[Stop 'N' Swop ASCII Art] Stop 'N' Swop FAQ/Guide Version 0.1 (c) 2005 qqwref ========== 0: Table of Contents ========== 0: Table of Contents 1: Introduction 1.a: What is Stop 'N' Swop? 1.b: The 100% Ending 1.c: What's So Cool? 1.d: Hot Swapping 1.e: The Stop 'N' Swop Screen 1.f: History of Stop 'N' Swop 1.g: Version History 2: Cheats 2.a: Treasure Trove Cove Cheats 2.a.i : The Rare Witch Project 2.a.ii : The Ice Key 2.a.iii: The Eggs 2.b: GameShark Codes 3: Rumors 3.a: Rumored Cheats and Codes 3.b: Stop 'N' Swop Connections 3.c: Stop 'N' Swop Functionality 3.d: Other Theories 3.e: Hoaxes 4: Other Things 4.a: Game Paks in Banjo-Tooie 4.b: Allusions to Stop 'N' Swop 4.c: Glossary 4.d: Special Thanks 4.e: Legal and Contact Information ========== 1: Introduction ========== It's a perennial problem over at the forums that random people ask repetitive and often badly spelled questions concerning Stop 'N' Swop. There was a FAQ for this before, but the author apparently had it removed because of flaming. Even so, this FAQ is intended to be not just a replacement, but an up-to-date, comprehensive account of Stop 'N' Swop, its uses, and its history. Let's begin. ---------- 1.a: What is Stop 'N' Swop? ---------- Stop 'N' Swop is (or was) a way to transfer data from between Rare's two Banjo N64 games. The idea was to collect one of the Stop 'N' Swop items (see section 1.d) and then take one game out and put the other one in, transferring the data from game to game (see 1.e for more details on this). This would unlock secrets in the game that you could only get this way. Sounds like a good idea, no? Well, Rare tried it, and implemented a good amount of it into Banjo-Kazooie, the first Banjo N64 game, before realizing that it wouldn't work. First of all, according to Nintendo, the method they were using to transfer the data was dangerous, and second, they had to stop delaying the release of Banjo-Kazooie, as fans wanted to play it and couldn't be convinced to wait much longer. So Rare turned off most of the existing Stop 'N' Swop features and sold the game. ---------- 1.b: The 100% Ending ---------- When you first beat Gruntilda, you get your standard ending cutscene, except for one thing: Mumbo has some secrets that he will only give you if you collect all 100 jiggies. Collecting them will show you three little movie clips: one of the pink egg in Sharkfood Island, one of the ice key in Wozza's Cave, and one of the blue egg behing the Gobi's Valey door. This was the real debut of Stop 'N' Swop. Soon after Banjo-Kazooie came out, people got this ending, and they all wanted to get the key and the eggs. This was the first clue in what was to be a long trail of rumors, ideas (both good and bad), hoaxes, press releases, and references to and about Stop 'N' Swop. This was where most people were introduced to Stop 'N' Swop. This was where the whole thing got started. Rare, when removing Stop 'N' Swop itself, had neglected to get rid of the ending. ---------- 1.c: What's So Cool? ---------- The big question here is: why do people care about Stop 'N' Swop? It was a cool idea, but it was removed, so it's completely useless now. I think that people still care about Stop 'N' Swop because it's a mystery waiting to be solved. Although, because of the debunking of the Stop 'N' Swop legend, there aren't very many people anymore who believe that Stop 'N' Swop is still lurking in the megabytes of computer code contained within the Banjo-Kazooie cartridge. The mystery is this: even if Stop 'N' Swop was supposedly removed, can we still get to it? What if it wasn't removed - is there a secret way to get it that even after seven years nobody has found? Although Banjo-Kazooie has been extensively hacked in an attempt to find out if Stop 'N' Swop still exists, and nothing has been found, people still wonder if some rumor might one day turn out to be true and unlock the whole mode. It's fascinating because it's unknown. In summary, Stop 'N' Swop is a failed (and mostly removed) way of transferring data between Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. When I say mostly removed, however, I mean exactly that: the Stop 'N' Swop items can still be accessed, and they are still quite mysterious and eminently useless. They don't do anything, but you can have them if you really want. It's nice