“Donkey Kong” now enjoys real cult status – just like its infamous kill screen after what appears to be the last level of the game. A player has now managed to bypass it for the first time.
In 1981, the game “Donkey Kong” was released for arcade machines. For 44 years, one level was considered insurmountable due to a mistake. Now, however, a player has shown with a trick that it is possible to complete the infamous last level of “Donkey Kong”.
The kill screen in “Donkey Kong”
From the end of the 1970s, the Japanese Nintendo tried to gain a foothold in the USA with arcade machines. After initial moderate success, the breakthrough came with a game in which you have to use Jumpman, the predecessor of Super Mario, to rescue your girlfriend Pauline from the roof of a skyscraper, where she has been kidnapped by none other than Donkey Kong.
The game is divided into levels that lead ever higher up the building. In theory, “Donkey Kong” goes on like this endlessly. Unless the hero Jumpman loses, then the so-called kill screen appears. Either the level timer runs out or Jumpman gets hit and it’s game over.
Officially, there is no last level in “Donkey Kong”. But the record is level 22-1. Four seconds after the level begins, the game abruptly stops and shows the kill screen, regardless of how Jumpman acts and whether there is still time on the clock.
The timer in “Donkey Kong” explained
The whole thing is due to a bug, which is also the origin of the term “the last level of Donkey Kong”. And since it is a technical error, the bug can only be fixed to a limited extent. But YouTuber Kosmic has now actually managed to do it.
In his video, the gamer explains that the bug is due to the game’s 8-bit architecture. The timer is calculated in the background using a formula: (current level x 10) + 40. In the first level, the timer ticks 50 times. In the second level, it is 60, in the third 70 and so on.
The problem: 8-bit games can only calculate a value up to a maximum of 256. From level 22, however, a value of 260 would be necessary. This also explains the four seconds after which “Donkey Kong” then stops. This corresponds to the difference between 256 and 260. Since the game simply starts counting from the beginning at level 22 due to the calculation structure, this extremely short time span results. But how did Kosmic manage to complete the level within four seconds?
Gamer outsmarts the game
The actual answer is: not at all. To get around the bug, the YouTuber in the video uses a so-called ladder glitch. A glitch is a software error that leads to display errors in a video game, for example. In the current example, the error occurs between two broken ladders, which are therefore not actually intended to be used.
Thanks to a combination in which players press down for four frames and then go up one frame while standing on a piece of ladder, you can still use the ladder and get to the top. If the sequence is repeated often enough, Jumpman will reach the end of the level.
What comes after the last level of “Donkey Kong”?
This requires enormous skill, however – or an emulator, as in Kosmic’s case. The gamer has programmed the emulator with the precise input, which then takes over the controls for him.
As mentioned at the beginning, “Donkey Kong” theoretically goes on forever. After completing the tricky level within the four-second window, Kosmic could simply carry on playing as before. However, he has reached a level that no one has ever played before him.
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