Today’s children’s costumes are certainly more complex than the costumes of our youth. There’s a realism to them that’s, well, a bit unnerving. Never mind the slutty Little Ho-Peep numbers that have been garnering so much press of late. I’m thinking of costumes so byzantine, they would be right at home in a Julie Taymor production of The Lion King.

So when a pint-sized Spidey rappels down the side of your house tonight or a Remy the Rat slinks its way out of a nest of autumn leaves beside your porch, I’d like to encourage each of you to remember a forgotten time of the simpler costumes of our youth. Yes, a time when Ben Cooper “flame retarted” costumes reigned supreme (”See, here, mom, I’m not going to burn up in this number. No Way!). A time when, if you wanted to be a super hero, you didn’t dress like the super hero but rather had a picture of that particular super hero emblazoned on your chest for easy identification. A time when a costume could be purchased for a mere $3.99 and, if you were lucky, might make it all the way through Halloween night without the cheap rubber band on the back of the mask breaking.

Yes, back then, our costumes came in ready-to-wear vinyl jumpsuits that you wore over your clothes and we liked ‘em! When you got that caramel apple all over the front side of your vinyl lapel at Johnny’s after school party, mom could easily wipe you clean with a damp dishrag or water hose before sending you out on your way for more trick-or-treats.

In keeping with the arcade theme, I dug out these two old Halloween costumes I bought on eBay a number of years ago. I was never cool enough to go as Q*Bert or Pac-Man (and, my, how the Namco property has evolved over the years–back then, Pac-Man looked hopped up on something besides power pellets, if you know what I mean.). But I’d like to think that the kid who did wear this Pac-Man costume back in 1982 rang the doorbell and when the unsuspecting adult opened the door, he just cooly held out his Pac-Man pillowcase and said, “Wacka wacka.” The Q*Bert kid was even more bad-ass. Instead of “Trick or Treat!” he must have said, “Gimme your @!#?@! candy!”

photo by RickRey

In this article, Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, cites Breakout as his all-time favorite video game. Bushnell believes the game is a metaphor for breaking down barriers between people; something its creator, Steve Jobs–Atari employee number thirteen (who imfamously cheated Woz out of a bonus when Woz designed the prototype for him)– would later take beyond mere metaphor with his founding of Apple, a truly pioneering technology company that democratized personal computing and continues to break down barriers.

Apparently Bushnell doesn’t think much of modern video games which, sounding more like Abe Simpson than the founder of Atari, he dismisses out-of-hand as ”pure unadulterated trash”. Bushnell would like to see more emphasis placed on social gaming and a return to simpler games that involve the whole family, which is a problem his new venture, uWink, purports to solve.  However, when I talk to my friends who have an XBox 360 (I have a PS3 and a Wii), one of the main benefits for them, whether the game is the new Halo 3 or Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, is the social interaction they get through online co-op play.

The reality is that there is a market for both types of games and, for as many different types of games as now exist, there are probably an equal number of different types of gamers. For proof, look no further than the breakout success of the Nintendo Wii, beloved by all, ages 2-102; casual gamers can bowl or play tennis or indulge in retrogaming while hardcore gamers can kill zombies.

What all of these games have in common is that they bring people together in real or imagined spaces for fun. The amazing richness and diversity of modern gaming is something that should be celebrated not denigrated. It’s unfortunate then when one of the true fathers of computer video games doesn’t recognize this and won’t speak to his children.

Bag Man Fans

Jeff Kulczycki

Donkey Kong II: Jumpman Returns made its public debut at this year’s California Extreme show in

San Jose, CA and should be available soon for purchase (for the latest details, check jeffsromhack.com). The roots of the game actually go back a number of years. In 2004, Jeff Kulczycki wrote an extra level for Donkey Kong and sold it on his site in the form of an updated ROM containing all of the original levels plus one more he made up which he called the Foundry level. It was meant to be played on original Donkey Kong hardware and the response from classic arcade collectors and fellow hobbyists was overwhelmingly positive. Encouraged by this success, Kulczycki continued to add new enhancements to this beloved classic. In 2005, there was an early beta of what would eventually become known as D2k at California Extreme. At that time, the game consisted of three new playable levels and one level that was still very rough (and eventually abandoned) as well as some exciting new intermission sequences built around the original storyline of Donkey Kong. Kulczycki recently published a great article about the making of D2k which you can read in this month’s GameRoom magazine. As an early and ardent fan of the game, I was lucky enough to beta test D2k (read Donkey Kong: Great Game or Greatest Game for my thoughts on the enhancements). I sat down with Kulczycki during this year’s California Extreme show to learn more about the game.

JVW: How did D2k come into existence?

JK: The Donkey Kong sequel that I made started out as a free play hack. It was a game that I owned and I wanted to add free play to it and, at the time, I think Scott Brasington was doing a free play hack as well. So I thought, “No one’s going to want to buy my free play hack because his saves the high scores and everything.” So that’s why I thought maybe if I added an extra level or something cool. So I started adding the custom text where you put your name in the attract mode and then I eventually added the Foundry level. And everybody played that and thought it was really neat so I thought, “Hey, maybe I’ve got something here!” so I decided to try adding a couple more levels. And that’s really how the game was born.

JVW: What you’ve done here really seems unprecedented. We’ve seen a lot of after market add-ons and kits that allow you to play multiple games that run on the same hardware or save the high scores but I can’t think of another example like this where the very game itself has been extended while still remaining true to the game play of the original game. This must have been a really time intensive project. How long have you been working on it?

JK: I’ve been working on it, off and on, for probably three and a half years. It started with looking at the code which, you know, was a lot of work because you have to understand all of the routines if you’re going to add something like a new level. And then, of course, coming up with ideas for a new level. Everybody thinks they have a great idea but, you know, sometimes I’d throw an idea out there and try it and I’d be like, “This isn’t fun at all!” you know? Or this, this looks just like this level, it’s too similar and it’s not really working out. So I kind of went back and forth with a bunch of ideas. And then you stop working on it for a while. And then my kids were born. And you kind of shift your priorities around a bit. So definitely, finding the free time to work on it was a challenge. And it feels good to finally be done with it.

JVW: So are you a programmer or an engineer? What do you do for a living and how did that inform what you were able to accomplish here?

JK: I live in Detroit and I work on automotive electronics and software and I think that background helped a lot. Being an electrical engineer helps with debugging the games and understanding how the games work. But I definitely enjoy getting into the software aspects of it because that’s where you really get to see what the programmer was thinking and find out, for example, why there’s a kill screen and why they have all these certain anomalies, bugs, and stuff like that.

JVW: Speaking of the Donkey Kong kill screen, that’s become something of a favorite line from King of Kong. Were you able to find out why the kill screen happens and have you “fixed it” in the D2k release?

JK: The Donkey Kong kill screen was a little bit of sloppy programming. I suppose they didn’t think that somebody would get that far and there’s a few bytes in there that kind of go wacko when you get up that high. And, yes, I’ve fixed that in Donkey Kong II/D2k. I wanted to take a look at some of the other bugs and see if someone had spent a little more time on it, maybe they’d be fixable, too.

JVW: I thought it was really neat what you did with the Pie Factory level.

JK: Yeah?

JVW: Back in the day, it was hard enough to even get to that level but, when you did get to it, it always felt like you were cheated in that you didn’t have to go all the way up to the platform to rescue the girl like you do on the other levels.

JK: I felt the same way. It’s like you get to the top and then, “That’s it?! It ended? What happened?!”

JVW: So how did you “reverse engineer” the code? How did you figure out what regions did what?

JK: The first game I sort of “reverse engineered” was Dragon’s Lair. I got tips from Jeff Kinder [ed: Dragon’s Lair Project] and worked with Dave Hallock on the code. And, at the time, there was a lot of focus on that game because people wanted to find out why the drawbridge scene was always skipped because it’s on the disc and it wasn’t in the game. And, eventually, Dave Hallock added the drawbridge scene and that was one of the things I was looking into–understanding the code and how things work. That game has a basic engine to it: you program the moves; you program the frame files that you’re expecting to play on the disc. And that got me thinking, “Well, hey, maybe I’ll take a look at some other games.” So basically, you get the ROM and nowadays you don’t even have to necessarily own the game but if you want to read the ROM out, you disassemble it and then you go through it and it’s a pretty painstaking task to understand what every single instruction does. Some people do ROM hacking but they’re only looking at adding extra lives somewhere so all they have to find is the lives routine and kick it up by one. But I really wanted to understand the game a lot more and the more you get into it, the more interesting it gets. So you’re like, “Hey, whoa, this is how they do the jump, this is how they calculate the points.” So I kept going with it. Then you start to find the routines where they draw the screens and then you start to realize, “Hey, I can change this! I can move a girder here or I can add a ladder here!” Donkey Kong is one of those games that really lends itself well to being customized. You can move things around, change the colors, change the way things behave and suddenly you’ve got a new level. I guess, in the back of my mind, it was always a dream of mine to come up with a new Donkey Kong game and I think a lot of people have that same thought.

JVW: Sure, I have.

JK: It’s like, hey, I’m going to make games some day! But I never thought I actually would and, you know, finding the time was difficult, too.

JVW: So it was an iterative process?

JK: Yeah, you go through the code line by line and you look to identify variables–you know, like the number of lives or what level you’re on–and then you kind of trace it through. MAME was actually a really good tool for that. It has a lot of really good debugging tools that allow you to step through the code and see what it is. But a lot of it is just staring at the code and saying, “What is the programmer trying to do here?” And, like I said, you keep following things along and it gets pretty interesting just to see what they’re doing and the number of variables being tracked because they didn’t have the luxury of large hard drives, virtually unlimited space, flash ROMs and stuff like that.

JVW: As you were analyzing the code, what were some of the surprises you discovered along the way?

JK: Well one thing that is interesting is that there is actually text at the end of the Donkey Kong program. If you look at the text is says something like, “If you’ve figured this out, call this number.” And there’s something, I can’t recall if it’s an address or a number or both. It’s pretty well-known if you look it up on the web. [Ed note: There is this text in one of the ROMs of the Japanese version:CONGRATULATION !IF YOU ANALYSE DIFFICULT THIS PROGRAM,WE WOULD TEACH YOU.*****TEL.TOKYO-JAPAN 044(244)2151 EXTENTION 304 SYSTEM DESIGN IKEGAMI CO. LIM.] But the big surprise was a sprite. It’s basically a pie that’s kind of tilted to the end on an angle and, when I saw that, I thought, hey, wait a minute. We don’t actually see that in the game. We just see them going left to right. So maybe, at some point, they were supposed to fall down or something like that and that’s how I got the idea for the mixer level. OK, let’s see what happens if stuff falls off the end of a conveyer and tumbles into nowhere. As far as other things in the code, I could see where they were limited to just the four levels. You look at the space that they have with the 16K of ROM and they make pretty good use of the space. At some point, I guess you have to stop programming and ship it. I mean there’s probably some things they thought about doing differently or even adding but basically they probably just ran out of time.

