Retro Game Review: Donkey Kong (1981)
Donkey Kong is a platforming game developed and published by Nintendo in 1981 for the arcade. It is one of the first video games to be made; yet alone being a ‘Retro Game’ it is one of the forefathers of the games industry. However, it is because it is basic that it is a good starting point to review a game critically, analyse its key gameplay aspects and see what makes them good or bad.
I have chosen to base the analysis/review of Donkey Kong on the article, ‘I Have No Words & I Must Design,’ by Greg Costikyan. I will back up this review by using articles by other writers that I believe are an important aspect of retro games. Costikyan breaks down all games into 5 key areas, ‘Interaction’, ‘Goals’, ‘Struggle’, ‘Structure’ and ‘Endogenous Meaning’ and I will use these areas as a starting point for my review.
Interaction is an extremely important part of games, without interaction it is impossible to consider something to be a game, and with video games, the loss of interaction makes them seem more like films than anything else. Interaction in games is the player’s choices/actions that they take and how these shape the gaming environment. As with most ‘Retro Games,’ the interaction of the player in Donkey Kong has very little effect on the game’s environment. With modern games, such as Call of Duty: Black Ops, the players actions drastically alter the state of play and have a direct consequence for the player/s. With Donkey Kong, however, there are very little choices and actions for the player to take, in fact the only actions the player can take are to jump and climb ladders. By today’s standards this is an incredibly simple game with very few choices for the player, but it was considered groundbreaking games design when it was first released, and has had a heavy influence on the majority of games that have since been made.
The next area that Costikyan talks about is Goals, which covers the player’s incentive to play and how objectives guide the player’s behaviour. The goals in Donkey Kong are just as simple as the player’s interaction, the goal on each screen is too reach the top level, with the overall goal being to defeat Donkey Kong and saving the ‘Lady.’
If there is any ‘Retro Game’ that masters the area of struggle, it has to be Donkey Kong. From the first screen it is evident that the game will test the player’s abilities. The struggle starts off simple; the player must jump over the barrels thrown by Donkey Kong and reach the top of the screen. The different obstacles that the player must pass in each of the screens add to the player’s struggle, and each screen is more difficult than the last. The game goes one step further to increasing the player’s struggle, once the player has defeated Donkey Kong the game restarts from the first screen with an increased difficulty; this process loops round continuously until the player loses all of their lives.
When Costikyan talks about structure, he believes that mutual player agreement that the game's rules and significance create structure. The games structure shapes player's behaviour, it doesn't determine it, and therefore players have the freedom to choose what they do within the rules. The structure of Donkey Kong consists of four screens that the player must complete to finish that ‘level.’ The first three screens consist of a series of obstacles that the player must jump over to reach the top of the screen, where the player will then enter the fourth screen which is considered the boss level as the player finally gets the chance to defeat Donkey Kong, thus beginning the cycle again on a higher difficulty.
The last area that Costikyan talks about in his article is Endogenous meaning, this is created within the structure of a game and these meanings are only relevant within the structure of that game. The endogenous meaning that is created within Donkey Kong is the sense of accomplishment that the player feels every time they reach the top of a screen, and the eventual joy of defeating ‘THAT DAMN DIRTY APE!’ Although the endogenous meaning of Donkey Kong may not seem that significant, especially when contrasted with that of modern games, it must be remembered that there was no real sense of endogenous meaning when Donkey Kong was released and that by creating this in the first place, it has helped with the development of thousands of games since.
The idea if segmentation in retro games and how that has influenced the development of latter games is an important issue to analyse when looking at the game. The idea of segmentation gameplay and its influence was first discussed in an article called ‘Rounds, Levels, and Waves: The Early Evolution of Gameplay Segmentation’ by Jose P. Zagal, Clara Fernandez-Vara and Michael Mateas. Gameplay segmentation can be broken down into three different types; each type of segmentation covers their own area of games, Temporal Segmentation - covers gameplay elements relating to limiting factors, synchronising and/or co-ordinating player activity over time, Spatial Segmentation - covers all aspects relating to 'virtual space,' for example, levels, and Challenge Segmentation - covers areas relating to challenges within the game.
Segmentation plays an important part in the core game mechanics of Donkey Kong, all three types are present in its functions but the most influential form of segmentation in the game is the concept of Challenge Segmentation. The wave factor of this form of segmentation could be considered as the barrels on the first level come in ‘waves’ and the player must get to the top of the screen to stop them, but the main focus is the idea of Boss segmentation. In the game, the aim is to reach the top of the screen to save the ‘Lady,’ and after reaching the fourth screen the aim is to defeat Donkey Kong once and for all. The game then repeats itself on a higher difficulty, which introduces the idea of defeating the boss to progress through the game. This style of gameplay has been hugely influential on the development of modern games, many incorporate challenge segmentation into their games as one of its key features, and without games like Donkey Kong creating this concept in the first place, most of these games would have suffered as a consequence.
Temporal and Spatial segmentation are also present but have a smaller impact on the gameplay, temporal segmentation exists in the game in the form of a timer for each screen. This isn’t as bigger influence on the gameplay as the timer is extremely lenient, giving the player plenty of time to reach the top, its sole purpose is to ensure that they actually have to play. Spatial segmentations role in the game is the different screens that are involved in completing each play through. Donkey Kong can be argued as the first game to include different level screens, which is a huge influence on modern games.
The final article that I will use to review Donkey Kong is ‘Formal Abstract Design Tools,’ by Doug Church. In this article, Church discusses the tools that, as games designers, we must consider when making a game. The three areas that he looks at are Perceivable Consequence, Intention and Story.
In Donkey Kong, an example of perceivable consequence would be, when a barrel is rolling towards ‘Jumpman (later becoming the eponymous hero, Mario),’ the player realises that they must surpass this object or die and so they press the jump button. It is important that the player realises the danger of the barrels and isn’t killed meaninglessly, therefore frustrating them and stopping them from continuing. In Donkey Kong, the designers made the dangers clear to the player from the offset; any barrels that are thrown at you by a very large, very angry gorilla should be considered to be dangerous.
The second area that Church talks about, Intention, is very closely linked to Perceivable Consequence, as intention is when the player plans and thinks about their actions and the outcomes of these actions, therefore planning how to overcome obstacles, etc. Using the same example as for Perceivable Consequence, the player knows that they will die if they are hit by one of the barrels rolling towards them and so, they plan to jump over and pass this obstacle.
Church’s final area that he discusses is Story, the narrative thread of the game. Whether the story is driven forward by the designer and the player progresses along a pre-determined path or the player has more influence over the story, the story is the main thing that drives the game forward and gives the player a purpose to play. As a ‘Retro Game,’ Donkey Kong has a very simple storyline but is effective when combined with the style of gameplay. The story line is based around the playable character, the aptly named Jumpman’s girlfriend, known as the ‘Lady,’ being kidnapped by Jumpman’s pet ape, Donkey Kong, after he is mistreated by Jumpman and seeks revenge. However basic the storyline may be, it gives the game a decent narrative and the player the incentive to defeat Donkey Kong and save the ‘Lady.’
In conclusion, Donkey Kong may not be able to hold up against modern games in terms of the areas that I have discussed, but it is one of the games that created the foundations for all other video games to be developed and has been hugely influential. In the process, creating one of video games most successful characters, Mario, and establishing Nintendo’s largest franchise.
