Who likes crazy kong?

musicman282

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I've never really played it and was playing various MAME titles on my xbox and came across it. At first I just thought it was a shitty bootleg, but the more I played it the more I like it. It's so raw. Such a half assed production, but it's interesting in how it's very similar to donkey kong but different enough to create different challenges. I wonder why in donkey kong the girders aren't broken in later levels like Crazy Kong. Also, I enjoy how the belt on the pie factory keeps increasing speed. I'm not sure if it's an issue with my MAME or not, but the rivet board has a really pixelated kong that seems to be missing sprites. Overall, I really enjoy the game though. The sounds are ridiculous. It just cracks me up when jumpman jumps how he makes a karate noise similar to kung fu. This game is just awesome. Anyone else share my affection?
 
Me

Me - it was literally the first game I got working in MAME back in the 1990's and I just coincidentally (before I saw this post) was playing it tonight on a MAME cabinet. The act of playing DK in a program which is badly done and a bootleg adds some new flavor to the DK experience and the sound replacements are quaint. It's a fun and cheap experience, one with guilt but also some fun in terms of knowing most people don't even know it even existed.
 
i like it but thanks to these forums i recently discovered big kong and i like that more... check it out if you have mame and like crazy kong.
 
krazy kong

was never good at donkey kong, i remember playing crazy kong and doing a little better because you could hang on the ladders and the barrels would not come down. made the game much easier. i read hear it was a gamebug but not sure.
 
More like bad programming - in DK, he barrels are programmed with a probability routine to come down the ladder based on where you are and where you're likely to be - it may not be that complex but I know I read somewhere about how the code is designed to try to predict whether or not the barrels should go down a ladder based on your position and direction. CK looks more like the barrels just follow a pattern - making the game more easy to predict on those levels.
 
The first DK version also had the ladder-barrel bug so that you can stand on the ladders without them coming down.

Being from Europe, Crazy Kong was the only version I knew at the time. The machine I played frequently had the ladder bug too.

I remember that when I played Donkey Kong on the Atari 8 bit for the first time, I was startled that the barrels DID come down !


CK indeed ads a couple of nice "features" and now I find it fun to play every now and then but I prefer the original now. The pies are WAY too fast to be fair on CK.
 
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I really want to try put big Kong now but I can't get the mame on my Droid to run it. Guess ill have to wait till I get off work. Are there any other bootlegs to games that people are this fond of?
 
I remeber playing this when I was a kid. The cabinet had gorillas all over it. Wasn't a Donkey Kong anywhere near so this had to do. Everybody seemed to like it quite a bit. Honestly I never really played it that much. I can't imagine that there are too many of these still around....
 
CrazyKongFan does

Who me? Can't stand the game... :D
I've never heard the real story, but my hypothesis to the CK code is it was probably copied sometime during the development of DK. ITC actually programmed DK, not Nintendo (they designed it). Some of the bugs in CK show up in the early Japanese DK romset (set 3), including the jump cheat, the ladder cheat, and the "How High Can You Try" on the intro screen. It's also got the same level order as the Japanese ROMs. On the non-Falcon sets (the ones that don't say "Crazy Kong Part II"), even the 1981 is in the same spot as it is on DK (it's just missing the "Nintendo" lettering). I'm also guessing that this was done without the Nintendo sound hardware being available to them, since CK uses Crazy Climber sound hardware (and even 2 of the ROM's with the samples from the Japanese set...that's where the "Hiya" sound comes from when he jumps and the "gong" chest beat sound). As to why it's popular, if you lived in Europe, chances are you played CK instead of DK. I think I saw CK here locally before seeing DK, and I always preferred it. It's also different than alot of bootlegs, which were usually just graphical hacks of the originals. This one has so much different on it. I also have a Pac-Man on Galaxian hardware board, which is so bizarre it's awesome ;)
Here's my CK collection. Only thing missing is a marquee from one of the dedicated cabinets (the control panel is there, along with a similar marquee sized for a Pac style cab), and a manual. There's several versions of PCB's there, 3 or 4 CK Part 2 (Falcon), a regular CK (with weird colors) that requires an external sound amp, a Donkey King, a CK on Galaxian hardware (untested, not 100% sure it's CK), and a CK made by Orca, all sitting on my CK Part 2 cocktail. All the boards plug into the cocktail except the Orca and Galaxian boards.

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I feel so deflated. So crazy Kong doesn't share pin outs with donkey Kong. I was hoping to pick up a board and throw it in my dk cab. Guess ill be sticking with mame. Does someone make a ck mamma adapter?
 
I feel so deflated. So crazy Kong doesn't share pin outs with donkey Kong. I was hoping to pick up a board and throw it in my dk cab. Guess ill be sticking with mame. Does someone make a ck mamma adapter?

MAMMA? I assume you mean JAMMA ;) Mark Spaeth makes one. It's a pretty simple one, CK only uses +5 and +12, so you don't need anything oddball. It does have the screen upside down to many games though (see Matt's link for a fix). I was using my boards in my Gaplus cab, and had flipped the monitor around (didn't want to hack any of the monitor wiring), but now that I have a cocktail, I've put the Gaplus monitor back in right. I also have a JAMMA cabinet adapter and a 48-in-1 (which has Galaga 3, same as Gaplus), so when I had the monitor in upside down, I just played Galaga 3 on the 48-in-1 if I needed a Gaplus fix.
 
was never good at donkey kong, i remember playing crazy kong and doing a little better because you could hang on the ladders and the barrels would not come down. made the game much easier. i read hear it was a gamebug but not sure.

The deli where I played had Congorilla, another bootleg that let you put a "hand up" on the level above to keep barrels from dropping.

I could get 100k on that all the time. The first time I played a real DK, I don't think I cracked 40k. Having the barrels come down totally changes the game!
 
There was a little clothing store near my house when I was a kid called Jeans and Tops and they had a Crazy Kong and a Devil Fish in there. I'd go there a couple of times a week just to play the games. I loved Crazy Kong and at the time I got quite good at it and had put up over 300k on the thing.
 
I grew up playing both Donkey Kong and Crazy Kong. I always dug Crazy Kong because my quarter would last longer BITD. The sounds are HORRIBLY awesome...

BTW - From what I read, Nintendo actually LICENSED OUT the tech to make Crazy Kong...
 
I believe it was licensed in Europe, but I don't think Nintendo had much of a presence there. It definitely wasn't legit here in the US.
 
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