JVW: I’m amazed you were able to get so much out of that little bit of space. You’ve added lots of cool intermission sequences, four new levels, and you’ve enhanced the four old levels in small but compelling ways and yet it all runs on original hardware. How were you able to do that?

JK: Well, D2k actually runs on a 32K ROM. The original hardware was only 16K. When I did the Foundry level, that really was a challenge because I wanted it to run on the original hardware so basically I had to find the room. I think, again, if you have more time and you can go back and look at something, you can find some routines that aren’t being used, routines that are being called more than once or they’re duplicated somewhere so you can eliminate the redundancies. For example, there’s a scoring routine where they were just adding a bunch of zeroes which, in the world of math, doesn’t do much for you, so I was able to eliminate a lot of bytes there. And just by going through, I guess, you know, again, my background in automotive electronics; we’re also trying to save a lot of money, get things in a small area or space, so it kind of helped in squeezing out a few extra bytes, which is what I needed to fit the Foundry level in. Of course, there was no way to get the four levels and all of the intermissions into 16k so that’s where the Braze kit really helped out just by allowing more space.

JVW: Did you change any of the barrel routines? You mentioned they were complex and one area that you looked into to save space when working on the Foundry level.

JK: Well, there’s a lot of physics involved in rolling a barrel and having it bounce and determining how it slopes down and stuff like that. So, if you look at the code, I think most of it was dedicated to the handling all of those barrels! The rest of it’s really simple, like all those fireballs kind of bounce and go back and forth, extendible ladders just go up and down, Kong goes left and right–those are pretty simple routines–but when it came to rolling a barrel, having it slide at a slant, having it fall of an edge, look for an edge, bounce, turn around and come back the other direction, there was a lot of code in that. And whenever I needed to test something, I pretty much just deleted the Girder level and it would free up a whole bunch of space so I could try things out. But eventually, you know, I knew people wanted to play the barrels level because that’s the first one you see so I had to add it back in before the Foundry was released.

JVW: How did you come up with those intermission sequences? They’re very amusing and they really add to the overall story.

JK: Well, I guess it was Ms. Pac-man that had the intermissions and I always thought that was fun because, back in the day, no one wanted to watch you play but as soon as you got to a new intermission, everyone would crowd around to watch going, “Hey, check it out!” So that was something that I always thought was missing from Donkey Kong. So, I thought, hey, maybe I could group a couple of sprites together and move them left to right and come up with something. Towards the end, I don’t know if you’ve seen the chase where Jumpman is chasing the girl.

JVW: Yeah, I love it!

JK: Well, it’s basically a take-off on Ms. Pac-man where they’re chasing each other and they bump into each another. I thought that would be fun.

JVW: I think it’s even funnier in Dk2 since Jumpman is literally half the height of Pauline. It kind of reminds me of playing kissing tag during second grade recess where the girls were always a good six inches taller than me.

JK: And the hot foot intermission where Jumpman gives Kong the hot foot is basically like Congo Bongo. I think some of those things are memorable in a game because you’re trying to see the next one. It’s like, “OK, what happens next? What does the next one look like?”

JVW: In the hot foot sequence, Kong is shown sleeping on his side. Is that something you drew?

JK: Yeah. There’s a limit to the sprites you can use and I wanted to see if I could come up with something different and I found that by overlapping different sprites and using the solid black square sprite, you’re able to mask things out. It gets pretty intensive because maybe you don’t want a pixel here or there or you want to make a slant or something like that so you’ve got to add like four or five sprites just to cover up maybe one pixel. But by moving stuff around, you can come up with a whole new graphic.

JVW: Ah, is that how you did the Mixer level?

JK: Yeah! First you start with a full pie and now you have an empty tin just by putting a black sprite over the top of it. I used that same idea for that scene at the end of the Rivets level where Kong is hanging on, to make his arms because, you know, those sprites weren’t in there. [Laughs.] And then I ran into a problem there, too, because the first levels had overlapping sprites and things weren’t really showing up right and I think I eventually tracked it down to the fact that the hardware only lets you have sixteen or so sprites in any vertical area and once you had more than sixteen in that vertical area, it would kind of ignore a couple so then I started sort of shifting them a little to the left and a little to the right just so they weren’t overlapping in the same vertical plane. It ended up being a lot of work, working it out on a spreadsheet, just to see which pixels were overlapping and which ones I had to move left and which ones I had to move right. In the end, everything looked okay.

JVW: So what has the response to D2k been like so far? Are there a lot of people following your progress?

JK: Very positive. I guess when you’ve been working on something for more than three years, it kind of drags on and some people get impatient but there is a lot of interest and there have been a lot of people who have been following it. Like yourself and Beau Hall. People will just email and say, “Hey, when’s it going to be done!? Are you still working on it!?” And sometimes it’s that kind of support that you need to really push things through and keep going on a project. And now that it’s done, I’ve definitely heard from a lot of people who are interested in it.

JVW: So tell me about your ideas for a dedicated D2k cabinet?

JK: Yeah, it’s funny… because a lot of people buy the kits and they’ll just stick it in their same cabinet. Like they’ll buy the Donkey Kong kit and stick it in their existing cabinet. And Scott [Brasington], I guess, had the idea of doing the Double Donkey Kong art and I’ve seen some of the new artwork and I thought, that’s great because you want to dress up your cabinet. As a collector, sometimes it’s not just the game, it’s the cabinet. It’s the artwork, the stickers, the coin door stickers, things like that. So I thought, why not do the complete package and try to come up with the full game so some of it was just cut and paste in PaintShop Pro, changing the colors and just giving it a new look because I didn’t really want to deviate from the original Donkey Kong too much. Things had to be kind of similar. But definitely coming up with a different color scheme, like the navy blue that we came up with, makes it just different enough that you recognize it as a sequel, but similar enough that you say, “Hey it’s kind of the same game!”

JVW: And how do you feel about its placement at California Extreme? Should it be after Donkey Kong or after Donkey Kong 3? I know this was the subject of a lot of debate as the show was being set up.

JK: [laughs] I like that it’s next to Donkey Kong because the two games are similar. And there really wasn’t a sequel. There was Donkey Kong Junior but, to me, that wasn’t really a sequel. It never really brought the same game play back. And by the time they got to Donkey Kong 3, it just seems like it changed altogether. So, yeah, having it next to Donkey Kong was the right placement.

JVW: How has the game been received during the show?

JK: I’ve seen a lot of people playing it and it’s been fun to watch people play. It’s fun to see people get stuck at the spots where you expected them to get stuck or scratch their heads where you were hoping they’d scratch their heads. And hopefully I’ve made it challenging enough that people keep wanting to come back but not so challenging that they just throw up their hands altogether. Because, you know, like we were saying, when you played your first Donkey Kong game, you didn’t know how to solve all the levels. Playing it for the first time, you had to experiment and find out all the tricks and tips so, hopefully, this game will bring that back to people who are playing it for the first time.

JVW: Absolutely. So when will the game be available and how will people get it?

JK: Soon. There have been a few setbacks in getting it completed. People who are interested should keep checking my website for updates.

JVW: And if people want to make a dedicated D2k cabinet will they be able to obtain the artwork?

JK: Hopefully I’ll be able to find a way to make the artwork available so people can put their own cabinets together.

JVW: So are you really done? Or do you think you’ll still go back and tweak it a little bit more?

JK: I have to stop! There were some things I wanted to change and you had some good ideas and I thought, you know, maybe I should make the first level a little bit easier because I notice a lot of people have trouble, even with that first jump, the jumping over the fire. So I thought, I should make this a little bit easier. But then I thought, you know, I’ll just throw it out there and let people play with it. I mean, I’ve got to stop working on it some time. [Ed. Note: since this interview, Kulczycki has made additional refinements to the game which should be available in the final release, including making the Refinery level the first level, easing the Refinery gas timing, and moving the fireballs off of level one; all in an effort to make the game more accessible.]

JVW: Well, it’s a fantastic project and the results are amazing and well worth the effort. I just wanted to thank you on behalf of all gamers for your dedication to the hobby and for creating this very cool new game!

JK: I hope people will enjoy it. It’s been a lot of fun working on it.

JVW: So what’s next for you? Are you ready to take on another classic arcade game?

JK: I’ve got to save the ones in my basement right now. I haven’t been paying enough attention to ones I own so I have to get down there otherwise they’re going to find their way to the curb eventually. So, as far as new projects go, I think at this point, I’d like to just take a break and see what happens next.

One new marketing focus that is getting a lot of attention nowadays is all about identifying and fulfilling targeted niches using the reach of the internet and the cumulative effect of the Long Tail.

Today, I was thinking about a missed marketing opportunity which I hope someone will fully exploit. I’ve seen on eBay various bootleg silk screened video game flyers applied to everything from trucker hats to bumper stickers and key chains but I think that the adult classic video gamer is ready for something more sophisticated so I offer the following modest proposals of products that never were–and probably should not be–should someone more entrepreneurially inclined than me wish to take up the cause.

Bagman Teabags

The French aren’t known for good video games or good tea but this time they’ve outsourced their tea leaves to

India and the results are nothing short of remarkable. Introducing Bagman Teabags. So tasty, they’re almost criminal. (And they’re better than getting tea-bagged by a sadistic prison guard.)

Raid Black Widow Spray

Raid Black Widow Spray from Atari. When you want bugs dead long after your color vector monitor has died, accept no substitutes.

Blaster Hemorrhoid Relief

Blaster may be a pain in the ass to play but it doesn’t have to be a literal pain the ass any longer thanks to fine people at Williams who have joined forces with a leading pharmaceutical company to introduce Blaster Hemorrhoid Relief. Blaster almost makes it fun to blast away those nasty anal fistulas. And it’s every bit as scary as it sounds. Available in regular and extra-strength duramold formulas.

Bubbles brand dish soap

Williams and Palmolive join efforts to bring you Bubbles brand dish soap. Don’t wait for the cleaning lady with the broom to appear and keep those cockroaches in the drain where they belong. When you want to win extra points with the missus, keep your dishes spot clean with Bubbles dish soap.

Cirque Charlie du Soleil

If you’re like me, you’ve already seen all of the Cirque du Soleil shows in Las Vegas. This fall. Coming to a casino near you. When the talented French Canadian acrobats join forces with Konami’s beloved 1984 classic video game, you know there will be at least six exciting levels of derring-do and scrolling vertical game play, including jumping through flaming hoops, trampoline somersaults, walking a tightrope, balancing posture balls, and who can forget the daring young man on the flying trapeze? Your whole family will enjoy an expensive evening at Cirque Charlie du Soleil.

