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Dad Hacks "Donkey Kong" - Now Pauline Rescues Mario
H_Fisher writes "What do you do when your daughter wants the girl to be the hero of your old video game? If you're Mike Mika, you hack the game ROM to reverse the roles. He even changed the 'M' at the top of the screen to a 'P.'"
You tell her to check her privilege and stop being a sexist! Oh, wait, wrong gender.
I hope he also fixed the final level bug.
There was a patch for DOOM that let you shoot Barney.
Maybe you shouldn't be taking your morality from Donkey Kong.
Let's count up all the female player characters that exist in video games that aren't sex objects, exist for a male character to save, or exist as a plot device (that is, female characters you can play that exist as characters in and of themselves, not as part of a plot to empower male characters):
April Ryan
Faith in Mirrors Edge
Chell in Portal (though you almost never see her)
Lightning
Princess Toadstool in Super Mario 2 (though this character is powerless in almost every other Mario game)
um... I'm out. I'd do the same list with male characters, but I'd exceed the maximum comment size.
It's another article with something cool, vaguely mentioning something about gender biases, that ignites comments across game industry websites spewing reactionary sexist bullshit. Even as innocent and heart-warming as this story is, primitive individuals with no understanding of privilege can't help but attack the father and even the 3 year old, if you can believe it.
Are other industries as bad, or is the gaming industry one of the worst?
He did it so his daughter could play as the character she wanted to play. Not as some feminist statement.
Why not have those things? Maybe his daughter likes them? Just because they're traditionally female, doesn't mean they're inferior.
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If the daughter finds them OK, what's wrong with it? Maybe she likes "girly" things.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
I see gender roles are still alive and well, with Pauline using pink umbrella's and pink handbags in her quest to defeat Donkey Kong...
Yeah sure, it would indeed have been a lot better if Mario had the pink umbrella and pink handbags.
Let the haters hate, and the lovers love. We know who's who by their comments.
If your daughter wanted it all princessy, and you loved her, you'd do it too. Remember (if you RTFA), she asked to play as not-Mario; we don't know what more she said beyond that. If my son asked for an elephant in the game, I'd make peanuts for him to use. And a little feather because of Dumbo.
Got my man-card, and my dad-card, and nobody's pulling either of them.
This ROM has the pie factory level, but it has the NES title screen. How's that work? TFA says the 2010 ROM, but what's that from?
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
He should have switched the big monkey at the top with the poor little oil drum at the bottom while he was at it, to reflect the full scope of societal changes that have occurred since the release of Donkey Kong.
In this new version, the girl fights to stop Big Oil at the top from throwing barrels at the cute little monkey at the bottom, while the guy just stands there watching the game. When she gets to the top, she's not rescuing Mario, she's stopping Big Oil from harming cute animals. Mario just happens to come out of his comatose state when she enters the room and feels compelled to feign excitement for her quest.
In college I had a roommate who felt very strongly that depressed people should not give in to pressure to take Prozac. So I "hacked" (I think I used ResEdit or something... nothing fancy) a Pong clone to replace the ball with a green/yellow Prozac capsule. That way he could "fight the good fight" by trying to deflect the Prozac in response to my repeated attempts to stuff it down his side of the screen. This made him a much more animated opponent in Pong, and I told him this only proved that Prozac does improve people's behavior. Which upped the ante as the game continued, in much the same way that Tetris starts throwing bricks at you with more attitude the further you get into the game.
Way to go Dad :)
Let's try to switch it further: Mario as the bad guy, DK must be rescued. Maybe DK has a daughter?
Gender equality is one thing - but he is still enforcing stereotypical gender roles with the pink handbags and brollies!
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Would the title owners have sued his ass?
--
AC
My daughter was once playing with ktuberling, where you drag little characters on the screen and create a scene. One day I caught her rotating the mouse horizontally, because she wanted the little penguin to lay down instead of standing, and she was complaining it was not working. I'm an electronic engineer, but I have not all that spare time! :-)
On the other hand, I think that Apple and others could gain millions by hiring a bunch of kids as designers...
With all the hard work beating Donkey Kong she'll find herself ending up with a short fatty with a funny moustache that dresses like a pervert...
