Donkey Kong (Japan set 2) 

Title: Donkey Kong (Japan set 2)
Name: dkongjo
Averall status: good
Year: 1981
Category: Platform / Run Jump
Manufacturer: Nintendo
Available since MAME™ version: 0.053
Player(s): Two players alternatively
BIOS: Not needed

Emulation: good
Color: good
Sound: good
Graphic: good

Save state: available

Palette size: 521 colors
Type: raster
Screen rotation: 90 degrees
Screen size: 256x224 pixels
Refresh rate: 60.6061Hz

Donkey Kong machines came in one of 4 different cabinets. 2 flavors of upright machines, plus a cabaret, and a cocktail thrown in for good measure. The cocktails and cabarets were mostly black and woodgrain, and not excessively decorated. But the upright versions were. The red upright versions are actually "Radarscope" cabinets that have been factory converted to Donkey Kong. These are fairly rare (even though they were supposed to be the only Donkey Kong machines), and feature slightly different game-play. The blue uprights (which are the most common), are a very rectangular affair, with quite a lot of artwork. They have orange-ish sticker style side-art (with Mario and Kong on them), with control panel, marquee, and monitor bezel graphics to match. This game does not use a standard arcade monitor. It requires a 'Nintendo Compatible' monitor (a normal monitor will display the picture like that of a photographic negative). This simple little monitor change basically launched the entire Nintendo Vs. Unisystem later on. Because only Donkey Kong series games and Vs. titles would work on these monitors (forcing operators to buy conversion kits for those games instead of a competitors game).
Main CPU : Z80 (@ 3.072 Mhz), I8035 (@ 400 Khz)
Sound Chips : Discrete circuitry
Screen orientation : Vertical
Video resolution : 224 x 256 pixels
Screen refresh : 60.606061Hz
Palette colors : 256
Players : 2
Control : 4-way joystick
Buttons : 1 (JUMP)

MAME needs 15 dumps to start the ROM "dkongjo":

• "v_5h_b.bin"
  

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• "v_5k_b.bin"
  

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• "l_4m_b.bin"
  

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• "l_4n_b.bin"
  

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• "l_4r_b.bin"
  

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• "l_4s_b.bin"
  

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• "c_5f_b.bin"
  

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• "c_5g_b.bin"
  

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• "c_5h_b.bin"
  

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• "c_5k_b.bin"
  

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• "c-2j.bpr"
  

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• "c-2k.bpr"
  

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• "v-5e.bpr"
  

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• "s_3i_b.bin"
  

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• "s_3j_b.bin"
  

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  CRC checksum: 4743fe92
  MD5 checksum:
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Released in July 1981.
The game was originally going to be called 'Monkey Kong' but, as with "Continental Circus", a mistake during the translation process from Japanese to English resulted in the now legendary name. The game's creator, the equally-legendary Shigiru Miyamoto denies this story to this day - claiming that the naming is deliberate as he wanted an animal name that would capture the 'stubborn' nature of the Kong character (as in 'stubborn as a mule'). Few within the industry believe this explanation, however.
Nintendo was sued by Universal Studios who said the Donkey Kong character infringed on the King Kong copyright. Nintendo's legal counsel, John Kirby of Latham & Watkins LLP, recalled an old case were the RKO Pictures sued Universal Studio for the same reason. At this time, Universal Studio had argued that King Kong was in the public domain. So, Universal Studio lost and had to pay Nintendo $1.8 million in damages. To thanks John Kirby, Nintendo created a personage with the name of Kirby (originally called Popopo).
Donkey Kong was to be Nintendo's first big breakthrough into the western - and particularly American - arcade scene. Before Donkey Kong, Nintendo was having difficulty establishing itself in these markets. After the game's massive success Nintendo quickly established their headquarters of Nintendo of America to ensure that the game was being distributed properly.
Donkey Kong introduced a number of wholly original game-play ideas to the platform genre. It was the first ever game to feature multiple play-fields, for example. It was also the first game that allowed players to jump over objects. Its creation came about due to the commercial failure of another game called "Radarscope". A consequence of which was an excess of redundant arcade cabinets. In an attempt to limit their losses, Nintendo commissioned Donkey Kong and history was made.
Mario was named after Mario Segali, the landlord of Nintendo of America's first warehouse location in Seattle (thought it was debated whether this occurred before or well after the game was released). Mario was originally called 'Jumpman'; only the arcade version of Donkey Kong has ever called the hero Jumpman; home ports proceeded to call the hero Mario. Accounts differ as to how Nintendo of America felt about the game before its release. Many sources claim that they all felt sure it would be an absolute disaster while others say they were more optimistic. Although Mario is a plumber in later games, his career in Donkey Kong is that of a carpenter. Mario's appearance (and consequently his career) was dictated by the primitive graphics hardware of the time - the only way to have his arms appear 'separate' to his torso was to have them as a different color - hence he wears 'dungarees'. The mustache is present merely to indicate where Mario's mouth is, again due to the low graphics resolution imposed by hardware limitations. Mario wears a hat so his head is distinguishable from the game's black backgrounds.
About 60,000 units were sold in the U.S. Oddly, despite it being one of the ten best selling games of the golden age of video games, it never reached #1 on Replay's popularity charts. Instead, it was stuck at #2 behind mega hits "Pac-Man" and "Ms. Pac-Man" - the two best selling games ever.
The 75m Stage (a.k.a. the elevator stage), is used as an unlockable stage in Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Nintendo Wii.
Steve Wiebe holds the official record for this game with 947,200 points on March 2, 2002.
Donkey Kong inspired a catchy hit song by Buckner and Garcia called 'Do The Donkey Kong' released on the 'Pac-Man Fever' album.
A Donkey Kong unit appears in the 1983 movie 'WarGames', in the 1984 movie 'Gremlins' and in the 1985 movie 'The Heavenly Kid'.
MB (Milton Bradley) released a board game based on this video game (same name) in 1982. Save the girl and avoid the barrels and fireballs as in the video game. The game-board is laid out like the video game's ramp stage. 'Can You Battle Donkey Kong And Save the Fair Maiden?'.
Donkey Kong also spawned a cartoon series of the same name : Ruby-Spears Productions. Produced by Joe Ruby, Ken Spears. Originally aired September 17, 1983 as part of 'Saturday Supercade' on CBS. Donkey Kong's voice was provided by actor/comedian Soupy Sales.