Cliff Hanger clothes hanger

After a long day at the office, don’t just throw your ratty old Member’s Only jacket on the floor like a slob as you reach over to turn on your favorite laser disc videogame. Introducing Stern’s exciting Cliff Hanger brand Clothes Hangers. Now you can enjoy all of Cliff’s high wire adventures with no more wire hangers. Even Mommy Dearest would be proud. Now JEMP off the couch and go hang up your jacket.

Congo Bongo brand bongos

Now you no longer have to decide between a game of Congo Bongo and hitting a mad bohemian beat Matthew McConaughey style somewhere in Santa Cruz. Once you’re fully baked, instead of reaching for that joystick, go outside, take off your shirt and join the nearest beach drum circle. With Sega’s Congo Bongo bongos, you’ll be rocking that jungle drum n bass beat all night long.

Crazy Climber Step Ladder

If you’re going to take a fall while cleaning leaves out of the gutter, you might as well make it amusing for the neighbors. When you use Nichibutsu’s Crazy Climber branded ladder, tiny microchips in the ladder can sense when someone is falling and a speaker at the top of the ladder will scream, “Oh noooooooo” so you no longer have to.

Nintendo Donkey Kung Pao Noodle Bowl

The latest snack from Japan includes barrel shaped pieces of delicious bite-sized tofu. It’s fun and nutritious!

Gorf Gorp

Before that all-night marathon to set a new world record on Gorf, you’d better munch down on plenty of Bally-Midway Gorf Gorp if you hope to survive the journey with all your neurons (and the joystick) still firing. Also good for camping and interstellar travel.

Granny and the Gatorade

You’ve played Mountain Dew Tapper. You have the ROMS for Mello-Yello Q-Bert. Now you can enjoy Granny and the Gatorade; great for when you have that deep down body thirst.

Journey Band-Aids

You might remember Steve Perry’s contribution to Band Aid’s “Do they know it’s Christmas”. Now you can enjoy Bally Midway Journey branded Band-Aids, a band exclusive, any time and any way you want it! Perfect for those embarrassing cold sores all you Groupoids get after a long night of rock and roll. Now there’s no excuse to stop the lovin’, touchin’, and, you got it, squeezin’. Void where prohibited by law.

Joust brand Farm Fresh Eggs

You’ve fought with your ostrich and mount for twenty years now so you know these bonus eggs are cage-free, if well past their expiry date. Why not enjoy a delicious ostrich egg omelet courtesy of Williams Games and the good people at Pepperidge Farms?

MappyQuest GPS

MappyQuest is the hottest new tech gadget with retro-gaming street credibility. Twenty years ago, who would have thought a global positioning device such as this might one day exist. Certainly not the fine people at Bally-Midway who had our titular hero recovering stolen radios, television sets, safes, and works of art but never, not once, a stolen GPS device. Now you’ll never get lost again but if you decide to take a detour you can while away your time playing Mappy.

Marble Madness Marbles

More fun than a Donkey Kong board game, Atari Marble Madness Marbles include actual 3D cat’s eyes and steelies, just like you remember them.

Moon Patrol Muesli

Ok Governor Moonbeam, so you think you have what it takes to colonize the moon while also keeping your colon free and clear of cancer? Well, maybe now you can with a nutritious high fiber breakfast of Williams Moon Patrol Muesli, now fortified with almond moon rocks. Try a bowel of Moon Patrol Muesli; it’s good for your bowels.

Pooyan Pork and Beans

Ever wonder what happened to Mama Pooyan’s three baby pigs? Well, let’s just say all of them made it safely to the market in Stern’s Pooyan Pork and Beans. Be sure to stock up your larder before your next arcade party.

Q-Bert brand Q-tips

You probably remember Sam, Slick, and Coily, three of Q-Bert’s archenemies, but did you know that Q-Bert can’t use his own brand of Q-tips? That’s because he doesn’t have any hands. Tragic accident involving a pyramid, I hear. But don’t let that get in the way of your enjoyment of this fine product from Johnson and Johnson and… Gottlieb.

Space Ace Emergency Space Blanket

It’s cold and dark in the far reaches of space. As you’re chasing Kimmy from one end of the galaxy to the other, you might spend more than one lonely night on the couch so why not keep warm with the Space Ace Emergency Space Blanket from Don Bluth and Associates.

Naughty Shenanigan’s Truth or Dragon’s Lair, Very Saucy Edition

This game isn’t as much fun as you’d imagine. The girls usually take the truth and the guys always choose to play Dragons Lair. Go figure.

Zookeeper Brand Animal Crackers

And last, but certainly not least, finally there’s a healthy and wholesome way to introduce your kids to your love of classic gaming. Taito’s Zookeeper brand Animal Crackers offer a menagerie of great taste in snake, lion, moose, and rhino fun-sized shapes. Cut out the back to make your own classic game board! You can move the crackers around the zoo until you get sick of playing with your food.

I was excited to catch a sneak preview of the aptly-named Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade last Thursday in Emeryville. The movie is a must-see for anyone interested in the historical relevance and cultural impact of classic arcade video games. Chasing Ghosts will likely bring a knowing grin of nostalgia to anyone who survived the Reagan years and perhaps spent more time than they’d like to admit pumping their loose change into arcade games. The movie will also serve as a great introduction to kids, just coming of age now, wondering about their parents’ youth, which, like all youths, was made to be misspent; in the early 1980s, during the height of the Cold War, kids showed up en masse, plunked down quarters, and defeated Martians and these lives have not yet been documented to the extent of those of the Baby Boomers, their parents, who turned on, tuned in, and dropped out during the Vietnam War.

The archival footage that Lincoln Ruchti and team have unearthed, including an arcade game marathon featured on TV’s That’s Incredible, is nothing short of excellent. The film itself includes a hip time warp soundtrack with songs by Missing Persons and Talking Heads and lots of uncovered photos of arcades of old, eventually boarded up by the Great Video Game Crash of 1984. Peter Hirschberg’s excellent revisionist 3D animation of old video game cabinets and classic video game play is also nothing short of inspiring.

Ruchti’s film focuses on the iconic Life Magazine two-page photo of video game champions taken one brisk morning in November 1982, the champions standing behind their high score games (with a bevy of early 80s cheerleaders—love the hair!—splayed out in the front row; perhaps itself a lingering sign of the era’s antediluvian (and shockingly overt) sexism as none of the champions were women). The photo was taken in Ottumwa, Iowa, the self-proclaimed Video Game Capital of the World, later endorsed as such by the Mayor and eventually even the Governor of Iowa himself, both businessmen who perhaps smelled a possible tourism surge by attaching themselves to the video game fad. This publicity stunt is organized like a three-ring circus by local businessman and Twin Galaxies arcade owner, Walter Day.

Chasing Ghosts sets out to answer the question where are they now? though, really, this is just a conceit to allow the filmmakers the opportunity to explore the genuinely quirky personalities of many of these early 80s video game world champions. In so doing, the film unveils a unique cast of characters from all parts of the globe—well, United States and Canada, at least, all presumably playing themselves (with the possible exception of Roy Shildt but more on him in a minute), with the more than quotidian number of expected adult neuroses present and even, one would assume, worn proudly on the sleeves of some of these ex-champs like so many old Activision merit badges. To wit, at least two of the adult gamers, now in their early forties, still live at home with their parents. Another gamer collects rare spiders and looks like he might be related to Comic Book Guy. Another former champ comes across with the fastidiousness of Gene, the anal-retentive chef (and he’s probably the most well-adjusted of those featured). Another player is more of a playa and seems to be living La Vida Loca, playing poker late into the night and consorting with call girls, or perhaps he just has commitment issues. Still another gamer collects pin-up art and takes great pleasure in showing it off, a collection he estimates to be worth $300,000.

It’s unclear what are we as viewers to make of these men or, worse still, the inclusion of Roy Shildt, a personality not from the original photo, though certainly a character and one who plays it to the hilt for the camera. The fact is that he may actually be dangerous to himself or others—at least, Day, for one, believes so, since the film takes pride in pointing out he has a restraining order against Shildt because Day refused to publish his Missile Command high score. Shildt, who goes by the moniker Mr. Awesome, dresses in a pilot’s uniform (but with shorts and dress socks) and even has a Mr. Awesome name tag to match. During the film, he actively promotes an autobiographical comic book about the sexual escapades of Mr. Awesome while dissing other, presumably more talented, video game players which, for this viewer at least, brought to mind the troubled brothers at the heart of Terry Zwigoff’s superior, if completely different, documentary, Crumb.

Walter Day comes off as a complex character in his own right. Portrayed in the film as equal parts shameless self-promoter and self-deluded songsmith, he appears to have been a genuine mentor to the young video game champions featured, who were often shuttled about the country —and, often as not, at their own expense–in order to drum up publicity for the nascent video game industry. Day is also a bit of a hoarder and a life-long entrepreneur. Early in the film, he is shown with a giant collection of old newspapers, which he is trying to sell as antiques. As the video game phenomenon takes hold, he hits upon the idea of becoming the self-anointed official scorekeeper for the entire industry; a few calls to the arcade manufacturers are placed (who, no doubt, saw the opportunity here themselves) and suddenly Day is the go-to-guy for all things high-score; something, amazingly, he continues to do with little fanfare for well over two decades, long after the Video Game Crash and the eventual rebirth of the home console market.

In one scene, which the filmmakers unwisely decide to portray for laughs, Day sends one of his beloved old score keeping jerseys, unsolicited, to the Smithsonian. That scene alone portrays a man trying to come to terms with how he has spent his time and feeling perhaps that he should be both better-known and more respected than he is, while also wondering if there is still enough time left for the greatest of all American pastimes: self-reinvention. Day is portrayed as a person in conflict, someone who is now trying to get out of the business of maintaining the official list of high scores, a job which he invented but which, like Pandora’s Box, has grown increasingly Byzantine, complex and, yes, unending in the ensuing years and widening acceptance of what has now become a multi-billion dollar a year industry. To wake up all these years later and find he doesn’t own a sizeable piece of the pie, it’s no wonder he isn’t feeling the love.Through all of this, Day and Twin Galaxies have officiated, establishing rules of conduct and rules of fair play, rules regarding tournament settings and factory settings, and increasing the level of proof players are now required to submit to authenticate a high score.

It wasn’t always that way. One of the interesting sub-plots involves Steve Sanders who, while not likely the first person to exaggerate his high scores on a video game, may go down in history as the first person to have been publicly busted for doing so. In the film, his fall from grace pretty much follows that of Greek tragedy: Sanders, of high station, enjoys a book contract with Ballantine and all the notoriety that comes with having the world record for Donkey Kong (yes, that includes video game groupies), until he is taken down by his own pride (with a little help from Walter Day and Billy Mitchell). Sanders eventually becomes a born-again Christian and is shown in the course of the film with his wife and four biblically named children, painfully re-reading his public letter of apology.