Pauline is not a very feminine name, and P is not a very feminine first letter either.
I hope for this poor girl she wasn't named Pauline.
On the other hand, M is a fairly feminine letter and there are plenty of feminine first names with it.
Parenting - you're doing it right!
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Oh STFU you asshole.
Only men look at something girly and think: "Wow, that girl is being brainwashed into that." But they NEVER and I mean NEVER look at boys playing with violent videogames and the like and think the same thing. "Oooh, so violent, we're training our boys to be soldiers, so stereotypical and sexist!"
I noticed that Americans have a big problem with girly girls. They all want their women to have male personalities but with boobs.
I like the way I am. Go fuck yourself.
He's publishing a patch but I assume you need the exact same version of the ROM that he used.
Could anyone give me a hint as to where I could find that ROM?
I'd love to load this on the ipad for my kids.
Thanks!
making mario wear those at the top of the screen while pauline climbs up in a plumbers suit would have been a pretty fucking lousy hack.. just saying.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Since I have no reason to hate you with a passion, I won't suggest you watch Twilight but aren't the males in that drivel just as much sex objects?
What really is the difference between Lara Croft and Fabian? Don't know who he is? Google it and you will find he is a model who appears on countless romance novel covers and NOT because he is a novelist.
Sex... wasn't really all that much a part of the original Tomb Raider. yes, she had big polygons, which most of the time you don't see since the camera is behind her. Meanwhile the women in Planescape: Torment had FAR bigger tits but nobody complained about that. Because part of the reason to have big tits in low-rez games was so the tits would be visible at all.
In Israel right now there is a law banning thin models. To protect the feelings of the whales. Because the only thin women are freaks who don't eat of course, not just a normal percentage of women who just happen to not overeat and have a natural slender built. To protect one groups feelings, another group is excluded. For every a-cup girl supposedly offended by doubt D Lara, there is a double D girl offended by every small titted heroine. Can't girls with big busts be heroes or are they condemned like blondes to always be stupid whores?
HERE IS THE SECRET
Every personality you see in the media, is a role. Doesn't matter whether you like said role or not. It is a role. Every actor acts a role defined by the writer. Media can NEVER show reality (which is why people who take 1984 as a prophecy as such idiots) because the writer WROTE everything as if he/she was god. A personality is self-destructive or succesful because the writer made it to be like that. In Far Cry 3 and the new Tomb Raider the "hero" goes from a snivelling coward to lean mean well adjusted killing machine because that was what the writers put in the plot. A different writer could just as easily have written a plot showing how both lapse into insanity. When backdraft was made, fire departments around the world saw an increase in volunteers and Pretty Woman has been claimed to have caused an increase in girls thinking prostitution always has an happy ending... for the girl. Mind you, the postman always ring twice didn't see more people wanting to be postman. Because the writers made on proffesion seem heroic while the other... wasn't. And many movies have shown hookers in bad light. The role an actor plays is not real.
REAL people are often WAY more complex then can be put in a 1.5 hour movie. Lara Croft breasts are often the joke of back pains... and? This is well known among women and those who live in the same world as them. Breast reduction surgery does exist and STILL women with small breasts want to be sultry big bossomed and big breasted women want to be slender and cute. And men want big cocks despite most women not particularly liking to be stretched to wide or to deep while men with actual big penisses wish that girls wouldn't run out the door when they get naked. We all want what we can't have because SURELY the grass is greener on the other side, so we all climb the fence and never wonder why so many people are climbing the other way.
BUT it is NOT the media's fault, it is our own.
Take publicity shots for say Star Wars. You can probably find some of Carry Fisher in her metal bikini and say "fan service". That is because all the pictures of Harrison Ford strutting it, don't appeal to YOU. But they ARE fanservice to a LOT of women. You drooled over Leia, they drooled over Han. Or Luke. Or Obi-Wan... women are weird or Jabba... my gf picked me after all.
You might think that a Lord of the Rings does not have much fanservice but just search the net. So... does that make the characters sex symbols? YES! Just not to you, but if SOMEONE drools over it, it is a sex symbol.
Sex sells, it always has done and both genders lap it up.
