George Andreas, one of Rare’s lead developers, recalls the meeting with a mix of horror and fascination. The development team was in charge of showing the game’s progress to Nintendo’s big wigs, including Shigeru Miyamoto who is known for his skepticism of gun violence in video games. Andreas was demonstrating the game to the smiling executives, showcasing the rap, Donkey Kong swinging from vine to vine, and collecting all the bananas.

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The team had been working on the Donkey Kong 64 for so long they had forgotten that the gun was meant to be a placeholder and not the very realistic gun that Miyamoto was now starring at in abject horror. “I completely forgot that it was in there,” Andreas says. It was clear that this shotgun was not fitting tonally with what would soon become an inspiration for people like Kojima. After a moment of watching the game, Miyamoto composed himself, smiled, and started drawing on a piece of paper.

After a tense silence, Miyamoto had drawn the base design for the coconut gun with leaves on it to make it look less scary. Miyamoto’s simple yet measured design would then become the gun that Donkey Kong would wield throughout the game, just one step towards earning Shigeru Miyamoto the highest honor in Japan. “I looked at it,” Andreas remembers, “and said ‘Oh yeah, that’s cool, we’ll put that in’ and the coconut gun was put in after that.”

From there all of the Kong-family had coconut inspired projectiles and the game would go on to be a massive hit. Andreas even recalls going to a toy store after the launch of the game and watching as hundreds of kids and parents clapped and sang along to the DK Rap. “I didn’t care what happened after that point as it’d brought joy to those families,” Andreas told GamesRadar. And the joy continued for two decades following as many are still wondering whether or not a remake will be made for the Nintendo Switch after Reggie Fils-Amie teased its launch in 2017.

Donkey Kong 64 can only be played on Nintendo 64, without a shotgun.

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Sources: GamesRadar, IGN