With many of those interviewed, the viewer is forced to conclude that, even if the gamers don’t yet realize it, their best days are likely behind them; while there are many laughs to be had in the film, more often than not, we’re laughing at the old champions rather than with them. The film ultimately leaves unanswered some darker questions about the champions it chose to feature—are we to assume that their fringe (and in some cases barely functional) adult personalities have anything at all to do with what made them video game champions in the first place? The connection is never really made and the filmmakers seem less interested in answering that question or even fully exploring what actually qualified these kids as the elite of the elite during the heyday of gaming than in lingering on their oft depressing present-day circumstances.

Was it an egomaniacal drive to be on top? That seems to have been the case with some, notably Billy Mitchell, called the Video Game Champion of the Century (which left this viewer wondering how many of the last hundred years even had video games?); not to take away from Mitchell, who is also the subject of the upcoming King of Kong, and is also certainly the player with the greatest name recognition from this era, noteworthy as the only person to get a perfect score in Pac-Man and, depending on which side you believe, perhaps still the reigning champion of Donkey Kong.

Was it an obsessive-compulsiveness to drive the body beyond what most would consider its natural limits, playing Defender or Asteroids or other games for sometimes more than forty hours straight once a strategy to defeat the machine had been devised? And how exactly did they eat, drink, or piss during these long periods of game play? How did they keep playing long after the arcade had closed for the night? How did they feel about the video game crash, when their talents no longer meant much to the masses? These and other questions, sadly, remain unanswered.

The film also focuses too little on the gee-whiz gameplay of the champions. As an audience, we’re left to take it at the word of Walter Day that these kids were indeed cream of the crop but many gamers will be disappointed that there isn’t more footage of the champions playing their specialty games, showing off their lightning-like reflexes and revealing the strategies for how they owned the machines. To be fair, there is some really cool footage of Mitchell locking Pac-Man ghosts into the exits and Ben Gold playing Centipede like you’ve probably never seen it played before and the movie also talks about the well-known strategies for shooting the UFOs in Asteroids and walking through the four same boards in Berzerk (which other gamers consider cheating); this may have been enough for a lay audience, unacquainted with the topic, but it left this gamer wanting more (which, hopefully, we’ll see that in the DVD extras once the home version is released. Come on, Mark Robichek, teach us the secrets of Tutankham).

The most emotionally satisfying sub-plot followed the story of two good old boys, Joel West and Ron Bailey, some twenty years apart in age, who kept challenging each other to improve their scores at Berzerk. West speaks almost beatifically of flow, losing himself in the moment, in a great game of Berzerk and equating it with a religious experience. This is something all gamers will likely identify with (I saw some vigorous nods and smiles of recognition in the group of gamers I attended the screening with). West and Bailey are the best of friends until Bailey bests West’s score and announces it to West publicly in a restaurant in front of West’s then-girlfriend, which apparently is more humiliation than his fragile gaming ego could take. This leads to twenty years of silent treatment from West who, during the course of the film, finally decides to bury the hatchet. The film achieves an emotional high as the two reconnect and, while they fail to get either of their Berzerk games working again, it appears both are willing to give their friendship another shot.

It has been more than a quarter of a century since I first dropped a quarter in Donkey Kong. I must have been just eleven or twelve at the time. And so it follows that I am older now and, if not necessarily wiser, with age, I find myself overcome, from time to time, by the creeping wisteria of nostalgia, which changes the very garden of memory itself, burnishing ever so slightly the edges of the picture, softening the focus in a damp miasma of colorful, if haltingly recalled, petals.

It was another kind of blossom altogether that first caused our paths to cross at the Cherry Hill campground in Kaysville, Utah. In the early eighties, Cherry Hill was a well-established and growing resort. Campers passed through from many western states to pick free cherries directly on the camping grounds, relax by the pool, enjoy a round of miniature golf or watch a movie in the large outdoor amphitheater. Though we lived only a half hour away, my parents would make a point of passing through Kaysville during cherry season and we’d stay here over the weekend, convening with uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents. Often Cherry Hill was a staging area, a place of departure for points further east or west, usually Yellowstone or Disneyland, the Grand Canyon or Las Vegas, Nevada. Each destination seemed to vie against the other for our attention during a summer season that, as kids, was never long enough. City camping is what my mother liked to call it. And each summer saw the addition of a new attraction (two water slides, a row of batting cages, and eventually even some faux river rapids) and, with each season, of course, there were new arcade video games to play.

The Cherry Hill Wild West Game Room was located between the water slides and the miniature golf course and its rise and eventual demise more than likely mirrored the rise and fall of the American arcade phenomenon itself. It was a good time to be young–no longer interested in childish things but having yet to discover the joys (and miseries) of the opposite sex. We would stroll into the game room, still wet from the waterslides, waiting for the line to subside for miniature golf, or just trying to seek some respite from the midsummer heat. The Wild West Game Room ran on tokens and operated from ten am to midnight except on Sundays. It was not large, perhaps less than 1,000 square feet. The games, as I recall, were arranged around the perimeter in a concentric circle and the arcade was probably home to no more than fifty games at its peak. It is strange that after all these years, I can still recall the exact location of each of my favorite games, especially since I couldn’t tell you what I ate for dinner just two nights ago. This arcade served as my introduction to a number of now-classic arcade games including Pengo, Crazy Climber, Ms. Pac-Man, Journey—and of course, our beloved Donkey Kong.

First a stumble, then a leap

Donkey Kong wasn’t the game Nintendo first attempted to release. Eager to capitalize on the growing coin-op business in America, Minoru Arakawa, the executive of NoA (Nintendo of America, located in Seattle, WA), initially backed an uninspired shooter called Radar Scope, which essentially played like Midway’s 1979 hit Galaxian on a perspective grid. While the game was not without its fans, it was simply too late to market and the novelty factor was too low. The game was a bust.

Enter Shigeru Miyamoto, a young artist with a degree in industrial design, who had just joined Nintendo as a staff artist; he was brought into the company by Nintendo’s CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi, a family friend, and charged with rescuing Nintendo’s nascent coin-op business. Miyamoto spearheaded a small team of five who quickly set to work, though the sandbox itself had already been defined: the new game would have to work within the draconian limitations of the Radar Scope hardware. Radar Scope utilized a vertically mounted monitor, and a PCB capable of displaying only 224 x 256 pixels (with a wimpy 3 MHZ Ziglog Z80 CPU) and only 256 colors. The ROMs could only occupy a mere 16K (4 x 4K EEPROMS) of space!

In a perfect match of need necessitating invention, Donkey Kong went from concept to release in six short months. Miyamoto drew his inspiration from cartoons like King Features’ Popeye (which would later appear as a licensed Nintendo arcade game) and movies such as the great King Kong. Miyamoto sketched all of the characters by hand on graphing paper and composed much of the music himself (additional music and sounds have been attributed to Hirokazu Tanaka).

Mario is born—except he’s not called Mario, not yet anyway

The character of Jumpman was dictated by these severe limitations in screen real-estate and graphics processing power. Jumpman himself measures a mere 16 x 16 pixels, a compact and comic carpenter, and an unlikely hero. His nose, hat, mustache, and overalls were all creative incidentals, comic flourishes born of limitations imposed on Miyamoto and his team.

In December 2003, I was in Tokyo and happened by chance to catch the 20^th anniversary exhibition on the Famicom Computer at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu Garden Place. In addition to seeing some of the original conceptual artwork for Donkey Kong, I purchased the museum’s book on the show, which contains an interview with Miyamoto where he talks about the birth of Jumpman (in questionably translated English):

“We have to make his face and nose big so people realize it’s a person; meaning that its body would become smaller. Now to make it look as if it were running, we should make his arms move; meaning that it should be wearing something like overalls, and we should change the colors on the sleeves and the body. [It was only then that] I started to think that this guy looked Italian! [laughter] You need to have a mustache to make his nose visible. It is also convenient, as you don’t have to draw the mouth if you draw a moustache; you only need 2 dots for the nose and 1 dot for the moustache, and the face fits within the range of 8 dots. Then I could use the rest of the dots for his body. I also thought it would not be that visible when Donkey Kong, his nemesis, hits him with the barrel if he is too lean. So this lead [sic] me to make him a very ‘macho’ kind of guy. On the other hand, I could employ a variety of facial expressions for Donkey Kong since I could draw him on a fourfold scale.”

The code, written in Assembly, was overseen by Nintendo’s chief engineer, Gunpei Yokoi, but the game was rushed to market before Miyamoto could perfect the fourth screen—the so-called pie factory (the screen ends as soon as Jumpman reaches the platform—though a new, homebrew release, finally fixes this! More on this later.).

While Nintendo couldn’t have possibly fathomed the magnitude of popularity that awaited Donkey Kong after its release, there were early inklings that they had stumbled upon something special. Within Nintendo, during the short time for beta testing and again in the assembly factory, word quickly leaked about this novel and addicting game and employees would line up for a chance to play or to watch others play.

Why the name Donkey Kong?

At NoA, though, things were less rosy; when executives first heard the name, they envisioned yet another disaster equal to or greater than Radar Scope. I can understand why the folks in Seattle initially greeted the game with skepticism. The title is indeed strange. There are at least two stories behind its origin. One camp within Nintendo claims the title was originally intended to be “Monkey Kong” but was sabotaged by poor engrish translation. The origin of the name and the controversy it eventually generated actually played a large part in the eventual dismissal of a lawsuit Universal Studios brought against NoA for copyright infringement of the King Kong franchise, which, it later turned out, they didn’t own the rights to either. During the trial, Miyamoto gave sworn testimony for the defense claiming the game was named correctly and intentionally, the result of him trying to find synonyms for “Stubborn” and “Monkey” in a Japanese-to-English dictionary.

What remains puzzling is why the debut game wasn’t named after the game’s protagonist (who remained unnamed until well after the release of the game when Jumpman was rechristened Mario after Mario Segali, the owner of a warehouse NoA leased in Seattle). Imagine if J.K. Rowling decided to call the Harry Potter books “Lord Voldemort” instead. Perhaps Miyamoto just found Kong more interesting than Mario, both as a character as well as in the significantly larger number of pixels he had afforded himself to work with to bring out Donkey Kong’s essential expressiveness. Also, it has be said, that villains, by the very dubious nature of their conflicted morality, are almost always more interesting than heroes. And Donkey Kong is no different. So it is no surprise that Kong (and his progeny) eventually became the focus of the 1982 follow-up Donkey Kong Junior, that Mario himself was dropped from the 1983 sequel Donkey Kong 3, and that the home franchise that followed split up the duo, allowing each to develop separately for nearly twenty years before they were once again reunited in the Mario Vs. Donkey Kong game series.

It was an amicable separation and Donkey Kong itself is no tragedy. The name is silly and fun, which is in keeping with the whimsical animations that Miyamoto and his team devised, where sometimes Donkey Kong himself seems to be mugging–if not outright mocking–us game players.

