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The Banjo Kazooie Series General Discussion about the Banjo Kazooie series from the N64 classics to the handheld sequels & new Xbox games.

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Old Yesterday, 08:02 PM
Rare_Gamer Rare_Gamer is offline
Glowbo
 
Join Date: Jun 2022
Stop 'N' Swop Update (Functionality/New Mystery Item/Full Plan etc.)

Hello there,

It's been a while since I've checked in, and while chatter on the mysterious Stop 'N' Swop feature has since quieted to a low whisper, I hope that you'll still enjoy this update on Rare's infamous and ambitious data transfer bonus, anyways.

I know that I'm preaching to the choir on Stop 'N' Swop remnants in Banjo-Kazooie, so I'll start with the second game intended for Stop 'N' Swop, Donkey Kong 64. I may touch on information you already know, but please bear with me, as I want to be as thorough as possible.

There are three areas in Donkey Kong 64 that were meant to be used with Stop 'N' Swop - Chunky's Room in Crystal Caves, Donkey Kong's Treehouse, and the Museum in Creepy Castle, which has its own unique item for Stop 'N' Swop to continue the process into the next game.

Donkey Kong's Treehouse and Chunky's Room in Crystal Caves facilitate the transfer of the Ice Key. Here's how that was meant to work in real-time...

It's 1999, one year after you've completed Banjo-Kazooie 100%, and now you're working your way through your newest game for the holiday, Donkey Kong 64.

After completing much of the game, you wander into the latest world, Crystal Caves and manage your way into Chunky's Room, just in front of the entrance.

Inside, you would find a large Ice Door, with a keyhole in the middle. (This area has been depicted in the German, Spanish and Japanese Strategy guide for DK64, which has leftover maps and text that weren't changed in time)

Evidence:

German Strategy Guide/English Strategy Guide comparison: https://i.imgur.com/pkfY6IQ.jpeg

Spanish Magazine Excerpt, showing area: https://i.imgur.com/jgmHQmj.jpeg

Spanish Magazine Excerpt, showing area, magnified: https://i.imgur.com/eKAxHHp.jpeg

Japanese Guide, showing area, leftover text: https://i.imgur.com/FgyMDuw.jpeg

Japanese Guide, showing area, leftover text, translated: https://i.imgur.com/eDJEvCX.jpeg

Your thoughts would have returned to Banjo-Kazooie, with the Ice Key, now presenting yourself with a logical puzzle: You have found an Ice Door, requiring an Ice Key to unlock.
You know where to find an Ice Key, but access to this item is blocked by an obstacle. If you could somehow retrieve this item, you could unlock this door.

Approaching the Ice Door and setting certain "events" into motion would cause something curious to happen - a cutscene would begin, and you would be shown the Ice Key area in Wozza's Cave. This time however, there would be nothing impeding your path to obtain the item. The cutscene would finish, bringing you back to the wall.

Behind the scenes, Donkey Kong 64 would begin writing payload data to the Nintendo 64's memory, with the value "0x10E".

Curious as to what you've just witnessed, you'd save the game, turn off the console and then remove the Donkey Kong 64 cartridge, replacing it with Banjo-Kazooie.

On startup, Banjo-Kazooie would scan the memory of the Nintendo 64, and discover the value, "0x10E", which instructs it to open the area in Wozza's Cave.

You select your file, visit Freezeezy Peak and then view the opened path to the Ice Key. Upon collecting the sought-after item, Banjo-Kazooie would begin writing payload data to the Nintendo 64's memory, with the value "0x106".

With the Ice Key collected, you'd save the game, turn off the console and then remove the Banjo-Kazooie cartridge, replacing it with Donkey Kong 64.

On startup, Donkey Kong 64 would scan the memory of the Nintendo 64, and discover the value, "0x106", which instructs it to load the Ice Key into the players inventory (this is a discovery that this site made).

You skip through the DK Rap, select your file, and then, as if through magic, you have the Ice Key available in your inventory.

Evidence:

Ice Key 1/1 remnant in inventory: https://i.imgur.com/fmp7TRg.png

With the Ice Key from Banjo-Kazooie, you would travel back to Crystal Caves to the Ice Door, prepared to use it. Stepping towards the door would cause the Ice Key to float into the air, before entering the keyhole and turning itself. The door would open, revealing an object/item heretofore unknown to us, and then another cutscene would begin...

You would watch as the Banjo-Kazooie fridge in Donkey Kong's treehouse became the cameras focus. As the camera neared, the fridge door would open slightly, piquing your interest. When you returned to Crystal Caves, your new interest would become the Banjo-Kazooie fridge in Donkey Kong's treehouse.

