Anticipation Scribes Excerpts
The following excerpts detailing the development of Anticipation was originally published on Rare’s Scribes letter page from 2001-2008. We’ve scoured each edition in order to provide you with every mention of the title to be found in Rare’s posted answers in chronological order below.
We’ve also included a link above each heading which will re-direct to the original letters page that the question was featured in should you wish to view it in the original context – otherwise you’ll find that the entries below only focus on answers related to Anticipation for a comprehensive listing for any fan wanting further information on pre-release content, hidden easter eggs, abandoned features and development secrets:
August 10th 2001:
Dear Scribes,
I just went through the Archives, and I couldn’t believe what games you guys had made. I was maybe about 5 when those games came out. I remember playing the game where you unite Ernie and his rubber duckie through the pipes… I still think that’s one of the coolest games I’ve played. Really. And I played it so much that I became incredibly good at it. And I remember California Games, too. Well, I only played the sequel to it on the SNES, and I bet some other developer made it, because it’s not in the Archives. I wanted to congratulate you on all those sweet games and say you really did a frickin’ good job on them. But just two things:
1. Why in God’s good name did you make some of the games you did? I know I just finished praising you for them, but I can’t believe you made a game about Anticipation and Jeopardy and all that other stuff… and almost everything I saw was based on a popular arcade game! But they are still good, though.
2. Those Sesame Street games are perhaps some of the coolest I’ve played. All those games are really good, and I really want to play Arch Rivals.
Well, that’ll be all. Please put this on a future Scribes, I beg you!
The Rare Game Expert
P.S. Were you doing a Scribes at the time you were putting in the little caption for Arch Rivals? Or are you just obsessed with arses? (I’m probably right the second time.)
Sesame Street ABC, a classic in anyone’s books. I used to play the Spectrum version of California Games: it was crap.
1. I don’t know. Before my time. And I’m not asking any of the management in case they get mad and fire/kill me. Notice Freddie Mercury and Bobby Ewing out of Dallas on the cover of Anticipation, though. Worth it just for that, surely?
2. Er… okay.
Dear Surveyor of Foggy Landscapes,
While slogging our way through Super Smash Bros Melee (which we imported directly from Japan), we managed to unlock not one, not two, but ALL of the game’s secret characters. We were amazed at the obscenely large amount of Rare mascot characters that have made it in! There are some really obscure characters in there, too! But hey – Ted does have a posse, after all.Knee him, Jeff! Snap his arse!
We thought you might like to see the evidence of this, so we’ve attached it using this nifty email technology. Congratulations on allowing so many characters to be part of such a fantastic game.
Yes, this is what we do instead of updating DKVine.
“Aussie” Ben Kosmina and Chad McCanna
Is that the Yellow Shirt Guy from Anticipation? Don’t you recognise Freddie Mercury when you see him?
I have to admit, I’d pay handsomely to see Mr. Pants in a Team Battle against Elvis, King Jeff and Ted the Boatbuilder, possibly in the confines of Jeff’s hut. Congratulations on the first RPA in months that (probably) took longer than a couple of minutes to put together.
Dear Thaddeus Q. Scribington the Fifth,
1. DK doesn’t suck in SSBM like he did in the original Smash Brothers. Not that he’s great this time around, but you can no longer use the “I only lost because I picked Donkey Kong” excuse.
2. Will any of the Arwing levels in SFA have bosses?
3. I’d like to thank Rare for giving Krystal even less clothes than the entire cast of DOA3 put together. So, will you, uh, be able to er… get the camera stuck in the wall when you run Krystal into the wall, like in JFG? Uh, I was only asking, uh… because it was a really… annoying bug in JFG, and I was, um, hoping that it would be fixed, or something, in SFA. Honest. Really. I’m serious. Or not.
4. I’ve heard that Rare couldn’t make another Battletoads game if you wanted to, because Tradewest owned the rights to them. And since Tradewest is no more (I think), the ‘Toads are forever stuck in a videogame limbo, to be tormented for eternity for their many crimes and–erm, anyways, is this true, or is it just more Internet rumor nonsense?
