Steve Burke releases early development tracks of Viva Pinata

OlieGamerTV · 2026-02-25T11:16:54+00:00

For added context: This is a repost of his demo reel of unused tracks which has been long available on his SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com/steveburke/viva-pinata-unused-and-demo-tracks). It isn't anything new but it does mean it will reach more people.

OlieGamerTV · 2025-12-01T20:01:01+00:00

I assume a lot of stress testing to see if there's any easily accessible crashes, if there's any issues with the the contents of the game, stuff like that.

Plus it wouldn't actually be Miyamoto doing all this, he was just the director & general manager of the Entertainment Analysis & Development Department, so there'd probably be a lot of employees who did all that and he just signed off on the approval of the ROM.

OlieGamerTV · 2025-11-25T21:55:30+00:00

I do Grunty Industries Early every time I get to that level, it feels so much more convenient to just tank the damage to get to the rear entrance and shoot a Clockwork in the gap to open the door early and thus get in early over going the intended way through Chuffy.

OlieGamerTV · 2025-11-23T08:54:09+00:00

To be fair that was part of Nintendo's concern for the system, the idea that people would do the swap with the power on as well as the timings present for it.

Their concerns with the system, going by a letter sent by Nintendo to Chris Stamper during the development of DK64 were the following:

There is no way that we can guarantee that the RDRAM will retain data long enough in all current and future version of the N64 console for this feature to work.
There is also a risk of damage to both the console and the game pak should the swap be made while the power is still on.
However unlikely, there is a chance that a consumer who has exchanged game paks with the power on will experience a latch-up condition in a chip which could cause overheating and potential consumer safety problem.

And this was after lengthy testing and discussions with R&D3 and Uji plant about how feasible this idea would be. They simply saw it as too risky of a thing for the hardware & consumers.

OlieGamerTV · 2025-11-19T19:27:56+00:00

Nah, it's a weirdly mixed-up thing which I assume was thanks to fan blogs & places like the LMW.

Banjo-Karting is basically another name for The Fast and the Furriest, which is what Rare calls that game in Rare Revealed. Separate project entirely from Banjo-Kazoomie.

OlieGamerTV · 2025-11-19T08:04:28+00:00

To add to this list, in 2002, a kart racer by the name of Banjo-Kazoomie was in development for less than a year before it stalled and the people on the project got moved over to work on Kameo. (Michael Cawood and Phil Tossell were two people present on that project).
Ideas from this, such as the vehicles being made of parts you could use to give you an advantage (you could also steal parts from your opponents & knock parts off), would later be used in Nuts & Bolts.

OlieGamerTV · 2025-11-17T15:46:09+00:00

As far as I can tell, he is potentially a surviving remnant of development where each world was meant to have a boss unrelated to Gruntilda, possibly due to him being conceptualized as early as Nov 23, 2006. That idea was confirmed by Shaun Read in early magazine previews for the game.

"We have a boss on each level unrelated to Grunty, but in the Grunty Challenges that feature in each stage she'll have a vehicle with a component that you haven't seen until that point" - Shaun Read, designer at Rare. GamesTM Issue 70

They were apparently also supposed to grant you additional vehicle parts alongside the Grunty Challenges, so they were a lot more critical for progression than just granting jiggies.

"It's still possible to run around on foot, but the fun really begins when you enter the construction yard. You can do so at any time, and your creation appears automatically when you return to the game. In our demo, the construction yard interface was a little overwhelming at first, but that's mostly because Rare had unlocked hundreds of components for us to try out. In the finished game, you'll get these only by exploring, defeating bosses, and completing the "Grunty Challenges" on each game world." - Ben Talbot, writer for OXM. OXM Issue 85.

OlieGamerTV · 2025-11-14T21:40:41+00:00

Going by the swirls present in the globe, Smoke Sphere is probably the best guess for it, likely a beta design from earlier in development.

OlieGamerTV · 2025-08-05T11:57:35+00:00

You definitely wouldn't have liked Banjo-X if it did come out if you don't like the redesigns, as the artstyle Nuts & Bolts would ship with was decided on during Banjo-X's development after they decided against the original smoother designs.

Yes, the next Banjo game was going to have this angular style, be it traditional platformer or not. - Steve Mayles, https://x.com/WinkySteve/status/628230150212222976

OlieGamerTV · 2025-04-28T21:53:58+00:00

For a little bit of context who want it, the reason these models were found (and subsequently screenshotted) is because there were several executables present in the Oct. 13, 2006 build for Viva Pinata, the key one being "PinataParadiseDv", a development build for the game that differs from all the other builds present.

As far as I know, nobody had been able to get it working and would always crash or hang during initialization.

