Donkey Kong Oddities
A 30th anniversary celebration of the arcade game the world went ape over.Posted by Benj Edwards | Sunday, July 10, 2011
DK Joins the Circus
As in Donkey Kong Hockey, the ape found himself part of a contrived situation in Donkey Kong Circus (1984), a Game & Watch Panorama Screen title. In it, Donkey Kong juggles pineapples and avoids fireballs while balancing on a barrel. Like the true hero he is, Mario laughs from the sidelines.
Nintendo achieved this colorful screen effect through a combination of (1) ambient light, which enters from the back of a pop-up display (2) an LCD that is normally opaque but becomes clear in some portions when energized, and (3) a colorful overlay that contains the actual graphics. The result was quite impressive for an electronic game at the time.
(Photos: Torsten Lindh)
July 10th, 2011 at 10:42 pm
Oh Man, this is my favorite game, at least it was in 1982. At the age of twelve I would go to our local arcade (a gas station) and play Crazy Kong on a table top for 20 cents a game. I lived in trhe country, so we were behind the times, as The first games (also tabletop) were asteroid and space invaders. Next to the Crazy Kong table we had Frogger and Jungle Boy. Crazy Kong is the game I sunk most of mu cash into. I held the town record for a while too. How did I not get bored with that game?
December 23rd, 2011 at 1:14 am
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July 11th, 2011 at 8:49 am
The artwork on the “Donkey Kong on Acid” actually looks like “Mr. Do’s Castle” to me, the juxtaposition with the DK name makes a certain sense if you played them both!
February 5th, 2012 at 4:40 am
I always loved Donkey Kong. FAv game
July 11th, 2011 at 9:55 am
The Screenshot of the IBM PC port on slide 13 looks very similar to the version that I grew up playing, I don't recall what type of computer it was, just that we were running Window's 3.0 and that I had to work very hard and be on my best behavior to earn time playing the game. Ironically, now that I am married I have to do the same exact thing to play my current video games.
July 11th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Did the Intellivision box artist go on to produce the art for Mega Man?
July 11th, 2011 at 2:59 pm
This is why I will never give up my old stand-up Donky Kong that's in the basement now. My dad got it at an auction back in '87, then after floating around the family for years, I snatched it up at the first opportunity!
Wife hates it! But I'm taking it to the grave!
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July 11th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
May I recommend this excellent documentary on competitive Donkey Kong players:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Kong:_A_…
You couldn't make this stuff up.
July 11th, 2011 at 3:26 pm
The "troll" look of Donkey Kong on the PC is mostly due to the weird palette limitations of CGA graphics which were the only (or at least most common) color video adapters at the time.
July 11th, 2011 at 8:28 pm
I was technican with a company which distributed DK machines. Had a service call on a Sunday afternoon to a site where "couldn't insert coins". Arrived to find there was so many coins in the bin that thay had overflowed and then stacked inside the machine right up to the bottom of the coin acceptor. Those machines MINTED cash.
On a tech POV – the DK Motherboard was the first one I ever saw equipped with ECL (emitter coupled logic) RAM. This stuff, which was used in Cray supercomputers, drew so much current and hence ran really hot that it was mounted on a stand-off daughter board. I guess that the speed the barrel sprites moved required it?
August 24th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
No mention of the “Pac-Kong” game for the Atari 2600?!
October 2nd, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Oh man, who doesn't remember the old donkey kong and mario bros games? They will never again make games as simple and adictive as back then.
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October 9th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
I was just explaining to my young kids how I played this growing up. The kept asking me why I only got to play as Mario when the game was called Donkey Kong. It reminded me of Patrick Stewart explaining that he thought "Star Trek" was the name of the ship when he auditioned for ST:TNG.
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October 20th, 2011 at 2:31 pm
What a great read, I'm really glad that I stumbled upon this.
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October 31st, 2011 at 4:13 am
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November 5th, 2011 at 3:20 am
Oh wow, I remember this game. I was so hooked! 😀
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November 11th, 2011 at 10:54 pm
I am very impressed. I do have a couple questions for you personally however. Do you think you’re thinking about doing a follow-up posting about this? Will you be going to keep bringing up-to-date
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November 12th, 2011 at 1:37 am
this game is a 10/10 , if it had been called "mario country returns" it would have recieved a 10. This is possibly the best game in the wii and yes i have put that above galaxy and bros. i pulled out my old snes and played dkc and 2 and 3 next to this , this new dkc is the most faithful remake with added modernism i have ever seen! astroloji
November 12th, 2011 at 1:53 am
this is my favorite game that i want to play.I'll be play this game soon .thanks for giving us these kind of information.thanks for it.