Red Pill or Blue Pill?

NoA worked around the clock to quickly convert roughly 2,000 of the 3,000 original Radar Scope games into Donkey Kong units, which involved applying new side art, marquees, bezels, and replacing the game ROMs inside each machine. These factory-converted Donkey Kong machines, the first out the door in Seattle, were beet red – the original color of Radar Scope – but, as it turned out, Nintendo had nothing to be embarrassed about. The company would eventually move more than 65,000 Donkey Kong arcade units, the third highest sales figure of the Golden Age of Gaming.

NoA sold the game in three models: the upright, cabaret, and cocktail (the latter two available in ugly simulated wood grain cabinets with miserly 13 inch monitors); the majority of the units sold, including the one I first played at the Wild West Game Room in Kaysville, Utah, were uprights in laminate baby blue.

The game made its American debut in the latter half of 1981 at the Spot Tavern in Seattle, and, sure enough, was an immediate and palpable hit, pulling in a diverse group of gamers with its inventiveness and, yes, revolutionary game-play.

Nintendo revolution: a number of firsts

Donkey Kong was Nintendo’s calling card, its ace in the hole, how a hundred-year-old regional playing card manufacturer was able to reinvent itself, eventually blossoming into one of the most widely trusted brands and most influential video game hardware and software concerns in the world (with 387 million hardware units and 2.2 billion software units sold worldwide).

In much the same way that Shakespeare invented the human or Eisenstein invented the language of cinema, most of Miyamoto’s firsts are now taken for granted as commonly accepted and necessary elements of video game grammar, what in fact makes a video game a video game. But it wasn’t always that way. Donkey Kong was the first game with a story line, real characters with unique personalities, and cut scenes to advance the action. It was the first game with multiple levels, each with multiple objectives. Rescue as a theme had been done before in Williams’ break-out hit Defender but here it was more personal and mythic and it immediately appealed to a generation raised on Star Wars, itself heavily influenced by the writings of Joseph Campbell and Carlos Castaneda.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of Donkey Kong. It helped to usher in the Golden Age of Gaming, building on the good will and break-out success of Bally Midway’s Pac-Man to further broaden the appeal of electronic video games. By rewriting all of the rules, Miyamoto and his team single-handedly established a whole new genre of video games: the platform game.

To really understand how revolutionary Donkey Kong was, we need look no further than other games released that same year, the second year of what eventually became known as the Golden Age of Games. As in Hollywood, the game industry, even then, was already mired in trying to repeat past successes—a cardinal sin with the gaming public and one that would eventually lead to the Great Video Game Crash of 1984. Products released this year predominately fell into two all too predictable camps (though there are some wonderful exceptions): space-themed shooters and maze-crazed collectors, basically bifurcating our collective unconscious: we were and remain, in our lizard brains, at least, a species of hunters and gatherers.

The space-themed shooters took for their inspiration Midway’s wildly popular Galaxian, the first color video game, released in 1979 (and probably the first game I ever played—certainly the first game I played repeatedly—I remember riding my bike down the hill to the grocery store each day during the summer to play it). Galaxian knock-offs released in 1981 include games like Astro Blaster, Gorf, Metetroids, and Moon Shuttle, games that, alas, offered little variation on the well-established space shooter theme. In the other corner, we have Bally Midway’s Pac-Man, the biggest game ever, which, in 1981 spawned well-intentioned (well, if the intention was to make a lot of money by catering to existing tastes) clones like Lady Bug, Crush Roller, and MouseTrap. Even the two best and longest-lived games released that year were sequels to Galaxian and Pac-Man: I’m speaking, of course, of Galaga and Ms Pac-Man, both built on top of these existing franchises (and, unlike most sequels, both were actually more popular and arguably even better than their predecessors). In this environment, Donkey Kong truly was a game without peers, a game that richly rewarded its players with its immersive and original storyline.

Unlike many games, Donkey Kong remained a solid earner throughout the arcade years and was therefore afforded the luxury of being almost a permanent fixture, one of the anchor games of any great game arcade and almost always instantly identifiable in its unique baby blue cabinet. But in the class of 1981, Donkey Kong was never voted “Most likely to succeed” and, in fact, while enjoying a long and respectable earning life everywhere, Donkey Kong never occupied the top spot in earnings.

So why is it still so relevant today? Not every game released in 1981 can stand this test of time (ever play Gorf or Scramble recently?). What is it about Donkey Kong that keeps us coming back game after game? Why is the game still so wildly popular that it has become the subject of a recent documentary film (King of Kong), acquired by New Line Cinema (who also optioned the rights to make a fictional version as well) and slated for wide release this summer? Why is the game being re-written with four new levels and other enhancements and improvements intended to be run on the original hardware by a zealous homebrew enthusiast?

Here’s the original text on the arcade flyer that NoA used to pitch the game at AMOA (Amusement and Music Operators Association) and other industry trade shows; it wisely built on Donkey Kong’s strengths, playing up its near-mythic storytelling in haltingly beautiful disco-era marketese:

Donkey Kong from Nintendo

Everyone’s going ape over Donkey Kong! “HELP! HELP!” cries the beautiful maiden as she is dragged up a labyrinth of structural beams by the ominous Donkey Kong. “SNORT. SNORT.” Foreboding music warns of the eventual doom that awaits the poor girl, lest she somehow be miraculously rescued [sic]. “But, wait! Fear not, fair maiden. Little Mario, the carpenter, is in hot pursuit of you this very moment.”Throwing fate to the wind, risking life and limb, or worse, little Mario tries desperately to climb the mighty fortress of steel, to save the lovely lady from the evil Mr. Kong. Little Mario must dodge all manner of obstacles—fireballs, plummeting beams and a barrage of exploding barrels fired at him by Donkey Kong. Amidst the beautiful girl’s constant pleas for help, your challenge is to maneuver little Mario up the steel structure, while helping him to avoid the rapid-fire succession of hazards that come his way. As little Mario gallantly battles his way up the barriers, he is taunted and teased by Donkey Kong who brazenly struts back and forth, beating his chest in joyful exuberance at the prospect of having the beautiful girl all to himself. It is your job to get little Mario to the top. For it is there, and only there, that he can send the mighty Donkey Kong to his mortal doom. Leaving little Mario and the beautiful girl to live happily ever after. “SIGH. SIGH.”So, if you want the most exciting, most fun-filled, most talked about family video game on the market, don’t monkey around with anything but the original Donkey Kong.

Cultural impact

Donkey Kong, perhaps second only to Pac-Man, was heavily licensed during the short-lived heyday of Wave One of the American video game fad, assaulting our consciousness with a blitzkrieg of tacky doodads and must-have licensed merchandise (and cheap bootlegs, too), all priced to move!

As a kid, we’d play Milton Bradley licensed arcade board games (nothing more boring) when we couldn’t talk an adult into driving us over to the nearest arcade. We would watch Saturday Supercade on TV (a line-up of Ruby-Spears cartoons, now all but unwatchable, loosely based on Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Q-Bert and other classic video game characters) while eating our Donkey Kong cereal (little bite-sized barrels made out of corn, which kind of tasted like Captain Crunch) or Pac-Man cereal (more of a Lucky Charms-based product) out of a Pac-Man or Donkey Kong cereal bowl, off our Pac-Man TV tray, scraping what we didn’t want into our Pac-Man- or Donkey Kong-themed trashcan. We had sleep-overs in our Pac-Man sleeping bags and stayed up all night playing bad ports of these beloved arcade games on our Atari 2600 or Commodore 64 (and when we weren’t at a slumber party, we slept in our own beds, covered with Pac-Man pillows and bed sheets).

There was even a hit song (okay, maybe it never reached the top 40) extolling the virtues of the eponymous monkey on the Buckner and Garcia Pac-Man Fever album; musically dubious and lyrically questionable, it plays out with all the juvenile boosterism of a bad cheerleading squad at an attendance-mandatory pep rally in a fetid high school gymnasium but it’s nonetheless cool, despite itself, (and catchy like a viral jingle) since it includes actual samples of Jumpman running up girders, grabbing hammers, and smashing barrels! Too bad they never made a music video.Here then are the lyrics, used without permission (and sprinkled liberally with my snarky commentary):

Wave your hands in the air, stomp your feet on the ground, [Wait, is this a pep rally?]
Climb up the ladder quickly, and then spin yourself around. [Are we doing the hokey pokey or the Donkey Kong?]
Open the umbrella up and answer the phone; [sic: a purse? A purse phone? Wrong number, anyway]
You can do it with a partner, you can do it all alone. [A double entendre/sex/masturbation reference like Prince’s Darling Niki?]
Scale up the wall, just how high can you go? [Extolling the virtues of recreational drug use?]
You’ll surely break her heart if you get up there too slow. [Not to mention what it’ll do to your bonus]
Pound upon your chest and take an elevator ride; [Am I Mario or Donkey Kong?]
You can get off at the top and then you look from side to side. [Another double entendre/sex reference?] Come on, come on.
Come on, come on.
Do the Donkey Kong.
Do the Donkey Kong! [Will it make us go blind?]
Come on, come on.
Come on, Come on.
Do the Donkey Kong.
Do the Donkey Kong. [Surely this can’t be good, what with my heart condition.] Tip-toe through the tulips [uh, what tulips—a reference to Tiny Tim?] and then raise your hands up high;
There’s a fire down below and you don’t want to catch his eye. [Fires have eyes?]
Hide behind each other and don’t even make a sound; [in video games, no one can hear you scream?]
You’re in trouble now, take the elevator down. [First floor, women’s lingerie]
Jump over all the barrels and let out a little scream; [well, I guess I was wrong about that]
Duck underneath the pie, ’cause it’s a coconut cream. [Where’s the duck button? Maybe they’re talking about Duck Hunt?]
You pick the hammer up and then you put the fire out; [Actually, I like this line!]
Now we think you know what Donkey Kong is all about. [Sex, right?]

Donkey Kong was also a de rigueur feature in cool eighties movies like War Games and Gremlins. The game also made a cameo appearance in an episode of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood where a boy explains how to play (no, it wasn’t me). Mr. McFeeley and Lady Elaine then engage in tournament play to see who has the real chops to bust out the high score (kidding).

Merchandising tie-ins included Topps trading cards, pencils, patches you could sew on your Member’s Only jacket, garbage cans, shoe laces, key chains, cigarette lighters, action figures, stuffed dolls, penny banks, coffee mugs, beer steins, cork boards, and t-shirts. Coleco even put out a line of mini replicas of the most popular arcade machines of the day, further fetishizing each arcade game’s side art, marquee, and bezel (lovingly reproduced—too bad the games themselves were almost unplayable); we begrudgingly played them anyway, another way to while the hours away as we hoarded our quarters and waited for the next trip to a real arcade.

The Donkey Kong artwork is indeed great and, if it does not rise to the level of high art, it is still certainly worthy of a place in the Smithsonian as a piece of enduring popular culture, folk art, and as a piece of history of who we were as a nation at the dawn of the great age of the silicon computer chip.

How to play

The instructions on the cabinet are deceptively simple (so simple, most of us didn’t even bother to read them), and afford a few more humorous examples of engrish:

1. Insert coin(s).
2. Select one or two players.
3. Controllers moves Jumpman in 4 directions.
4. Jump button makes Jumpman jump.
5. If Jumpman reaches top, Donkey Kong takes the lady higher up, and structure changes shape.
6. When a certain structures have been cleared, Jumpman saves the lady [sic].

Bonus points awarded based on time remaining.Extra Jumpman when you gain a certain points. [sic]

You couldn’t ask for a more cinematic opening! Soon after you coin up and start the game, Donkey Kong enters a construction site of some kind, a damsel in distress slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Kong begins his quick ascent up a block of six red girders as the ladder rolls up behind him. Kong places the damsel on a pedestal where he alone can admire her beauty. Kong knocks the girders down as he jumps laterally across the screen, pounding his bestial chest in fury. His nipples are staring at us, mocking us with their vague whiff of pure animal sensuality.

Cut. The simple challenge is issued, “How high can you get?” (originally, “How high can you try?”). Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is not so simple: rescue this tall, young red-haired gal (later called “Pauline”—many of the classic video game girls have red hair). Oh and, while you’re at it, if it wouldn’t be too much to ask, can you kindly restore order to the known universe?

Enter Mario, our Jumpman, our everyman, stage left. That you are asked to accomplish these stirring feats of heroism with a squat, mustachioed anti-hero is part of the game’s sense of mischief and its eternal charm. This game is about ascending, striving, and over-reaching. You have to keep on the move. You have no weapons, save for the occasional short-lived blunt force of a large wooden mallet. Otherwise you have to keep running and jumping to avoid the obstacles: barrels, fireballs, barrels on fire, and giant springs—all with your name on them—to rescue the girl.

Girder

There are three strategies for playing the Girder screen: you can play to rack up points by making methodic use of the two mallets—this trick works well, at least until the bonus timer starts to tick faster. Or you can also try to race to the top as quickly as you can in order to collect as many bonus points as possible. Or you can even mix the two strategies, using the top mallet in your place of greatest vulnerability on the screen to guard against incoming barrels.

There is no right or wrong way to climb up the ladders; you can choose any ladder you want, as long as it isn’t broken, though most players cleave to the center of the screen in order to minimize the amount of walking and climbing and hasten the ascent to the top. Before climbing any ladder, be sure to see where the next barrel is in relation to your Jumpman. You don’t need a lot of time to make the climb and you can quickly jump straight in the air to miss a passing barrel, if one happens to be close by.

Kong releases a new barrel every couple of seconds and they group in interesting ways. Sometimes two barrels will abut when one drops off the end while another falls down a ladder. If the two barrels are touching, a running jump will clear both barrels for a 300 point bonus. If the barrels are slightly staggered, you’ll need to employ a slightly trickier move to clear both barrels, pausing to jump straight up over the first and then quickly moving and jumping at the same time to clear the second one. And sometimes it’s best just to retreat, wait for some barrels to pass and attempt a second run.

It’s best to avoid hanging out on ladders, since that makes you most vulnerable to falling barrels. If you decide to grab the mallets, guard your flank so you have enough time to turn around without smacking into an obstacle. Also, keep in mind, while you have the mallet in hand, you won’t be able to climb.

For the first mallet, wait a while until the barrels have aggregated near the hammer in order to get more points (but watch out for that fireball). When you have the second mallet, you can often direct barrels down the broken ladder right after they appear by sharply turning backwards with the mallet. With some practice, this is another way to rack up additional points. Before the second mallet disappears, position yourself near the end of the girder and walk toward the ladder to make the next barrel fall; this will give you enough time to get to the top of the girders to save the girl without getting hit by a barrel or getting stuck on the end waiting for the barrel pattern to change.

Kill screen

If you get good enough, a Girder screen is what will eventually kill you. On the 22^nd level, due to a bug in the bonus timer, there simply won’t be enough time to make it to the top of the screen. When the stage first appears, the bonus clocks in at just 100 points and then it jumps to 4000 when Jumpman appears but the countdown stalls out at 3700. Like the proverbial ghost in the machine, a few seconds later, our tiny hero Jumpman asphyxiates, a victim of this always fatal computer bug. Cue death music and death animation again and again in approximate five-second intervals, for each of your remaining Jumpmen. The effect is akin to watching footage of crash test dummies hitting a brick wall.

Rivets

On the Rivets screen, your primary objective is to remove all of the rivets in order to cause Kong to fall comically on his head, reuniting Jumpman, however briefly, with his object of affection (while, overhead, a heart appears), until the whole Sisyphean struggle begins again.

The fireballs appear and move randomly, increasing in speed as the levels increase. Typically, players try to trap as many of the fireballs on the left hand side as possible by first clearing the left-hand side of rivets through zigzagging up the screen, ending with the rivet in the middle where the hammer is located (though I’ve seen players who also like to trap them between the rivet holes—this stunt requires precision timing as you need to jump over a fireball at the same time you’re clearing a rivet. It’s an interesting visual effect but you don’t get any more points by doing it and it is a risky way to lose a Jumpman if your timing is off at all).

The fireballs reappear on the opposite side of where you are standing when you hit them with the hammer. So if you want to trap the fireballs, grab the mallet on the left and walk toward them toward the right side of the screen. As long as you’re facing right when you hit them, they will always show up again on the left hand side of the screen–and that’s where they’ll stay if the rivets have been removed.

If you’re successful in trapping all of the fireballs, in the early levels at least, you can gain extra points by making use of the taunt maneuver (another first?). To taunt Kong, merely place your Jumpman near him on the right or left hand side, hit the jump button and move away from him (it also works just by jumping if you are close enough to Kong, though if you touch him, you will die and have to start the board all over). Each time you jump, you’ll earn 100 points so mastery of a quick succession of jumps is essential to maximize your total point value. Keep jumping until the timer hits zero or you get bored, whichever comes first.

According to Jeff Kulczycki, the taunt works because of a bug in the original code:

The code contains a collision detection routine that can report the proximity of objects to jumpman. This same routine is used by both the “death-collision” routine and “jumped-for-points” routine. This works well since the things that cause death to jumpman also can be jumped over for points (barrels, fireballs). Now, in order to have jumpman die when he collides with the Kong graphics, two invisible objects (a black square which is invisible against a black background) were added near Kong’s feet. The collision routine was modified to include these two invisiible objects when checking for a collision. This achieved the desired death collision with Kong, but it also meant that now these objects were included when checking for jumped-over points.The original thinking may have been that the death collision would occur before the jumped over points. And this should have been true. Since the size that the invisible objects were assigned was the maximum of 16×16, there really is no way for jumpman to clear the object without touching it. Thus he should have died well before the points were awarded. But I think the problem happened later when they increased the “jump zone” after they found out that sometimes barrels were jumped over (with a straight up jump) but they weren’t registering as points.

The object width that was used for jumpman when detecting a death collision is 8 (4×2).
The object width that was used for jumpman when detecting jump-over points is 10 (5×2).

As you can see, that gives jumpman an extra 1 pixel margin on either side of him that he can register points in before he’s involved in a death collision.

You can also earn bonus points by collecting Pauline’s purse, hat, and umbrella. Items collected are randomly assigned 300-800 points.

The screen (and, with it, the level) ends when the last rivet is removed and Kong falls on his stubborn head, causing his eyes to alternately bulge in a comic display of man’s dominion over all other species.

Elevator

The Elevator screen introduces the third and perhaps most difficult (in later levels) obstacle in the Donkey Kong universe: the giant spring. Springs bounce on the top of the girder and fall off the edge, providing instant death to our intrepid hero should either of their paths happen to cross. Like the Rivets screen, the Elevator screen again offers the player the opportunity to collect Pauline’s purse, hat, and umbrella for randomly assigned bonus points, though some of the items are located in difficult and dangerous corners of the screen and rarely worth the points lost on the timer to collect.

Most seasoned players try to get to the top of the Elevator screen and rescue the girl as quickly as possible. The fastest hop to the top can be obtained by jumping immediately from the starting position to the elevator, jumping off at the top, jumping across and climbing up, going left and up the ladder to the girl right after the first spring passes overhead. The first time you see someone play the screen this way, it’s a bit of a revelation, since it makes the level last about ten seconds from start to finish. There are some caveats, though: you need to watch out for the fireball on the middle ladder. Since its movement is random, it won’t always be in a position to allow you to make the jump in time, which will require you to either retreat to the left side to collect the umbrella (and climb back down to make another attempt) or climb down the opposite ladder of the fireball in order to avoid it and to prepare for a second run.

When I was young, I always took the second elevator to the bottom and slowly worked my way across, paying careful attention to avoid the spring as it fell down the board. It’s fun to play this way and it allows you to grab the purse (if you can avoid the fireball) but it really adds a lot of time to the screen and severely depletes your bonus. It is far better to immediately jump to the first platform from the top as the elevator begins its descent.

I’ve tried walking up Kong’s escape ladder. That ladder is the exclusive property of Kong and not intended for human use.

Each successive elevator screen is a bit harder before the game plateaus in difficulty on the third elevator screen, which separates the men from the boys. Fortunately, the elevator springs are pattern-based and the patterns are easy enough to learn, though I’d be the first to admit I never knew the trick to the third Elevator as a kid. On the second Elevator screen, just count three springs and then run toward the metal elevator top and then reverse directions and quickly run back and up the ladder. On the third and subsequent Elevator screens, watch where the springs land. Run toward the metal elevator top when the second spring hits for the first time on Kong’s left-most foot (his right foot). Wait there until a spring hits between Kong’s legs and then run back toward the ladder and up to Pauline. Once you’ve mastered this pattern, like all things in the Donkey Kong universe, it works most, but not all, of the time. That’s what makes the game fun, folks.

Pie Factory

This screen was rarely seen by players in the first nine or so months that the game was available in arcades. I remember at the time, kids used to talk of this mysterious level and how cool it was and many of us doubted its very existence (and the home ports didn’t help lay to rest any arguments on this matter since the level wasn’t included in any of the early home console versions).

What is creative and interesting about this screen is the appearance of yet another obstacle, the pie (often called cement pies—I suppose in keeping with the overall “construction site” theme of the game). Like the final level of Marble Madness, which eerily warns you that, “Everything you know is wrong,” on the fourth level of Donkey Kong you have to learn a new way of walking as you deal for the first time with reversible conveyer belts and a new way of climbing as you deal with retractable ladders. On the conveyer belts, Jumpman’s walking speed in cut in half if he’s walking against the direction of the belt (and doubled if he’s not); the effect is similar to walking against traffic on a people mover at the airport—except imagine if the mover changed directions every five seconds. This leads to some interesting play dynamics if you make use of the mallets to obliterate either fireballs or pies.