5. I think the box art for Anticipation borders on false advertizing. I mean, just look at it! The expressions on the people’s faces make it look like the second coming of Christ, but no game could possibly be that much fun. Just look at the expression on the yellow shirt guy. He’s probably thinking “I’m scared of the awesome power of Anticipation, yet I cannot look away from its terrifying beauty”. In fact, I’m going to go out and buy it right now, and prove that it can’t be that good. Okay, I’ve started playing it. Hmmm… okay, not bad. But what if I… hey, that’s pretty cool… Oh. My. God. This is the best game I’ve ever played! Sorry I doubted you, Rare. Oh, and sorry yellow shirt guy, wherever you are.
6. i hav rpoof rrare is makeing xbox and ps2 games!!!11 we no that rare sent a chrisstmas card and it said u were makeing games on teh xbox and ps2!!! i saw it on the intternet so everybody knows abotu it!!! i heard its cuz some guy at nintedo didnt like conker to have swearing and boobs so they didnt want rare as a second party company so rare is a third party company!! its true dont lie to us anymore!!!111 hahahaha nintendo suX0rs with its gay lunch box handle system with no rareh ahahaha!!!!1111
-Urkel
1) Plus the green version looks like he’s wearing lipstick. On a comedy side note, Botwood has completely failed to get to grips with Kirby in SSBM. Hahaha.
2) Designer says: “No. The goal of the Arwing levels is allow you to travel to different worlds.”
3) Designer also says: “The camera system is so good that nothing will ever go wrong, honest.” Notice how we politely ignore your ‘subtle’ Krystal upskirt query. At least Vela was a human character, you perv.
4) Old rights are funny things. You never know when they’re going to revert. I’ll have to check up on this one.
5) You should have realised that such a powerful, timeless cover image wouldn’t have been approved for general use without good reason. Actually, when I first started at Rare there was a big framed poster of Anticipation hanging over my desk, so I have come to know the Anticipation Gang intimately. Especially the one who looks like Bobby Ewing.
6) F*XX0R!!#!1!
Dear Freddie Mercury from Anticipation (not to be confused with the mysterious “Freddy” Taj keeps mumbling about),
Right then – as seems to be a wacky trend, companies are putting some of their older games as playable extras in their more modern games (yourself included – see DK64 and Jetpac), perhaps we could expect to see Anticipation in its original format. I know that it’s highly unlikely that we shall see a remake of it (although, I’m playing the game more and more and it’s becoming an increasingly alluring party game – what the hell is UP with this game?), but could you at least do us all a favour and expose us to the joy that is Anticipation in an upcoming GameCube game? And keep in the four player mode, too. That will make for some positively insane fun. Oh! And we’d need a picture of the box art for the title screen, of course. Can’t do without that.
Look, it’s not MY fault I’m asking for this. The game’s bloody addictive. We could have easily avoided this if more PAL versions were made, you know. I’m looking on the horror that is eBay and I can’t find a single copy. I have to mooch at my friend’s house. Before you know it, I’ll be asking for a fully autographed poster of the Anticipation gang. Whatever happened to them, anyway? Did you just pick the scariest people you could find off the street and get them to pose? I tell you, the guy with the glasses is bloody SCARY.
But nothing beats the true terror of Yellow Shirt Guy.
“Aussie” Ben Kosmina
PS Right, I hate doing post scripts, but still… I’ll bet you didn’t know that the Anticipation theme even has its own remix made at http://remix.overclocked.org! Or perhaps you did. Well, it does.
I doubt that anyone involved with the development of Anticipation back in 1988 would have believed in its potential as a cult classic almost 15 years down the line.
I’d put out a request for anyone who knows the whereabouts of the legendary cover models to get in touch, but I just know that the next morning would see my mailbox full of “Hi, I’m Randy the Yellow Shirt Guy, now working as a male prostitute in Ohio” buffoonery.
