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Donkey Kong first arrived in the arcades in 1981 as the game that Shigeru Miyamoto designed to replace the ill-fated arcade game Radar Scope. It featured a mustachioed man in brightly colored overalls who would go on to achieve monumental fame and bring Nintendo a lot of fortune. Originally he was simply called Jumpman and was labeled a carpenter, he was eventually named Mario and identified as a plumber.
When Donkey Kong became popular, Atari sought to buy the home rights to the game. But at that time, Coleco bid for the rights as well when trying to snag a killer launch title for their soon to be released ColecoVision. Coleco got the home cartridge rights while Atari ended up with the computer diskette rights. This arrangement worked out well until it backfired at the 1983 CES show, where Coleco presented their enhanced version of Donkey Kong for the Coleco ADAM computer. Atari, upset over the apparent breach of contract, ordered Nintendo to make Coleco shut down the display.
When the Famicom launched in 1983, Nintendo provided their three biggest arcade hits as launch titles. Donkey Kong was an obvious choice. The Famicom conversion is a very close port of the original game with only minimally altered graphics, but sadly featuring the omission of the conveyor belt stage. Despite the missing stage, the remaining three stages make it in tact, and provide all of the same challenges found the arcade version.
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Title screen.
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Screenshot of the original arcade version.
Story
Donkey Kong lays eyes on Mario's girlfriend Pauline and is instantly smitten, driving Donkey Kong to capture Pauline in his clutches and climb to the top of the construction site where Mario works. Mario is determined to get Pauline back, but Donkey Kong hurls barrels and employs fire to hinder the carpenter's efforts. Guide Mario through the gauntlet and up to the top before time and Pauline's patience runs out!
Table of Contents
Walkthrough
Box artwork
Throughout its many releases, Donkey Kong has accumulated a large collection of different pieces of artwork for the game boxes. Some are shown below:
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Atari 2600 (Coleco)
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Intellivision
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Atari 2600 (Atari)
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Atari 7800
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Atari 800
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Atari XE
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NES (Original)
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NES (Classics)
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Apple II
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Commodore 64 (Atarisoft)
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Commodore VIC-20
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TI 99/4a
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GBA (NES Classics)
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GBA e-Reader
Pac-Man Fever Lyrics
Just for fun, here are the lyrics from the "Do the Donkey Kong" track from the 1982 Pac-Man Fever Album:
Wave your hands in the air, stomp your feet on the ground,
Climb up the ladder quickly, and then spin yourself around.
Open the umbrella up and answer the phone;
You can do it with a partner, you can do it all alone.
Scale up the wall, just how high can you go?
You'll surely break her heart if you get up there too slow.
Pound upon your chest and take an elevator ride;
You can get off at the top and then you look from side to side.
Chorus:
Come on, come on. Come on, come on.
Do the Donkey Kong. Do the Donkey Kong!
Come on, come on. Come on, Come on.
Do the Donkey Kong. Do the Donkey Kong.
Tip-toe through the tulips and then raise your hands up high;
There's a fire down below and you don't want to catch his eye.
Hide behind each other and don't even make a sound;
You're in trouble now, take the elevator down.
Jump over all the barrels and let out a little scream;
Duck underneath the pie, 'cause it's a coconut cream.
You pick the hammer up and then you put the fire out;
Now we think you know what Donkey Kong is all about.
Chorus
Keyboard solo
Adlib chorus and fade