Evidence:

Leftover cutscene in Treehouse: https://i.imgur.com/r3uxoai.gif
Banjo-Kazooie fridge in Treehouse: https://i.imgur.com/64b8NJb.png

Our knowledge of what the Banjo-Kazooie fridge would have done, or what the item was behind the Ice Door is lost to time - you're free to speculate, but we lack sufficient evidence to be able to solve those two mysteries.

However, there still is one last remaining secret in Donkey Kong 64 that has a connection with Stop 'N' Swop, and that's the planned prize for the Museum in Creepy Castle.

Let's continue with our hypothetical - it's still 1999, you've just experienced Stop 'N' Swop for the first time, transferring the Ice Key from Banjo-Kazooie to Donkey Kong 64. You've made it a little further into the game, now venturing into Creepy Castle, when something very curious catches your eye in the Museum...

Placed on top of a pillar, you see a Golden Donkey Kong Statue behind a pane of glass.

Evidence:

German Strategy Guide/English Strategy Guide comparison: https://i.imgur.com/hzr0Dc6.jpeg
German Strategy Guide magnified: https://i.imgur.com/zW8dFp1.jpeg

Much like the Ice Key in Banjo-Kazooie, this item is also behind a pane of unbreakable glass, separating you from collecting it. Without any recourse, you would be forced to continue on, trying to put the Golden Statue out of your mind.

Like the Ice Key, you would need to wait for a future title (Banjo-Tooie, Conker: Twelve Tales, Perfect Dark etc.) to access this item, where you would then send it to another game entirely.

The Golden Donkey Kong Statue is the eighth known Stop 'N' Swop item, confirmed on the RetroHour podcast from Banjo-Kazooie engineer and inventor of Stop 'N' Swop, Paul Machacek at 1:01:03: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc-9TOQN0ss

"The problem was DK64 was going to manufacture, and we can’t just re-jig the backgrounds and the stuff that we’d set up that was enabled for Donkey Kong 64. We just disabled the minimum amount of stuff that we needed to change in the game and take out the scanning software. So that's why there's a few places where there's like a pedestal with nothing on it - there was supposed to be something on it and you know a week before we gave the final build to Nintendo, there was something sitting on that pedestal. I don't remember what it was now…"

As you might know, Nintendo had their concerns over Stop 'N' Swop, and made a decision on October 1st, 1999, instructing its removal just a month before Donkey Kong 64 needed to be manufactured for release.

To accomplish this, the Donkey Kong 64 team removed the following features from the final game:

- Remove the Ice Door and associated space behind it from Crystal Caves.
- Remove the cutscenes that allude to Banjo-Kazooie's Ice Key
- Remove the Banjo-Kazooie fridge in Donkey Kong's treehouse.
- Remove the Golden Donkey Kong Statue from Creepy Castle's Museum.

And due to their removals, the following remnants are left in the final game:

- Ice Key text in the Inventory menu.
- Donkey Kong's Treehouse cutscene (can be accessed through the IntroStory Glitch)
- The camera focusing on the area where the Ice Door used to be when approached (Ooh, look! A wall!)
- The Pillar housing the Golden Donkey Kong Statue having nothing on it.

From here, I'd like to discuss the true, intended nature of Stop 'N' Swop, because the initial plan is more ambitious than we could ever have known...

When the Ice Key and the Mystery Eggs were first teased during the 100% cutscene in Banjo-Kazooie, we were told that we would need to wait until the release of Banjo-Tooie to collect them for ourselves. This was true, in that we could come back and "collect" the objects, but we wouldn't need to wait until Banjo-Tooie. Donkey Kong 64 had already started the process, granting us access to the Ice Key, and while we might have thought that the Pink and Blue Egg were therefore meant for Tooie, or even all 6 were meant to be given to many of Rare's other games in a linear path. This is only the first layer of the intended plan, with Paul providing the intended scope in the aforementioned RetroHour Podcast, 56:11:

"It wasn’t just “Lets do a sequel to Banjo; swop these two cartridges backward and forward and they send each other stuff...” It’s like, “Well what about Perfect Dark?” Can we do something with Perfect Dark?” Diddy Kong Racing had already shipped, so that was out of the window. So the discussion was [that] we were looking at roughly six games in different states of development at that time - so why don’t we try to connect them all? And it wouldn’t be that Banjo sends a bunch of codes to the next game that we were going to release which was DK64, and then that would send something to Conker or Tooie. It would be “Why don’t they send codes in lots of different directions?” So it’s like a Spider’s web, [or] a maze of sending code from this to that to that to that."


