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30th Anniversary of Donkey Kong

Posted by Soulskill on from the you-are-old dept.

An anonymous reader writes "30 years ago this month, Nintendo released Donkey Kong — an iconic arcade machine that put the company on the video game map and introduced Mario. Technologizer's Benj Edwards celebrated the anniversary by rounding up some of the game's odder sidelights. For instance, it was originally going to be a game about Popeye, Bluto, and Olive Oyl — and among its stranger offshoots was a pocket-sized game in which Donkey Kong and Mario faced off in hockey." Gamasutra has a more detailed article about the game's development.

9 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. World's Smallest Playable Donkey Kong by Yvan256 · · Score: 2

    Videos (part 1, part 2).

    Made by Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum member Bender.

  2. Donkey Kong - Named for the Bad Guy? by Slider451 · · Score: 2

    I was just explaining to my young kids how I played this growing up. The kept asking me why I only got to play as Mario when the game was called Donkey Kong. It reminded me of Patrick Stewart explaining that he thought "Star Trek" was the name of the ship when he auditioned for ST:TNG.

    --
    Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
    1. Re:Donkey Kong - Named for the Bad Guy? by Life2Short · · Score: 2

      At my college we had a Crazy Kong machine in 1982. It was another year before I saw a "real" Donkey Kong, and I thought the real one was the knock-off because of the gaudier (to me) color scheme. According to the Wikipedia article it was licensed outside the U.S., but this was definitely in the U.S. As I recall Atari games were still much bigger than Donkey Kong, at least with my age group. The big hits were Tempest and Centipede.

  3. Those are many quarters I'll never get back by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Damned ape took more lives than a serial killer at a hitchhiker convention.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  4. There's a great documentary about Donkey Kong by zoom-ping · · Score: 2

    I highly recommend The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.

  5. You don't say? by Red_Chaos1 · · Score: 2

    "For instance, it was originally going to be a game about Popeye, Bluto, and Olive Oyl."

    Actually, Nintendo *did* make a Popeye video game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popeye_(video_game) It was both in the Arcade and on the NES.

  6. Re:Horsecrap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Iwata Asks: New Super Mario Bros Wii:

    Iwata: Yes, the company was releasing Popeye playing cards and Popeye Game & Watch titles.

    Miyamoto: That's why at first I asked if I could make a game using Popeye. The basic concept of Popeye is that there is the hero and his rival who he manages to turn the tables on with the aid of spinach.

    Iwata: When you put it like that, it's the same as Pac-Man, isn't it? (laughs)

    Miyamoto: Yes, it's identical to Pac-Man! (laughs) So I sketched out a few ideas for games using Popeye. At that point, Yokoi-san was good enough to bring these ideas to the President's attention and in the end one of the ideas received official approval. Yokoi-san thought that designers would become necessary members of development teams in order to make games in the future. And that's how Donkey Kong came about.

    Straight from the mouth of "the man who made up zelda based on childhood memories" ;)

  7. Done with TFA at page 2. by destiny71 · · Score: 2

    Really?? One whole web page full of advertisements, and 2 paragraphs of actual content? And there's 15 total pages?

    Closed tab at page 2.

    But hey, Happy Birthday Donkey Kong!

  8. Jumpman by pgn674 · · Score: 2

    They missed one of the more interesting facts. One that I didn't know about until I played on an original Donkey Kong arcade that had been embedded into a table in a burrito restaurant in Orono, Maine, and read the instructions. The character's original name was Jumpman.