Unlocking The Secret Mechanics Of Donkey Kong

hello you absolute legends when it comes to competitive high scores on retro arcade games none have received more publicity and attention than donkey kong the game is just shy of 40 years old and still to this day nurtures a community of dedicated players working hard to eke out as many points as they can now i'm going to be completely honest i never understood the appeal i was born in 1986 and by the time i was old enough to be able to stand at an arcade machine and try one for myself i was presented with an array of amazing options like final fight street fighter 2 and turtles in time to me a game like donkey kong was merely an archaic remnant from a time long ago where games were primitive and players were entertained more by the novelty than the mechanics of the games themselves truth be told i still somewhat hold this opinion today with the depth of options that are currently available at our fingertips i would assume that anyone who plays games from the late 70s or early 80s are driven mostly by nostalgia i myself regularly go back to games i played as a child not because they are the best but simply because they are familiar and remind me of a more innocent and magical time where i was free from responsibilities and could enjoy the moment without a care in the world when i first watched the king of kong documentary i didn't even know people still played these ancient relics on its surface donkey kong seems too simple too slow too clunky compared with modern games to realistically hold someone's attention for long and yet players were devoting large chunks of their free time trying to get the highest score they could i didn't understand why and i generally brushed these players off as being nothing but weird and who could blame me when you watch a documentary like the king of kong you can hardly come away feeling like this group of high score competitors are the bastion of normality competitive donkey kong is marred with bizarre characters and controversy something that i've come to learn is a giant shame with all of the attention focused squarely on revelations of cheating lawsuits and corruption very few people are left with any idea about how the game itself is actually played but surprisingly at the top level donkey kong is much more complex than you would ever expect and there is a reason people still play it today its gameplay exists in only four simple screens but the emergent complexity that arises from simple mechanics is truly astonishing more than any other game of its era donkey kong stands the test of time and even as someone who never really connected with retro arcade titles i can't help but realize that the more i learn about the strategies of donkey kong the more i understand that this game is much more nuanced and much more sophisticated than i ever imagined in this video you will learn why donkey kong as a competitive high score game is an amazing game to play we will explore the intricate mechanics and advanced strategies that make top level play incredibly interesting to watch by the end donkey kong won't just be that old game that weird guy cheated on and you may actually have some genuine appreciation of the game itself i really hope you enjoy now a quick shout out to this video's sponsor skillshare i am a huge advocate for learning and skillshare is the perfect place to grow and develop skillshare offers thousands of inspiring classes for you to explore new skills or master your existing talents as someone who has amassed various skills over the years i went through a few of the classes i already had some expertise in and i can confirm the quality is extremely high the teachers really know their stuff personally i've been thinking about learning animation for my channel so i'll be going through the course animation for graphic designers how to animate a logo by william kessling i can't wait to show you the results next month now skillshare has allowed me to offer a free trial of skillshare premium to the first 1000 legends who clicked the link in the description so please make sure to take advantage of this opportunity and start exploring your creativity today [Music] in order for a game to be a good candidate for high score competition it needs two elements complexity and an unavoidable definitive conclusion the complexity should be sufficient enough to prevent players from playing optimally thus keeping them from the best possible score this is important because if the maximum score can be reached this immediately rules out any form of high score competition in a game like pac-man it doesn't matter how good one gets they can only ever achieve a score of 3 million three thousand three hundred and sixty the skill floor required to reach this is relatively low and thus multiple players have reached it when players end up getting the same score we can no longer effectively separate them by skill which makes high score competition pointless a conclusion is necessary because without it endurance plays a much more important role than skill many retro games didn't include an ending which meant that they simply lubed indefinitely these games are often marathoned and the strategy for performing well is completely different a great example of this is the game nibbler which was featured in the documentary man vs snake the current world record held by rick carter took 53 hours to perform high scores in nibbler take immense effort but because of the time and energy