Conker's Bad Fur Day

About This Game

Gameplay

Conker's Bad Fur Day is a platform game, its later sections featuring elements of shooters. The player controls Conker the Squirrel through a series of three-dimensional levels. The game features an overworld where players can transition from one level to another, although many are initially blocked off until Conker earns a certain amount of cash. Each level is an enclosed area in which the player can freely explore to find tasks to do. The gameplay mostly relies on figuring out a way to help other characters by completing a linear sequence of challenges. These challenges may include defeating a boss, solving puzzles, gathering objects, and racing opponents, among others. The result is always a cash reward, which aids access to other areas in the overworld. As compared to the player characters in Rare's previous platform games Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64, Conker's abilities are simpler. The player can run, jump, and smack enemies with a frying pan. Conker can also swim underwater for a limited period of time, climb ladders or ropes, and push objects. To regain lost health, Conker can eat pieces of "anti-gravity" chocolate that are scattered throughout the levels.

History

Following the success of Nintendo's Super Mario 64 (1996), a "barn" at Rare began conceiving and designing a similar unnamed "generic 3D platform adventure" during development of Killer Instinct Gold (1996). Tim Stamper had planned the game to star a cute squirrel mascot named Conker from the get-go, in order to have the widest possible appeal. The staff of Project Dream saw the yet-to-be-named platform game during the creation of its engine, and was inspired to change Dream from an RPG to a platforming game in the visual and gameplay style of the Killer Instinct team's project.