Donkey Kong (1981 video game)

holding a hammer power-up which he uses to smash barrels Following 1980's Space Panic, Donkey Kong is one of the earliest examples of the platform game genre, even prior to the term being coined; the U.S. gaming press used "climbing game" for games with platforms and ladders. As the first platformer game to feature jumping, Donkey Kong requires the player to jump between gaps and over obstacles or approaching enemies whilst Donkey Kong throws barrels at the player, setting the template for the future of the genre. With four unique stages, Donkey Kong was the most complex arcade game of the time, and one of the first arcade games with multiple stages, following games such as 1980's Phoenix and 1981's Gorf and Scramble. ==Plot==

Donkey Kong is the earliest video game with a storyline that visually unfolds on screen. the eponymous Donkey Kong character is the de facto villain. The hero is a carpenter originally unnamed in the Japanese arcade release, later called Jumpman, then Mario. Donkey Kong kidnaps Mario's girlfriend, originally known as Lady and later renamed Pauline. The player takes the role of Mario to rescue her. This is the first occurrence of the damsel in distress scenario used in countless video games released after. The game opens with the gorilla climbing a pair of ladders to the top of a construction site, accompanied by a variation on the musical theme from Dragnet. He drops Pauline and stomps his feet, warping the steel beams. He moves to his final perch and sneers. A melody plays, and the level starts. This sequence sets the scene and adds background to the gameplay—a first for video games. At the end of the stage, a heart appears between Mario and Pauline, but Donkey Kong grabs her and climbs higher, causing the heart to break. The narrative concludes when Mario reaches the end of the rivet stage, when he and Pauline are reunited. ==Development==

Nintendo of America was founded in 1980 with minor success at importing its parent's arcade cabinets from Japan. In early 1981, its president Minoru Arakawa bet the small startup company on a major order of 3,000 Radar Scope games. The conception of Donkey Kong can be traced back to early 1980, when Miyamoto made three A4-size sheets briefly explaining the game's content and characters, about five game screen sketches, and a one-sheet diagram of the final animation. Ikegami Tsushinki was subcontracted for most of the development, heavily involved in the game's creation and concept, and to provide "mechanical programming assistance to fix the software created by Nintendo". Nintendo instructed Ikegami to produce a program according to its instructions and put it onto read-only memory (ROM) chips on printed circuit boards. This later led to mutual lawsuits in 1983, as Ikegami asserted ownership over Donkey Kong which Nintendo denied as Ikegami was a subcontractor who had already been paid. Game Machine called it "simply a nuisance tactic" on the part of Ikegami. Production on Donkey Kong began in January 1981 and lasted between 4–5 months, as Miyamoto was focused on developing it for a global market rather than just for Japan. The four screens were also supposed to make up a single long stage, but this idea was scrapped due to the inability to implement vertical scrolling. By late March 1981, Nintendo was also pursuing a license to make a game based on the Popeye comic strip, Miyamoto came up with many characters and plot concepts, but he settled on a love triangle between a gorilla, a carpenter with a large hammer, and a girlfriend, mirroring the original rivalry between Bluto and Popeye for Olive Oyl. Miyamoto had high hopes for his new project. He was not a programmer, so he consulted technicians for feasibility. He wanted to make the characters different sizes, and have different movements and reactions. Yokoi thought Miyamoto's original design was too complex, The circuit board of Radar Scope was restructured for Donkey Kong. The Radar Scope hardware, originally inspired by the Namco Galaxian hardware, was designed for a large number of enemies moving around at high speeds, which Donkey Kong does not require, so the development team removed unnecessary functions and reduced the scale of the circuit board. The gameplay and graphics were reworked for updated ROM chips; the existing CPU, sound hardware, and monitor were left intact. The character set, scoreboard, upper HUD display, and font are almost identical to Radar Scope, with palette differences. The Donkey Kong hardware has the memory capacity for displaying 128 foreground sprites at 16x16 pixels each and 256 background tiles at 8x8 pixels each. Mario and all moving objects use single sprites, the taller Pauline uses two sprites, and the larger Donkey Kong uses six sprites. Hiroshi Yamauchi thought the game was going to sell well and