
After completing all four stages, the game repeats with increased difficulty. The game ends when all lives are lost.ĭonkey Kong has four single-screen stages, each representing 25 meters of the structure Donkey Kong has climbed (25, 50, 75, and 100 meters). The player starts with three lives and earns an additional life at 7,000 points, adjustable via DIP switches. The player’s goal is to save Pauline while accumulating points by leaping over obstacles, destroying objects with a hammer power-up, collecting items, removing rivets from platforms, and completing each stage within the time limit. Donkey Kong was one of the first arcade games with multiple stages and was considered the most complex arcade game of its time, following games like Phoenix (1980), Gorf (1981), and Scramble (1981). The game set the template for the future of the platform genre. gaming press used climbing game for games with platforms and ladders. As the first platform game to feature jumping, Donkey Kong requires the player to jump between gaps and over obstacles or approaching enemies, setting the template for the future of the genre. With its four unique stages, Donkey Kong is 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.Donkey Kong, released in 1981 by Nintendo and reissued by Atari in 1988, is an arcade platform video game that was the first to feature jumping.

They broke new ground by using graphics as a means of characterization, including cutscenes to advance the game’s plot and integrating multiple stages into the gameplay.įollowing 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.

Drawing from a wide range of inspirations including Popeye, Beauty and the Beast, and King Kong, Miyamoto developed the scenario and designed the game alongside chief engineer Gunpei Yokoi. It is the first game in the Donkey Kong series as well as Mario’s first appearance in a video game.ĭonkey Kong is the product of Nintendo’s increasingly desperate efforts to develop a hit to rival Pac-Man (1980) and break into the North American market. Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo’s president at the time, assigned the project to first-time video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto.


As Mario, the player runs and jumps on platforms and climbs ladders to ascend a construction site and rescue Pauline from the giant gorilla Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong is a 1981 arcade video game developed and published by Nintendo.