Sexism is only seeing it in one gender. Note the Israeli law on thin models ONLY applies to females. Because everyone knows bulemia
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I noticed that Americans have a big problem with girly girls. They all want their women to have male personalities but with boobs.
So you're saying Americans are secretly gay?
This is a win on so many levels.
I'd wager that first and foremost this dad did this without any ulterior motives. He simply made a lovely gift to his beloved daughter.
But he did more than that, whether he intended to or not.
He implicitly stated (to his daughter) that he, as a man, is perfectly ok with a woman rescuing a man. He may not even have done this consciously. His daughter may not even consciously see or understand this message. But he makes a nice example.
He also showed his daughter, that it is possible to change the "current state of affairs".
And yes, all of this would be a non-news if not 97% (made up on the spot, but probably not far from the truth) of all games reinforced the stereotype of the female damsel in distress with the male hero - or the sex-objectified heroine
.. a pink handbag and umbrella arn't the first things you'd pick. Not unless you wanted to ask him out on a date of course.
... dad had a convenient excuse to spend some quality time hacking.
Wife: Hey, why the fsck are you still sitting in front of that computer, its 1am! You love that thing more than me. I'm sick of it! Come to bed and treat me like a woman!
Dad: I'm giving matriachal empowerment to the characterisation of this game for the sake of our daughters self esteem.
Wife: Oh , well, ok then! Night!
Dad: Heh , sucker. Now, lets see what this ISR does...
Well, they don't seem to be particularly happy unless they're abusing someone elsewhere.
Fun Fact: Pink only became a "woman's" colour at the beginning of the last century. Before that, men wore clothes of that colour quite frequently.
"What do you do when your daughter wants the girl to be the hero of your old video game?"
Tell her "That isn't how the world works. Go make me a sandwich."?
Donkey Kong for Debian & Android Galaxy SIII please!
This is all anyone needed to say about this story.
The three characters are Pauline, Donkey Kong (now Cranky Kong), and Jump Man.
Now that is cool!
Members of PETA hacked the game to make the human the villain and the monkey the hero.
Oh, wait...
Slinging beer in a topless bar. That there's a hack your grandpappy can be proud of.
I say this with all sincerity, and as a father of a 3-year-old daughter.
Your post is a CMOH.
Posted anonymously cause I'm actually a little embarrassed about it.
I'd love to see more of Daphne in that see-through dress swinging her sword to save Dirk.... Of course, that's a bit more involved since it was all hand-drawn animation.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Yep. Baby boys went home from the hospital in pink, and girls in blue.
The coder in me says, wow thats cool! The dad in me says, thats cute.
This remindes me of the mod my brother did for a company, Palm City Music many years ago. They wanted to make their own brand of Pac-Man. So they got Mark to reverse engineer the Pac-Man ROMs and modify the characters to look like the the head of Popeye and the energy pills to look like cans on spinach. The Ghosts? They became pirates.
I see gender roles are still alive and well, with Pauline using pink umbrella's and pink handbags in her quest to defeat Donkey Kong...
Has no one actually played Donkey Kong? Those were from the original game as the icons for bonus points. They were Pauline's items that she tossed for Mario to pick up. If he were going to really flip that aspect, he should change the color/style on the umbrella, and maybe make the purse a lunch pail or something. But that's more sprite editing.
He effected a bored affect.
stopping Big Oil from harming cute animals.
I know you love you some Sonic the Hedgehog, but I'm not sure it'd be so easy to hack Donkey Kong (Pie Factory Edition) for NES to correspond to your recommended plot changes.
Mario kidnapped the Princess (and the mother of the Koopalings), Koopa rescued her, and now Mario is running around killing everything in the Mushroom Kingdom.
If true, that'd confirm the theory I'd had all along: Goombas lived in peace, Toads invaded, Goombas hired the mercenary group Koopa Troop to freeze the Toads into blocks and take Peach as a POW, Mario had to meddle in this war and help the Toads.
One time I hacked Donkey Kong on Atari 2600 for a guy who wanted to propose using a message embedded in the game. The text in the screenshot looks funny because it's necessary to use a flickering trick to display text on the 2600 -- it looks better on the actual machine.
