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I got my first kill screen three days ago on Donkey Kong! I picked up Donkey Kong about 7 years ago with a homemade setup with retropie, I did OK on that, getting up to 354K once on a fluke but usually scoring around 220K. I also played dozens of times at a local cabinet and at PAX where I would also get in the 220K range of scores.
I eventually settled in on the Arcade Archives version on the Nintendo Switch about a year ago. I enjoy this version because I could play on the train going to work and back every day which is how I developed my abilities on L5+ levels.
Early 2020 I made a bet with a friend that I could reach the kill screen before the end of 2020. I let the bet sit for most of 2020 (the coronavirus WFH policies left me with no time on the train) but come October 2020 I started grinding to achieve the kill screen. My Switch profile says I have played 165 hours.
During the kill screen game I lost my first life on level 16 barrels, then level 18 conveyor, then level 20 barrels. I started recording on my iPhone when I made it to level 21. I played pretty sloppy on level 21, I made three errors that I probably wouldn't have made if I wasn't making commentary for the video. BUT, I didn't die so who cares!
The final score was 812,900 on the International setting of High Score mode on the Switch, that puts me at position 7 on the global high score list in that version. I am "Mike" in case anyone is checking.
I was not doing anything special to deliberately collect points, I was only trying to run the boards to get my first "kill screen". I pasted a link to the video above, I cropped in close up until I finished the kill screen and then you can see me checking out the scoreboard and typing in my initials.
Thank you for reading my adventure, I am so happy and content to have reached this goal.