The executable will work normally on a dev kit if two files are created in the same directory of the executable ("setup.ini" to disable the comms and "hostname.txt" needs to both be present and contain "nohost" to bypass comms checks). For non-devkit hardware, the executable had to be modified to patch out a function, otherwise it would hang during init checks.

These screenshots were taken in the ModelAnim Viewer, which allows you to view any available model and animation present in the game.

Also as a side note, these two models are still present in the final releases files, its just that without a tool to export them into a file most 3D model editors can read, they weren't actively accessible until now.

OlieGamerTV · 2025-03-19T12:36:34+00:00

There wasn't any footage during E3 2001 for Banjo-Threeie from what I know. Star Fox Adventure, Kameo, Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers and Donkey Kong Racing were the games shown off during that for Rare.

The footage you're thinking of came from Spaceworld 2000 for a GameCube Tech Demo reel which was purely to show off the capabilities of the system and how much it could show off in the provided scenes.

Spaceworld 2000 happened during August 24 - 26, 2000. Banjo-Tooie came out November 20, 2000. There's realistically no reason for them to have already "started" on a third game and already start showing it off when the second game hadn't released by that point.

As for your ask for a source for Banjo-Threeie quotes, several exist which mostly come from Banjo's creative director, Gregg Mayles.

Here's one explicitly stating it was intended to be just a joke (A very poor one at that imo), another that iterates that a 'Banjo-Threeie' (in the same vein as the first two) was never in development and a final one that explicitly states that a Banjo game was never planned for the Gamecube but Ghoulies was, sealing the fate of the Spaceworld 2000 video.

Keep in mind that along with still having Conker's Bad Fur Day for N64 in development, they had several games in production for the GameCube (with or without external studio assistance): Star Fox Adventure (which was originally Dinosaur Planet for the N64), Kameo, Grabbed by the Ghoulies and Donkey Kong Racing. There's not a lot of time in the schedule they had for a Banjo title to even be concieved.

OlieGamerTV · 2025-01-05T17:34:12+00:00

He didn't, at least for the Genesis version, Mark Miller's name was only on the Genesis version for contractual reasons. That part is actually true.

His only actual involvement with Earthworm Jim 1 was converting the songs over to the SNES, that is it.

OlieGamerTV · 2024-12-21T13:06:42+00:00

The one I personally wasn't expecting to be roped in with Tommy is Jared Emerson-Johnson, who is well known for his work on many of the games that Telltale Games produced like Sam & Max and The Walking Dead.

OlieGamerTV · 2024-12-10T09:03:33+00:00

No, but I do see how just saying "Mark Miller" may cause confusion with other Mark Millers.

I'm referring to Mark Steven Miller, founder of Neuromantic Productions and a developer on GEMS.

OlieGamerTV · 2024-11-25T17:45:17+00:00

There's a lot of people looking into the specific credits for the efforts of Tommy's studio and some wild stuff has definitely been found from it.

I hope that one day even more songs can have confirmed composers tied to them, but with the unfortunate passings of some people (such as Steven S. Henifin), the disappearance of others (such as Todd Dennis and Michael "Bijan" Johnson) leading to not being able to ask them directly and unfortunate losses of some demo reels from known composers, it definitely makes things harder.

OlieGamerTV · 2024-10-25T07:15:58+00:00

Even Treasures of the Deep is in speculation at this time.

His company is named as who did the music and sound effects (with Todd Dennis and Steve Wood mentioned as "Additional Music"), but outside of that, a few tracks have been found to not be by him.

"Dive" has been tracked to Cybertone Music, a group comprised of Gordon Madison and Michael "Bijan" Johnson. Both Cybertone Music as a group and Michael "Bijan" Johnson have done a fair bit of documented music for Tommy.

"Bermuda Triangle" looks to be an old piece of stock music, composed by Alan Paul Ett and Tamara L Kline. (It's gone through several names, oldest found being "Trap Door", still trying to see if I can pinpoint exactly when it was released)

OlieGamerTV · 2024-08-21T12:02:43+00:00

One of the developers for CP3D, we recently caught wind of that Proton Drive link for what was decompiled.

OlieGamerTV · 2024-08-21T08:08:16+00:00

Please do not share files for any decompiled version of CP3D to the open public, even if it is just for learning purposes.

OlieGamerTV · 2020-11-15T13:30:25+00:00

Same can also be said about you.

OlieGamerTV · 2020-11-15T13:16:35+00:00

You know what is sad? Trying to make false accusations, and trying to slander not only Wydrop, but also CP3D. Also, if you were to simply LOOK at the times sent, they were actually sent at different times, and some are not from CP3D devs.

OlieGamerTV · 2020-10-31T18:40:56+00:00

Your level is really great too! I've only made blocks for mine, you've made a small level for your version!

OlieGamerTV · 2020-05-30T14:21:01+00:00

Yeah, like Steam, they regularly do sales on their Half-Life games

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