Six worlds become five in Nuts & Bolts
The N&B demo might be online very soon
Over at Banjo-Kazooie.com lies the latest Developer Diary with the second part of how Showdown Town was created. Besides the usual development screenshots, nothing really jumped out as information except for a pretty important fact: Nuts & Bolts will be shipping with five worlds instead of the planned six.
Says the voice of Fox McCloud, known as Steve Malpass: “There’ll always be modifications and tweaks required to make it all fit together and flow and feel right, although Showdown Town required more than most I’ve been involved with. I think the official document of modifications went through 20 versions and ended up over 50 pages long by the time the Town was finished. Partway through all this, we learned that one Game World was to be dropped to give us a chance of getting the game finished on time, bringing the total down from six to five. This was a bit of a headache and involved some redesign, as the Seaside lost its Game World doors to the Docks, which required a different Trolley ability to reach, so certain features got changed or moved about to cope with the restructure.” Despite this, Malpass states that “on the whole, though, there weren’t too many sacrifices made in getting everything stable.” Inevitably a disappointment, but if Kameo: Elements of Power was anything to go by, DLC might make this missing world possible. Or most probably within a sequel. Time will really tell if we will miss what we never knew we lost.
The Banjo-Kazooie forums have also been ripe with the latest Banjo news, as you can now buy two packs of Gamerpics from the Xbox Live Marketplace. The Good Guys pack contains Banjo, Kazooie, Humba Wumba, Mumbo Jumbo, and LOG (since when was he a good guy?). The Bad Guys pack contains Grunty, Piddles, Pikelet, and two Gruntbots. While the prices are right at 80 MS Points per pack, where’s the Klungo love, guys? Answer: within the BK XBLA gamerpics. Anyone who downloaded the gamerpics long ago of the lovable Banjo characters with N64 renders will find nothing new in these packs.
In addition to the news of Gamerpics, a Nuts & Bolts demo is on the way. And unlike every other Rare 360 title to date, it’ll actually be before the game’s release. At least, that’s what BK.com’s forum moderator, Mike Wilson, says. Take it away! “As far as I am aware, the demo is completed or is in certification. A ‘demo coming soon’ image on Xbox Live is fair enough. I doubt it will be here before the end of October. The team are hoping to get it out before release but there are no promises.” And as for what this demo will be offering, Wilson adds: “It’s awesome, I am sure you guys will love it. I don’t think playing the demo will spoil much and it will give everyone a little taste of what is to come.” The timing couldn’t be perfect; if there was any Rare game that divided old-school fans alike that deserves to be tried before buying it, it’s this game.
Last but not least, news from Rare’s website. Besides the Scribes-less Viva Piñata vs. KI update that we reported a couple of days ago, a new page on the N&B Cast List has been added, now presenting Klungo, Trophy Thomas, and Piddles with their respective renders and descriptions. Loveday has also updated the news story regarding the retailers participating in the “Reserve one, get one free” deal for BK XBLA. New to the list are Best Buy online for the US, as well as locations in Canada (EB Games and Toys R Us) and New Zealand (EB NZ and Gameplanet). Better hurry up with those pre-orders; the game’s less than a month from release!
Somehow related news
- Grunty’s new rhyming and not-huge Tooie worlds a-milking ()
- Two worlds and in-jokes galore await in the Nuts & Bolts Demo ()
- Banjo designed after the capitals of love ()
- LOG’s Lost Challenges revealed as early “as next week” ()
- Glitches & Secrets in the Nuts & Bolts demo ()
It was very interesting reading aabout the design of Showdown Town. I always enjoy viiting seaside towns like Conwy and Llandudno in North Wales. There’s a certain rustic quality to the cobbled streets and quaint little cake/gift shops. So it’ll be interesting to see if they’ve created a similar sort of feel to Showdown Town.
Disappointing that the 6th world was removed. Wonder what it was? Here’s hoping it makes it into a Nuts and Bolts sequel; and, if we think back, Banjo-Kazooie was originally planned to have sixteen worlds. Sixteen! I believe some of those were moved to Banjo-Tooie and other projects like Donkey Kong 64.
Hope the demo’s fun!
Comment by Rinx — 18.Oct.08 @ 7:28 pm