Day, but most of the game was completely rebuilt to support its new direction.
Are people still interested in this junk?! 🧐
Head over to Instagram to see some sneak peeks! 👀#intimsworld #conker #conkersbadfurday #sneakpeek #gamecollection #retrogames #retrogamecollection #videogamecollection #games #videogamehistory #nintendo #banjo #jetpac pic.twitter.com/RZqidAhyhp
— Tim Stamper (@InTimsWorld) March 9, 2023
The Stamper Brothers departed Rare in 2008, and Tim appears to have taken quite a bit with him when they did. He’s been doing a bit of spring cleaning lately, going through boxes of old Rare materials still in his possession, much to the delight of his Twitter and Instagram followers. That’s where the original Rare logo emerged from a few weeks ago, which you may have seen Ruby cover on this very website. His rummage through the garage has produced a couple of gems already, like this now-very rare Donkey Kong Country Crate — a package that contained a copy of Rare’s breakout platformer, a SNES console and other goodies.
Searching through the boxes we found a Donkey Kong Country Crate! 🐒
What’s your favourite Donkey Kong game?
P.S… I found some folders from the DKC production.. 👀 #intimsworld #donkeykong #SNES pic.twitter.com/9yywvz8nFO
— Tim Stamper (@InTimsWorld) March 23, 2023
And then, out came the dev kit. “I have way more than twelve tales to tell,” reads the accompanying post.
I have way more than Twelve Tales to tell… 🤫#intimsworld #conker #twelvetales #n64 pic.twitter.com/8KwGCpSIng
— Tim Stamper (@InTimsWorld) March 27, 2023
What you can see there — what appears to be an oversized N64 cartridge — is one of the system’s development cartridges. Carts like these were used in combination with the system’s SDK, often relying on external systems for proper use. This morning, Stamper uploaded a video of him using one of these development carts to boot the game up. The clip is a short one — Stamper switches his N64 on and the game runs through a short logo and intro sequence in which Conker is harrassed by some green enemies. It’s a very Rare intro and has a similar, silly vibe to that of Banjo-Kazooie‘s famous musical intro. The date on the cartridge reads May 26th, 1998, indicating this may have been a build prepared for E3, which would have happened just days later. E3 1998 was the last time the show was held in Georgia, occurring between May 28-30, before it returned to Los Angeles for good the following year.
25 years and still working 🕹️#intimsworld #conker #twelvetales #n64 pic.twitter.com/yolkcCDIPQ
— Tim Stamper (@InTimsWorld) March 28, 2023
As a masked wizard character rises onto the screen and the game’s title screen attract mode begins, Stamper abruptly switches the N64 off.
To date, only small pieces of information on Twelve Tales: Conker 64 have ever found their way online. The highest-resolution screenshots I could find were in 312×224 resolution. That’s how long its been since this game was in production, or advertised. There are already a litany of video games preservationists in Stamper’s comments begging him to dump the ROM for people to check out.
Clearly, he’s got more to come. I look forward to seeing what he’s got for tomorrow. Given that he’s now milking this a bit, it appears he’s enjoying the attention.
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