I worked as a tester for Nintendo right before the Wii launch I can confirm this is how they still did it around 2005-2006. A tester had a VCR hooked to the console recording at all times, if they wanted to transfer something they would record it to a second tape. Handheld consoles like the Nintendo DS required special setups so you would play until you found something, then use the recording unit to do what you needed to, take your tape and fill out your bug report. Reports were generally steps on exactly how to reproduce the issue. During my era the VHS tapes were digitized and attached to the bug, then everything was translated into japanese and sent to the developers at Nintendo of Japan in most cases.
I tested in three departments while at Nintendo between 1999 and 2003. We used the same tapes over and over again, but we also erased them regularly using an electromagnet to keep image quality decent and data secure. I hated using them, but tapes were the best way to document errors at the time. I'm kinda surprised any of them made their way out of the building.
@@dislikebutton1799 I was part of the Lotcheck team when that department was being relocated to a more secure part of the campus, which was being used as a storage space. They threw all sorts of stuff out, including resin casts of a couple consoles created for prototype modeling - I wish I got those. What I did get was a single-cart Neo-Geo arcade board, and a boom-style mic stand that I still use today.
@silvervine16 I was a contract-based tester through a few agencies while working at Nintendo, yes. Started off on DK64, Jet Force Gemini and Majora's Mask, Later on was Kirby Tilt 'n Tumble, Mario Sunshine, GBA Mario remakes, Wario Land 4 and several others... Later I moved to Lotcheck, where I tested almost all games submitted for publication on Nintendo systems.
I itemised every single glitch, because I am lame... correct me in comments. 1:36 - GoldenEye 007 (N64) - Spam watch menu left/right to crash the game 1:47 - GoldenEye 007 (N64) - Load too many enemies/objects to crash the game 2:09 - GoldenEye 007 (N64) - Load too many shots / shrapnel / sounds(?) to crash the game 2:28 - Blast Corps (N64) - Destroy target building whilst sliding and the mission end screen doesn't show 3:17 - Blast Corps (N64) - Bounce on top of the stationary loader doesn't end the level, do repeatedly to crash the game (I think the tester will be holding down some buttons, or something) 3:47 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - Walrus Cove, Car - Enemy AI goes crazy whilst trying to avoid you facing the wrong way 4:07 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - Quicksand fall geometry clip out of bounds to crash the game 4:21 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - Credits crash! 4:30 - Killer Instinct Gold (N64) - Jago soft-lock if killed mid-air 4:57 - Donkey Kong Land (Game Boy) - Soft-lock if hit whilst hanging 5:06 - James Bond 007 (Game Boy) - General Golgov game crash 5:27 - James Bond 007 (Game Boy) - Wrong room loaded after item collection(?), soft lock 5:39 - James Bond 007 (Game Boy) - Corruption when entering and exiting Odd Job lair 5:46 - Killer Instinct Gold (N64) - Jago crash when going invisible and dying simultaneously 5:56 - Killer Instinct Gold (N64) - Another Jago crash when going invisible and dying simultaneously 6:07 - Donkey Kong Land (Game Boy) - Double-unloading-tile corruption when collecting K O N G letter whilst defeating an enemy 6:18 - James Bond 007 (Game Boy) - Corruption when entering and exiting Save Game menu 6:28 - Killer Instinct Gold (N64) - Wrong Z-buffering indeces set on the chimney in Killer Wu stage 6:42 - GoldenEye 007 (N64) - Looks like the Frigate level unload behind you, if you shoot the wall (and I guess create more objects in memory?) It doesn't load back in if you don't turn to face it. 7:00 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Unjoined geometry in mountain in Rocket Belt Class B 1, allows clipping out of bounds 7:35 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Poor collision mesh applied to Mount Mariomore in Rocket Belt Class A 1, allows clipping out of bounds 8:34 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - Sent out of bounds if attacked with bubble 8:43 - Blast Corps (N64) - Resetting game after finishing level, without returning to the menu, loses progress (don't know if it's the same video, but after the second attempt at finished the level the game goes crazy??) 10:18 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Erasing File B erases both files (lol how did they miss this!) 10:43 - Donkey Kong Land (Game Boy) - Simultaneously dying and collecting a gold token duplicates the item 11:16 - Blast Corps (N64) - Incomplete video, probably crash on foot whilst trying to do something 11:29 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Alcohol reference in First Party game 11:39 - James Bond 007 (Game Boy) - Incomplete video, probably corrupted text when interacting with someone whilst too many objects on screen 12:02 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - MANY BUGS: empty photo score when crashing on target pad with no photos taken; landing impact 20/10; ring score 30/20; landing accuracy 1 33/30 12:40 - James Bond 007 (Game Boy) - Looks like the game can't figure out whether the dealer has 21 or 30 (ace can be 1 or 10) and crashes 12:57 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - Sound goes silent, player 1 loses control, and other weird bugs if hit when "final lap" sound plays (?) 13:22 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Horrendous fog particle effect lag (this was never fixed actually) 13:44 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Horrendous waterfall effect lag 13:56 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Ring can be collected during failure sequence, other weird effects 14:11 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Soft lock if game paused when destroying Meca Hawk 15:26 - PilotWings 64 (N64) - Geometry clip through empty building; receives penalty for trying to get out through the roof 15:45 - PilotWings 64 (N64) - No fuel is lost when hovering (incomplete video again?) 16:00 - PilotWings 64 (N64) - Probably losing all pilot control after hitting the ground 16:28 - Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (N64) - AI launches to end of stage on contact(??) 16:50 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - Poor balloon spawning in overworld after talking to Taj 17:06 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - Opening TT status window whilst exiting status window leaves the overlay on top of other character dialogue 17:31 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - AI drives miles off the course. See mini-map. 18:00 - Blast Corps (N64) - Incomplete out of bounds clip, soft lock 19:12 - Killer Instinct Gold (N64) - TJ-Combo can't be low-hit when holding Cyclone 19:40 - James Bond 007 (Game Boy) - Iqbal stun lock 19:55 - Super Smash Bros. Melee (GC) - Character selection defaults to Dr. Mario, and scrolling far left or right on the selection screen reveals the hidden character. Also lol at early pronounciation of "Fox". 20:52 - Pikmin (GC) - Get ejected out of bounds by landing on top of giant tokens 21:54 - Mario Kart Super Circuit (GBA) - Corrupted ghost characters when trading between English and Japanese game copies 23:08 - NBA Courtside 2002 (GC) - "Scrolling gears" sound effect is never stopped when changing menu options, and overlaps infinitely 23:53 - SSBM (GC) - Camera goes mental when transforming between Zelda and Sheik 24:08 - MKSC (GBA) - Bad track checkpoint placement, can skip (also that's a new WR!) 24:49 - NBA Courtside 2002 (GC) - Player can continue running out of bounds when activated off the ball
the one at 12:40 i think is just an issue of not counting the cards correctly, it's blackjack (not poker) and the player loses even though they have 20 vs the dealer's 19. I imagine the ace is causing the problem since it can be either 1 or 11 also the SSBM one at 19:55 doesn't have anything to do with hidden characters i think, it's just that pressing A on an invalid area causes the last selected character to pop up for a split second. I'm also pretty sure the pronunciation of fox is exactly the same as the final game, they just haven't added the audio effects yet (same when he says melee too)
@@DOOMWADWorld The 19:55 I think it is. It's not only the fact that it will highlight the last character selected, but it's because it's revealing hidden characters also! Dr Mario is not in the starting roster...
@@DOOMWADWorld 12:40 I totally didn't notice it said BLACK JACK in massive text haha, oops. Yeah it's probably going in an infinite loop trying to figure out whether Ace is a 1 or a 10.
Some of those look like they might be horrible to debug or even reproduce with just the tape as a reference. I can feel the pain of the programmers who had to fix these.
@@Devieus Yeah, I doubt it was JUST the tape. The tape was probably supplemental to the notes the bug testers were taking, so the devs could see what they were talking about if they were too vague or if their notes didn't adequately describe what the devs needed to fix the issues
Chances are that, while they were recording, they also had some debugging tools going. When something went wrong, they'd mark down the time on the VCR when it crashed, and what was going on in the debugger.
You had to write repro steps in the bug database. You were graded on your ability to document the bug. The tape was just a visual proof that it happened and was digitized to send to the devs. When it got really hairy we'd sometimes repro on a debugger kit to capture stack & memory dumps.
Jesus Christ is the only hope in this world no other gods will lead you to heaven There is no security or hope with out Jesus Christ in this world come and repent of all sins today Today is the day of salvation come to the loving savior Today repent and do not go to hell Come to Jesus Christ today Jesus Christ is only way to heaven Repent and follow him today seek his heart Jesus Christ can fill the emptiness he can fill the void Heaven and hell is real cone to the loving savior today Today is the day of salvation tomorrow might be to late come to the loving savior today Holy Spirit Can give you peace guidance and purpose and the Lord will John 3:16-21 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. Mark 1.15 15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Hebrews 11:6 6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Jesus
This watches like a tape of some group of early speedrunners in the late 90s sharing glitches and other strats they found before they could be circulated online
23:35. interestingly, the icons of the GameCube controller appears to match up with that one early pre-Spaceworld design, with the start button being on the D-pad's spot
I currently work in QA and found myself nodding my head along to the majority of these. It's really interesting how the types of issues you'd see in a game, and how they are found/achieved, really has not changed over time. For example take the Diddy Kong Racing issue at 17:10: The player re-opens TT's UI after selecting to close it during the quit out, as the quit out will then close it automatically per code; then once the UI is called again when talking with Tah, both TT's and Taj's UI elements overlap as the data from TT's UI is still 'open' somewhere in data. Absolute classic.
I appreciate that you give the quick intro then let the footage do the talking for itself. No obnoxious bullshit, skits, or commentary between clips. No forced "reaction" shots. Nothing but what the title says there is and what I came here for.
It's so interesting to see games from my childhood just bricking themselves so unexpectedly. I miss the games industry having to push out completed titles, tested and all
Feel the same way. When I was a kid the games that I played on the N64 felt so perfect and good to play. Nowadays there are some games that are straight up trash.
@@kaihedgie1747 Yeah, and some games on N64 were re-issued due to some nasty bug still present and had another round of revised copies produced. Turok: Rage Wars and Perfect Dark comes to mind, just to mention a few obvious examples. Even SNES games like Shadowrun and Secret of Mana had some pretty severe oversights in their original retail releases.
Game list: TAPE ONE 1:37 - GoldenEye 007 (N64) 2:29 - Blast Corps (N64) 3:49 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) 4:31 - Killer Instinct Gold (N64) 4:59 - Donkey Kong Land 3 (GB) [all GB games played via Super Game Boy] 5:06 - James Bond 007 (GB) 5:48 - Killer Instinct Gold 6:08 - Donkey Kong Land 3 6:19 - James Bond 007 6:31 - Killer Instinct Gold 6:43 - GoldenEye 007 7:03 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) 8:36 - Diddy Kong Racing 8:45 - Blast Corps 10:20 - Pilotwings 64 [this indicates that most if not all of this game's bits are from the Japanese version] 10:46 - Donkey Kong Land 3 11:18 - Blast Corps 11:31 - Pilotwings 64 11:41 - James Bond 007 12:03 - Pilotwings 64 12:43 - James Bond 007 [this casino's rigged, I'm outta here] 12:59 - Diddy Kong Racing 13:24 - Pilotwings 64 16:30 - Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (N64) [rubberband AI: you're doing it wrong] [loved this game, though I found the sewer boss irritating and could never beat the palace boss] 16:52 - Diddy Kong Racing [apparently, Taj's text in the first clip isn't used in the released game] 18:01 - Blast Corps 19:13 - Killer Instinct Gold 19:41 - James Bond 007 TAPE TWO 19:57 - Super Smash Bros. Melee (GCN) [Zelda's character select pose, briefly seen in the first clip, isn't used in the released game] 20:53 - Pikmin (GCN) 21:56 - Mario Kart: Super Circuit (GBA) 23:10 - NBA Courtside 2002 (GCN) 23:55 - Super Smash Bros. Melee 24:09 - Mario Kart: Super Circuit [apparently, the course music is using different instruments than in the released game] 24:50 - NBA Courtside 2002
That's such a huge oversight that I'm surprised it even made it that far in testing, let alone staying in a shipping build! I'm guessing Super Circuit didn't have checkpoints, and instead it internally reduces your lap counter by 1 every time you drive over the finish line backwards? Works fine if there are walls on both sides of the finish line, but even then, all it takes is someone figuring out how to fly or drive through walls...
This is how the Pilotwings glitch in 8:05 was solved: if you touch anything that isnt floor with any part of your body that aren't your feet its an instant failure and you must restart the stage. Its really interesting how i played those games a lot and never saw anything like this, even those who we all know at the time how a glitch was about to happen at every corner. Goldeneye and Killer Instinct Gold are the true surprise here.
I believe they may have had some kind of dual-VCR dubbing type setup where long stretches of gameplay were captured on one, and then the relevant portions were recorded onto a secondary tape for submission to whoever it needed to go to. The training tape you have there labeled “master” is pretty interesting, particularly if it was meant to be distributed to many bug testers.
Super cool thing I picked up on: Zelda had a totally different character select portrait in the build of Melee shown here! She's bent over and pointing instead of looking off to the side as she does in the final game.
I just realized that a lot of this footage would be transferred from another VHS machine, causing even more quality loss So the way I think a lot of this footage is recorded, involves 2 VHS machines, where one machine records continuously to catch spontaneous errors or crashes, and the other machine is used to cherry pick clips from the first machine or for easily reproducible errors
I applied as a Game Tester at Nintendo Germany in '99 or 2000 and was invited to the then German HQs of Nintendo in Großostheim (transl.: great east home), which is not really great, but rather rural, provincial and ugly. And the working environment for the testers was a super slim but deep room without windows (iirc) . It was a disillusioning experience. After the first meeting I got a second invitation but I kindly refused because I didn't want to move to this place and work in that room. The town was horrible as was the office for the testers. But yeah, I am pretty sure these are real deal tapes because the whole point of game testing was finding and documenting bugs and issues.
24:10 who would've thought that the Frappe Snowland checkpoint glitch was a problem in Super Circuit too Doesn't seem like Intelligent Systems managed to completely iron it out though seeing how Flap times usually go
This part of gaming archeology is my absolute favorite. It's like how archeologists love going through ancient 'trash' because it's just perfectly raw. It's just so natural and exciting, you really feel the day in a life, you know there's paperwork, a ticket, this was forwarded on to a programmer to try and resolve before launch and a full severity chart, etc. I'm also super curious if those bug reports were people in japan working to resolve bugs OR if this was an American testing team submitting bugs after translation. (After all many times the English version fixes a lot of bugs found by players). Is the training video from "The Super Mario Club" What was their process, etc. If the first one is a training video I wonder if that was from Japan/HQ whereas the second tape was American testers. Do we have any context for where these tapes were suspected to come from? Also If I ever learn Time Travel I'd love to apply for a job like this to blend in (I'd know enough glitches in early Pokemon, that I could prove my chops)
One of my favorite parts of the big Nintendo leaks from a few years back was going through all the developer documentation. Pokemon Gold and Silver, for example, had their bug reports saved on a massive Excel spreadsheet. I didn't translate the whole thing because it had around a thousand entries if I recall correctly. One I remember was how multiple testers reported encountering a glitched Pokemon that would crash the game, but the devs couldn't replicate it until eventually they figured out that it was an issue with the roaming legendaries. I think one of the testers described it as frightening, which I found pretty amusing that they included that detail in the bug report. I'll have to go back and look at it, there was some funny and interesting stuff in there.
@@CommanderWiggins Agreed. Seeing stuff like that was wildly interesting to me. I do worry about all the employee information that was also leaked in the Gigaleak event. It was a double edged sword to say the least.
This is awesome! Thank you for preserving these, and I hope you consider uploading the uncompressed copies to the Internet Archive! You guys do so much for preservation.
@@videostash413 Seriously? These debugging videos show the numerous pain points of many classic game in the form of late-in-development bugs that almost nobody outside of Nintendo has ever seen. This video is an incredibly candid and revealing peak behind the curtains.
@@videostash413 fine.. if THEY can’t deliver a “proper” topic (which they can). How about YOU make one, do all the editing, research, find a topic, upload it. Cmon, I’ll wait
I worked in the video games industry from 2006 to 2009, so I know how painful can beta-testing be... You have to play the same parts again and again, while constantly taking notes to be able to explain exactly what you did before the bug happened.
There's something really haunting about these tapes. The lack of commentary and the game basically going "uh oh, that wasn't supposed to happen" reminds me of the vibes of many analog horror videos.
I think for me it's early 3d graphics being kinda janky to start with. I grew up on n64 but when I revisit it I tend feel a little unnerved. Seeing the games break just adds to the weirdness.
Really hope more tapes like these leak out for all to see. Its so fascinating to see games breaking at seemingly innocent actions like pausing the game glitches it out when backing out of the pause menu. Games breaking because there's too many NPC's on screen or the audio just becoming choppy and sounding like you're trying to emulate the game on hardware that's not powerful enough.
What I find fascinating is just the genuine work on these tapes. Seeing frame drops in VHS footage is... not that I usually associate the vintage look with... When I think video games and VHS, I imagine carefully staged commercials or infomercials that only show the games in a positive light. It's easy to forget how much debugging goes on before a game becomes presentable, let alone marketable...
@@CrAzYpotpie I'd say it's reassuring that the games can still be good even if they have bugs holding them back. Mario 64 is a good example, massive optimization oversights and lack of knowledge of the hardware caused from inexperience at making 3d games for N64 from the industry as a whole meant that it was leaving several times the performance on the table which could've gone into making a lot more content but they still managed to make iconic levels and mechanics that keep people playing to this day and set the standard for 3d platformers as a whole. I think it turns out that many of the best games tend to be riddled with "mistakes," because if you're doing something ambitious; trying new things, then you're still learning the bounds of what's possible and that will make errors and take time away from correcting them, but you can still polish the experience for the majority of players even if you can't cure it of all problems with the time you have.
I wish you timestamp the different games so both we could go to the games you want to see glitches for and also so we can tell what games are being played
This is fascinating af I never even considered this being a thing that existed. It's so funny and odd seeing them officially break the games the we try to now for experimenting. I was half jokingly thinking what if we see insane beta content from this and then oh you know... Just the motherfucking dam island with a boat taken to it. That is absolutely fucking insane. I never thought I'd see that ever.
Awesome video! One funny things is I'm pretty sure a variation of the shortcut bug in Mario Kart Super Circuit still exists in the final release for Shy Guy Beach.
I like the one in Melee where the last selected fighter is shown when the player makes a certain input, but having a freshly initialized "last selection" value (zero?) defaults to Dr. Mario, who would be at the top-left of the roster, but is not yet unlocked.
some dkr specific stuff different from the final version 3:52 the Print Coords magic code is enabled, which is not possible in the final game, due to the absence of numbers 4:07 bigger icon for powerups 16:52 this style of textbox isn't in the final game, nor is the text 16:58 bit hard to tell from the blurriness of the footage, but the minimap of the hub world might be the beta one, when it was bigger (pipsy's position on the minimap points to it being the beta minimap after comparing footage of this and the german promo tape) 17:23 not a difference between this and the final (besides the glitch), but there is a discrepancy between this footage and the previous clip - the previous clip had an torn page-style textbox never before seen and (maybe?) had the older beta hub world - the clip on this timestamp has the minimap and the style of textbox used in the final game one thing that was consistent with every dkr clip shown here was the bananas replacing the gold rare coins, which means that the footage of these builds was taken after the german promo
I managed to notice ONE difference in the games shown. In smash melee character selection Ice Climbers had a dash between there name but this is removed in the final game.
I would recommend using an SVHS deck for playback and the Magnavox MWR10D6 for DVD recording, then rip that. Hopefully you can find a PAL VCR for that 3rd tape. I recommend using a GoDVD magic box to convert to NTSC and then record that.
Not too much mindblowing beta content in these tapes, but it's interesting nonetheless. I did notice one little interesting tidbit being Zelda has a different character portrait in Melee 20:44
Now I'd like to see dedicated fans try to recreate these bugs and see if they got fixed 😂 Great find and video tho, can't wait to see the Majoras Mask footage!
Brings back some memories of when I was back in there testing over summers in college. Learned a lot of valuable skills the made me a stronger developer later.
I'm wondering how they did stuff like this did they have a VHS constantly recording until they ran into a bug and then they dubbed it over to a second tape so that they can have just the section they wanted to show? It's not like nowadays where our consoles are constantly recording and we can just say hey capture that last 30 seconds
Thank you for archiving all this online! It is interesting to see inside ot the development of certain games, especially back then when it was much more scarse.
@Hard4Games: the last one about Mario kart superciruit, they know about the lap skip glitch, but they did not properly fix it, so on the track shown, they fix it on the inside, but the forgot to fix it on the outside because the lap skip still work on the finial release of the game, just by doing it on the outside of the track, instead of the inside, some other track it work both dirrection, for lap skip.
It's an expensive and decently complicated setup, but look into a Domesday Duplicator!!! Would be awesome to have your LDs and VHS preserved as 1:1 copies, bypassing all these awful HDMI upscalers and allowing you to do full TBC emulation in the digital realm.
Never done bug testing for Nintendo but I have done it for a few games in the past some very big games that required NDAs to he signed, one of the biggest games I tested required me to get a vga capture card and a second pc to use ot and record. We had to record all game play, make notes about if x was fun, felt balanced, too short, too long, try break things etc. The card was supplied by the company that I subcontracted through, had to be sent back after, but pc I had to buy myself, they did supply video editing software, extra hard drives including a hot swap bay (if it was a short clip we could upload it, but if it was long or lots of then we would send them the hard drives in after making a backup. Was a great experience id tested a few smaller games before then, and later that game became huge af. One of the worst parts about testing especially in the alpha stages of some large games wad the NDA, I am sure I could contest a few of them especially the perpetual ones that never expire, and of course the security around some of them, a couple required regular and random security checks, making sure you weren't emailing anyone, not recording on another device etc.
22:01-23:01 it’s actually nice just to see debugging to test something actually worked ha! This proves that sometimes they do give feedback with passes
@@jozewsqwe435 LMAO okay, while I was writing that comment I literally thought "hm, I betcha someone is going to tell me that it's still in the final game" 😂
I'd love for someone to try and hack the games shown here to try and determine what fixes they implemented, and removing them to replicate the crashes and other glitches shown in these tapes!
I worked as a tester for Nintendo right before the Wii launch I can confirm this is how they still did it around 2005-2006. A tester had a VCR hooked to the console recording at all times, if they wanted to transfer something they would record it to a second tape. Handheld consoles like the Nintendo DS required special setups so you would play until you found something, then use the recording unit to do what you needed to, take your tape and fill out your bug report. Reports were generally steps on exactly how to reproduce the issue. During my era the VHS tapes were digitized and attached to the bug, then everything was translated into japanese and sent to the developers at Nintendo of Japan in most cases.
I tested in three departments while at Nintendo between 1999 and 2003. We used the same tapes over and over again, but we also erased them regularly using an electromagnet to keep image quality decent and data secure. I hated using them, but tapes were the best way to document errors at the time. I'm kinda surprised any of them made their way out of the building.
Thank you for doing all the testing on such amazing games
@@dislikebutton1799 I was part of the Lotcheck team when that department was being relocated to a more secure part of the campus, which was being used as a storage space. They threw all sorts of stuff out, including resin casts of a couple consoles created for prototype modeling - I wish I got those.
What I did get was a single-cart Neo-Geo arcade board, and a boom-style mic stand that I still use today.
@silvervine16 I was a contract-based tester through a few agencies while working at Nintendo, yes.
Started off on DK64, Jet Force Gemini and Majora's Mask, Later on was Kirby Tilt 'n Tumble, Mario Sunshine, GBA Mario remakes, Wario Land 4 and several others...
Later I moved to Lotcheck, where I tested almost all games submitted for publication on Nintendo systems.
@@sevinPackage what are the odds you found this video with your job history being so relevant, damn.
@@LexTheDweeb Pretty good - I've been subscribed to H4G for quite a while.
It's content like this that I keep coming back for.
I itemised every single glitch, because I am lame... correct me in comments.
1:36 - GoldenEye 007 (N64) - Spam watch menu left/right to crash the game
1:47 - GoldenEye 007 (N64) - Load too many enemies/objects to crash the game
2:09 - GoldenEye 007 (N64) - Load too many shots / shrapnel / sounds(?) to crash the game
2:28 - Blast Corps (N64) - Destroy target building whilst sliding and the mission end screen doesn't show
3:17 - Blast Corps (N64) - Bounce on top of the stationary loader doesn't end the level, do repeatedly to crash the game (I think the tester will be holding down some buttons, or something)
3:47 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - Walrus Cove, Car - Enemy AI goes crazy whilst trying to avoid you facing the wrong way
4:07 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - Quicksand fall geometry clip out of bounds to crash the game
4:21 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - Credits crash!
4:30 - Killer Instinct Gold (N64) - Jago soft-lock if killed mid-air
4:57 - Donkey Kong Land (Game Boy) - Soft-lock if hit whilst hanging
5:06 - James Bond 007 (Game Boy) - General Golgov game crash
5:27 - James Bond 007 (Game Boy) - Wrong room loaded after item collection(?), soft lock
5:39 - James Bond 007 (Game Boy) - Corruption when entering and exiting Odd Job lair
5:46 - Killer Instinct Gold (N64) - Jago crash when going invisible and dying simultaneously
5:56 - Killer Instinct Gold (N64) - Another Jago crash when going invisible and dying simultaneously
6:07 - Donkey Kong Land (Game Boy) - Double-unloading-tile corruption when collecting K O N G letter whilst defeating an enemy
6:18 - James Bond 007 (Game Boy) - Corruption when entering and exiting Save Game menu
6:28 - Killer Instinct Gold (N64) - Wrong Z-buffering indeces set on the chimney in Killer Wu stage
6:42 - GoldenEye 007 (N64) - Looks like the Frigate level unload behind you, if you shoot the wall (and I guess create more objects in memory?) It doesn't load back in if you don't turn to face it.
7:00 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Unjoined geometry in mountain in Rocket Belt Class B 1, allows clipping out of bounds
7:35 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Poor collision mesh applied to Mount Mariomore in Rocket Belt Class A 1, allows clipping out of bounds
8:34 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - Sent out of bounds if attacked with bubble
8:43 - Blast Corps (N64) - Resetting game after finishing level, without returning to the menu, loses progress (don't know if it's the same video, but after the second attempt at finished the level the game goes crazy??)
10:18 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Erasing File B erases both files (lol how did they miss this!)
10:43 - Donkey Kong Land (Game Boy) - Simultaneously dying and collecting a gold token duplicates the item
11:16 - Blast Corps (N64) - Incomplete video, probably crash on foot whilst trying to do something
11:29 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Alcohol reference in First Party game
11:39 - James Bond 007 (Game Boy) - Incomplete video, probably corrupted text when interacting with someone whilst too many objects on screen
12:02 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - MANY BUGS: empty photo score when crashing on target pad with no photos taken; landing impact 20/10; ring score 30/20; landing accuracy 1 33/30
12:40 - James Bond 007 (Game Boy) - Looks like the game can't figure out whether the dealer has 21 or 30 (ace can be 1 or 10) and crashes
12:57 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - Sound goes silent, player 1 loses control, and other weird bugs if hit when "final lap" sound plays (?)
13:22 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Horrendous fog particle effect lag (this was never fixed actually)
13:44 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Horrendous waterfall effect lag
13:56 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Ring can be collected during failure sequence, other weird effects
14:11 - Pilotwings 64 (N64) - Soft lock if game paused when destroying Meca Hawk
15:26 - PilotWings 64 (N64) - Geometry clip through empty building; receives penalty for trying to get out through the roof
15:45 - PilotWings 64 (N64) - No fuel is lost when hovering (incomplete video again?)
16:00 - PilotWings 64 (N64) - Probably losing all pilot control after hitting the ground
16:28 - Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (N64) - AI launches to end of stage on contact(??)
16:50 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - Poor balloon spawning in overworld after talking to Taj
17:06 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - Opening TT status window whilst exiting status window leaves the overlay on top of other character dialogue
17:31 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64) - AI drives miles off the course. See mini-map.
18:00 - Blast Corps (N64) - Incomplete out of bounds clip, soft lock
19:12 - Killer Instinct Gold (N64) - TJ-Combo can't be low-hit when holding Cyclone
19:40 - James Bond 007 (Game Boy) - Iqbal stun lock
19:55 - Super Smash Bros. Melee (GC) - Character selection defaults to Dr. Mario, and scrolling far left or right on the selection screen reveals the hidden character. Also lol at early pronounciation of "Fox".
20:52 - Pikmin (GC) - Get ejected out of bounds by landing on top of giant tokens
21:54 - Mario Kart Super Circuit (GBA) - Corrupted ghost characters when trading between English and Japanese game copies
23:08 - NBA Courtside 2002 (GC) - "Scrolling gears" sound effect is never stopped when changing menu options, and overlaps infinitely
23:53 - SSBM (GC) - Camera goes mental when transforming between Zelda and Sheik
24:08 - MKSC (GBA) - Bad track checkpoint placement, can skip (also that's a new WR!)
24:49 - NBA Courtside 2002 (GC) - Player can continue running out of bounds when activated off the ball
Wow thank you for doing this!
17:31 Look at the minimap
23:53 Play at x0.25 speed 24:03
the one at 12:40 i think is just an issue of not counting the cards correctly, it's blackjack (not poker) and the player loses even though they have 20 vs the dealer's 19. I imagine the ace is causing the problem since it can be either 1 or 11
also the SSBM one at 19:55 doesn't have anything to do with hidden characters i think, it's just that pressing A on an invalid area causes the last selected character to pop up for a split second. I'm also pretty sure the pronunciation of fox is exactly the same as the final game, they just haven't added the audio effects yet (same when he says melee too)
@@DOOMWADWorld The 19:55 I think it is. It's not only the fact that it will highlight the last character selected, but it's because it's revealing hidden characters also! Dr Mario is not in the starting roster...
@@DOOMWADWorld 12:40 I totally didn't notice it said BLACK JACK in massive text haha, oops. Yeah it's probably going in an infinite loop trying to figure out whether Ace is a 1 or a 10.
Some of those look like they might be horrible to debug or even reproduce with just the tape as a reference. I can feel the pain of the programmers who had to fix these.
My guess is they came with some extensive bug documentation report, something we don't have
@@Devieus Yeah, I doubt it was JUST the tape. The tape was probably supplemental to the notes the bug testers were taking, so the devs could see what they were talking about if they were too vague or if their notes didn't adequately describe what the devs needed to fix the issues
no debug system like we have today, games were simplier but way harder to work on.
Chances are that, while they were recording, they also had some debugging tools going. When something went wrong, they'd mark down the time on the VCR when it crashed, and what was going on in the debugger.
You had to write repro steps in the bug database. You were graded on your ability to document the bug. The tape was just a visual proof that it happened and was digitized to send to the devs. When it got really hairy we'd sometimes repro on a debugger kit to capture stack & memory dumps.
I just recreated the Pikmin bug report and it still works. Nothing in that clip seems out of place, either, so it's basically final gameplay.
20:44 seeing that early Zelda portrait in Melee was cool to see!
Jesus Christ is the only hope in this world no other gods will lead you to heaven
There is no security or hope with out Jesus Christ in this world come and repent of all sins today
Today is the day of salvation come to the loving savior Today repent and do not go to hell
Come to Jesus Christ today
Jesus Christ is only way to heaven
Repent and follow him today seek his heart Jesus Christ can fill the emptiness he can fill the void
Heaven and hell is real cone to the loving savior today
Today is the day of salvation tomorrow might be to late come to the loving savior today
Holy Spirit Can give you peace guidance and purpose and the Lord will
John 3:16-21
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
Mark 1.15
15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Hebrews 11:6
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Jesus
This watches like a tape of some group of early speedrunners in the late 90s sharing glitches and other strats they found before they could be circulated online
23:35. interestingly, the icons of the GameCube controller appears to match up with that one early pre-Spaceworld design, with the start button being on the D-pad's spot
I currently work in QA and found myself nodding my head along to the majority of these. It's really interesting how the types of issues you'd see in a game, and how they are found/achieved, really has not changed over time. For example take the Diddy Kong Racing issue at 17:10: The player re-opens TT's UI after selecting to close it during the quit out, as the quit out will then close it automatically per code; then once the UI is called again when talking with Tah, both TT's and Taj's UI elements overlap as the data from TT's UI is still 'open' somewhere in data. Absolute classic.
I appreciate that you give the quick intro then let the footage do the talking for itself. No obnoxious bullshit, skits, or commentary between clips. No forced "reaction" shots. Nothing but what the title says there is and what I came here for.
It's so interesting to see games from my childhood just bricking themselves so unexpectedly. I miss the games industry having to push out completed titles, tested and all
Feel the same way. When I was a kid the games that I played on the N64 felt so perfect and good to play. Nowadays there are some games that are straight up trash.
@@HL2Striker There was no shortage of bad games in this era either. The quantity didn't suddenly increase "nowadays".
That's funny thinkin' some of these were "complete"
lol
@@kaihedgie1747 Yeah, and some games on N64 were re-issued due to some nasty bug still present and had another round of revised copies produced. Turok: Rage Wars and Perfect Dark comes to mind, just to mention a few obvious examples. Even SNES games like Shadowrun and Secret of Mana had some pretty severe oversights in their original retail releases.
Game list:
TAPE ONE
1:37 - GoldenEye 007 (N64)
2:29 - Blast Corps (N64)
3:49 - Diddy Kong Racing (N64)
4:31 - Killer Instinct Gold (N64)
4:59 - Donkey Kong Land 3 (GB) [all GB games played via Super Game Boy]
5:06 - James Bond 007 (GB)
5:48 - Killer Instinct Gold
6:08 - Donkey Kong Land 3
6:19 - James Bond 007
6:31 - Killer Instinct Gold
6:43 - GoldenEye 007
7:03 - Pilotwings 64 (N64)
8:36 - Diddy Kong Racing
8:45 - Blast Corps
10:20 - Pilotwings 64 [this indicates that most if not all of this game's bits are from the Japanese version]
10:46 - Donkey Kong Land 3
11:18 - Blast Corps
11:31 - Pilotwings 64
11:41 - James Bond 007
12:03 - Pilotwings 64
12:43 - James Bond 007 [this casino's rigged, I'm outta here]
12:59 - Diddy Kong Racing
13:24 - Pilotwings 64
16:30 - Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (N64) [rubberband AI: you're doing it wrong] [loved this game, though I found the sewer boss irritating and could never beat the palace boss]
16:52 - Diddy Kong Racing [apparently, Taj's text in the first clip isn't used in the released game]
18:01 - Blast Corps
19:13 - Killer Instinct Gold
19:41 - James Bond 007
TAPE TWO
19:57 - Super Smash Bros. Melee (GCN) [Zelda's character select pose, briefly seen in the first clip, isn't used in the released game]
20:53 - Pikmin (GCN)
21:56 - Mario Kart: Super Circuit (GBA)
23:10 - NBA Courtside 2002 (GCN)
23:55 - Super Smash Bros. Melee
24:09 - Mario Kart: Super Circuit [apparently, the course music is using different instruments than in the released game]
24:50 - NBA Courtside 2002
Also something I noticed. The Melee announcer seems to lack reverb when he says "Fox"
Zeldas different pose caught me off guard
Thank you so much!
24:09 Actually, there's no difference in the music instruments between this one and the released version.
Thanks!! I can't stand when YTers won't just stfu and get to the point
24:10 you can still do this in the finished version. Funny how they forgot to fix it before release unless this was made after Super Circuit's release
LMAO I saw this and was like.... WHAT?
That's such a huge oversight that I'm surprised it even made it that far in testing, let alone staying in a shipping build!
I'm guessing Super Circuit didn't have checkpoints, and instead it internally reduces your lap counter by 1 every time you drive over the finish line backwards?
Works fine if there are walls on both sides of the finish line, but even then, all it takes is someone figuring out how to fly or drive through walls...
20:44 Unused portrait render of Zelda???
This is how the Pilotwings glitch in 8:05 was solved: if you touch anything that isnt floor with any part of your body that aren't your feet its an instant failure and you must restart the stage. Its really interesting how i played those games a lot and never saw anything like this, even those who we all know at the time how a glitch was about to happen at every corner. Goldeneye and Killer Instinct Gold are the true surprise here.
I believe they may have had some kind of dual-VCR dubbing type setup where long stretches of gameplay were captured on one, and then the relevant portions were recorded onto a secondary tape for submission to whoever it needed to go to. The training tape you have there labeled “master” is pretty interesting, particularly if it was meant to be distributed to many bug testers.
Super cool thing I picked up on: Zelda had a totally different character select portrait in the build of Melee shown here! She's bent over and pointing instead of looking off to the side as she does in the final game.
I just realized that a lot of this footage would be transferred from another VHS machine, causing even more quality loss
So the way I think a lot of this footage is recorded, involves 2 VHS machines, where one machine records continuously to catch spontaneous errors or crashes, and the other machine is used to cherry pick clips from the first machine or for easily reproducible errors
I applied as a Game Tester at Nintendo Germany in '99 or 2000 and was invited to the then German HQs of Nintendo in Großostheim (transl.: great east home), which is not really great, but rather rural, provincial and ugly. And the working environment for the testers was a super slim but deep room without windows (iirc) . It was a disillusioning experience. After the first meeting I got a second invitation but I kindly refused because I didn't want to move to this place and work in that room. The town was horrible as was the office for the testers. But yeah, I am pretty sure these are real deal tapes because the whole point of game testing was finding and documenting bugs and issues.
24:10 who would've thought that the Frappe Snowland checkpoint glitch was a problem in Super Circuit too
Doesn't seem like Intelligent Systems managed to completely iron it out though seeing how Flap times usually go
3:30 this one really illustrates how fun and exciting bug-testing must be
never in my wildest dreams would I think that I would enjoy something as benign as vintage debugging tapes. This is so rad.
good lord please don't say vintage this footage isn't even 30 years old yet T___T
@@moocowmoocow75 if they're over 20 they're vintage. But Webster defines it as old, recognized, and enduring interest, importance, or quality.
So that skip in mario kart super circuit on koopa Beach, was known about and nintendo didn't fix it
This part of gaming archeology is my absolute favorite. It's like how archeologists love going through ancient 'trash' because it's just perfectly raw.
It's just so natural and exciting, you really feel the day in a life, you know there's paperwork, a ticket, this was forwarded on to a programmer to try and resolve before launch and a full severity chart, etc.
I'm also super curious if those bug reports were people in japan working to resolve bugs OR if this was an American testing team submitting bugs after translation. (After all many times the English version fixes a lot of bugs found by players). Is the training video from "The Super Mario Club" What was their process, etc.
If the first one is a training video I wonder if that was from Japan/HQ whereas the second tape was American testers.
Do we have any context for where these tapes were suspected to come from?
Also If I ever learn Time Travel I'd love to apply for a job like this to blend in (I'd know enough glitches in early Pokemon, that I could prove my chops)
imagine play testing the gen 1 pokemon games and you just pull out the ACE exploits on the devs. they'd hate you lol
One of my favorite parts of the big Nintendo leaks from a few years back was going through all the developer documentation. Pokemon Gold and Silver, for example, had their bug reports saved on a massive Excel spreadsheet. I didn't translate the whole thing because it had around a thousand entries if I recall correctly. One I remember was how multiple testers reported encountering a glitched Pokemon that would crash the game, but the devs couldn't replicate it until eventually they figured out that it was an issue with the roaming legendaries. I think one of the testers described it as frightening, which I found pretty amusing that they included that detail in the bug report. I'll have to go back and look at it, there was some funny and interesting stuff in there.
@@CommanderWiggins Agreed. Seeing stuff like that was wildly interesting to me. I do worry about all the employee information that was also leaked in the Gigaleak event. It was a double edged sword to say the least.
This is a amazing descovery, i love when rare stuff like this gets found!
Zeldas portrait looks different in melee that's cool
This is awesome! Thank you for preserving these, and I hope you consider uploading the uncompressed copies to the Internet Archive! You guys do so much for preservation.
@@videostash413 Seriously? These debugging videos show the numerous pain points of many classic game in the form of late-in-development bugs that almost nobody outside of Nintendo has ever seen. This video is an incredibly candid and revealing peak behind the curtains.
@@videostash413 What?
@@videostash413 fine.. if THEY can’t deliver a “proper” topic (which they can). How about YOU make one, do all the editing, research, find a topic, upload it. Cmon, I’ll wait
I worked in the video games industry from 2006 to 2009, so I know how painful can beta-testing be...
You have to play the same parts again and again, while constantly taking notes to be able to explain exactly what you did before the bug happened.
There's something really haunting about these tapes. The lack of commentary and the game basically going "uh oh, that wasn't supposed to happen" reminds me of the vibes of many analog horror videos.
Maybe it's because I'm not in that scene, but it didn't really feel all too haunting to me.
I think for me it's early 3d graphics being kinda janky to start with. I grew up on n64 but when I revisit it I tend feel a little unnerved. Seeing the games break just adds to the weirdness.
Really hope more tapes like these leak out for all to see.
Its so fascinating to see games breaking at seemingly innocent actions like pausing the game glitches it out when backing out of the pause menu.
Games breaking because there's too many NPC's on screen or the audio just becoming choppy and sounding like you're trying to emulate the game on hardware that's not powerful enough.
this gives off crazy found footage creepypasta vibes
Goldeneye literally broke with too many NPCs so of course they would cap them cleverly in the final builds
Feels like a creepy pasta. I love it.
The VHS degredation is indistinguishable from N64's natural anti aliasing
Ooh you absolute.. apologize immediately!! ;P
What I find fascinating is just the genuine work on these tapes. Seeing frame drops in VHS footage is... not that I usually associate the vintage look with... When I think video games and VHS, I imagine carefully staged commercials or infomercials that only show the games in a positive light.
It's easy to forget how much debugging goes on before a game becomes presentable, let alone marketable...
Seeing some goldeneye beta testing footage was amazing. Thank you for sharing with us brother!
All about this is a time capsule. Love it.
The Pikmin debugger really got creative there.
It's so cool that these rare tapes exist, let alone that we can see what's on them!
Even the developers of the most iconic games make mistakes. Kind of reassuring.
Not really.
Yeah because every video game that iconic doesn’t mean it doesn’t need bit of debugging all games do if your good enough you might fix it
@@CrAzYpotpie I'd say it's reassuring that the games can still be good even if they have bugs holding them back. Mario 64 is a good example, massive optimization oversights and lack of knowledge of the hardware caused from inexperience at making 3d games for N64 from the industry as a whole meant that it was leaving several times the performance on the table which could've gone into making a lot more content but they still managed to make iconic levels and mechanics that keep people playing to this day and set the standard for 3d platformers as a whole.
I think it turns out that many of the best games tend to be riddled with "mistakes," because if you're doing something ambitious; trying new things, then you're still learning the bounds of what's possible and that will make errors and take time away from correcting them, but you can still polish the experience for the majority of players even if you can't cure it of all problems with the time you have.
@@uponeric36 As a developer, I am not reassured that other professional developers make mistakes in any way. That is just human.
well, that's why debugging exists.
It's the original "What the hell was that? Someone clip it quick!"
How does Forest if Illusion keep finding this stuff?? I love it
4:28 The date on the "CODE" line says "29/08/97 09:53" with a version of 1.12.30
SP/DP CRASHED: gfx=80218958
TRACE: track/track.c:2285 gfx=80219098
CODE: Version 1.1230 29/08/97 09:53 rharrison (Rob Software Director)
DB: Version 7.2 26/08/97 8.30 L.Schuneman (Lee Game Director)
Absolutely crazy to see debugging material like this. Wonder if there's more like this somewhere in the wild that's still in tact.
Pretty standard stuff.
With modern day capture cards can you imagine the video quality of debug videos today? wow
I don't usually like the VCR preservation videos but this one was awesome.
I wish you timestamp the different games so both we could go to the games you want to see glitches for and also so we can tell what games are being played
24:10 - LOL They found a speedrunning strat before the game even released!
This is fascinating af I never even considered this being a thing that existed. It's so funny and odd seeing them officially break the games the we try to now for experimenting. I was half jokingly thinking what if we see insane beta content from this and then oh you know... Just the motherfucking dam island with a boat taken to it.
That is absolutely fucking insane. I never thought I'd see that ever.
Awesome video! One funny things is I'm pretty sure a variation of the shortcut bug in Mario Kart Super Circuit still exists in the final release for Shy Guy Beach.
I like the one in Melee where the last selected fighter is shown when the player makes a certain input, but having a freshly initialized "last selection" value (zero?) defaults to Dr. Mario, who would be at the top-left of the roster, but is not yet unlocked.
That rubber banding at the end is absolutely insane
Wow... for real!
Thank-you for making these clips available! 😎👍
You get THE coolest stuff my friend. Thanks for sharing this with everyone.
anyone else mildly unnerved by these? i definitely wouldve been scared if i experienced any of these glitches as a kid
loving the mario kart super circuit one thats basically a speedrun
That goldeneye pause music 🤌
some dkr specific stuff different from the final version
3:52 the Print Coords magic code is enabled, which is not possible in the final game, due to the absence of numbers
4:07 bigger icon for powerups
16:52 this style of textbox isn't in the final game, nor is the text
16:58 bit hard to tell from the blurriness of the footage, but the minimap of the hub world might be the beta one, when it was bigger (pipsy's position on the minimap points to it being the beta minimap after comparing footage of this and the german promo tape)
17:23 not a difference between this and the final (besides the glitch), but there is a discrepancy between this footage and the previous clip
- the previous clip had an torn page-style textbox never before seen and (maybe?) had the older beta hub world
- the clip on this timestamp has the minimap and the style of textbox used in the final game
one thing that was consistent with every dkr clip shown here was the bananas replacing the gold rare coins, which means that the footage of these builds was taken after the german promo
Analog horror fans are going to have a field day with this one
I managed to notice ONE difference in the games shown.
In smash melee character selection Ice Climbers had a dash between there name but this is removed in the final game.
I would recommend using an SVHS deck for playback and the Magnavox MWR10D6 for DVD recording, then rip that. Hopefully you can find a PAL VCR for that 3rd tape. I recommend using a GoDVD magic box to convert to NTSC and then record that.
3rd tape is captured and uploaded. Used a deck that outputs PAL RGB.
Not too much mindblowing beta content in these tapes, but it's interesting nonetheless. I did notice one little interesting tidbit being Zelda has a different character portrait in Melee 20:44
if only the Melee footage was longer
Well, that's expected, the focus isn't beta content.
Might just be me, but it also sounds like Dean Harrington's voiceclips aren't as echoey yet
@@RihcterwilkerI assume these are being debugged by NoA so they’re debugging localization builds and they tend to be almost final
@@Rihcterwilker I expected as much, tbh.
This was really interesting, thank you for preserving them!
Now I'd like to see dedicated fans try to recreate these bugs and see if they got fixed 😂
Great find and video tho, can't wait to see the Majoras Mask footage!
24:11 kind of crazy to see this infamous skip in VHS quality
Brings back some memories of when I was back in there testing over summers in college. Learned a lot of valuable skills the made me a stronger developer later.
The Pilotwngs 64 one at 13:24 made me legitimately laugh out loud. This is super fascinating!
24:04, and both of the ones from whatever NBA game that is on the Gamecube also got me
Watching leaked debugging tapes is better than having someone's bathroom bugged and watching them take a leak.
And better than watching someone go to the bathroom after catching a bug!
@@RickWhitechest huh?
What a very specific scenario. Can you relate to bugging someone's/having your bathroom bugged?
@@user-vi4xy1jw7e A stomach bug.
20:43 Oh wow, Zelda's portrait is completely different!
:O
There's also much less reverb on the announcer!
I'm wondering how they did stuff like this did they have a VHS constantly recording until they ran into a bug and then they dubbed it over to a second tape so that they can have just the section they wanted to show?
It's not like nowadays where our consoles are constantly recording and we can just say hey capture that last 30 seconds
A speed runner is going to watch this and develop a crazy new glitch strat for one of these games.
5:19 Did that one even crash the Super Gameboy? The border gets corrupt too.
Thank you for archiving all this online! It is interesting to see inside ot the development of certain games, especially back then when it was much more scarse.
24:11 And this, this is Mario Kart Super Circuit Ultra Shortcut Revolution
** We're Finally Landing starts playing **
@Hard4Games: the last one about Mario kart superciruit, they know about the lap skip glitch, but they did not properly fix it, so on the track shown, they fix it on the inside, but the forgot to fix it on the outside because the lap skip still work on the finial release of the game, just by doing it on the outside of the track, instead of the inside, some other track it work both dirrection, for lap skip.
Wow what a treasure trove of footage! ALL never-before-seen footage of classic games WHILE they were in-development
20:44
Why is no one mentioning that Zelda art lol
Literally everyone is mentioning it
It's an expensive and decently complicated setup, but look into a Domesday Duplicator!!! Would be awesome to have your LDs and VHS preserved as 1:1 copies, bypassing all these awful HDMI upscalers and allowing you to do full TBC emulation in the digital realm.
Really interesting! So glad these have been found! Thanks for sharing!
Never done bug testing for Nintendo but I have done it for a few games in the past some very big games that required NDAs to he signed, one of the biggest games I tested required me to get a vga capture card and a second pc to use ot and record.
We had to record all game play, make notes about if x was fun, felt balanced, too short, too long, try break things etc. The card was supplied by the company that I subcontracted through, had to be sent back after, but pc I had to buy myself, they did supply video editing software, extra hard drives including a hot swap bay (if it was a short clip we could upload it, but if it was long or lots of then we would send them the hard drives in after making a backup.
Was a great experience id tested a few smaller games before then, and later that game became huge af. One of the worst parts about testing especially in the alpha stages of some large games wad the NDA, I am sure I could contest a few of them especially the perpetual ones that never expire, and of course the security around some of them, a couple required regular and random security checks, making sure you weren't emailing anyone, not recording on another device etc.
Very rare to come across something like this. Great insight into a world, behind the scenes...
these are fascinating af, super loving the content!
Interesting to think about people play testing these old games and the coders reviewing the tapes, and now we get to actually see it.
Woah I don't think I've ever seen that portrait for Zelda before on the character select screen. At 20:44
Oh shit bro! I didn't even notice that! that's crazy!
Wild!
The speed running community is going to have a field day with these tapes.
20:15 Random character selection in Melee was a bug fix?
22:01-23:01 it’s actually nice just to see debugging to test something actually worked ha! This proves that sometimes they do give feedback with passes
So were these tapes used by the Super Mario Club?
24:10 reminds me of Wario Stadium [N64]
24:30 First Speedrun attempt
24:20 I thought they would've fixed something like this way earlier on in development
Shy Guy Beach's music uses different instruments!
All think all of these are near-final betas.
That you make the whole thing available is great, but I would personally appreciate a set of clips with some narration to enjoy too.
24:13 omg the field day players would've had if that had been left in the game.
Its in the final game they didn't fixed it lmao
@@jozewsqwe435 LMAO okay, while I was writing that comment I literally thought "hm, I betcha someone is going to tell me that it's still in the final game" 😂
Interesting to see the Debuggers used one of the dual controller setups for Goldeneye.
lol the Pilotwings ones were kinda hilarious!
This channel does some fantastic work
Now you talk! Just in time after I removed snow outdoor thank Tony. Will be interesting as ever.
Reminds me of the time I got a bootleg Pokemon cart at a yard sale and all my pokemon died from malaria.
I'd love for someone to try and hack the games shown here to try and determine what fixes they implemented, and removing them to replicate the crashes and other glitches shown in these tapes!