phoned to inform Arakawa. Nintendo of America's distributors, Ron Judy and Al Stone, brought Arakawa to the lawyer Howard Lincoln to secure a trademark. Donkey Kong was ready for release. The game was completed in mid-June 1981 after debugging and adjustments, shipping a few ROMs for location tests a few days after. Stone and Judy convinced the managers of two bars in Seattle, Washington, to set up Donkey Kong machines. The managers initially showed reluctance, but when they saw sales of $30 a day—or 120 plays—for a solid week, they requested more units. In their Redmond headquarters, a skeleton crew composed of Arakawa, his wife Yoko, James, Judy, Phillips, and Stone converted 2,000 Radar Scope machines to Donkey Kong using conversion kits imported from Japan, consisting of motherboards, power supplies, and marquee graphics. The game officially went on sale in July 1981. ==Ports==

port of Donkey Kong is the first device to feature the modern D-pad. Coleco Makers of video game consoles were interested. Taito offered a considerable fee for all rights to Donkey Kong, but Nintendo declined after three days of internal discussion. Coleco offered Atari 2600 and Intellivision versions as well. Coleco's Atari 2600 port was programmed by Garry Kitchen. Coleco also bundled a copy of Donkey Kong with its Atari VCS clone, the Coleco Gemini, in 1983. Atari Atari, Inc. obtained the license for home computer versions of Donkey Kong and released it for the Atari 8-bit computers. When Coleco unveiled the Adam Computer, running a port of Donkey Kong at the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Illinois, Atari protested that it was in violation of the licensing agreement. Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi demanded that Coleco president Arnold Greenberg withdraw his Adam port. Greenberg complied, and the port was not published. Programmer Landon Dyer's initials appear if the player dies under certain conditions and returns to the title screen. This remained undiscovered for 26 years until Dyer revealed it on his blog, stating that "there's an Easter egg, but it's totally not worth it, and I don't remember how to bring it up anyway". The steps required to trigger it were later discovered by Don Hodges, who used an emulator and a debugger to trace through the game's code. Famicom/NES The game was ported by Nintendo Research & Development 2 to Nintendo's Family Computer (Famicom) console and released in Japan on July 15, 1983, as one of the system's three launch games. Masayuki Uemura, the Famicom's lead architect, designed the console specifically to faithfully recreate Donkey Kong. After the console was released in the West as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985, Donkey Kong became one of the first titles in the console's Arcade Classics Series, released in June 1986 in North America and on October 15 in Europe. Omitted are the cement factory stage and most of the cutscenes, since early ROM cartridges do not have enough memory. It includes a new song composed by Yukio Kaneoka for the title screen. Both Donkey Kong and its sequel, Donkey Kong Jr., are included in the 1988 NES compilation Donkey Kong Classics. Game Boy A complete remake of the original arcade game on the Game Boy, titled Donkey Kong (referred to as ''Donkey Kong '94 during development) contains levels from both the original Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.'' arcades. It starts with the same gameplay and four locations as the arcade game and then progresses to 97 additional puzzle-based levels. It is the first game to have built-in enhancement for the Super Game Boy system. ==Reception==

Upon release in arcades, Computer and Video Games compared it favorably with King Kong and predicted that it would likely become a success. In his 1982 book Video Invaders, Steve Bloom described Donkey Kong as "another bizarre cartoon game, courtesy of Japan" In January 1983, the 1982 Arcade Awards gave it the award for the best single-player video game and the Certificate of Merit as runner-up for Coin-Op Game of the Year. In September 1982, Arcade Express reviewed the ColecoVision port and scored it 9 out of 10. Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games in 1983 stated that "Coleco did a fabulous job" with Donkey Kong, the best of the console's first five games and "the most faithful adaptation of the original video game I have seen". The magazine's Danny Goodman stated that of Coleco's three console versions, the one for the ColecoVision was the best, followed by Atari and Intellivision. Computer and Video Games reviewed the ColecoVision port in its September 1984 issue and scored it 4 out of 4 in all four categories of Action, Graphics, Addiction and Theme. Ed Driscoll reviewed the Atari VCS version of Donkey Kong in The Space Gamer No. 59. Edwards commented that the game is near perfect and that anyone can be caught in Donkey Kong "fever". Arakawa used Nintendo's profits to buy of land in Redmond in July 1982. (). In Japan, the annual Game Machine charts listed Donkey Kong as the highest-grossing arcade game of 1981, then the sixth highest-grossing arcade game of 1982. Game Machine later listed the game as the 20th most successful table arcade cabinet of September 1983. In the United States, Donkey Kong topped the Play Meter arcade charts in October 1981, setting a weekly earnings record, and it was later listed by RePlay as the highest-grossing arcade game of 1982. It was also among the thirteen highest-grossing arcade games of 1983 in the United States. According to Electronic Games in June 1983, the home versions contributed to the arcade version's extended popularity, compared to the four to six months that the average game lasted. It remained Nintendo's top seller into mid-1983, and 67,000 arcade units in the United States, for a total of arcade units sold in Japan and the United States. Nintendo's Game & Watch handheld version of Donkey Kong released in 1982 sold 8 million units. Coleco had sold 6 million Donkey Kong cartridges for home consoles, grossing more than and earning Nintendo more than in royalties; the bundled ColecoVision version sold 2 million units, while the Atari 2600 version sold 4 million units in 1982 for , making it one of the best-selling Atari 2600 games. It was also one of the earliest cartridges available for video game rental at certain stores in 1982. Atari's 1987 re-release for the Atari 2600 sold a further units for by 1990. Coleco's Mini-Arcade tabletop versions of Donkey Kong, along with Pac-Man, Galaxian, and Frogger, had combined sales of three million units. The Atari 8-bit computer version sold units in 1986 and 1990. ==Legal issues==

In April 1982, Sid Sheinberg, a lawyer and the president of MCA and Universal City Studios, learned of the game's success and suspected it might be a trademark infringement of the King Kong franchise. On April 27, he met with Arnold Greenberg of Coleco and threatened to sue over the company's home version of Donkey Kong. On May 3, Coleco agreed to pay royalties to Universal of 3% of their Donkey Kongs net sale price, worth about $4.6 million. The court battle also taught Nintendo they could compete with larger entertainment industry companies. Nintendo managed to settle the dispute out of court after the two companies came to an agreement. At the time of the suit, computer programs were not considered copyrightable material. The Tokyo High Court gave a verdict in 1989 that acknowledged the originality of program code. Ikegami and Nintendo reached a settlement the following year; the terms of it were never disclosed. ==Legacy==

In 1996 Next Generation listed the arcade, Atari 7800, and cancelled Coleco Adam versions as number 50 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time", commenting that even ignoring its massive historical significance, Donkey Kong stands as a great game due to its demanding challenges and graphics which manage to elegantly delineate an entire scenario on a single screen. In February 2006, Nintendo Power rated it the 148th best game made on a Nintendo system. In 2017, The Strong National Museum of Play inducted Donkey Kong to its World Video Game Hall of Fame. Today, Donkey Kong is the fifth most popular arcade game among collectors. The genre was initially referred to as "Donkey Kong-type" or "Kong-style" games, Donkey Kong paved the way for the NES, known as the Famicom in Japan. Following the success of Donkey Kong, Nintendo began developing the Famicom, the hardware of which was largely based on the Donkey Kong arcade hardware, with the goal of matching the system's powerful sprite capabilities in a home system. Nintendo wanted the Famicom to match the Donkey Kong arcade hardware, so they took a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet to semiconductor chip manufacturer Ricoh for analysis, which led to Ricoh producing the Picture Processing Unit (PPU) chip for the NES. Competition The 2007 documentary The King of Kong follows the efforts of Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell to break the world record for high scores in Donkey Kong. It sparked a resurgence of interest in competitive play, and there has been a string of record breaking Donkey Kong scores since the documentary was released. Emulation The NES version was re-released as an unlockable game in the first Animal Crossing, both through its Nintendo Space World 2000 demo as well as the final game. It was also released on the Virtual Console for the Wii in 2006 worldwide with a South Korean release in 2008, the Wii U in 2013, and the Nintendo 3DS in Japan in 2012, North America and Europe in 2013, and in South Korea in 2016. Nintendo released the