Donkey Kong 2 Arrives in the Arcade!

Just received my Donkey Kong 2 (D2K) kit last night from Arcadeshop. It is fantastic! For those of you that have not heard of the game, it is a new game programmed for original Donkey Kong hardware by Jeff Kulczycki, of Jeff’s Romhack. Jeff has done a fantastic job with this game. It is TOUGH! I’ve only completed the first screen so far, but will be spending some quality time checking out all of the screens.

The kit to add this to an existing Donkey Kong board is made up of a Braze Technologies High Score Save and Diagnostics Kit with custom programmed ROMS. The kit can be purchased exclusively through Arcadeshop. If you own a Donkey Kong, you MUST get this kit. The kit not only plays D2K, it still will play the original Donkey Kong. It also saves high scores and adds a Freeplay mode for both games. There is even a set of full cabinet artwork for this version of the game currently under production, so you will be able to make your own dedicated D2K cabinet! I plan to pick up some of this artwork and make one myself sometime soon.

I did have one problem with the kit. The diagnostics at the boot screen show that my high score save is ‘BAD’. I still have to call Arcadeshop to discuss this with them. I’m sure it’s either a chip reseating, or a replacement kit required from Arcadeshop. It still plays at this point, but doesn’t save my settings or high scores.

Here are some pictures:

New kit pcb before installation

New kit pcb installed

Boot screen showing save error

A couple shots of the game in action: