As anyone who reads my website updates knows, I am a huge Donkey Kong fan. I’m also a fan of the recent movie “The King of Kong: a Fistful of Quarters”. The movie, presented as a documentary but not truly “accurate”, made a fun rivalry between Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe. The movie quickly became a cult classic, renewing interest in classic arcade gaming and competitive gaming. Even though there have been several classic games that have recently had long-standing world records toppled, such as Joust a few months ago, Donkey Kong is still the king. When Donkey Kong has its record beaten, it makes national news. Interest in the movie also spawned many new competitors beyond Steve and Billy. One such competitor, Hank Chien, surpassed both Billy and Steve and took the World Record last year. The record has passed between all three since then, and is currently held by Hank.
It was only a matter of time before someone was going to be able to put together the ultimate Donkey Kong tournament. Richie “Knucklez” Vavrence, owner of Richie Knucklez Arcade Games in Flemington, NJ held such a tournament this past weekend. Richie is a fantastic promoter and has created some great classic arcade events. This latest event, called “The Kong Off”, lined up 11 of the greatest Donkey Kong players in the world to play for the highest score over a two-day period.
The event was well attended by fans, and in the end Hank Chien passed Steve Wiebe and Eric Howard to claim the Kong Off crown and a $1000 grand prize. I was not able to attend the event but I did check in from time-to-time via the live webcam broadcast of the competition and through various Tweets and blog sites. I’ll post some great links to the end of this post if anyone is interested in reading more about the event.
Donkey Kong cabinets all lined up ready for the tournament. What a great sight! Just like in the 80′s when Donkey Kong was the hottest game in the arcades. Thanks to Eric Howard for the picture!
Great atmosphere with all the fans packed in to watch these guys play. This picture was taken directly from Richie’s Justin.tv broadcast video. It was great to watch during the event! Thanks Richie!
Watching this event has really made me want to make another run at my Donkey Kong high score. I spent several months working on my score and last year finally beat 300,000 points. That was good then but not nearly competitive after seeing all of these other people scoring three times that. I’ve never been close to seeing a Kill Screen (Level 22), so it’s time to try again. I’m going to start playing this game on a regular basis, with the goal of reaching the Kill Screen. I worked on my Joust skills with the goal of reaching 1,000,000 points and recently achieved that milestone. Now time for the true test. Very few people have successfully reached the Kill Screen. I want to be on that list!
I started playing again seriously last night. I only hit 139,400 points, but I guess that’s a start. I’m going to log my scores and levels reached over the next few months and see if I can come close to that Kill Screen. There are several things that I know I do not do well, such as retreating between springs on the later elevator levels. I’ll continue to work on these skills and hopefully get much better. Wish me luck!
Here are some links you might like:
- The Kong Off Official Site
- Richie Knucklez Arcade Games – The home of The Kong Off and Flashback Fridays. Be sure to check out the live Justin.tv streaming!
- Aurcade.com – The Kong Off Tournament Results Page
- The Kong Off Recap by Patrick Scott Patterson (Arcade Game Examiner)
- Rhode Island Donkey Kong contender scores at The Kong-Off (profile of Eric Howard at the Kong Off) by Patrick Scott Patterson (Arcade Game Examiner)
Justin.tv Channel
YouTube Channel
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17 users responded in this post
Good luck. My goal is the kill screen. I’d be happy with that. My nemesis right now is the springs on Level 4.
btw I’m pauliadis over at klov.
Nice post, Jeff! I may not be the authority on this, but if you have any DK strategy-related questions, as always feel free to ask!
@Paul, I have the same problem. I don’t have the timing down on the dash-retreat method. I catch myself using the dash-close-eyes-and-pray method. Not going to get me far!
@Mark, Mark you’ve helped me a ton in Joust with your advice and you were one of the Kong Off participants! I highly value your advice! I’ll definitely be in contact when I get frustrated.
Hey, there’s Mark Kiehl! Cool!
I really think once I get past that spring I’ll be in good shape.
Played two games tonight. Got 175,400 and 220,200. Not bad!
Nice work Jeff. My weekend wasn’t as successful. I think my high score was 80,000 or so. Elevator board on level 4 was my downfall.
Paul, I think 86,000 is the magic number. If you can pass that board, you will be around that score. Keep working on it. I’m starting to get better at my retreat but I still sometimes start up that ladder and have no ability to turn around. I’ve been trying to work out my cement board too. If I can get good at that lower hammer I’ll save myself at least one death per game.
Amazingly, the first quarter I played tonight I made it past the infamous spring (elevator) board and wound up with 113,300! Still not huge, but a big hurdle crossed by me. Whew.
Nice job Paul!
I just did 538k tonight, this being my second 500k game and first for my arcade. I had my other on MAME. I’m trying to reach a kill screen by the end of the year. The game I had today should have been a kill screen game. Everything was falling into place but I made some bad mistakes. If I find a way I might throw some of the footage of it on youtube. I taped about the last 30 minutes of it. Good luck Jeff on making a kill screen run. I’m taking mine in steps at a time. Next step is 600k.
Hey Jeff,
I grew up in Jersey but am now living in Michigan, when I heard “Flemington” was where the Kong off was being held I was surprised, I used to take my old AMC Pacer to a classic car show in Flemington!
Anyway, whereabouts in Michigan are you? I’m not really an arcade collector, as I only have one machine (Donkey Kong, cocktail style), but I’m working on reaching the Kill Screen too. My current best is 442,000. Maybe we could team up and give each other pointers?
Shoot me an email if you can, would love to talk to a fellow Donkey Kong challenger!
Hi Joseph, I guess that was you in the jtv chat, eh? Nice work!
Ha, yeah that was me. I’m sort of a blabber mouth. it was my first 500k on the arcade version of donkey kong. I had hit a slump for awhile. I’ve almost cracked 600k on the MAME version. This has been months ago. I see you’re into the whole donkey kong thing too. I know you said you had a 900k game.
Yeah, I got sucked in. I scored 921k at 1984 Arcade for my second killscreen game—>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt4o1q_b5Zw
Then Richie invited me to the Kong Off, although I feel I wasn’t totally worthy, but how do you turn that down? Since then I’ve been struggling with recording a million point game. I’ve been close, once, but I think I’m going to have to tone the pace down once I’m left with two lives remaining to secure a 950-975k game for official submission. And to secure my sanity. Itching to get back to Junior and Joust!
If I know I don’t have a lot of time for a full game I will point press. If I know I have time to play a full game I will run straight up the top. I normally die really easy on point pressing but I’ve learned a lot. I can end level 4 with over 115k, but I did 108k without grabbing the bottom hammer. I wanted to go to thekongoffs and play on the Red Cab but didn’t know how many people were attending and didn’t want to spend money on the buy in if I was only going to get 1 game out of it. Had I lived closer I would have went up there no problem and then checked the scene out and did the buy in thing but maybe next year if he does it again, I might “up my game” enough to get on one of the main cabs, lol.
You still have the high score on my machine…
Brent, you still have the HS on my D2K…
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