to theorize about what they do, but the answer to that is: nothing. Any game-switching you do is not going to unlock anything. ---------- 1.d: Hot Swapping ---------- It's interesting to note that the way Stop 'N' Swop was supposed to work was by a method known as 'Hot Swapping'. What this means is that you would take the game that was in your N64 out, then put another one in without either turning the N64 off or waiting for more than a few seconds (i.e., while the N64 was still hot). The theory behind this was that when you take a game out the N64 still has in its internal memory a record of a bunch of data from whatever game you were playing. This data will go away after around 30 seconds, but Rare's idea was that, if you took Banjo-Kazooie out while having a Stop 'N' Swop item, you could save the Stop 'N' Swop information in the N64's internal memory so that when you put your Banjo-Tooie cartridge in you could load your Stop 'N' Swop data, or at least use it to unlock something special (which you might have to bring back to your Banjo-Kazooie cart). This method is the whole reason it's called Stop 'N' Swop: you're supposed to stop your game and perform a hot swap. There was a problem with this idea, though. Some say that Nintendo told Rare that hot swapping could damage the N64 hardware; Rare would thus have had to stop the project because they would have to be liable for broken N64s. There are other theories (see section 3) that assert that Rare created Stop 'N' Swop to make people want to buy Banjo-Tooie, and many other ideas proliferate. Whatever is the correct reason, hot swapping does not actually do anything useful for Stop 'N' Swop. ---------- 1.e: The Stop 'N' Swop Screen ---------- The first Stop 'N' Swop item to be actually collected was the Ice Key. Although it is behind a wall of ice (which, interestingly, you can exit from but not enter into), it was discovered that using a GameShark code to moonjump in Wozza's cave (where the ice key is) could get you into the Ice Key room. On a pedestal in this circular cavern of ice is the slowly rotating Ice Key, ready for the collecting. When you collect it, however, something very interesting happens: a small cutscene. It appears that Rare actually programmed something in for when we collect the Ice Key. Kazooie tells us, "Cool... an enormous ice key! We ought to keep this for later..." This wasn't the end, however. In the pause screen, when you View Totals, there is now one more screen after Click Clock Wood. This is the Stop 'N' Swop screen. The interest of the Stop 'N' Swop screen is, of course, that it catalogues the Stop 'N' Swop items that you've collected. Some more GameShark hacking revealed that you could collect the Eggs as well - although it is more difficult - but doing that will show you, oddly, the eggs on the upper-left side of the screen. This is weird because if there were only the three Stop 'N' Swop items they would be arranged symmetrically. This was the first clue that there were more eggs. There are, in fact, six eggs to be collected, although it will be necessary to use cheats to collect all of them. ---------- 1.f: History of Stop 'N' Swop ---------- 1998 May 31 - Banjo-Kazooie released. 100% Ending found soon after. 2000 Nov 19 - Banjo-Tooie released to much anticipation. Game includes some destructable Banjo-Kazooie carts that give you Stop 'N' Swop items (see section 4.a); Stop 'N' Swop fans keep looking for Stop 'N' Swop. 2001 Jan 13 - Ice Mario and SubDrag hack Banjo-Kazooie to unlock the sandcastle codes that give you the Ice Key and Eggs (see section 2.a). 2003 Sep 10 - Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge released. Has nothing to do with Stop 'N' Swop; fans think Rare's given up on it. 2005 Jan 12 - Banjo Pilot released. There is an expensive unlockable called "STOP N SWAP" in the game (see section 4.b). --------- 1.g: Version History --------- 1.01 - 2005 Dec 16 - Fixed a mistake in Part 1.b, thanks to Matzen12. Added data in Part 4.c. 1.0 - 2005 Dec 15 - Made most of Part 4 (except the glossary, that is). First submission to GameFAQs. 0.3 - 2005 Dec 14 - Restructured Part 2 and finished it. 0.2 - 2005 Dec 13 - Wrote some of Part 2. 0.1 - 2005 Oct 29 - Finally finished introduction! ========== 2: Cheats ========== Because the actual functionality of the Stop 'N' Swap items was removed, there is, at the present, only two consistent ways to get the Stop 'N' Swap items: entering special codes into the Treasure Trove Cove sand castle, or using a GameShark or other cheating device. This section of the FAQ will concern itself with those cheats, and what exactly they do. ---------- 2.a: Treasure Trove Cove Cheats ---------- In Treasure Trove Cove, the second level of Banjo-Kazooie, there is a castle of sand under a lake. Shooting eggs backwards into a nearby bucket known as Leaky will drain the lake and allow Banjo and Kazooie access to the sand castle. The floor of this castle, interestingly, is covered in lettered tiles; by Beak Busting on the tiles, it is possible to spell out a variety of phrases. All cheats in Banjo-Kazooie are given in terms of a phrase, which, when entered into the sand castle floor, will cause things to happen. This section deals with the sand castle cheats which give you Stop 'N' Swop items. This section will tell you where the items are found, because it's the most convenient place for that information. Incidentally, these cheats were not supposed to be known by the gaming public. They were debug codes that allowed the game programmers to test important cutscenes and such without actually having to play through the game for hours. This explains why the codes are easy to remember. Note that the first five letters in each of the cheats here are "CHEAT". When you hit each of these letters, you will hear a mooing sound. After that, you will not hear any audial or visual clues at all; if you reach the end of the cheat and nothing happens, exit and reenter the sand castle and try again. .......... 2.a.i: The Rare Witch Project .......... Back in 2001, hackers Ice Mario and SubDrag of the Rare Witch Project found, hidden in the code of the Banjo-Kazooie game itself, a series of sand castle codes. Upon testing, they were found to unlock the Stop 'N' Swop items. They released the codes soon after their discovery, and by now most Banjo fans know or have seen those codes. .......... 2.a.ii: The Ice Key .......... Enter this code into the sand castle, without spaces: CHEAT NOW YOU CAN SEE A NICE ICE KEY WHICH YOU CAN HAVE FOR FREE As you will see, the ice key is behind a tunnel in Wozza's cave in Freezeezy Peak. Note that the wall of ice that used to block the way is now gone. The key's on a pedestal; jump up to collect it. Kazooie will say, "Cool... an enormous ice key! We ought to keep this for later..." .......... 2.a.iii: The Eggs .......... Whenever you collect an egg, Banjo may say something. This is not at all based on what egg it is, but on how many you already have. If it is your first egg, Banjo will say, "Oooh... an egg! I'm sure we'll find a use for this somewhere..." If it is your second egg, Banjo will say, "Wow... another one of those special eggs!" After that, Banjo will not say anything at all. It looks like only two eggs were intended to be collected. For the Blue Egg, enter this code into the sand castle, without spaces: CHEAT A DESERT DOOR OPENS WIDE ANCIENT SECRETS WAIT INSIDE You should see a doorway in an alcove on the wall of Gobi's Valley. Behind this newly opened door lies the blue egg. Inside, there is a long, boring tunnel, leading to a circular room with a hexagonal switch and a huge sarcophagus. Beak Bust the switch and the sarcophagus will open, revealing the blue egg. Upon being collected, the egg will explode in a shower of blue and white sparkles. For the Pink Egg, enter this code into the sand castle, without spaces: CHEAT OUT OF THE SEA IT RISES TO REVEAL MORE SECRET PRIZES As you will see, Sharkfood Island (in Treasure Trove Cove), once submerged, is now above the water and open. Inside, there is a large tree with grass around it. Use the Shock Spring Pad to jump into an alcove in the tree and then, as in Click Clock Wood, use the Feathery Flap to jump from alcove to alcove. After sixteen alcoves, there is a protrusion from the tree that you can jump on, and from there you can get to the top and collect the pink egg. Upon being collected, the egg will explode in a shower of pink and white sparkles. For the Cyan Egg, enter this code into the sand castle, without spaces: CHEAT DONT YOU GO AND TELL HER ABOUT THE SECRET IN HER CELLAR As you will see, one of the barrels