In the three months following Banjo-Kazooie's release on June 29th 1998, these are the following games that would have been in development at Manor Farm:

- Banjo-Tooie
- Donkey Kong 64
- Jet Force Gemini
- Conker: Twelve Tales
- Dinosaur Planet
- Perfect Dark

Jet Force Gemini might have been the first casualty from this list, as it released prior to Donkey Kong 64, which was confirmed as the second game after Banjo-Kazooie to have Stop 'N' Swop functionality. If this is the case, this would mean that the Jet Force Gemini team was not aware or informed by the Banjo-Kazooie team about Stop 'N' Swop during development, and simply released their game without being included in the plan. The Jet Force Gemini team would later work on Mickey's Speedway USA, so perhaps if Stop 'N' Swop went off without a hitch, they would have incorporated some features in that game instead, hypothetically.

Now, the starting point for all of this is Banjo-Kazooie. Stop 'N' Swop in that game is fully functional, and completion of the tasks set out in the game fills the menu and allows access to areas you wouldn't otherwise be permitted to enter. The manta for this process, echoed by the other games included in the plan is, "I get something, I give something."

Donkey Kong 64 gets the Ice Key, unlocking the Ice Door to retrieve an item (perhaps more with the fridge in the treehouse) and a secret ending. It then gives the Ice Key to the next game along the line. So what about the Golden Statue. That's where the intended plan of Stop 'N' Swop can really dig in...

Let's say that your N64 collection includes Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64 and Banjo-Tooie. Playing through Banjo-Tooie will have you coming to a point where you can Stop 'N' Swop with Banjo-Kazooie, and you can collect the Pink Egg from Sharkfood Island to send to the sequel. (I'm inclined to lean this way, as there are portraits of the Pink Egg in Jolly Roger's Lagoon seem to suggest this)
So you do that, earn a secret bonus in Banjo-Tooie and think, "Wow, that was cool, but what about that Ice Key I saw in Banjo-Kazooie?"
Well, if you want the Ice Key to be put into Banjo-Tooie, you'll have to reach for your copy of Donkey Kong 64, as it's needed to access the item in the first place. You would then use the Ice Key to open the Ice Door in Crystal Caves, and then send that Ice Key to Banjo-Tooie where it can be put to use.

Maybe you do that, unlocking the Ice Safe in Banjo-Tooie before you're instructed to send the Ice Key to Perfect Dark. Maybe in Perfect Dark you find a way to send an item to Conker: Twelve Tales, and then that game is able to get you beyond the glass in Creepy Castle's Museum. Maybe you send that Golden Donkey Kong Trophy to Dinosaur Planet, and that allows you to access an area that tells Banjo-Kazooie to unlock the Blue Egg for Banjo-Tooie, or Conker, or Perfect Dark... Spider webs.

Maybe the endpoint of Stop 'N' Swop was a Trophy Gallery. Just a big room in one of Rare's final games that had a shelf that you put all of the golden statues acquired from all of the other games on, and filling the shelf would have unlocked something really special?

It's all speculation of course - we're attempting to forge an explanation for the 9th game when Stop 'N' Swop was truly killed off in the 2nd.

I hope you were able to get something new out of all this though, Stop 'N' Swop remains my favourite secret gaming feature, and learning of its true potential cements its place for me.

Thanks for reading, would love to hear your view.

Last edited by Rare_Gamer; Yesterday at 08:17 PM.
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  #2  
Old Yesterday, 10:32 PM
Mr. Airplane's Avatar
Mr. Airplane Mr. Airplane is offline
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A great write up with a lot of citations. I really appreciate the thoroughness here.

Have you ever looked through the Stop N Swop patent? I found it fascinating https://patents.google.com/patent/US6820265B1/en
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Old Yesterday, 10:52 PM
Rare_Gamer Rare_Gamer is offline
Glowbo
 
Join Date: Jun 2022
Thanks, Mr. Airplane.
I sat down a few years ago and had a good, long read through the patent. The example detailed gives us the exact scenario we would have experienced in Donkey Kong 64:

"As an example, the player may come across a “Huge Blocked Icy Cave” in which there is a key-shaped hole. Unfortunately, the player can find no way or key to enter the Huge Blocked Icy Cave of the first video game. At the side of the Huge Blocked Icy Cave is a lever. The player pulls the lever and a “cut-cam” shows a section from the second video game stored on a second game cartridge. This cut-cam may reveal a door access to a “Big Icy Key.” If the player remembered playing the second video game, the player may have seen this area that could not have been accessed at that time. In this example, the trigger event occurs when the lever is pulled."
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  #4  
Old Today, 04:46 AM
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qwertykins76 qwertykins76 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rare_Gamer View Post
You skip through the DK Rap
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  #5  
Old Today, 05:03 AM
Rare_Gamer Rare_Gamer is offline
Glowbo
 
Join Date: Jun 2022
Quote:
Originally Posted by qwertykins76 View Post
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You skip through hang on every blissful note of the DK Rap, becoming enraptured until you experience a perfect hanging balance between nirvana and self-actualization.

There we go.
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