Classic Arcade Games

Evolution of an Ape

Just as there were retrograde motions in pre-Copernican theories regarding why the planets moved as they did, there have been some bizarre behaviors in Donkey Kong's evolution. More than once he's decidedly taken three steps backward before taking a single step forward. To really see how Donkey Kong evolved and devolved over the course of his history, read on.

Donkey Kong: The Beginning

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In 1980 Nintendo was beginning its foray into the arcade industry. Games at the time were pretty much a variation on one another: You shot at things, they shot at you, and eventually you were overwhelmed by either sheer speed or numbers until you lost. Then you entered your name in the high-score memory and challenged your friends to beat you. That was all about to change, though.

One of Nintendo's arcade titles, Radarscope, was an unmitigated disaster. No one bothered playing it in arcades; few even bothered to give it more than a passing glance. Hiroshi Yamauchi, the head of Nintendo at the time, needed someone to fix it, but his entire staff was tied up with other projects.

As fate would have it, three years prior to the disaster of Radarscope, Yamauchi received a phone call from an old friend of his named Miyamoto. Miyamoto's 24-year-old son, Shigeru, had just graduated from the Kanazawa Munici College of Industrial Arts and Crafts. Yamauchi granted Shigeru an interview, and after a brief meeting, he hired Shigeru as Nintendo's first staff artist. The fact that Shigeru had grown up without a television didn't seem to faze him. After all, Shigeru had admitted once that most of the time when he was supposed to have been in class, he had actually been playing video games in a local arcade.

So, when 1980 rolled around, Nintendo had one crappy game and a staff artist with a bit of free time on his hands. Yamauchi called Shigeru into his office, told him that he was going to be responsible for saving Radarscope, and then sent him on his way. At that point, 27-year-old Shigeru had never created a video game and didn't know how to program.

In perhaps the boldest move in early game development, Shigeru scrapped the Radarscope game entirely. He didn't try to modify or fix it; he just threw the whole thing out. But he couldn't just make any kind of game that he wanted to, because he was limited by the capabilities of the hardware that Radarscope was running on. So Shigeru had mostly free reign, only with no programming skills, a small budget, an even smaller team of Nintendo developers, and a blank screen.

Out of the Ashes...

Fortunately, Shigeru Miyamoto has one of the most fertile imaginations the gaming world has ever seen. Having been raised on traveling puppet shows and having an insatiable craving for outdoor exploration, Miyamoto claimed to have long dreamt of realms of pure fantasy, heroic tales, and myths from different cultures around the world. But the Radarscope hardware wouldn't support anything close to what he had in mind, so he came up with something simple: a small man with a huge gorilla for a pet. The giant gorilla hated being under the control of something so puny, so it escaped. Then, purely out of spite, the gorilla kidnapped his owner's girlfriend (Pauline), climbed a building, and dared his owner to climb up to him to try to retrieve the girl.

From the ashes of Radarscope came Miyamoto's first video game. He didn't know what to call it, but the theme seemed to be a variation on the old King Kong movies. And since the game would be played in English-speaking arcades, he needed another word to describe his new villain. Something that described how stubborn and inflexible this creature was. Something that just wouldn't do what it was told. He already had one animal. What other animals were known for being notoriously hard to deal with? Mules... camels... donkeys...

And that was it. Shigeru whipped up some music on a small keyboard, then he and the team at Nintendo christened their new creation Donkey Kong. Though some sales reps on the western side of the Pacific thought the game's title alone would submarine it (one rep was supposedly so disgusted he resigned), gamers thought otherwise. The character you controlled was named Mario, after Mario Segali, the landlord of the Nintendo of America building, which was then in New York. In 1981, Donkey Kong redefined video games, and Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto found themselves looking down on the industry from atop a mountain of quarters. But not everything was coming up roses for Nintendo.

