Not sure if this counts for any runs or anything but please read thru this entire thing.

Back in the day, my sister and I were all about gaming together, and one of our favorites was Diddy Kong Racing. We discovered there was this password, “JOINTVENTURE,” that unlocked a two-player story mode. Every time we played, I’d punch it in, and we'd dive into the game together. But there’s one thing that’s always stuck with me—and I’m still not sure if it was a glitch or something else.

Here’s how it went down:

So, at the top of the menu, there was a language bar where you could switch between English, French, etc. (I'm Canadian, so French is an option for me). One day, I thought it’d be funny to switch it to French, just to show off to my sister. Now, I didn’t actually speak French, but I remembered where everything was in the menu, so I pretended like I was fluent.

I put in the magic code “JOINTVENTURE” and we started the game. But when we got in… that’s when the weird stuff started happening.

Here’s what went down:

1. We had just finished the first zone when we noticed something strange.
2. One of the frogs suddenly had a red thing on its head.
3. We ran over to it, and boom, we unlocked the chicken guy (I can't remember his name—it's been years!).
4. Then, we noticed something even weirder—the lighthouse was gone.
5. And we found new levels we had never seen before. For context, we’d never even come close to finishing the game, so this was totally unexpected.

It felt like we unlocked something by mistake, but how?

So, here’s the timeline:

• Start the game
• Go to Options
• Switch language to French
• Navigate to the password section (I think it’s called “Magic Codes”)
• Enter the 2-player code “JOINTVENTURE”
• Start the game, and... weirdness.

I’ve always wondered if I triggered some kind of glitch or if the game just bugged out. It probably wouldn’t help in a speedrun, but it’s been in the back of my mind for years. I was talking to my sister about it recently, and we had a good laugh, but I’m still curious.

Anyone else ever experience something like this? Or have any idea what could’ve happened? 🤔