commitment needed they will never be popular among players donkey kong meets these two criteria perfectly while an ending to the game wasn't intentionally programmed in it does inevitably end on level 22 due to an integer overflow on the first barrel stage on level 22 the timer appears to be normal but in practice the player has approximately 8 seconds to get to the top before they die completing the stage this quickly is nowhere near possible so it becomes an insurmountable obstacle given that donkey kong does have a concrete finish obtaining the highest score is not about survival but rather squeezing in as many points as you can with the set amount of levels you are given there are two main ways one can earn points the first and most basic is by completing a stage with time left on the clock the timer is represented by the bonus that appears at the top right of the screen the amount of points given to the player at completion of each stage will match the bonus number remaining so if you finish with 2 000 points left on the bonus timer you'll be awarded 2 000 points if this were the only mechanic for attaining points the optimal strategy would be to complete each stage as quickly as possible therefore maximizing the amount of bonus points awarded speed runs of donkey kong tell us just how effective this point scoring method is as speed is the only goal of each attempt the world record speed run to reach the kill screen sits at 1 hour 11 minutes and 59 seconds by jp burgess achieved in 2018. in this run the final score sits at 805 900 points in the grand scheme of things this is still a pretty respectable score but falls well short of the current high score record at the time of recording this video the highest score ever achieved in donkey kong is one million two hundred and seventy one thousand one hundred points which was achieved by robbie lakeman on the 22nd of september 2020. in order to reach a score this high we can't rely on bonus points we need to take full advantage of the second main mechanic for point scoring jumping over or destroying the various enemies or obstacles thrown in our way in an attempt to make traversing each stage as difficult as possible and this is where the strategy and complexity of donkey kong truly shines the art of extracting as many points as one can out of each stage is called point pressing and one's ability to do it well is the ultimate variable that dictates how you compare to other players point pressing makes survival exponentially more difficult as the longer you hang around on each stage the greater the chance of something going horribly wrong advanced strategies tend to rely on extremely small timing windows as well meaning that tiny mistakes will cost you everything when players begin their donkey kong journey point pressing is often ill-advised and the general philosophy for novices is to simply try to stay alive and complete as many stages as possible reaching the kill screen at all is incredibly difficult already and is something that often takes months or years of effort to achieve if you can't reach the kill screen there is little point in trying to milk points in each stage as in the long run you'll still end up with less than someone who could survive until the very end this strategy of prioritizing safety to maximize the amount of stages you can complete is called running boards and this is the first step towards donkey kong mastery it is only when you can comfortably reach the kill screen that you can begin your quest to become a king of kong at this point the tougher riskier strategies can start to seep into your play while there are four different stages in donkey kong those being the barrel stage the conveyor stage the elevator stage and the rivet stage the barrel stage makes up almost fifty percent of all stages played this is because at level five stages are alternated between the barrel stage and each of the other three this turns out to be a good thing in my opinion as the barrel stage is the most complex allowing for much more optimization and a higher skill ceiling the barrel stage is the one most people will be familiar with and the image of jumpman smashing and jumping over barrels is the image everyone associates with the game in order to complete the barrel stage jumpman must reach the top by traversing the girders and climbing ladders in an attempt to prevent him from doing so donkey kong repeatedly launches barrels that must be avoided jumped over or destroyed there are three different types of barrels that donkey kong launches normal barrels wild barrels and blue barrels regular barrels will roll along the girders only deviating to descend ladders wild barrels will be thrust downwards or diagonally in an attempt to hit mario from above blue barrels with the exception of the first barrel that is also thrown as a wild barrel behave like regular barrels but when they reach the oil can at the bottom left corner of the stage they spawn a fireball that will begin ascending the girders points are awarded for jumping over or destroying barrels and fireballs jumping over an obstacle will always reward 100 points however you can increase the amount of points awarded by jumping over two or more objects with the same jump jumping over two objects will award 300 points and jumping over three or more will provide 500 points due to a programming error the game will display 800 points for jumping over three objects but this is incorrect and will always be 500 points you can destroy enemies by using the two hammers that are located on the second and fourth girders collecting the hammer grants you the weapon for a short amount of time though don't be fooled into thinking that jumpman is impervious to attack while he is wielding it if you are not careful barrels can slip straight through your guard destroying obstacles grants you more points than by jumping over them using the hammer on a normal or wild barrel will always award 300 points blue barrels and fireballs can award either 300 500 or 800 points which is randomly decided this does mean there is some element of luck involved though over the course of a two hour game the distribution tends to even out hammers are the most optimal way to earn points so it's crucial to collect them at the right time for the bottom hammer players will often wait until the board is full of barrels before collecting it though sometimes the choice is out of your control and the level forces your hand if a fireball climbs up to the second girder early you may have no other option but to grab the hammer in order to eliminate it before it traps you in fact waiting until you can kill a fireball or two with each hammer is a good decision given that point pressing nets you many more points than simply getting to the end your goal is to wind down the clock as much as possible extracting as much value as you can from every barrel is crucial fireballs are a deadly adversary and when they climb up to your level hanging around is a bad idea and will often lead to an unavoidable death how fast fireballs climb is once again determined by luck sometimes they will leave you to your own devices allowing you to execute your plan exactly as intended other times they will climb quickly pushing you further up the stage until you have no choice but to finish early everything i've told you so far has been pretty straightforward but the next mechanic is where things start to get very interesting we know that you can gain more points by jumping over more than one barrel at a time but this in of itself wouldn't be such a big deal if we had no control over the barrels themselves donkey kong launches barrels slowly enough so that they are spaced out far too much to jump over more than one the only way they could ever possibly group up is by going down ladders and believe it or not this can be heavily manipulated enter a mechanic called barrel steering normally a barrel has approximately a 25 chance of descending a ladder when it rolls over it however this is greatly increased if the correct direction is held just as a barrel reaches the ladder the direction is dependent on jumpman's location relative to the ladder and will be the direction that would move him towards the ladder so if jumpman is to the left you would need to hold right if jumpman is standing to the right you would need to hold left this mechanic will affect every barrel on the stage regardless of its height so even if jumpman is on the lowest girder he can affect barrels at the very top if you have played donkey kong before you've been barrel steering the entire time without even realizing it the mere act of moving along each girder forces barrels down ladders grouping them up thus making them harder to avoid the game was programmed in this way to make the level more unpredictable and treacherous to navigate when barrels cluster together it makes jumping them exponentially more difficult and sometimes nearly impossible for a casual player barrel grouping is a nuisance for a high score competitor it is crucial barrel steering should be used to group barrels as much as possible and the best players are keenly aware of each barrel's position at all times keeping track of an entire screen is an incredibly difficult thing to do i played the game myself for several weeks to try to understand exactly what high score competition involved and i have to tell you it is far more intense than it looks though it did start to get slightly easier over time i could still only manage to keep track of the next one or two barrels coming along my way trying to consciously track every single barrel simultaneously was far too challenging this task becomes even more difficult when you consider the fact that you still always need to be aware of both potential wild barrels and also the fireballs that are usually hot on your tail barrel steering doesn't have to be done while jumpman is walking and due to the pressing nature of most situations is often done while climbing ladders and while jumping in order to not slow down movement this idea of holding a direction while in mid-air isn't just used for barrel steering and is also involved in a mechanic that completely changes the way the game is played the way the game checks to see if jumpman has jumped over an object is peculiar at the peak of a jump it will scan the area slightly below jumpman for a distance of 5 pixels across in either direction this really isn't a large area which is why you'll often see players jump a barrel with no points awarded generally the object has to be more or less directly below jumpman for it to count however if the player holds a direction while at the peak of a jump the area of the game scans will increase from 5 pixels in either direction to 19 pixels an increase of almost 400 percent this area becomes large enough to where you don't even need to jump over an object at all merely jumping in its proximity is enough to make the game believe you deserve points this is called leeching and it