furry_irl

Man, I LOVED reading instruction booklets as a kid, whenever I wasn't allowed to game. I was obsessed with videogames back then.

One anecdote that comes to mind, is the german Instruction Booklet for Donkey Kong 64. Throughout the booklet, there were those little dialogues made by Cranky Kong (the old grumpy Kong), who would often insult the player, telling them games have gone "too easy" and that they're "too soft". But on one page that listed all levels of the game, Cranky was surprised - he appearently made a level himself called "colorful barrel fight" and couldn't find it listed on the page, however, if the player was looking enough, they might be able to find it ingame. Needless to say, my kid brain went wild, and I was always looking out for a secret door/wall or something in the game whenever I played. Had me searching for hours. Buuut I don't think anything like that secret level actually exists in DK64. Maybe it was a mistranslation, or maybe Cranky is just referring to the Barrel Minigame that can be accessed via DK's platform. By now, people have rummaged through the decompiled source code and speedran this game for decades while breaking it in every possible avenue via glitches. It would be next to impossible for an entire secret level not to be found.