Franky: Manky, Skanky, Wa-Dear Scribes,
Ok, check this out. I had a 43 year old lady co-worker come over for dinner over a year ago. The last time she played a video game was on Atari. While she was over I showed her Conker’s Bad Fur Day on N64. She was into it so much she went out the next day and bought it and an N64. She was hooked. Now she is playing all kinds of games on the N64 years after they came out. Hey, they’re new to her. Now she bugs me at least once every two weeks about when the next CBFD is coming out. All I can tell her is that if it does it will probably be on Xbox. Can I get any info on the next BFD so she will leave me alone? Like if it is even being thought of being made. I loved the game myself but I just want something to tell her to get her off my back.
Grnsuperman4
It doesn’t matter how many different ways you phrase it or how bizarre the story you use to back up your request, the answer to the “is Game X coming out?” question will always be the same (at least until it’s officially announced): maybe. Unless you’re talking about sequels to Taboo or Anticipation, of course, which are slightly further down the priority ladder despite the demands of their small army of scary cultist fans.
Dear Scribes,
You should get your game making people to make a game where the people at Rare are trying to make a game, and they start programming the bad guy so he’s the baddest guy ever, and make him really smart, and give him uber AI, and then he gets too smart, and takes over your mainframes, and starts merging all your games, and then the bad guy traps all the good guys from the games in like, things, and then starts getting all the bad guys out, and starts amassing an army of all the characters from your games, and he starts building, within the game, a machine that will allow him and his minions to get out into the real world, and take over it, and like, kill people and do bad stuff, but then one of your scientist guys comes out with a helmet that allows someone to take control of a video game character through their thought patterns, but all the good guys are trapped in the game so there’s no one to control, but then you realise that you’ve still got Mr Pants stored on your laptop, so you hook your laptop up to the network, and then you go in and take control of him, but you find out that you can’t kill the bad guy, whose name can be Thomas, as Mr Pants because he’s 2 dimensional, so you have to save one of the other characters first, and then you go and rescue Banjo, and then you turn into Banjo and go through DataDyne and rescue Joanna Dark and this keeps going and you go through all your games and rescue other characters, like Conker, and Tusk, and the Battletoads, and you could have got Donkey Kong, but now you can’t because he’s licensed to Nintendo, but anyway, so you keep moving through the game, changing into different characters for different situations, and you eventually get to the end to fight Thomas, but throughout the game you find evidence that maybe Thomas’s uberintelligence wasn’t an accident, and that someone sabotaged the game to make him really smart, and in the end you find out that it was Yellow Shirt Guy from Anticipation, and that he did it as revenge for being ridiculed in Scribes for the past few years, and I think it would be the coolest game ever!
Michael, aka TalkieToaster
That sounds great. And now you’re going to make those people who skim-read Scribes for highlighted game titles think that you’ve written all that about Anticipation. Especially if I say Anticipation again for no reason.
Why would being 2D prevent you from killing someone? What kind of logic is that? Are you saying you wouldn’t be able to achieve adequate suspension of disbelief if we put Mr. Pants in a GTA-style M-rated crime caper?
Dear Scribes,
I am but a humble fan of Rare, but sadly one of the few that remembers and enjoys games that you guys made BEFORE Donkey Kong Country. That means getting into games like Battletoads and RC Pro-Am :^D Back when David Wise was the only music composer (must’ve been a busy man).
I have a question regarding the cartridge cover for the game Anticipation. The cover has become somewhat of a small internet trend because the people contained within symbolize 80s fashion and clothing. The guy in the yellow shirt (affectionatly named ‘Yellow Shirt Guy’) is a particular favorite among my friends.
I own the actual cartridge and I took a picture of it here. It’s one of two Rare games I own for the NES, the other being… Wheel of Fortune Jr. Edition. Yeah, stop snickering. X^D
But I’ve always wondered, are those just random people on the cover or are they actually Rare staff members from the time or perhaps relatives of said Rare staff? I’ve always wanted to know exactly WHO those crazy people were!
Thanks a bunch!
