Dinky Kong
by Heracleum
Welcome to the Pico-verse - a pixelated land of tiny horizons and even tinier characters.
In the Little Apple, a bustling town on the seaside, something terrible has happened! An
oversized simian sprite has escaped and taken a citizen in its cruel clutches! Making its way
through town, it has climbed up the construction site of the town’s tallest building.
But one brave soul stands forth, determined to rescue their fellow citizen from the
dreaded… Dinky Kong!
How to Play
Select your hero - choose from Minio or Smalline.
Press ⭕️ to start.
Move with ⬆️⬇️⬅️➡️
Jump with ⭕️.
If you reach the top, Dinky Kong takes the Captive higher up and structure changes shape.
When certain structures are cleared, you save the Captive.
Scoring
Jump over barrels and enemies for points
Get the hammer to destroy barrels and fiery enemies
Collect the pick-ups for extra points
Bonus points awarded based on time remaining
Extra life at 7000 points
Gameplay preview
On the Demake:
A group effort, the demake began as a simple reimagining of the original done as a series of
Pico-8-sized pixel drawings and quickly grew into a full-fledged game. Read all about it here
in the February edition of Pico View. The creators make no claim over the original game nor
it’s characters - we simply sought to use our skills to humbly follow in the footsteps
of true giants. No profit is made off of this game - it is quite simply a Pico-8 hobby
project. We sincerely hope you enjoy playing it and, if you like it, we highly encourage you
to purchase the original game or one of its many official ports - there’s nothing quite
like the original Donkey Kong!
On Minio:
Well, he’s a courageous bundle of pixels with a knack for jumping. Seize a nearby hammer
and he’ll pummel flaming enemies and barrels alike. It’s kinda difficult to get 64
colored squares to look like anything much less a whole person, but we’ve managed to
squeeze as much character as possible into this tiny hero. It was delightful to see him first
come to life inside Pico-8 and we hope you enjoy playing him (or rescuing him)!
On Smalline:
In researching the game, we read on an Atari modders forum about a dad who had introduced his
little daughter to one of his favorite games as a kid - Donkey Kong on the Atari 2600. She
loved the game but after playing it she innocently asked her dad if she could pick the Pauline
character instead. She could not, and seemed dejected at discovering this. Wishing only to
keep the love of playing the game in her heart, her father carefully modded the game to make
her wish come true. Inspired by this, other modders followed suit, creating versions of their
own. We are proud to follow in their footsteps with our own tiny version - Smalline!
On Dinky Kong:
Well, if our heroes are miniscule, then our “huge” villain, Dinky Kong, is merely
small. Playing on this idea, the sprite in the menu depicts Dinky Kong wearing a tiny fez. A
cap similar to ones worn by small monkeys rattling tin cups with coins in them next to a man
playing a hurdy gurdy as seen in old cartoons. Maybe our “big” threat is simply an
under-sized street performer loose in a strange tiny world!
Pro Tricks
If you're a DK Pro gamer, a few of the original arcade tricks have been implemented (like wall
jump escape and points gained by jump proximity), other tricks like barrel-steering are not
(yet?) in this remake, some other mechanisms have been simplified and other dirty tricks and
exploits (like jumping next to Kong on Rivets stage) have been purposely removed or fixed.
Credits
Programmed by @Heracleum
Graphics & sound effects by @Trog
Music & sound effects by Trog's son