Kong in Court

Though it might seem to be a fitting plot for an episode of the sitcom Night Court, Universal Studios, the creator of the 1929 film King Kong, thought that Donkey Kong infringed on its copyright for the character and the name King Kong. Though the film was more than 50 years old at the time, Universal felt that its stop-motion animated classic was being defamed by this new interactive media, so the company sued Nintendo. Universal also sued Coleco for making the ColecoVision version. Coleco settled out of court. Nintendo, however, wouldn't budge. During a meeting between Nintendo of America's president, Minoru Arakawa, and Universal's company president, Sid Sheinberg, Nintendo laid down the law and told Universal it wasn't giving in to the suit. After all, the movie was more than half a century old, black and white, and a significant part of popular culture. Universal, from Nintendo's perspective, had nothing to lose.

The case promptly went to court. Universal claimed that its copyright was still valid and that the idea of a man climbing a building to save his girlfriend from a giant ape was at its core the theme of Universal's movie. Nintendo's defense, in a nutshell, was that King Kong's copyright was outdated and that Donkey Kong didn't resemble the movie anyway. The judge who presided over the case ruled that Universal no longer had a claim to King Kong and knew this when it filed suit against Nintendo. So as well as losing the case, Universal had to pay Nintendo a $1.8 million penalty fee for wasting the time of both the court and the video game giant.

The Early Games (Through 1984)
Donkey Kong
Platform: Arcade
Release Date: 1981
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

The original Donkey Kong game was simple but addictive, a characteristic that has become a hallmark of many Miyamoto games. Playing as Mario, you started at the bottom of a small building that Donkey Kong had ascended. You could walk left and right, climb and descend ladders, and jump over barrels Donkey Kong had thrown or use a hammer to smash them. The pattern of the falling barrels was somewhat random (whether or not they came down a specific ladder), so if you were hanging on a ladder to avoid one barrel, there was always a moment of tension as another one rolled by overhead. Once Mario managed to reach the top and rescue his girlfriend, Pauline, Donkey Kong simply snatched her away and carted her off to level two. The second level was much more challenging, with moving platforms and melting steel. Level three was even harder, with tighter jumps and with Donkey Kong now throwing I-beams at you instead of barrels (one look at this and you'll see the seminal aspects of Super Mario Bros.). Finally, level four had you triggering weak spots in the foundation of the building so that Donkey Kong would fall on his head with a crash. But just when you thought you had won, he'd grab your girl and climb back up. During all but the first level you could pick up Pauline's personal effects for bonus points (a parasol and a purse).

Crazy Kong
Platform: Arcade
Release Date: 1981 (Europe)
Developer: Falcon
Publisher: Falcon

Crazy Kong was a copied version of the original Donkey Kong. It's very close to Nintendo's original but with subtle differences. Notice that Kong's mouth isn't quite how it should be. The title screen also references the game as being Part II, distinguishing it from the original. The levels in Crazy Kong were in an order different from those in the original Donkey Kong arcade game, but other than that, this game was a solid clone.

Donkey Kong
Platform: Atari 2600
Release Date: 1981
Developer: Atari
Publisher: Atari

Though the Atari 2600 largely spawned the home gaming industry, there's no question that this version of Miyamoto's first masterpiece didn't live up to its arcade counterpart. It was difficult, and only two of the four arcade levels were available. Many gamers spent hours trying to reach that third level with hopes of the fourth, which simply didn't exist. The graphics were deplorable as compared with those in the arcade version, and the flaming phantoms on the second stage didn't even move up and down the ladders. Fortunately for the flames, they moved much faster than their arcade counterparts. But skilled gamers could easily defeat them with a simple trick: Jumping over the flaming blobs and the level's trapdoors in a single leap, Mario could pin them to the small platforms on either side of the screen, effectively putting them out of commission for the entirety of the level. The levels then repeated ad infinitum, forcing many an Atari owner to break out the sledgehammer.

Donkey Kong
Platform: Famicom
Release Date: 1981 (Japan)
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

The Famicom (Japan's NES) version of Donkey Kong was actually not a bad game, all things considered. Only one level was missing (in arcades, the third level), but almost everything else was present. Donkey Kong was well animated, the controls were solid, and minor issues like the sentient fire blobs were handled accordingly and thus improved. The music was an exact copy of the music from the arcade game. Somewhat strange though were the bizarre sounds Mario made when walking around the levels. The effects were completely different from those in the arcade game - in this version every step Mario took sounded as if he were wearing a new pair of runners and deliberately squeaking them down a polished floor.