in the cellar in Mad Monster Mansion has been opened up, and the egg is inside. There are eight barrels in the cellar; one of them was originally unopenable, but now that it is opened you can go inside. It is actually a tunnel to a secret octagonal room with a wet floor. The cyan egg is on a raised octagonal platform. It will explode into a shower of cyan and white sparks when collected. For the Green Egg, enter this code into the sand castle, without spaces: CHEAT AMIDST THE HAUNTED GLOOM A SECRET IN THE BATHROOM You will see that the egg is floating above Loggo the toilet, in his room in Mad Monster Mansion. Loggo's room is through a window on the mansion's second floor; open the window with a Rat-a-Tat Rap. Get up on Loggo's bowl and backflip up to the green egg, which will explode into green and white sparks when obtained. For the Yellow Egg, enter this code into the sand castle, without spaces: CHEAT NOW BANJO WILL BE ABLE TO SEE IT ON NABNUTS TABLE You will see that the egg is lying on the table in Nabnuts' house. The female squirrel he's sleeping next to is a clue that this is in the Winter season of Click Clock Woods. Find one of the many flying pads in the level (one is on the island in the middle of the ice) and fly up to Nabnuts' house, then use the Rat-a-Tat Rap on his window to get in. The yellow egg will explode into yellow and white sparks when collected. For the Red Egg, enter this code into the sand castle, without spaces: CHEAT THIS SECRET YOULL BE GRABBIN IN THE CAPTAINS CABIN You will see that the egg is just lying on the bed in the Captain's Cabin of Rusty Bucket Bay. Notice that the Grublins are walking, but not going anywhere. The Captain's Cabin is on the upper part of the ship, and on the far side from where you first get on. As for collecting the egg, there is nothing special about its location. It will emit red and white sparks when collected. ---------- 2.b: GameShark Codes ---------- Umm... yeah. I thought there were GameShark codes to unlock the Stop 'N' Swop items, but on second look, I can't find any. There is, however, one known way to get a Stop 'N' Swop item without typing its code into the Treasure Trove Cove sand castle: use the Moon Jump/Levitate code to levitate Banjo over the wall of Wozza's cave. The wall isn't that high, and so with the Levitate code on it is not only possible but easy to get the Ice Key without entering a code into the sand castle. In fact, it seems that this was the first way that the Ice Key was ever collected. ========== 3: Rumors ========== This section isn't ready as of now, sorry. Give me old theories! I need them to live! (Well, not really.) But that's not to say that there aren't any... ========== 4: Other Things ========== This section is where I put things that just aren't about the main Stop 'N' Swop functionality and use in Banjo-Kazooie, but strongly have to do with them. It's basically an odds-and-ends chapter. There's still interesting stuff here, though - don't just stop reading because the directly useful stuff is over. ---------- 4.a: Game Paks in Banjo-Tooie ---------- Because Rare had promised that Stop 'N' Swop would be continued in Banjo-Tooie, Banjo-Kazooie fans eagerly awaited the next game. However, since Stop 'N' Swop had been discontinued, they did not get Stop 'N' Swop, but instead a rather disappointing cheat system which used the then known Stop 'N' Swop items. This feature was that there were a bunch of small Banjo-Kazooie cartridges hidden throughout Banjo-Tooie. The Ice Key, Pink Egg, and Blue Egg were all found in these cartridges; attacking one of the cartridges would give the player the item. The Ice Key cartridge is found in a cave in a sandy section of Jinjo Village. Gamers were shocked by the fact that, while in Banjo-Kazooie the Ice Key was bigger than Banjo, this one was quite a bit smaller. Anyway, in another secret area, an enormous ice safe can be unlocked with the Ice Key, and it will reveal the Mega-Glowbo, an item which can be used to transform Kazooie into a fire- breathing dragon. Not a bad bonus, considering... The Pink Egg cartridge is found behind a grille, high up on a wall in Spiral Mountain. The egg can be given to Heggy, who lives in an enormous egg through a tunnel in Wooded Hollow, who will hatch it and teach you the Breegull Bash move, which, although