Pauline using pink umbrella's and pink handbags
What, except your educational handicap, was the reason for putting an apostrophe in "umbrella's"? Go back to the NASCAR site, moron.
And yet, we still have the argument about DRM, the argument about sexism, and an argument about environmentalism. It's pretty clear that a lot of Slashdot's commenterbase doesn't actually care what is in the article, they just like their own rants.
'Hope it was at least entertaining.'
No.
Well, the brain programming in the original version is actually DISempowering. Princess must be rescued? That'd piss me off if I were a girl. It's a bullshit message. Girls are not possessions. I know I like my girls to be strong and capable. I hate having to rescue girls all the damned time; I don't need the ego boost and I find it exhausting. I like the kind of woman who have my back in a fight, and vice/versa. Makes for much happier and productive partnerships.
Anyway, the act of hacking media is the true empowerment here, not the gender thing.
Here's a little girl who now understands, thanks to her dad, that the world needn't be taken at face value, that if you're smart and willing, you can take the defined world shoved at you by the corporate authorities and either ignore it or change it according to your desires. And they can't stop you! That opens up possibilities and confidence in countless areas of life.
That's a great message to absorb as a kid, I think.
I'm sure someone above has already asked this, but I'm surprised it wasn't the first post. People have been easily hacking NES roms to switch around or replace sprites for about fifteen years or so. There is already a HUGE body of Donkey Kong rom hacks that change the game graphics, and there is no doubt in my mind that a version of this exact hack has been around about that long. You can find even more hacks of the original Super Mario Bros, replacing Mario with a woman, a klansman, Mike from MST3K, or just about anyone. Why is this particular hack suddenly news?
I'm fairly sure that cheap "romance" novels aren't marketed at men... but the covers on those are fairly oversexualized as well.
As for the big bulky superheroes... my wife was pretty happy with the scene where "Thor" went shirtless, so I'd say that's not "just for men" either.
I always thought I was saving my big hairy, yet easily influencable lover from that blonde haired vamp who tried to turn him around.
I considered it a tragic ending when he finally fell.
This is the equivalent of making a LEGO line of products for girls...it's stupid and unnecessary. I had no problem playing as a woman when Super Metroid came out for the SNES. Good job dad, you just made the gender distinction more distinct.
The only cool thing was the hack...not the intent.
If the daughter finds them OK, what's wrong with it? Maybe she likes "girly" things.
According to the feminists, it's wrong to like girly things. She only likes girly things because men make her like them.
It's all awesome female free will and self determination, until she chooses the wrong answer, then it's only because she's abused by society and evil men.
This shows how bogus concepts like patriarchy really are. People are much more loyal to real things like their daughters than they are to virtual ones like their gender.
Given a choice any sane person would ignore pretty much any principle or law if following it would not be in their children's interest, because from an evolutionary point of view that is a very valuable trait - parents that don't will tend not to reproduce very successfully.
Once you work out you're basically a machine programmed to breed silly ideas like laws and morals all cease to have any real meaning.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
In swapping Mario and Pauline, he used sprite editing. I know it's slashdot, so nobody ever R's TFA, but Just as Mario never had a "get taken away by Donkey Kong" animation, Pauline never had running, jumping, hammer smashing, or death animations. He had to edit the sprites and modify their palettes.
I guess that's not as obvious an inference as I assumed.
If Peach is a POW, better make sure nobody bumps her
How do you think the Koopalings got made? It appears to have been male Koopa Troop members (other than Bowser, apparently) bumping Peach.
>"What do you do when your daughter wants the girl to be the hero"
Sorry, you can't without a sex change operation. But you can help her be the heroine!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heroine
Mario rescued first.
Well TFA mentions she likes to play Princess Toadstool in Super Mario Bros 2.
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1225/
It's a pity you got hit with offtopic. It is relevant to the discussions triggered by the story.
It was a nice nerd-ish thing for a dad to do for his little girl, but people seem to be reading more into it than they should.
How is a man accommodating a girl showing female empowerment? It would be if her mom did it, but all this shows the little girl is that her Daddy is cool. That's still a good thing, but it's a different kind of good thing.
Subject line says it all. I want this.