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November 13th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
I don't recall what type of computer it was, just that we were running Window's 3.0 and that I had to work very hard and be on my best behavior to earn time playing the game. Ironically, now that I am married I have to do the same exact thing to play my current video games.
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November 14th, 2011 at 11:19 pm
Thirty years ago this month, Nintendo released Donkey Kong to arcades across the United States. The games American version went on to sell tens of thousands of units, saving the then-struggling US branch of the company and paving the way for Nintendos future success on Western shores.
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November 14th, 2011 at 11:41 pm
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Cheers on a great post, I’ve bookmarked and I look forward to future postings.
November 15th, 2011 at 2:04 am
Oh man, who doesn't remember the old donkey kong and mario bros games? They will never again make games as simple and adictive as back then. cheap textbooks
November 15th, 2011 at 1:13 pm
I can't believe this is 30 years old!!! I played this as a kid in San Diego California. I was at a wedding last year and the bride and groom had this as an arcade game at there reception. Good things are always good I guess.
November 21st, 2011 at 11:31 am
What cool little feature. I also have in my possession some Donkey Kong oddities. I have a series of animation cells of Donkey Kong and Mario from a little short that The Tennessee Valley Authority produced. I'd be happy to try to dig those up and provide scans if you are interested.
November 21st, 2011 at 11:58 pm
The game is definitely difficult, that's not in question. There is cheapness and some unpredictability that's maddening, but the worst and most *unacceptable* problem of the game is that when you die, you lose TWO lives instead of one. So not fair.gold coins
November 23rd, 2011 at 11:26 pm
What a write!! Very informative also easy to understand. Looking for more such posts!! Do you have a my space? I recommended it on digg. The only thing that it’s missing is a bit of new design. Anyway thank you for this blog. Cariszone
December 16th, 2011 at 3:32 pm
A classic that we never forget! Badly that it starts again after you have rescued the princess … But it doesn't bother me so much … billig seo
December 26th, 2011 at 7:45 pm
Another interesting titbit of trivia is that Mario made one of his first appearances in a game as a villain in Donkey Kong. However, he went on to become the world famous mascot, more famous than the game's protagonist itself. Nevertheless, the cultural impact of Donkey kong is undeniable.
January 18th, 2012 at 8:51 pm
I’m kinda curious that in write-ups like this, no one ever brings up the unusual idea of a “donkey” versus a “monkey”. (Maybe it’s on Wikipedia, I haven’t looked) but as I was told, the title of the game got lost in translation between the Japanese developers and the Americans. Change one letter in the title and it goes from Donkey Kong to Monkey Kong. Seeing as “King Kong” was a notable monster at that time a la Godzilla, Mothra, and all the others, the idea made sense since King Kong scaled buildings and took the woman (Fay Wray)at the top of the building. So the game was initially meant to be titled “Monkey Kong”.
At least as I was told. And to me, that makes a little more sense than the Popeye reference. Although I see how the two ideas could’ve been combined.
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January 20th, 2012 at 7:20 am
It took me just under 41 hours to get 101% of everything in the game and beat the final boss. I encountered a strange glitch before I actually got everything. I went to the large Banana Fairy after photographing all the smaller ones in the game. She gave me the 201st banana (the one with the Rareware sticker), and my percentage total showed "101%"…but the thing is, I was still missing a banana from the Crystal Caves level at the time! My rating should have only been 100%. When I finally got that missing banana, my total stayed at 101%.
January 22nd, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Nintendo of America was struggling in 1980 and 1981. As the video game craze swept the country, none of Nintendo's game titles managed to make an impact in the booming industry. Space Firebird did modest business, but was licensed stateside to Sega/Gremlin, leaving Nintendo-labelled titles such as Sheriff and Heli-Fire to flounder.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:24 am
What a great post, I am now 29 years-old but can recall this nice video game which I played quite a few years back now! Nintendo even released it on Super Nintendo at some point, it was a superb game with better graphics than the very first one obviously! It brings back very good memories to me, thanks! interpoker review
January 29th, 2012 at 9:46 pm
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