NES version on the e-Reader in 2002, and for the Game Boy Advance as part of the Classic NES Series in 2004. In 2004, Namco released an arcade cabinet which contains Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Mario Bros. The original arcade version was re-released by Hamster Corporation as part of their Arcade Archives series for Nintendo Switch on June 14, 2018, and the NES version was re-released as one of the launch titles for the Nintendo Classics service on September 19. Donkey Kong: Original Edition is an update of the NES version that reinstates the cement factory stage and includes some animations absent from the original NES version, and has only ever been released on the Virtual Console. It was preinstalled on 25th Anniversary PAL region red Wii systems, which were first released in Europe on October 29, 2010. In Japan, a download code for the game for the 3DS Virtual Console was sent to users who purchased New Super Mario Bros. 2 or Brain Age: Concentration Training from the Nintendo eShop from July 28 to September 2, 2012. In North America, a download code for Original Edition for the 3DS Virtual Console was sent to users who purchased one of five select 3DS games on the Nintendo eShop and registered it on Club Nintendo from October 1, 2012, to January 6, 2013. In Europe and Australia, it was released for purchase on the Nintendo 3DS eShop in September 2014. Clones Donkey Kong was widely influential and resulted in direct clones and games with similar elements and themes in the early 1980s. The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers lists 17 different Donkey Kong clones released for various home platforms. There were so many games with multiple ladder and platforms stages by 1983 that Electronic Games described Nintendo's own Popeye game as "yet another variation of a theme that's become all too familiar since the success of Donkey Kong". That year Sega released Congo Bongo in arcades, which puts the structure of Donkey Kong into an isometric perspective; coconuts rolled by an ape are Congo Bongos analog of barrels. Coconuts—tossed by a monkey this time—are also the primary obstacles in the platform levels of Taito's Zoo Keeper from the same year. Crazy Kong was officially licensed from Nintendo and manufactured by Falcon for some non-US markets. Nevertheless, Crazy Kong machines found their way into some American arcades, often installed in cabinets marked as Congorilla. Nintendo was quick to take legal action against those distributing the game in the US. In 1981, O. R. Rissman, president of Tiger Electronics, obtained a license to use the name King Kong from Universal City Studios. Under this title, Tiger created a handheld LCD game with a scenario and gameplay based directly on Nintendo's creation. Jumpman, Miner 2049er (Atari 8-bit, 1982), and Mr. Robot and His Robot Factory (Atari 8-bit, 1984), focus on traversing all of the platforms in the level, or collecting scattered objects, instead of climbing to the top. Many home computer clones directly borrowed the gorilla theme: Killer Gorilla (BBC Micro, 1983), Killer Kong (ZX Spectrum, 1983), Crazy Kong 64 (Commodore 64, 1983), Kongo Kong (Commodore 64, 1983), Donkey King (TRS-80 Color Computer, 1983), and Kong (TI-99/4A, 1983). One of the first releases from Electronic Arts was Hard Hat Mack (Apple II, 1983), a three-stage game without an ape, but using the construction site setting from Donkey Kong. Other clones recast the game with different characters, such as Cannonball Blitz (Apple II, 1982), with a soldier and cannonballs replacing the ape and barrels, and the American Southwest-themed Canyon Climber (Atari 8-bit, 1982). Nintendo attempted to take legal action against unauthorized clones of Donkey Kong, but estimated they lost in potential sales to these clones. For example, Nintendo won a 1990 Japanese lawsuit against Falcon Company, which had sold 12,000 counterfeit arcade cabinets in the United States during the 1980s. Franchise Donkey Kong spawned a franchise, beginning with the sequel Donkey Kong Jr. (1982) with the player controlling Donkey Kong's son in an attempt to save his father from Mario. The spin-off Mario Bros. (1983) introduced Mario's brother Luigi in a single-screen cooperative game, set in a sewer, and launched the Mario franchise. The final arcade installment, Donkey Kong 3 (1983), appeared in the form of a fixed shooter, with an exterminator named Stanley ridding the ape—and insects—from a greenhouse. Nintendo revived the franchise in the 1990s for a series of platform games and spin-offs developed by Rare, beginning with Donkey Kong Country in 1994. Donkey Kong Racing for the GameCube was in development by Rare, but was canceled when Microsoft purchased the company. In 2004, Nintendo released the first of the Donkey Konga games, a rhythm-based game series that uses a special bongo controller. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (2004) is a unique platform action game that uses the same bongo controller accessory. In 2007, Donkey Kong Barrel Blast was released for the Wii. It was originally developed as a GameCube game and would have used the bongo controller, but was delayed and released exclusively as a Wii game with no support for the bongo accessory. The Donkey Kong Country series was revived by Retro Studios in 2010 with the release of Donkey Kong Country Returns, and its sequel, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, in 2014. In 2004, Nintendo released Mario vs. Donkey Kong, a sequel to the Game Boy's Donkey Kong, in which Mario must chase Donkey Kong to get back the stolen Mini-Mario toys; Mario vs. Donkey Kong has since continued as its own series, which placed a larger emphasis on the toys in the subsequent installments. Pauline continued to only make appearances in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series, but after her appearance in Super Mario Odyssey as the Mayor of New Donk City (a large urban area with several references to the original Donkey Kong game), she began to make further appearances in more Mario spinoffs such as Mario Kart and the Mario sports titles. Over a decade after the release of Tropical Freeze, The Donkey Kong series returned with the release of Donkey Kong Bananza in 2025, the second 3D platformer in the series after Donkey Kong 64 in 1999. In the game, Donkey Kong ventures underground with a teenage Pauline. Throughout the game, there are several references to the original Donkey Kong arcade game, including a throwback stage that recreates the first level, and costumes for Pauline that pay tribute to her appearance in the original game and its flyer. Donkey Kong appears as a game in the Wii U game NES Remix, which features multiple NES games and sometimes "remixes" them by presenting significantly modified versions of the games as challenges. One such challenge features Link from The Legend of Zelda traveling through the first screen to save Pauline. The difficulty is increased compared to the original Donkey Kong because Link cannot jump, as in Zelda. Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U include a demo of the NES version of Donkey Kong. A stage called "75m", a replica of its Donkey Kong namesake, has appeared in the Smash series since Brawl. Mario Kart World features a race course called "DK Spaceport" themed after Donkey Kong, where racers drive on platforms and avoid large barrels thrown by a giant, robotic version of Donkey Kong. In popular culture By June 1982, Donkey Kongs success had prompted more than 50 parties in the U.S. and Japan to license the game's characters. In 1983, the animation studio Ruby-Spears produced a Donkey Kong cartoon (as well as Donkey Kong Jr.) for the Saturday Supercade program on CBS. In the show, mystery crime-solving plots in the mode of Scooby-Doo are framed around the premise of Mario and Pauline chasing Donkey Kong (voiced by Soupy Sales), who has escaped from the circus. The show lasted two seasons. The game's creation and lawsuit with Universal were discussed in the second episode of High Score on Netflix, which also includes an interview with John Kirby, who the episode was dedicated to as he died shortly before its release. In the 2015 film Pixels, a film where aliens take on the form of 1980s arcade characters as they attack Earth, the alien leader takes on the form of Donkey Kong in the film's climax. In the 2023 Super Mario Bros. Movie, Charles Martinet—Mario's voice actor in the video games—makes a cameo appearance as Giuseppe, who resembles how Mario looked back in Donkey Kong. Giuseppe is also seen playing Donkey Kong on an arcade cabinet, but in the film the game is called "Jump Man", referencing Mario's original name. In 1982, the songs "Do the Donkey Kong" by Buckner & Garcia and "Donkey Kong" by R. Cade and the Video Victims were released, while the Miami based song "Donkey Kong (Catch You In The Break)" by The Invisibles was released in 1984. Artists like DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince and Trace Adkins referenced the game in songs. Episodes of The Simpsons, Futurama, Crank Yankers, and The Fairly OddParents have referenced the game. Sound effects from the Atari 2600 version serve as generic video game sounds in films and television series. The phrase "It's on like Donkey Kong" was coined by American rapper Ice Cube in 1992, and has been used in various works of popular culture. In November 2010, Nintendo applied for a trademark on the phrase with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Fallout 4 includes a holotape game called Red Menace that is inspired by Donkey Kong's levels. The game can be found in Vault 111 and played on the player's Pip-Boy. ==Notes==