The best kept secret on this screen is that the fireballs will always come out on the side your Jumpman is on so it’s best to stay put for a while and count the fireballs as they appear (the total number of fireballs should match the level number) and only then begin your ascent upward.

Unlike the other screens, this one ends before you reach the lady. As soon as you hit the penultimate platform, Kong summarily collects Pauline, walks off the screen, and the game moves on. Since this was the last level created, there wasn’t enough time to code Jumpman’s ascent to the top of the final ladder. Honestly, it’s never felt right that the primary objective of the game had changed—having Kong walk off prematurely leaves you feeling robbed, like when the last Pooka leaves the screen in Dig Dug before you have a chance to blast it. Fortunately, there will soon be a remedy for this malady—read on!

Why I still likes me some Donkey Kong

In April of 2000, I purchased my very own Donkey Kong upright arcade machine. It wasn’t the first arcade game I bought (that was Joust) but it was the second or the third (I acquired it around the same time I bought a Q*Bert machine). The game cost me $600 and was shipped from Tulsa, Oklahoma to San Francisco, California (Yes, I probably overpaid and also got screwed on the shipping).

It had been at least fifteen years since I had played an actual Donkey Kong arcade game. In early 1998, I discovered MAME and quickly set about building my own cabinet and when I didn’t like that one, I built two more but they still didn’t feel exactly right. I wanted the verisimilitude of the actual tiny-knobbed four-way leaf-switch controller. I wanted the heavy bass of the low notes of the opening score to stick me in the ribs. But the physical dimensions of the game had shrunk somehow in the ensuing years. As a prepubescent kid, I was height proportional to the middle of the monitor, perhaps a little bit below, so I was always looking up at the monitor while I played it. Now, I stand as tall as the game itself (and, sadly, weigh just a little less).

The first time I turned on the game, I was greeted with the familiar faint buzz of the fluorescent and I quickly dimmed the lights to literally bask in its glow. At last, I was back in the arcade. I coined up, pressed the one player button and Kong began his familiar ascent up the ladder under the dark overture of the opening score, the low-notes vibrating the speaker cabinet and next to it now, my pelvis.

I like how when you have the mallet and hit a barrel or a fireball, time slows down and expands like in The Matrix leaving you with just a few extra nanoseconds to relish the slow destruction and eventual obliteration of that obstacle (Namco managed the same effect in Pac-Man when Pac chomps down on a retreating blue ghost).

I like the essential randomness of the barrels and the fireballs. Donkey Kong, like many classic games, awards patterned-playing but it is not completely a pattern-based game; following the patterns just increases your likelihood of success but it is no guarantee, particularly in the later, more challenging levels. There is some intelligence to the objects and this can even occasionally be used to your advantage as you move and reverse directions in some of the later Girder screens in order to influence when and where the barrels drop.

I like the recursive screens; while there are only four screens, on the first level, you only play the first two screens. As the levels (and difficulty) increase, you get more exposure to the other screens, though, always, to get to a new screen, you must go back and show you can play an earlier, but now harder, screen. The screens roll out as follows: Level 1: Girders, Rivets; Level 2: Girders, Elevators, Rivets; Level 3: Girders, Pie Factory, Elevators, Rivets… and so on.

I like the death animation where Jumpman rolls around with a halo on his head.

I like how Kong recovers from your rescue attempt—without missing a beat, he quickly saunters up the ladder, taking your object of affection with him.

I like the giant Squisshhh sound following the wind-down as Donkey Kong plummets and lands flat on his head at the end of each level. Success! (Though it’s a pyrrhic victory).

I got lucky. The game was in very good condition overall; I’ve always imagined that it had sat in an anonymous warehouse in Oklahoma over the last ten years, quietly gathering dust. The monitor needed a cap kit (didn’t know what those were at the time) and it didn’t have any side art. I eventually scanned and printed my own side art, just a year or so before reproduction side art became widely available. I was learning. A whole new world of jargon, internet collectors and half-mad preservationists and other assorted video game aficionados who had, until then, largely been unknown to me, slowly became more known. There was a community of like-minded arcade collectors out there, like the ecosystem of the forest: people manufacturing kits and add-ons, reproducing control panel overlays and side art, fixing boards, and selling after-market power supplies and other difficult to find parts; few people I met were in it for the money. Some were holdovers from the arcade world itself, lifers, who had run routes or operated their own arcades. Many were just weekend enthusiasts, people with day jobs who, like me, were bitten by the arcade bug when they were younger.

Before this, I’d never peered inside an arcade game before. It is shocking the first time that you do. When you think of a big machine, you expect to see its central nervous system exposed, a dense tangle of ribbons and wires, circuits and chips. Most arcade machines are full, 80% or more, of dusty air. There’s the monitor, the PCB (many games had stacks of them, each with a specific purpose—an I/O board, a sound board, a video board, etc), the isolation transformer, and the power supply. That’s basically it. So I learned a little bit about arcade repair and eventually bought capacitor kits from Bob Roberts for the sound and video in Donkey Kong and recapped the monitor. Later still, I bought Scott Brasington’s Double Donkey Kong so I could play both Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior on the same machine (the only thing that didn’t feel right about the game afterward is that some of the sound samples in Donkey Kong came from Donkey Kong Junior since the hack is based on a Donkey Kong Junior boardset) and, even more important, save my high scores in non-volatile ram whenever I powered down; the game took on new meaning for me afterward as I continually tried to trump my highest score. The game stayed in the corner of my bedroom in my apartment on Haight Street for a number of years and I got progressively better at it. I remember the night I finally cracked 100,000 points; my joke, at the time, was that it was a good time to retire from playing Donkey Kong but, of course, I didn’t (my high score now stands at 335,300, not a great score by any means—around one-third of the all-time high score); the thing is, I still enjoy playing it. I don’t play every day; sometimes, even weeks or months go by without a single game, but whenever I do get caught up in it, I can easily lose an hour or two—or even an entire afternoon—playing it.

A few years after that, I bought a second Donkey Kong board to add Jeff Kulczycki’s new Foundry screen, which itself was nothing short of a revelation (I had for years fantasized about making my own Donkey Kong levels but didn’t have the programming talents to do it—and suddenly I was able to play a fifth and new level in Donkey Kong, the first in twenty years!).

D2K: Jumpman Returns

Fast forward to present. Just in time to usher in another twenty-five years of great Donkey Kong play, Jeff Kulczycki is expected to release a much anticipated sequel to Donkey Kong later this summer called D2K: Jumpman Returns. I was fortunate enough to get an opportunity to preview Kulczycki’s work-in-progress and I’m extremely pleased with the results—and you will be too. The software is intended to be played on original Donkey Kong arcade hardware as a standalone release. Kulczycki has programmed four challenging new levels from scratch after reverse engineering the original code, a first-time feat in what has become almost a cottage industry of after-market add-ons targeted at the community of classic arcade game collectors. Where typically this focus has been on allowing compatible multi-game support (to save precious storage space) and to save or extend the high score table, Kulczycki significantly raises the bar by programming new levels, a new title screen, new cut scenes, new intermission sequences, and a new ending, along with a number of other tweaks, refinements and the occasional Easter egg—you can tell he’s had a lot of fun with this along the way. Kulczycki manages to extend the game possibilities in exciting and unforeseen ways while still remaining true to the spirit of this revered classic and its time-tested game play. Miyamoto himself would be proud.

Mixer

The first thing I noticed about the new screens is that they are hard! The truth is that they get easier after you play the game for a while and that they’re probably no harder than the original levels in Donkey Kong, it’s just that we’ve been playing Donkey Kong much, much longer. So I was met with a bit of déjà vu as I was making incremental progress through the new screens, dying frequently in the process. In many ways, it was no different than learning how to survive on the original Donkey Kong screens a quarter of a century past—except this time, I didn’t have to use my allowance and lunch money.

The Mixer plays like a cool b-side to the original Pie Factory screen. In addition to time-honored favorites like fireballs (which increase in number and speed as the level increases), new obstacles include falling pies and a pie compressor that drops the rubble from the construction site into the giant pie tins. There are two conveyer belts on this screen, which play very much like the conveyer belts in the Pie Factory screen, except with different timing. As you race Jumpman to the top, you get another opportunity to collect Pauline’s umbrella, purse, and hat (why is she always leaving these things around on the construction site so carelessly?—actually that question is finally answered in one of the new intermission sequences).

For those who may have played this level at California Extreme in the last two years, Kulczycki has made the level somewhat easier since there were a number of complaints about the pixel perfect timing previously required to get past the pie compressor. It still requires practice but is definitely easier than before (but it gets more challenging when a fireball appears on the conveyer on the second level).

Conspicuously absent from this screen–well, from all of the new screens–is Jumpman’s trusty mallet. Many fans may not miss the mallet and may share Kulczycki’s distaste for it but there are a few screens, including the Mixer, where an appropriately placed mallet could add to the already engaging game play.

Foundry

Many Donkey Kong enthusiasts are likely already familiar with the Foundry screen since it was released a few years back as a standalone screen, which Kulczycki added to Miyamoto’s original four. Kulczycki says the Foundry was inspired by the robot factory scene in Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones. As in the movie, our intrepid hero must stay clear of flying fireballs which are randomly released from the furnace below while also moving from conveyer to conveyer across the screen. The conveyers look like horizontal versions of the elevators in the original Elevator screen but they introduce yet another unique element of game play by requiring the player to deftly move and jump (and occasionally retreat) from passing conveyer to conveyer in order to avoid getting pushed off by a conveyer, getting singed by an incoming cloud of fire or falling to an untimely death. On the first level, the fireballs fly out one at a time. On subsequent levels, they move in pairs and much faster, increasing the likelihood of getting burnt to a crisp32222. The object remains to collect Pauline’s items and get to the top of the screen before the bonus timer runs out. Ironically, the higher you go on this level, the easier it becomes and there isn’t much in the form of obstacles to get in your way in the top half of the screen; that said, this screen is certainly not without its merits, including the flying fireballs, the beautiful blue color scheme, and the faithfulness of the game play—it moves, sounds, and feels like a natural extension to Donkey Kong, with the possible exception that Jumpman can now jump a pixel or two farther than he could previously (and, believe me, he’ll need it to get across the screen).