Donkey Kong
Platform: Intellivision
Release Date: 1982
Developer: Coleco
Publisher: Coleco

Yet another version of Donkey Kong to head West was the 1982 Intellivision iteration made by Coleco. The success of this title prompted a sequel.

Donkey Kong Jr.
Platform: Arcade
Release Date: 1982
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

One year after the success of the original Donkey Kong, Nintendo had a sequel heading to arcades. Turning the tables a bit, this game didn't tell the story of a rampaging pet gorilla; instead, it told the tale of a mean master (Mario) who had imprisoned a helpless ape and kept him in a cage. The only hope for the ape's rescue came from his son, known as Junior. Junior had four levels to complete to rescue his dad, and each one was more difficult than the last. The gameplay was markedly different from the original. Instead of barrels as the main obstacle, Junior had to avoid moving mechanical teeth known as Snapjaws.

This game also showed early aspects of Super Mario Bros., as the Snapjaws moved differently, depending on their color. Blue ones traveled in a straight line, generally to their own death, while red ones moved back and forth, somewhat mechanically. Junior had to maneuver his way around hanging vines to reach the top of the cage where Mario had imprisoned his papa. The small ape could climb slowly with two hands on one vine and twice as fast with one hand on two different vines. Touching a Snapjaw, missing a jump, or running out of time meant death for poor Junior. This game was significantly harder than the first one, and once you beat it, helping Donkey Kong and Junior give Mario the boot (literally), the levels began again with a greater number of obstacles.

Donkey Kong Jr.
Platform: Atari 2600
Release Date: 1982
Developer: Atari
Publisher: Atari

There are so many things wrong with this misbegotten spawn of a game that we're surprised Nintendo allowed it to even be published at all. It resembles the arcade version in name alone. Virtually everything that made Donkey Kong Jr. what it was is missing in this version. The graphics are abominable, the Snapjaws have been replaced by what look to be moving crescents, and there is no fruit to drop on them to destroy them - all rendering the gameplay far from that of the original. All of the nuances (like the fact that Donkey Kong Jr. climbs at the same speed as the Snapjaws when using two hands on one vine but twice as fast when using one hand on two vines) are gone. Donkey Kong moves at equal speed with the rest of the Snapjaws, even when he's sliding down a vine for dear life. There are also horrible control issues with Junior not jumping when ordered to. Finally, the third level is nothing like that in the arcade version and instead is just a zigzagging pattern to the top of the screen.

Donkey Kong Jr.
Platform: Famicom
Release Date: 1982 (Japan)
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo

It took a while for the NES version of Donkey Kong Junior to reach the West, because the NES (Famicom) had not yet been released in the US. But the game was as good a translation as the system could offer. All four arcade levels were present, the control was dead on, and the graphics and music were equal or superior to anything that Atari was churning out at the same time. North American gamers wouldn't have the honor of playing this port for several years, though.

Donkey Kong Jr.
Platform: Intellivision
Release Date: 1982
Developer: Coleco
Publisher: Coleco

Donkey Kong Jr. for the Intellivision. It doesn't get much better than this, folks.

Donkey Kong Classics
Platform: NES/Famicom
Release Date: 1982 (Japan)
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

Donkey Kong wasn't out for very long in Japan before Nintendo realized what a cash cow it had in the series. Proving that cartridges could hold more than the public expected, Nintendo released a classic cartridge that had both Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior on it. The cartridge was composed of the two games from the two other ROMs combined with a selection screen at the beginning.

Donkey Kong
Platform: ColecoVision
Release Date: 1982
Developer: Coleco
Publisher: Coleco

The ColecoVision rolled around in the early '80s, just in time for the industry crash that threatened the games business. Nevertheless, the company's developers managed to pull together one of the best versions of Donkey Kong made for a home system. Only three of the arcade levels were present (arcade level two, minus the level with the conveyor belts), but the controls were dead on. The music was almost arcade perfect. The only odd thing about this version was that the first level was a mirror image of the first level in the arcade version. The big ape was in the upper right-hand corner of the first level in this edition instead of being in the upper left. Also, minor obstacles were omitted. On level three, Donkey Kong didn't throw the rapid moving I-beam at Mario, fire barrels didn't exist on the first level, and Donkey Kong didn't throw physics-defying blue barrels either. Though purists were somewhat upset with these omissions, this was still better than the Atari 2600 version.