fun, doesn't really do much. The Blue Egg cartridge is behind a fence at the top of the Spiral Mountain waterfall. Again, this egg can be given to Heggy, but this time it will teach you the Homing Eggs skill (activated by the HOMING cheat in the Mayahem Temple code chamber). This is definately worth the trouble, as it makes annoying parts of the game much better. All in all, the Stop 'N' Swop items in Banjo-Tooie were not as amazing and cool as they had been planned to be, but they were at least used for something useful and secret. Stop 'N' Swop purists are generally incensed that Rare disposed of the whole project in that way, but in my opinion it was a good decision, considering the alternatives. ---------- 4.b: Allusions to Stop 'N' Swop ---------- Ever since the advent of Banjo-Kazooie, Rare has been closely associated with Stop 'N' Swop, and they seem to like putting references to Stop 'N' Swop in more recent games, as a sort of in-joke. This is a list of the known allusions to Stop 'N' Swop in games after Banjo-Tooie. Grabbed by the Ghoulies (2003) On one of the boards in the schoolroom, there is a bunch of interesting information about Stop 'N' Swop. A few designs are drawn - one of which is "[egg] [egg] [egg] [egg] [key] = ?" - and on the right there is a list which I can't quite make out. Does anyone have more info on what's on that board? Banjo Pilot (2005) After having completed most of the game, Cheato will sell you something called "STOP N SWAP" for 999 Cheato pages. Many fans believed that Rare was finally revealing the link to Stop 'N' Swop, but the only result of buying this is to get Cheato to tell you, "So you want to know about Stop N Swop, eh? I hope you're ready. Here goes... Why don't you stop annoying me and swap this game for a nice book or something?" ---------- 4.c: Glossary ---------- There are a lot of abbreviations used in talking about Stop 'N' Swop. This is a short guide to them, in order to sound like a veteran. BGS - Bubble Gloop Swamp. BK - Banjo-Kazooie (the first game). BKGR - Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge (the Gameboy Advance game). BP - Banjo Pilot. BT - Banjo-Tooie (the second game). CC - Clanker's Cavern. CCW - Click Clock Woods. FP - Freezeezy Peak (where one can find the Ice Key). GbtG - Grabbed by the Ghoulies (an Xbox game by Rare). GFAQ - GameFAQs (where there are a bunch of Rare forums). GFF - Grunty's Furnace Fun. GS - GameShark. GV - Gobi's Valley (where the Blue Egg is located). MM - Mumbo's Mountain. MMM - Mad Monster Mansion (where, oddly, two eggs are hidden). RBB - Rusty Bucket Bay. RWP - the Rare Witch Project (a Banjo/Rare forum which is a sort of think tank for Stop 'N' Swop). SNS - Stop 'N' Swop (what this FAQ is about). TTC - Treasure Trove Cove (where the sand castle and the Pink Egg are). ---------- 4.d: Special Thanks ---------- I'd like to thank the following people or organizations: - Rare, for making all of these great games - Nintendo and Microsoft, for publishing Rare's games - Karin18, for making the original incarnation of the Stop 'N' Swop FAQ (I used some of the information there) - DEngel, for writing a very helpful Banjo-Tooie Secrets FAQ (which I took some information as well) - GameFAQs and the Rare Witch Project, for providing some great forums to talk about this kind of stuff - Everyone at GameFAQs and the Rare Witch Project forums (SubDrag, Andre, wkw, vincent, P.o.t.O., Ice Mario, IcyGuy, PuffTheDragon, PyroDillbrain, etc.) - Me (hey, I wrote this!) ---------- 4.e: Legal and Contact Information ---------- This FAQ is Copyright 2005 by Michael Z. R. Gottlieb, aka qqwref, aka MZRG. You may not claim that this FAQ, or any part of this FAQ, is your own, unless you are me. You may not sell this FAQ for profit in any form, unless you are me or you give me at least half (50%) of the profits. You may not put this FAQ anywhere on the web without explicitly stating that I am the author of this FAQ. If you want to contact me for any reason (questions, comments, spelling error notifications, flames, etc.), it would be best to e-mail me at mzrgATverizonDOTnet (replace the AT with @ and the DOT with .). You can also try to talk to me on the forums at GameFAQs or the Rare Witch Project, but in that case there is no guarantee that I will ever actually find your post.