Donkey Kong II Jumpman Returns

After The King of Kong broke out of the indy film market and made it's way onto G4, Donkey Kong was at an all time high. Back in 2008 when we attended the tenth FunSpot tournament they introduced a new game, based off the original Donkey Kong called, Donkey Kong II Jumpman Returns. It was there we met the designer of the game, Jeff Kulczycki. We had a great interview with him but unfortunately somebody stole the mini tape it was on along with a Twin Galaxies score book.

When we spoke to Jeff he told us all about this project that took over three and a half years to complete. He was telling me he owned a Donkey Kong machine in his home and the game was never programmed to have an option for Free Play. Some folks will drill a hole into the machine that you can press and it will trick the game into thinking you put a credit into it, but he wanted to keep the machine original. So while he was working on the freeplay and high score save he was looking into the code from the game that the designers used back in 1981 to create levels in the game and that's when it dawned on him. He could use the code in the game to come up with a brand new game! That game is Donkey Kong II: Jumpman Returns or D2K for short.

In D2K Jeff added in four new stages to go along with the first game's original four. These stages can be brutal. As you see in the video I was unable to make it up to the fourth stage he programmed in. Also he added in a million digit into the score, so no more rollovers! He also fixed an early bug in the game which would allow barrels to go over Jumpman if he was standing just right on the ladder as well as killing off the game's famous Kill Screen. So if you've got the skills you can marathon the game as much as you like.

If you'd like more information on how to add this to any Donkey Kong you can hit up his website below! And for the few arcade operators you can run the both games in coin op mode so it's a win-win for everybody! He also offers free play kits for Phoenix, Frogger, Dig Dug as well as enhancements to Dragon's Lair and Space Ace!

Jeff's Rom Hack