Donkey Kong
Platform: Atari 7800
Release Date: 1983
Developer: Atari
Publisher: Atari

One of the best early versions of Donkey Kong for a home console came on the Atari 7800. The graphics were far superior to the 2800 and ColecoVision versions. Donkey Kong, Mario, and Pauline were all well animated. On the first level, the big ape threw barrels at Mario as well as just rolling them, and as in the arcade version, some caught on fire and began to chase Mario up the platforms as well. Level two (the level with the horizontal conveyor belts), was omitted, but level three was included. In this version of Donkey Kong, the deadly I-beams were back where they should be, bouncing violently around the top of the screen, just clearing Mario's head. The final level again had Mario avoiding or hammering the fire balls while tripping the weak links in the foundation that ultimately put Donkey Kong flat on his head. Once the level was over, the game started again at stage one with faster barrels and an even angrier Donkey Kong.

Donkey Kong
Platform: PC
Release Date: 1983
Developer: Atari
Publisher: Atari

Details are somewhat sparse here, as this version of Donkey Kong was created for a machine that has a 3.12MHz processor. On today's PCs, by the time you press the 1 key for a one-player game, your two Marios are already dead from the first barrel Donkey Kong throws, and you're back at the difficulty selection screen. Various shareware programs have been created to evade this pitfall, but even the best of them, Moslow, which slows the game to a fraction of its original speed, is still unplayable because the frame rate skips erratically. Nonetheless, Donkey Kong appeared for PC gamers as well as console owners, even in the early days.

Donkey Kong 3
Platform: Arcade
Release Date: 1983
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

On top of the pile of Kong games and versions coming out, Donkey Kong 3 was introduced to arcades in 1983. This variation on the Donkey Kong series again made Donkey Kong the bad guy. But in this case he had little motivation for his actions. You controlled a small character named Stanley - no relation to Mario - who had a big insecticide spray gun and who blasted Donkey Kong up a path of vines all the while dodging insect invaders in the style of Galaga. Kong had irritated the insects by punching their hives. Why the insects attacked poor Stanley instead of DK himself remains a mystery, but the bugs were clearly too intent on stealing Stanley's garden of fruit to care.

When Donkey Kong reached a specific point on the vine he was climbing, he would drop a super spray gun, which Stanley could use to urge Donkey Kong even further up the vines. The ultimate goal was to drive DK's head into a beehive at the top of the screen. The levels then started over with more insects, a fresh garden of fruit, and another angry ape. The second level was particularly nasty, as Donkey Kong would throw coconuts at Stanley as well as order his insect buddies to attack. Finally, there were invincible snakes that would crawl on vines in front of Donkey Kong and would block Stanley's insecticide and give DK time to climb back down. Only the super insecticide could defeat these pests; players who weren't equipped with it had to hold their fire until the snakes slithered out of their line of sight. Only then could they resume pumping DK to the top.

Donkey Kong Jr.
Platform: Colecovision
Release Date: 1983
Developer: Coleco
Publisher: Coleco

Though a pure North American Nintendo version for the home was several years away, the version of Donkey Kong Jr. that Coleco churned out wasn't half bad. It was only missing one of the arcade levels (level four), and the rest of the game was intact except for a few things, including DK Jr.'s ability to jump much further in this version than he could in the arcade version, making level two a breeze. Other minor features, like the birds not dropping eggs and the Snapjaws being somewhat dense, made this one of the easier versions around.