1. Donkey Kong (1981)
2. Donkey Kong Junior (1982)
3. Donkey Kong 3 (1983)

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Designed by : Shigeru Miyamoto
Music by : Hirokazu Tanaka
Produced by : Gunpei Yokoi

* 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.

Jumping over Barrels, Beams, Fireballs, Cement Tubs, or Firefoxes :
1 item jumped : 100 points
2 items jumped : 300 points
3 or more items jumped : 500 points
* Due to a bug in the program, jumping 3 or more items displays onscreen 800 points but actually awards only 500 points.
* Sometimes jumping over one or more objects scores no points.
* Sometimes scoring can occur when objects are next to or behind the player when jumping (especially the Springs on the Elevator stage).
Destroying objects with the hammer :
Barrels : 300 points
Beams, Fireballs, Cement Tubs, and Firefoxes : 300, 500 or 800 points
Picking up the purse, hat, or umbrella :
Level 1 : 300 points
Level 2 : 500 points
Level 3 and above : 800 points
Running over a rivet : 100 points
Jumping close to Kong on Rivet stage : 100 points
When each level is completed, the player receives the points shown in the bonus box.
Starting bonus points :
Level 1 : 5000 points
Level 2 : 6000 points
Level 3 : 7000 points
Levels 4 through 21 : 8000 points
Level 22 (kill screen) : 4000 points (shown)
* The timer on level 22 behaves strangely. When the stage first comes onscreen, the timer reads 100. Then it changes to 4000 when Mario appears. It then counts down to 3700 and stays there for a few seconds, then Mario dies for no apparent reason, presumably due to a bug in the game’s timer code.

Originally both the US and Japanese versions asked us 'How high can you try?'. This was quickly grammatically corrected to ask the familiar 'How high can you get?'.
The game does end, as it has a 'kill screen'!. The timer in level 22 expires so quickly, that the first stage cannot be completed.
A 'speed-up' kit was released disallowing barrels coming down the ladder if you were at the top of it (SEE TIP BELOW).
The Japanese version has all 4 screens displayed in their original, logical order 1-2-3-4.
For the US version they changed it to match the 'How high can you try/get?' theme. With the screen order as follows :
L1 1-4
L2 1-3-4
L3 1-2-3-4.
L4 1-2-1-3-4
L5 1-2-1-3-1-4
L6 through L21 all remain the same as L5
L22 1 (Kill screen).
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.

