Tim Stamper, co-founder of British developer Rare, recently returned to the studio’s original Twycross headquarters to retrieve a piece of the company’s past — a massive Conker’s Bad Fur Day banner mounted in what Stamper called the "Conker Barn." The visit, filmed by Stamper, is the first public look at material from the Rare archives since he announced a video project to explore artifacts from the studio’s history.
Rare was founded by brothers Tim and Chris Stamper in 1985 and rose to prominence in the 1990s producing landmark titles for Nintendo platforms.
The studio’s Twycross location, known as Manor Farm, was home to development on classics including Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, Banjo-Kazooie, Blast Corps and GoldenEye 007.
Rare relocated to the Manor Park facility in 1999; the Conker banner on the Manor Farm wall has likely been in place since the late 1990s.
Stamper has publicly signaled a shift from the secrecy that defined Rare’s early years.
He said he is preparing a video series that will catalogue "rare treasures, ultimate artifacts and forgotten secrets" from his personal archives and the studio’s past.
In a November 12, 2026 social media post, Stamper indicated he was "digging stuff out of the archive" and teased that a new Conker-focused video was "coming soon." That tweet served as confirmation that material tied to Conker’s Bad Fur Day would be featured in the upcoming series.
Conker’s Bad Fur Day launched on the Nintendo 64 in 2001 and followed Conker’s Pocket Tales, which released for the Game Boy Color in 1999.
Unlike the earlier Game Boy title, Bad Fur Day was explicitly aimed at mature audiences and became notable for its adult-oriented humor, language and themes — distinguishing it from the family-friendly platformers common on Nintendo hardware at the time.
The resurfacing of the Conker banner and Stamper’s promise of archived content will be of interest to preservation advocates and fans of Rare’s catalog.
With Rare’s 1990s output still widely discussed among retro and modern audiences alike, Stamper’s video series aims to provide a documented look at artifacts from a pivotal era in console game development.
Readers can expect further updates when Stamper releases the next installment from his archive series, which will likely include additional context about Rare’s development history on the Nintendo 64 and earlier Game Boy hardware.
Rare was founded by brothers Tim and Chris Stamper in 1985 and rose to prominence in the 1990s producing landmark titles for Nintendo platforms.
The studio’s Twycross location, known as Manor Farm, was home to development on classics including Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, Banjo-Kazooie, Blast Corps and GoldenEye 007.
Rare relocated to the Manor Park facility in 1999; the Conker banner on the Manor Farm wall has likely been in place since the late 1990s.
Stamper has publicly signaled a shift from the secrecy that defined Rare’s early years.
He said he is preparing a video series that will catalogue "rare treasures, ultimate artifacts and forgotten secrets" from his personal archives and the studio’s past.
In a November 12, 2026 social media post, Stamper indicated he was "digging stuff out of the archive" and teased that a new Conker-focused video was "coming soon." That tweet served as confirmation that material tied to Conker’s Bad Fur Day would be featured in the upcoming series.
Conker’s Bad Fur Day launched on the Nintendo 64 in 2001 and followed Conker’s Pocket Tales, which released for the Game Boy Color in 1999.
Unlike the earlier Game Boy title, Bad Fur Day was explicitly aimed at mature audiences and became notable for its adult-oriented humor, language and themes — distinguishing it from the family-friendly platformers common on Nintendo hardware at the time.
The resurfacing of the Conker banner and Stamper’s promise of archived content will be of interest to preservation advocates and fans of Rare’s catalog.
With Rare’s 1990s output still widely discussed among retro and modern audiences alike, Stamper’s video series aims to provide a documented look at artifacts from a pivotal era in console game development.
Readers can expect further updates when Stamper releases the next installment from his archive series, which will likely include additional context about Rare’s development history on the Nintendo 64 and earlier Game Boy hardware.