Donkey Kong Jr.
Platform: Atari 7800
Release Date: 1983
Developer: Atari
Publisher: Atari

The Atari 7800 edition of Donkey Kong Jr. was a fairly solid game. Fruit items were plentiful, Junior could move with the ease of, well, a monkey in a tree, and the graphics, though they weren't as high resolution as those in the arcade original, were defined enough so that you could brag to your console-deprived friends about the quality of the new Atari machine. All four levels of the arcade title were included, and they were all faithful to the arcade board. Gameplay was identical: Junior moved with the appropriate speed when climbing vines. The only strange aspect of this game was that Atari didn't animate two individual faces for Junior when he was climbing two vines at once. Instead, he looked to both his left and his right simultaneously, which gave him a bizarre two-headed appearance. But other than that, this revision was right on the monkey... er, money.

Donkey Kong Jr. Math
Platform: Famicom
Release Date: 1983 (Japan)
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

Donkey Kong Jr. Math took Nintendo's best character to date and sent him to school. While some might call this a puzzle game, or at least educational, the game didn't offer much in the way of entertainment and offered even less in the way of inspiration to actually learn math. There were three modes in the game. The first was two-player only, where you took control of one of the monkeys and climbed around the screen trying to use the numbers and operators to equal the number that Donkey Kong Sr. was holding. The first player to do so won an apple and bragging rights.

The second mode was identical to the first, only with larger numbers at play (sadly, the apples remained the same size). The last mode was a list of different algebraic equations that Junior could solve by climbing to a specific height on a chain, then switching to another chain. Players who weren't interested or who were stuck could just drive the key on the left side of the screen to the top, and the answer would be revealed.

Donkey Kong 3
Platform: Famicom
Release Date: 1984 (Japan)
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

Shortly after the arcade release of Donkey Kong 3, the Famicom version followed. Like its predecessors, this game was pretty much a tight version of the arcade original. Apparently, though, the swarm of insects that rushed to sting Stanley after his death in the arcade version was too much for the home version, so it was cut. Instead he just crumpled over, defeated.

After the Famicom release of Donkey Kong 3, however, the ape and his friends were pretty much on vacation for about a decade. Though Donkey Kong himself turned up here and there (check our cameos page for more info), he wasn't back in action until Rare revived him on the Super Nintendo in 1994. But out of action for ten years? Would fans remember him? Would Nintendo's new user base accept games based on a giant gorilla? How would he fare? Moreover, would they embrace the completely new family that Nintendo had created?

The SNES and Game Boy Years

In 1994 the character that launched Nintendo to international fame and made Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid household words was resurrected on Nintendo's new home console system, the Super NES. While it was a sequel to Super Mario Bros. 3 that kicked off the console's success, it was the string of Donkey Kong titles that breathed new life into the aging 16-bit system in the face of more-powerful systems like the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation.

Donkey Kong Country
Platform: Super NES
Release Date: 1994
Developer: Rare
Publisher: Nintendo

Before Donkey Kong Country was released for the Super NES in November 1994, gamers were skeptical. After all, the 16-bit Super NES was still using outdated cartridges compared to the CDs of the newer 32-bit machines out or on the way, it didn't support CD-quality sound, and it was just another 2D platformer. But what a 2D platformer it was.

Rare's success with earlier titles such as Battletoads ultimately lead the company to serious discussions with Nintendo about giving Donkey Kong his own Super NES title. So in 1994 Rare released Donkey Kong Country, challenging the new 32-bit systems head on with 16-bit technology. Rare had been working with Silicon Graphics designing new visuals called ACM (advanced computer modeling), and when it finally realized it could put graphics created on an SGI workstation onto an SNES cartridge, it knew it had something special.

Donkey Kong Country met with tremendous acclaim, both popular and critical. It became the biggest-selling 16-bit title of all time, selling more than eight million cartridges to date. The game was a hit because the graphics were groundbreaking, the controls were great, the gameplay was simple yet addictive, and there were so many secrets to uncover that you became obsessed with finding them all.

The game also took on and expanded the run-and-jump theme and turned barrels into both weapons and modes of transportation. You could tag-team between two apes, find helper animals, ride mine carts, and battle the forces of King K. Rool, an evil crocodile with an army of minions. Instead of the tired save-the-princess routine, you were fighting for Donkey Kong's very survival: King K. Rool had stolen the family's banana collection, an offense that merited the punishment of having his head jumped on by a 200-pound gorilla. Besides all of this, the game had character.