Refinery

The Refinery screen is exciting and will certainly be a favorite of Donkey Kong fans everywhere. I played it a few times, just struggling to determine how to get past the screen after shutting off all of the safety valves. The screen probably owes its major inspiration to the original Rivets screen, though imagine if the rivets field was split in half with a bank of elevators now running down the middle of the screen. Instead of rivets, the screen uses safety valves that must be turned off by walking over them in order to stop the dangerous flow of oil that is feeding a fire at the top on both sides of the screen. The fuel appears in the form of small blue dots that pulse up the pipeline, somewhat reminiscent of the electrical spark that travels horizontally through the line in the fourth screen of Donkey Kong Junior and, like them, deadly to the touch. Once all the safety valves have been turned off, each shut valve will flash blue before the fires finally sputter and die, allowing Jumpman to climb to the top and jump over and climb up to the final platform to rescue Pauline (the damsel, she isn’t shy, will flip to face you, depending on which side of the screen you’re on). The oil pulses speed up in subsequent levels, adding to the challenge. The fireballs and fuel dots as well as the timing of the elevators are all obstacles that can prevent you from clearing the screen.

Incinerator

The Incinerator is my favorite of the new screens. It plays like a cross between Popeye and the original Girders and Pie Factory screens and introduces yet another objective in order for you to rescue the heroine.

The lower half of the screen consists of three levels of alternating conveyer belts, all falling toward a raging fire in the middle of the screen. So when Jumpman first appears on the screen, he is already heading for the fire. If that weren’t enough, the conveyer is populated with both pies and springs which Jumpman needs to avoid (the pies can be jumped, the springs just need to be avoided). As Jumpman progresses up the screen, he also needs to be careful that nothing falls on him from above as he crosses over the chasm. Jumpman’s objective is to gather Pauline’s valentines as he progresses up the screen. Each heart, once touched, reappears on the pulley just above, adding a little extra weight to the girder to move the counter-balanced girder on the other side up, eventually allowing Jumpman to cross safely at the top and rescue Pauline.

Pie Factory redux

Oh, and Kulczycki’s release also finally solves that pesky problem with the Pie Factory screen, too. Now Jumpman has to go all the way to the top to rescue Pauline. Along with this, came a bit of a discovery and some new learning since to complete this, you need to be mindful of your timing. Kong moves back and forth across the screen on the conveyer belt and the ladder opens and retracts. If you touch Kong on his swing back, you’re dead (and, in later levels, Kulczycki added a fireball to this platform, just to keep things interesting). There are a lot more surprises in store for Donkey Kong fans in this release and a lot of the fun is in the discovery so I don’t want to reveal too many more details here. Keep an eye on Kulczycki’s website for more information on this exciting upcoming release.

Son of Kong – video game ports, bootlegs, and arcade sequels

There were two sequels to Donkey Kong released in the arcade: Donkey Kong Junior, which was released in 1982, and Donkey Kong 3, released in 1983. In 2005, TeamPlay also released a licensed anniversary multi-game arcade machine which allowed players to play Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Junior, and Mario Bros. from the same machine.

Donkey Kong also inspired a clone that was released shortly after by enterprising bootleggers out for a fast buck: Crazy Kong. Crazy Kong was released by Falcon in 1981. While all of the elements of Donkey Kong are present, the game plays poorly due to some graphical glitches with the ladders and Kong himself looks as if someone has sewn his mouth shut (note: some people insist this isn’t a bootleg but an actual licensed product for release in ancillary markets but if that is true why was the classic game play corrupted?).

Donkey Kong on home systems

Donkey Kong was available on play on most home systems. I remember saving up my newspaper route money to buy it on the Atari 2600. Skaggs was having a sale so I scraped together my money and went down to get it. The Coleco box art was cool, featuring a picture of the arcade game. The cartridge itself was white, my very first Coleco cartridge. At the time, I had my Atari hooked up to a small 9” black and white TV. I plugged it in and started playing. The graphics were terrible, an immediate disappointment, which would have been more forgivable if the game itself had played anything like the arcade original. It didn’t. The opening and closing animations were gone. It was missing two screens: the Elevator screen and the Pie Factory screen. On the Girder screen, there were no fireballs. Donkey Kong looked like a blocky robot. On the Rivets screen, the fireballs traveled back and forth in predictable patterns and couldn’t climb ladders. The game stunk.About the same time, my cousin got a Colecovision. Donkey Kong was shipped with the system and, by comparison, it was a work of art. It was also missing the Pie Factory and on the Girders level, Kong appeared on the wrong side of the screen. These sins could almost be overlooked since the game played pretty true to the original. I never liked the Colecovision controllers, though; it always felt awkward to be jumping with the buttons on the side.In 1982, we got a Vic-20 but I don’t remember playing Donkey Kong on it. In 1983, we got a Commodore-64 and we played all the classic arcade games on it; Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Crystal Castles, Spy Hunter, Tapper, and Congo Bongo were some of our favorites (not to mention the Commodore-64’s native games like Summer Games, Bruce Lee, Space Taxi, and Spelunker).

Consoles:

Colecovision (1982) : Does not have the Pie Factory screen, but a rare “Super” offering does. The Elevator screen does not have the springs; it has one or two Fire Monsters on Donkey Kong’s level instead. Mattel Intellivision (1982) : Has only the Girder and Rivet screens. Atari 2600 (1983) : Has only the Girder and Rivet screens. Atari XEGS Atari 7800 (1988) : Does not have the Pie Factory screen. Nintendo Famicom (1986) : Does not have the Pie Factory screen. Nintendo Famicom (1988, “Donkey Kong Classics”) : Nintendo Famicom’s 1986 offerings of both “Donkey Kong” and “Donkey Kong Jr.” in one cartridge. Nintendo Game Boy (1994) : features multiple stage settings, starting with the original four. Nintendo 64 (1999, “Donkey Kong 64″) : unlockable extra. Nintendo Game Boy Advance (2002, e-Reader Series) Nintendo Game Boy Advance (2004, Famicom Mini Series) : Identical to Nintendo Famicom’s 1986 offering; does not have the Pie Factory screen. Nintendo Famicom Disk : Does not have the Pie Factory screen. Nintendo Wii (2006, “Virtual Console”).Computers: Tandy Color Computer (1982, “Dunkey Munkey”) Tandy Color Computer (1982, “Donkey King”) Tandy Color Computer (1983, “The King”) Tandy Color Computer (1983, “Monkey Kong”) PC [Booter] (1983) PC [Booter] (1983, “Gorilla Gorilla”, a part of the “Friendlyware PC Arcade” suite) : Uses ASCII characters for graphics. Offers 3 different types of games: Game 1 is the traditional - You start on the Girder screen. Game 2 - You start on the Rivet screen. Game 3 - You start on the Elevator screen. The Pie Factory screen is omitted. Commodore VIC-20 (1983) Apple II (1983) Atari 800 (1983) Commodore C64 (1983) TI99/4A (1983, “Donkey Kong”, Atarisoft) BBC B (1984, “Killer Gorilla” - Micropower) Acorn Electorn (1984, “Killer Gorilla” - Micropower) Amstrad CPC (1986) Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1983, “Kong” - Ocean) Sinclair ZX-Spectrum (1986, “Donkey Kong” -Ocean) : is slightly closer to the original Arcade game than Ocean’s earlier offering from 1983, “Kong”. Making their 1986 version probably the second worst conversion of Donkey Kong ever sold! MSX PC [MS-DOS] (1997, “ChampKong” - CHAMProgramming) Others:VFD handheld game (1982) released by Coleco. LCD handheld game (Game&Watch) released by Nintendo : double screen.

Parting shots and thoughts

In Six Feet Under, David and Nate Fisher do their best to honor the requests of the recently deceased and their bereaving next of kin. Over the course of five seasons, they hold funerals for bikers and Buddhists, Atheists, Jews, and Born-Again Christians. Each situation is handled uniquely, professionally, with tact and, yes, grace. While I hope to be cremated when the time comes, I suppose being buried in an empty Donkey Kong game arcade cabinet would also suffice; surely, a unique request but one I would imagine the fictional Fisher and Sons Mortuary, at least, would do its very best to honor.

Today I bought a Nintendo Donkey Kong arcade machine on Craigslist for $300. I didn’t need one. In fact, this is the third one I’ve purchased in the last seven years. The first one is still living in my garage. I bought it in April 2000 from a vendor in Oklahoma via eBay for a whopping $600; it has been hacked to play Double Donkey Kong and other after-market goodies. A few years later, I bought the second one, also from Craigslist, in San Francisco from a woman with green hair who lived on Page Street. It was just a matter of convenience: she was four blocks away from my apartment and, again, I didn’t need one but what are you going to do? I didn’t even need a hand truck to get it home; just rolled it on the back wheels right on up to my apartment building in the lower Haight. I told my girlfriend it had followed me home. I can’t remember what I paid for it. Might have been four hundred dollars. I cleaned it up, put on some new reproduction side art and took it to work. It was a big hit. At the time, I believe we were in the middle of a wave of prolonged downsizing so it was a welcome relief to many in the building to be able to play a free arcade game located in the break room (that game eventually grew into an entire conference room of games before the room was eventually commandeered and turned into a Sarbanes Oxley compliance office). I sold that game to a friend; though his stewardship of it was short-lived and he eventually sold it to someone else. So it goes.

Fast forward to the present. Why another Donkey Kong machine? Why now? Today was my last day with the company and I suppose I was feeling a bit nostalgic. Donkey Kong will do that to you. Also, the game was looking pitiful and in need of some TLC; as some have a soft spot for animals down on their luck, I guess I feel the same way about classic video games. I couldn’t bear the thought of this game ending up in a landfill or in the back of someone’s storage shed, unloved. It played blind and it was delivered by a deaf man. Some wise guy had placed cellophane tape over the speaker grill (was that to prevent the kids from poking pencils into the speaker cone?). The game was missing the marquee. I happened to have an extra one. But that wasn’t the half of it. When the guy showed up at my house, the first thing he pulled out of his truck was the top of the cabinet–I’d never seen that piece disconnected before as it’s usually nailed on. I thought he’d be pulling the game out piece by piece and I couldn’t possibly turn the guy down; he’d driven more than 80 miles to my house to deliver the game. The next thing he pulled out of his truck was the metal bar that holds in the monitor bezel at the top (not sure why someone had taken it off but there it was (I had assumed the part was missing). Without this piece in place, someone had strategically placed some duct tape right on the front bezel; it was crusted over. Next out of the truck were the back door and, finally, the game itself. And inside the game: the original arcade manual and in pretty good condition. I had my work cut out for me. In short order, over the next couple of hours, I was able to complete the following:

• Take out the monitor and replace with a newly capped Sanyo monitor.
• Re-fasten the top of the game.
• Re-install the bezel guard.
• Cleaned the game with Tuff-Stuff.
• Replaced the jump button.
• Lubricated controls.
• Fixed light (but the starter went out after a while–need to get a new one).
• Installed marquee.
• Cleaned the bezel and the speaker with Goo-Gone.

Wow, almost good as new! Now it just needs some reproduction side-art and it’s good to go!

I added some credits and started a two player game and lost the next hour or longer in game play while outside the fog slowly crept in.