Chicobo
I tracked down someone who worked on the game (yes, some of them are still at Rare despite the trauma). So, are you ready for the truth? It might shake the foundations of everything you think you know. You’re sure about this? Okay. Brace yourself.
“Well… Nintendo did the covers and actually paid and encouraged the people (paid models!) to stand and act like that.”
I did warn you it was pretty dramatic stuff. Like some kind of twisted industry soap opera. With a tragic epilogue: “Unfortunately there is nobody from Rare on there captured in their 80s glory.”
Dear Scribes,
First of all, I am a big fan of Rare and its DKC series. I have a couple of questions for you.
1) In DKC 3 GBA, why is there no scrapbook with photo collecting and why is there no baddie parade at the end of the game?
2) In Diddy Kong Racing DS, why is there no option to use a button for the boost at the start of each race? I have seen this in an earlier screenshot of the game and it has obviously been removed. There are many complaints because of this. I didn’t like it all at first, but now I am fine with it.
I encourage Rare to make a remake/port of Donkey Kong 64 for DS. I have never played this game, so this would be a great chance to finally play it. I think it would sell extremely well. Everyone wants Donkey Kong platformer on DS.
Thank you,
Marko (Croatia)
Dear Marko, first of all, I am a big fan of numbered lists and wish yours had gone on for longer. I have a couple of answers for you:
“We didn’t add the parade as it drove me mad waiting for it to end. I think it took at least five hours to go through all the characters. We didn’t add the scrap book due to time, we felt adding a whole new world was more interesting for the player.
“I realise the start game changes have been quite controversial, when we started DKR DS the team all agreed we wanted to add some unique DS features to the game, so we did. I think the main problem is players are trying to use the stylus to spin, it was designed to be done with your finger.
“Conversion of DK64: who knows what will happen?”
I encourage you to make a remake/port of Anticipation in Croatian. I have never played this game, so this would be a great chance for me to not play it some more.
Dear Scribes,
I think that Grant shouldn’t use an orchestra to perform the songs in the new Banjo-Kazooie game – he should create the music the way he did in past games. I’m probably the only one who thinks this but I don’t care. Sometimes I hear a video game song that’s been created with an orchestra (e.g. the Undead MP3) and it just doesn’t sound as good as the original. The tunes and chorus just aren’t as clear, you know what I mean? But you guys have more knowledge in this – I’m only suggesting by my experience with the orchestra version of Conker’s Bad Fur Day in Conker: Live & Reloaded. Or the Zelda games. Actually, using an orchestra is good, but I noticed when converting a song previously created with a keyboard or something, just doesn’t come out as nice when performed by an orchestra. Maybe it’s ’cause creating tunes with an orchestra has limitations to what it can achieve, which the keyboard can easily execute (except for realistic drums, etc., which is why an orchestra is needed in these areas). What I’m really trying to say is: use an orchestra when creating most of the music, but use the keyboard when creating tunes that an orchestra struggles to achieve. I’ll stop with the orchestra talk now.
Imagine how good a game’s soundtrack would be if you got Robin Beanland, Grant Kirkhope and Dave Wise all working on it. Well I thought it’d come out nice.
I notice that people easily misinterpret what is said in Scribes so I’m just gonna say something and see what happens: oh my God! Listen up people! The new Banjo game is coming out mid-2008! And Perfect Dark Zero is going to be made for the PC! And so is everyone’s favourite game, Anticipation! I’M g01Ng InSaNe!!!111!!!$#%
Darren Borg
Replace Banjo, Perfect Dark Zero and Anticipation with Conker, Kameo and Wizards & Warriors, and… it still wouldn’t be at all accurate. “Oh, Rare!” you cry. “You lovable pranksters!” We know, we know.
Grant says: “I’m still not decided on whether to use orchestra on the new Banjo game or not. The Banjo games have always been a real mixture of instruments, some orchestral, some not. You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you… but, would you believe it, Robin is helping out on the music with Banjo so your dream is two thirds complete… hehe!”