Was Coleco's Donkey Kong Port for Atari 2600 SABOTAGED? | Garry Kitchen Settles It!

[TrekMD]

I just watched this interview by GenXGrownUp with Garry Kitchen.  Enjoy!

Video Description:  One of the coolest benefits of being a content creator is having the opportunity to actually speak with some of the key figures who laid the foundation of the video game industry, and my guest for this video is without a doubt one of those individuals. He was there in the very early days of Activision when they were forging new ground as the first third-party game developer for Atari and later others, he is the wizard behind such successful titles as Keystone Kapers, Pressure Cooker, and Coleco's Donkey Kong, and is still blazing that trail today with other Activision alumni over at Audacity Games. In this interview, Garry Kitchen sets the record straight on the urban legend that Coleco intentionally designed the Atari 2600 port of Donkey Kong to make the ColecoVision version look that much more superior.

Full interview here:  Garry Kitchen on Donkey Kong, Activision, & MORE!

[7800 Pro Gamer]

This is a great get for genx and a great question to have answered for the community!  Very cool stuff! 

As far as the description he's 100% right about being able to talk with these people.  Since my channel started and has grown to a small fraction of genx, I've been able to speak with the developer of Ninja Golf (David Dentt), the developer of Rikki and Vikki (Tailchao aka Osman) and tons of other extremely talented people from the industry.  But Genx has even more of an opportunity as there are some I'd love to speak with but I don't get responses from due to the small size of my channel. 

I'm glad that there are other channels out there getting these interviews and this information from the developers mouths on record before they are lost forever.  That's part of the reason Atari Network supports GenXGrownUp and other Atari Channels fighting the good fight!

[RickR]

I watched last night.  Excellent!  Very enjoyable to watch and hopefully this puts the issue to rest. 

Personally, I liked 2600 DK a lot.  I remember buying it at Toys R Us and being so excited on the car ride home to play.  I know it had it's limitations, but it was a lot of fun and definitely captured some of that Donkey Kong magic in my eyes. 

 

[sramirez2008]

2600 DK was just like 2600 Pac-Man for us BITD. Sure neither one looked that great, but we played each game, hour upon hour and had fun doing so. Honestly, these games have been made to look/sound worse (IMO) by the younger generations, whom obviously weren't around to play the games when they were initially released. 

[Jinroh]

5 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

2600 DK was just like 2600 Pac-Man for us BITD. Sure neither one looked that great, but we played each game, hour upon hour and had fun doing so. Honestly, these games have been made to look/sound worse (IMO) by the younger generations, whom obviously weren't around to play the games when they were initially released. 

 

Yes it is tired to hear from young people how bad Pac-Man and Donkey Kong for the 2600 VCS are. I loved them, when I was young. I didn't know any other versions, but even my father who was a Pac-Man champion played the 2600 VCS version. 😛

Not only are they fun for what they are, but both of them are the de-facto stock video game sound effects for like 30 years. 😄

[sramirez2008]

Garry’s talked about this topic before. It’s brought up in this interview (among others) at Free Play Florida. Jump to the 11:58 mark. 

 

Edited April 27 by sramirez2008
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[socrates63]

And Garry was also asked this at a PRGE panel I attended in 2017 or 2019. I am really grateful for Garry, Dan, and David Crane. They regularly attend conventions and must get asked the same questions so many times, and yet, they respond with grace and kindness as if hearing it for the first time.

[sramirez2008]

20 minutes ago, socrates63 said:

And Garry was also asked this at a PRGE panel I attended in 2017 or 2019. I am really grateful for Garry, Dan, and David Crane. They regularly attend conventions and must get asked the same questions so many times, and yet, they respond with grace and kindness as if hearing it for the first time.

Correct. I've heard him answer this at PRGE.

[TrekMD]

I think he's had to answer this question many, many, many times!  LOL  I've heard him at both FPF and PRGE talk about it. 

