Prerelease:Conker's Bad Fur Day

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Conker's Bad Fur Day.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

"Forget Twelve Tales, just forget it. It was never even nearly finished let alone released. FORGET ABOUT F*****G TWELVE TALES!!!"

–Chris Seavor, when asked about what aspects of Twelve Tales made it into Bad Fur Day

Unfortunately for Chris, we're not here to forget Twelve Tales.

In one of the more controversial video game facelifts, Conker's Bad Fur Day started development early in the Nintendo 64's life as a cutesy Mario-like called Conker's Quest (later Twelve Tales: Conker 64). However, the lukewarm response its previews garnered prompted Rare to give it an adult-oriented overhaul to better stand out from the crowd. When they announced the revamped Bad Fur Day in early 2000, many thought it was a joke.

For better or worse, it wasn't. Bad Fur Day finally landed in 2001, just as the N64 was on its way out.

Development Timeline

1996

• Fall - "Conker 64" begins development.

1997

• Unknown - Conker 64 is renamed "Conker's Quest".
• June 19-21 - Conker is announced at E3.
• November 21-23 - Conker is shown again at Spaceworld.

1998

• April 15 - The game is renamed to "Twelve Tales: Conker 64".
• May 28-30 -Twelve Tales makes its final E3 appearance before being scrapped and reworked into an adult-oriented title.

2000

• January 13 - Conker's Bad Fur Day is listed as part of Nintendo's 2000 software lineup, with insider sources hinting at the game's tonal overhaul.
• January 21 - Rare posts a teaser for Bad Fur Day on their website.
• May 11-13 - Bad Fur Day is revealed at E3.
• September 3-5 - The game is shown off at the ECTS.

2001

• March 5 - The game is released.

Conker's Quest

To do: There's more screenshots.

Nintendo E3 1997 Press Kit Screenshots

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Footage

To do: There is WAY more footage that is absent here.

13 seconds of Japanese gameplay that shows Conker doing some basic gameplay actions.

A small amount of gameplay footage from the Spaceworld '97 build.

Twelve Tales: Conker 64

Footage 1

A solid half-hour of footage, given to parties such as journalists. It showcases many of the worlds the player would have gone to. Clips of this footage also appeared on the Nintendo Power promotional VHS for Banjo-Kazooie.

Footage 2

"Rare Revealed" was a series of videos that were included in the game Rare Replay, with some videos being uploaded to YouTube on Rare's channel. This video takes a look at Twelve Tales, along with a brief note on its earlier Conker's Quest name. A bit of gameplay footage which look like various points of development is shown off.

Footage 3

Footage of the opening logo sequence running on a development cart, uploaded by Rare co-founder Tim Stamper to Twitter on March 28, 2023. This opening is a bit different from the one seen in the "Footage 1" section. The logo is a bit more finalized (some colors are different and the logo has the "Conker 64" subtitle), and the animation is extended to show Conker being chased by a T-Rex. This opening also shows that the design of the green enemies have changed: instead of having a brown bottom, they are mostly green.

Music Tracks

To do: Rip the tracks from their original sources and upload them here.

The second "Rare Revealed" video features the music for the western section of the game, titled "Wild West".

Also in Rare Replay, several other music tracks (with their official names) from Twelve Tales were showcased. The first is titled "Opening Title" and was the opening theme for the game. The second is titled "A Frantic Flight", a theme that "underscored a boss encounter in Twelve Tales". The third is titled "Big Bad Boss", which was another boss theme from Twelve Tales.

Photos

To do: There's more photos.

Several photos were uploaded to the game's official website.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

  The multiplayer mode.

• 
• 
• 

  Conker on top of some houses, along with some colorful balloons. A couple of these textures are still in the final game, but not used.

• 
• 
• 

Conker's Bad Fur Day

Pre-E3

This build of the game appears somewhat different from the build shown off at E3.

• The throne room looks somewhat different.
• Other characters are seen in the thrown room in Pre E3 footage, this includes: A caveman, a hanging haybot hand, Barry the bat hanging on the ceiling, Marvin is not stitched, and a regular army squirrel are all seen in Pre E3 footage but removed in the final.
• "Conker's" is not present in the logo.
• Bat's Tower seems to be using different floor textures.
• Mr. Big Cog seems to have been originally designed female, as seen for a split second in the beginning of one of the IGN videos.
• The dandelions in Bat's Tower are replaced with grass, unlike the final.
• The music when Conker is running across a bridge away from the bullfish is absent.
• The war chapter seems to have a different, lighter, skybox.
• The Camera is in the water looking at Conker whenever he swims in Pre E3.
• Windy seems to look very different. Poo mountain is untextured, and the trees behind the beehive have a very different texture.
• The skybox appears dark-blue color in "The Assault", though that may be a result of how the video was recorded.
• The nasty and nice sign is missing. In its place are some flowers from Twelve Tales, not seen in the final version of Windy.
• Some textboxes are written differently:
  • The special censorship characters are missing, so swears are instead written with dashes covering them up (for example, "F--k" instead of "⭐️💀⚡️🌀")
  • The Big Big Guy says his balls of brass were polished to the eighth degree, instead of the Nth.

E3 Promo Trailer

The game was first shown off at E3 2000, with numerous differences compared to the final game.

• There's a title screen present. This is intact in the ECTS build, but it requires hacking in order to access it.
• The menu is much less complete and only a few events can be selected.
• The chocolate health bar is at a different angle.
• The gray squirrel at 4:38 has the unused walkie-talkie model.
• Conker has a completely different eye expression when he says "Move it out"
• The Soldier Squirrel's dead body is in a different position, and it disappears when the cutscene is over.
• The pause menu is somewhat incomplete. The numbers and options are notably in a temp state.
• A context-sensitive spot is near the "It's War" entrance with an SCH soldier standing on it.

Promo Trailer

A promo trailer created by Rare, seemingly earlier than the E3 build mentioned above.

• The sound quality is noticeably cleaner on many of the voice clips.
• Windy & Barn Boys skybox are different.
• The insides of the barn has completely different textures and has a different lever.
• Blast Doors has different textures, The 'open' Wheel isn't spinning unlike later builds
• Bat's Tower has some different textures and a skybox set at night.
• Tanks multiplayer has no map and is using a weapon icon for the baseball bats you get by default in Heist.
• The cutscene of the beehive machine guns shooting the wasps is a bit different as there're no eyes viewing from the beehive.
• Poo mountain textures isn't animated and it has different textures.
• The front of the Poo Cabin barrel isn't textured.
• The entrance to "It's War" is just a scope instead of the military theme entry seen in the later builds.
• The coliseum's skybox in "Raptor Food" is just pure blue (instead of re-using the Windy skybox in the ECTS build).
• It's raining in the beginning of the intro cutscene and The skybox is a pure dark-green color in "The Assault".
• A unused worm bird egg enemy is where the air pockets would normally be in "Clang's Lair".
• Gregg's dialogue bubble is white and the columns are missing the Skull Candles.
• All three Wasps are using the same model instead of unique models seen in later builds.
• A brief moment of an unused cutscene where one of the fire imps eats a burnt Rat(?) and grows big.

Nintendo E3 2000 Press Kit Screenshots

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Early Game Map

To do: More early sketches of maps that Chris Seavor posted on his Twitter.

Concept art of the game's map was posted on Twitter by Chris Seavor. It shows a vastly different overworld than in the final game.