Donkey Kong Jr. - 1982 (ARC)

DONKEY KONG JR. ドンキーコングJR ©1982 Nintendo Version: Arcade (ARC) Publisher: NINTENDO CO., LTD. Production: NINTENDO - RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT 1 DIVISION (R&D1) Development: NINTENDO CO., LTD. Additional Work: IWASAKI ENGINEERING CO., LTD.

KEY STAFF: NINTENDO CO., LTD. Director: Satoru Okada, Shigeru Miyamoto Visual: Shigeru Miyamoto, Yoshio Sakamoto Program: Kenji Nishizawa, Masao Yamamoto Sound: Yukio Kaneoka, Hirokazu Tanaka Production: Gunpei Yokoi Executive: Hiroshi Yamauchi IWASAKI ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. Program: H. Hoshino, Masayoshi O., Hatao Ogata

NOTES: Following the success of the arcade smash Donkey Kong, Nintendo planned the sequel to star Donkey Kong's own son, DK Jr., as the protagonist who had to save his dad from Mario. Ideas for the sequel surfaced during development of the 1981 Donkey Kong, when members of Miyamoto's team came up with several ideas and full complete levels that wouldn't really fit into the game due to the various constraints. His team eventually began fleshing out these concepts, and these designs evolved into something all their own. The process was so far along, with even entire stages conceived, that one of the team members suggested they start working on another video game. The conversation happened around the same time that Nintendo wanted another Donkey Kong coin-op to capitalize on the original’s fame, giving Miyamoto the perfect opportunity to further explore his newly established franchise. Originally, Miyamoto wanted the new game to star Donkey Kong himself, but there were problems with the character’s massive size. He wouldn’t be maneuverable on the screen, so a new star was needed. The change brought about a new hero and drove the narrative in an entirely new direction. They ultimately came up with the idea to make a smaller Donkey Kong in place of Mario who would be the son of Donkey Kong. Since they still wanted a big Donkey Kong on top of the screen, they came up with the plot of Mario capturing him after the events of the first game. Game development faced a serious challenge as the consignment programmer who Nintendo contracted to work with their design team on the original game, was no longer on the project, and Nintendo lacked access to the original program source. In response, Nintendo contracted 3 programmers from Iwasaki Engineering Co., Ltd. to work with Nintendo's technology team to reverse engineer the original arcade game, in order to access to the source code and develop the sequel. Full Staff List: Donkey Kong Jr. (ARC) Credits

INFOBOX
Version: Arcade (WW)
Source: KRIRM. Wired: Sakamoto Interview. Nintendo JP.
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