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[Controls]

- Move Mario left
- Move Mario right
- Mario climbs up a ladder
- Mario climbs down a ladder
- Jump

[Elements]

Mario: The one and only Mario who
will go on to become one of the
biggest video game stars of all
time. This is his debut. In this
game, he is thought to be a
carpenter instead of a plumber.
Donkey Kong: The most well known
video game monkey. Donkey Kong has
kidnapped Mario's girlfriend and
carried her up to the top of the
construction site that Mario is
working at.
Pauline: Mario's girlfriend and
damsel in distress. She is stuck
at the top of each screen awaiting
rescue from the clutches of Donkey
Kong.
Hammer: Except for the elevator
stage, two hammers can be found on
each stage. Jump to grab the
hammer and use it to smash nearby
dangers for points. It only lasts
for a short time and Mario can not
climb ladders while he is holding
the hammer.
Barrel: Donkey Kong throws these at
Mario on the ramp stage. Many of
them roll down the ramps and
randomly drop down ladders that
they pass. Sometimes Kong throws
them directly down the building.
Beams: These are the blue barrels
that Kong throws. The only
difference between them barrels is
they will turn in to fireballs when
they reach the burning can of oil
at the bottom.
Fireballs: These appear on every
stage but the rivet stage. They
move about randomly and can be
jumped, but it's dangerous to try
because they change directions
frequently.
Firefox: The fire enemies that roam
around the rivet stage. They are
even harder to jump over and they
seem to track Mario a little more
closely.
Springese: These bounce along the
roof of the elevator stage before
falling down to the bottom of the
screen creating a dangerous but
predictable obstacle to avoid.
Cement Tub: The tubs passively
travel along the conveyer belt and
are harmful to touch. The only
danger they pose is when the
conver belt suddenly changes
directions.
Prizes: Some of Pauline's items
liter the construction site and can
be retrieved by Mario for bonus
points.

[Gameplay]

There are four different stages
in this game: the Ramp stage, the
Conveyer Belt stage, the Elevator
stage, and the Rivet stage. The
goal in all stages but the Rivet
stage is to reach Pauline in an
attempt to rescue her from Donkey
Kong. The goal of the Rivet stage
is to unplug all of the rivets that
hold the beams together, causing
Donkey Kong to fall and Pauline to
be rescued.
Mario's best defense is his
ability to jump. He can jump
straight up or he can jump across
while running. Mario stands a
better chance of jumping over
something successfully if he jumps
while running. Mario can jump over
items as well as small gaps.
Fireballs and Firefoxes can be
jumped, but it's dangerous to try.
Mario dies when he comes in
contact with a Barrel, Beam,
Fireball, Firefox, Springese, or
Cement Tub. He will die if he
falls a greater distance than his
height. And he will also die if
the timer in the Bonus window drops
to zero. At the default settings,
Mario starts with two extra lives
and earns one extra life at 7000
points.
When Mario is beneath a hammer,
he may jump up to pick it up and
begin hitting anything that poses
a threat to him. He can not climb
up or down a ladder until the
hammer disappears, and be aware
that it is still possible for Mario
to die if he gets hit by something
that slips past the hammer.
On the Ramp stage, the broken
ladders can not be completely
crossed, but they can be used to
avoid getting hit by barrels.
On the Conveyer belt stage,
Mario must avoid the Cement Tubs.
He will run twice as fast if he
runs in the same direction as the
conveyer belt and half as fast if
he runs against it. The final
ladders to Pauline rise and fall
and Mario can only reach the top
when the ladders are fully extended.
Either ladder can be used.
On the Elevator stage, you must
use the elevators to traverse the
stage. You may ride them freely
but Mario will die if he reaches
the top or bottom without getting
off. At the top of the screen,
Mario must position himself at the
points where the Springese are at
the peak of their jump in order to
safely reach Pauline.
On the Rivet stage, you must
pull out all 8 rivets in the stage,
either by running or jumping over
them. Once a rivet is pulled, you
must be sure to jump over the gap
left behind or Mario will fall to
his death at any height. The
Firefoxes can not cross the gaps.
Once all 8 rivets have been pulled,
Donkey Kong will fall and Pauline
will be rescued and the game will
start over on the Ramp stage at a
higher difficulty.
In the Japanese version, the
order of the four stages remains
constant. In the US version, the
order of the stages varies from
level to level, but they always
start with the Ramp and end with
the Rivets.

[Scoring]

Jump 1 Barrel /Beam 100
Jump 2 Barrels/Beams 300
Jump 3 Barrels/Beams 500
Jump 4+ Barrels/Beams 800
Jump Fireball or Firefox 100
Hammer a Barrel 300
Hammer a Beam 500
Hammer a Fireball or Firefox 500
Prizes in Level 1 300
Prizes in Level 2 500
Prizes in Level 3+ 800

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