is used everywhere it allows for a myriad of different techniques and strategies to milk as many points as possible from enemies the most notable example being the leeching of kong himself on the rivet stage from the very get-go it is implemented on the first enemy encountered and leeching fireballs is a common practice on almost every stage though this is a dangerous practice that is definitely not for the inexperienced player one of the more advanced techniques is the guidacus jump an almost frame perfect double jump that allows you to extract 200 points from a single barrel normally this wouldn't be possible but by standing at a precise location on a girder you can take advantage of the fact that barrels slow down slightly when they fall off a ledge thereby keeping it within scanning distance on the second jump the guidacus jump is named after andrew gardicus and if you know your speed running history this name might be familiar for a long time he was the fastest super mario brothers player on the planet pioneering the game in its early speed running years and holding the world record from 2007 until 2014 known more commonly as andrew g he borrowed from his super mario experience where it was also known that objects slow down when going off a corner he realized that if the same mechanic was present in donkey kong it may barely allow a second jump to score points gaining 200 points from a single barrel may not seem like a lot but it's definitely an important addition especially with the way the timer works on the barrel stage on the other stages the timer works in a more traditional fashion decreasing after a set amount of frames but for the barrel stage the timer decreases by 100 points every time kong throws a barrel this means that in order to point press effectively you would need to score more than 100 points per barrel guidaca's jumps aren't a technique you would choose to do if you had any other option but as mentioned earlier ascending fireballs will often leave you no other choice but to keep climbing this technique is again reserved for experienced players as a small miss timing will often lead to a swift death when you watch the best donkey kong players in the world which i recommend you do at some point they make it look much easier than it really is when the game was released in 1981 modern quality of life advances in movement mechanics had yet to be realized there is no coyote time here no input buffering if you miss an input by a single frame it could be game over donkey kong was the first platformer ever made and thus the controls are admittedly clunky which only adds to the difficulty it takes a long time to master and until you've gotten the hang of it it can be very frustrating as i said before i tried my hand for several weeks but could still feel that i was a long way from getting comfortable mistakes and missed timings still littered my play and the precise jumps required to stay alive on the more intense levels were elusive even something simple like jumpman's climbing animation often tricked me into releasing inputs in modern games when a character enters a climbing animation it begins an automatic process that finishes when the character has completed their climb but in donkey kong this isn't the case and it's a small detail that takes time to adjust to the top players make movement look effortless but it really isn't still despite the outdated controls it was a really nice experience to take a deeper look at the game it's honestly crazy that we are now looking back at games made 40 years ago and a really awe-inspiring thing to think about is that all of the advanced strategies that have been found and implemented in the past few years were available in the game since it first came out donkey kong is a simple game but i'm sure there are still unearthed strategies lying in wait to be uncovered in this video i have only scratched the surface when it comes to the strategies used in donkey kong and i've only discussed one out of the four levels each of the different levels facilitate a slew of unique and interesting strategies that allow for some really creative play the purpose of this video isn't to give you an encyclopedia of donkey kong high scores but just to shine a brief light on them so you can at least be aware that they are way more complicated than they might seem on the surface i wish i had time to explain all of the game's mechanics but this video would be hours long if i did if you are interested in giving donkey kong a crack i will put some resources in the description the community that surrounds the game is really welcoming and helpful don't let the actions of a couple of bad apples stop you from checking the game out i will also link a couple of donkey kong streamers for you to check out when you get the chance as always thank you so much for watching you legends i hope you are having a fantastic day and i will see you in the next video you

Channel: Karl Jobst

Views: 540,269

Keywords: guinness world records, guinness gamer's edition, billy mitchell, karl jobst, guinness, video game cheating, biggest cheater, donkey kong, king of kong, steve weibe, twin galaxies, jace hall, arcade high scores, billy mitchell cheater, billy mitchell cheat, video game cheat, high scores cheat, donkey kong high score, donkey kong arcade, wes copeland, donkey kong explained, kong, donkey, donkey kong country

Id: o-L2Bj1YnJM

Length: 20min 51sec (1251 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 27 2020