[Scott Stilphen]

That unfounded rumor is over 40 years old, and was actually about Donkey Kong Junior (which is 8K).  It's well known Garry only had 4K and 3 months in which to develop it, and the results speak for themself; he's mentioned that in several interviews over the years.  I saw someone recently make that conspiracy claim on the 2600 Facebook group.  I would never have asked Garry that question.  I don't remember anybody ever asking him that.. until now.  What a ridiculous claim, and there was never any great debate about whether or not Garry intentionally did a poor job with it.  I think in most cases, programmers did the best they could, to the best of their abilities.  Not everyone can program and design games like Garry, Rick Maurer, Bob Polaro, David Crane, or several others.  For every Rob Fulop, there were 4 Tod Frye's.  Garry has also mentioned several times that had he been given 8K to use, he could very likely included all 4 screens.  So there's a challenge for today's homebrewers - take Garry's game and add the other 2 screens :)

[TrekMD]

39 minutes ago, Scott Stilphen said:

  So there's a challenge for today's homebrewers - take Garry's game and add the other 2 screens 🙂

That's already been done:  Donkey Kong 2: Lost Levels

Edited April 26 by TrekMD

[RickR]

Somebody needs to track down the Intellivision DK developer and ask though 🙂  I'm kidding of course.  That one is worse than the 2600 version IMO, but probably due to the limited time to develop. 

 

 

[TrekMD]

I think it was the limited time AND the difficulty of dealing with the EXEC.  The homebrew versions do not use the EXEC but, in fact, bypass it.

Edited April 27 by TrekMD

[Scott Stilphen]

20 hours ago, TrekMD said:

That's already been done:  Donkey Kong 2: Lost Levels

He never finished it, and the 2 new levels are very buggy.  

[Scott Stilphen]

9 hours ago, TrekMD said:

I think it was the limited time AND the difficulty of dealing with the EXEC.  The homebrew versions do not use the EXEC but, in fact, bypass it.

I also recall the programmer had no experience programming the Intellivision.  That's who you want converting your premo licensed title lol.

[TrekMD]

1 hour ago, Scott Stilphen said:

I also recall the programmer had no experience programming the Intellivision.  That's who you want converting your premo licensed title lol.

A "small" handicap!  LOL

[RickR]

Back then, I think it's fair to say most just accepted the game they got.  Sure, it wasn't exactly the same as the arcade.  But the flavor was there.  Even the Intv version (which I love to poke fun at) is fine if that's all you had as a kid.  That slow Mario movement gave it an extra challenge in the timing.  It isn't quite Donkey Kong, but it is still fun. 

In retrospect, they hired who they could find.  With Garry Kitchen on the 2600 version, they got really lucky.  Frank Johnson (I looked it up) on Intellivision did fine as well.  When you realize that neither guy had the right documentation or knowledge, I think they deserve more credit than we give them.

 

[RickR]

And also, I don't think it's even fair to criticize Coleco.  They could have just as easily decided to NOT make any other console versions.  You want Donkey Kong at home?  You gotta buy a ColecoVision. 

 

Edited April 27 by RickR

[sramirez2008]

5 hours ago, RickR said:

You want Donkey Kong at home?  You gotta but a ColecoVision

 

[TrekMD]

The other issue for the programmers was the time table.  Like Garry explained, he had all of 3 months!  Who knows how long the Inty programmer had?!  Maybe the same amount of time?

[Scott Stilphen]

On 4/27/2024 at 11:06 AM, RickR said:

And also, I don't think it's even fair to criticize Coleco.  They could have just as easily decided to NOT make any other console versions.  You want Donkey Kong at home?  You gotta buy a ColecoVision. 

True, but if you have the home rights to the 2nd most popular game in the world, are you going to limit yourself to only use it as a pack-in game, when the biggest competitor in the business already has a userbase of 10-15 million units?

There's also a thread hear about DK Jr not long ago where we talked about DK:

 

[Mr SQL]

imo Gary's port is awesome not a big deal it's missing two screens.

Likewise Jelly Monsters on the VIC-20 is an awesome Pacman port despite missing a ghost.

I also particularly Like Frye's Pacman, with the BW switch thrown preferably.

[TrekMD]

3 hours ago, Mr SQL said:

I also particularly Like Frye's Pacman, with the BW switch thrown preferably.

It definitely looks better in black and white!  I remember doing that by accident and liking it more that way!