![]() One of the first things I remember doing was designing the car vehicle. We all got on extremely well, and it was a fun place to be. Soon, Richard Gale, Rob Harrison, Martin Penny, John Pegg, Paul Mountain, David Wise, Keith Rabette, Dean Smith, Johnni Christensen and more amazing devs joined what was originally a team of two or three people to form a great family who all had a similar interest in racing games. I was appointed as the new character developer, and there were the two 'Lees' - Lee Schuneman on design and artist Lee Musgrave, who had previously been working on character designs. Then there was a bit of a re-shuffle, and Chris went on to take on an overseeing role of the various games at the company, rather than work on one directly. I’ll always remember that, and I was touched by the compliment – so I was really happy when I moved over to the team shortly afterwards. I was a bit annoyed by this, as I loved racing games – but to be fair, he had just seen my picture of ‘Astro Mouse’ flipping the bird, and I remember him saying, "I hate that mouse!" The mouse that offended Chris Stamper - Image: Kev Bayliss / RareĪnyway, Tim eventually convinced Chris to have me on the team, and actually told me that he had said to his brother, ‘I would be banging on the door to get Kev involved in developing the racing game characters’. However, Chris was reluctant to have me on the team because I’d only recently created "Nasty" (his words, not mine) characters in Killer Instinct 1 and 2, and he wanted the racing game to be ultra-cute, not ultra-violent. After discussing with Tim Stamper which project I should now work on, he thought I should get involved in this new racing project. It was all very secretive, and Chris wanted to keep it under wraps. Meanwhile, Rare co-founder Chris Stamper had started putting together a small team to create a racing-themed adventure game over on the top floor of one of the newly-converted barns at Rare's Manor Farm HQ. The converted 'Dutch barn' at the top of the photo is where Bayliss and the rest of the team were based - Image: Time Extension Rare' Manor Farm HQ, where Diddy Kong Racing was created. However, as things began to change in development, Chris was earmarked for another project, so I was at a bit of a loose end. I then created a ‘Mouse’ character wearing a space suit and rendered a few shots of him I nicknamed him ‘Astro Mouse’, and I had high hopes for him being the main character and the Tiger cub being his sidekick. The character was a Tiger cub who walked around on all fours, and we had some tests of him climbing around on a level. Shortly after completing work on Killer Instinct II, I started creating a character for a platform game on the N64 with Chris Tilston, the lead designer for the Killer Instinct series. It might surprise you to learn that I hold such affection for Diddy Kong Racing, given that I'm the person who designed the Battletoads and Fulgore from Killer Instinct! But it's true, and it all started a little something like this. Today marks the 25th birthday of Diddy Kong Racing, another of Bayliss' titles, so now is the perfect time for him to recount the development of the N64 classic that gave Mario Kart a run for its money. Kev Bayliss is famous for working on Rare titles like Battletoads and Killer Instinct and is currently working at Playtonic Games, home of Yooka-Laylee and friends. You can check out our other republished content here. ![]() As part of our end-of-year celebrations, we're digging into the archives to pick out some of the best Time Extension content from the past year.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |