Diddy Kong Racing - Development

Development

At its first stage, Diddy Kong Racing was a real-time strategy game with a caveman/time-travel theme worked on by a team of four. The adventure element of Diddy Kong Racing was influenced by Disneyland. At this point, Diddy Kong Racing was known as Wild Cartoon Kingdom. Wild Cartoon Kingdom evolved into Adventure Racers. Nintendo had no involvement in Diddy Kong Racing's early stages. In June 1997, the game was known as R.C. Pro-Am 64, a sequel to the R.C. Pro-Am titles on the NES. It was Shigeru Miyamoto that offered Diddy Kong to the game. The Pro-Am 64 team wasn't happy with having Diddy Kong in the game but finally agreed. The game was launched first in Japan and the PAL region on November 21, 1997.

In an October 2012 interview, Lee Musgrave, who worked on Diddy Kong Racing, said Timber would have been the main character of Pro-AM 64 if Diddy Kong Racing had not been made. Musgrave says, "Yes, there was Pro-Am 64 that had Timber as the main character, but that became Diddy Kong Racing and that was the end of that." When Martin Wakely is asked about a rumored game called "Timber 64", Wakeley responds, "Where the rumour may have started is that an early version of DKR (I think it was called RC Pro Am at the time) had Timber as the lead character. I’m sure I’ve got a badly fitting Nylon polo shirt with the game logo on it somewhere."