Faster, Harder, More Challenging Donkey Kong.

[Sock Master]

I sometimes hear about a "hard rom" for Donkey Kong, and the general consensus was that it isn't actually all that hard?

Since I've been digging through Donkey Kong's program code inside and out, I figured it might be fun to make a DK ROMset that actually does ramp up the difficulty in significant ways.

Where's what I added:

-Internal difficulty now goes up to 7 instead of 5.
 (one consequence of that is that barrels become 100% steerable.)
-Internal timers will keep speeding up all the way through to L=22.
-Fireballs/Firefoxes will reach faster top speeds.  (and also start at a higher speed at L=01)
-Spawn rates are faster.
-Wild barrels are twice as frequent.
-There are a couple of new types of wild barrels.
-*Any* barrel hitting the oil can will spawn a fireball.
 (this is not quite as bad as it sounds as normal barrels will usually roll off the screen before getting to the oil can.)
-Cement tray/Pie spawn rates will keep increasing through to L=22
-Elevators will reach higher speeds.
-Springs have more random variance.
-Spring release rate will reach higher speeds as Level goes up.
-The number of Fireballs/Firefoxes will eventually go up to EIGHT (!!)
-At the Kill Screen, the game flips into murderous mode.
-The selectable number of lives will be 3,5,7 or 9.

It's still classic Donkey Kong.  It starts out a little harder, but not overly so but by L=07 it gets really tough.

I thought it might be interesting.

You can download the files here:
http://users.axess.com/twilight/sock/dkremix/dkongde.zip

This only includes the changed files.  Simply replace your original ROMs with these.

Thanks.

[tudose]

well done, sir. i fired it up for a few levels and noticed some fun stuff. very cool

[timhett]

Wow... I hope someone streams this, would love to check it out!  very cool!
 

[Adam_Mon]

-Wild barrels are twice as frequent.
-There are a couple of new types of wild barrels.

<3

 Chris should stream some of this 

[Sock Master]

Chris ain't gonna like it, I'd bet money on that.

Maybe some new strategies will make it more manageable, but the wild barrels are killers here.
And when you get to the point where there are 8 fireballs running around at faster than normal speed.. it's just overwhelming.   Even with the extra lives I don't think anyone's getting to the kill screen.

It would be amazing to watch gameplay of players surviving L=08, it gets really hectic.

[f_symbols]

well done, sir. i fired it up for a few levels and noticed some fun stuff. very cool

omg wow the tudose played DK again  ; very addiction wow.

Mr sock, your work still amazes me, thanks for breathing all this new air into the tired old (non-marinated  ) DK rims.

[tudose]

omg wow the tudose played DK again  ; very addiction wow.

 

[Sock Master]

I tried giving myself a ton of lives and seeing how things go marathon-style and it was pretty fun, up until L=10 and then I lost 25 lives trying to pass the elevators.  Oof.  I know the L=10 springs are still passable, but the window to make it is really slim unless you get two good springs in a row.  Maybe at some point it becomes impassable unless there is some alternate strategy.  The springs vary 50% more (between long and short) and their release timer speeds up as level goes up; maybe that timer ought to be slowed down.

Conveyors with 8 super fast fireballs too, if you don't get a free pass you're unlikely to make it.

It starts getting pretty brutal past L=07.

[Sock Master]

I doublechecked and the boards do remain completable all through to L=22.   No problem with an accidental Kill Screen.

[up2ng]

Although 100% steerable barrels would probably be more fun, I suspect that that actually makes the game easier.  If you want to make it harder, ramp it back down towards 50% or so imo.  Or, tweak the steerability entirely such as removing the code related to steering barrels but allow them to turn down ladders "on their own" with a higher frequency.  And/or, do something even nastier such as this -- barrels are not steerable, but if the ladder is "uphill" from jumpman, barrels will turn down on their own with 75% frequency, but if the ladder is "downhill" from jumpman, barrels will turn down on their own with only 25% frequency . . . or something.

Looking forward to checking this out.

[Sock Master]

I made a few revisions to DKDE, the file on my web page now has V1.1

Changes:
-I fixed the barrel release timers so they smoothly keep ramping up till L=21.
-Barrel steering now ranges between 12% and 87%, but never hits 100%.
-Additional physics based variations to wild barrels.
 (I love that physics engine, it is way underutilized in the original game code.)
-Faster timers on the retractable ladders on Pie/Cement boards.
-Reduced spawn rate for Fireballs on Pie/Cement boards.
-4 of the 8 fireballs/firefoxes can now be freezers.
-The maximum speed of Firefoxes on Rivets boards has been reduced.
 (but still faster than original DK.)


Hopefully this balances the difficulty between different board types.
It still ramps up way beyond classic DK.  I don't think anyone's going to get to the Kill Screen for some time.

[danman123456]

Cool i gotta check this out.

Dan

[Sock Master]

Hi Dan,

I missed your stream but I'm watching the replay now.   When you get to the kill screen, I wanna see how that goes!

I guess it's pretty fair to say that the 4 boards get about equally difficult?   I know, maybe those evil bouncing barrels are a bit unfair?

It really does look like the game holds up pretty well.. Starts out at similar difficulty to regular DK but then keeps ramping up instead of stalling at 5.

Oh and yeah, Level 7 is not exactly the limit.  Internal difficulty stops at 7, that's an internal register that controls certain aspects of the game, but other things have different limits.   I tried to keep them all within 'possible' limits.   Like the springs stop increasing at L9 or 10 but barrels keep right on increasing till L22.   Springs might be able to go one more step faster, but I think that might be pushing things too far.   It's tough for me to determine since I'm not a super awesome player, I stopped it where I could still pass it.

[Sock Master]

Okay, something is bothering me about this version of DK and that's those nasty bouncing wild barrels that I added in the update...

I actually do like them, but they can be unavoidable death if one happens while Jumpman is near the top/left of the screen.   So I'm going to try to figure out a way to ... relax the bounce when Jumpman is too close to DK.

I figure that'll be it after that, but I can add a couple of small tweaks here and there..  Mostly I'm interested in ideas to reduce pattern playing, but in simple ways.   Prevent *all* the fireballs from spawning on the left side of the can in the conveyors stage to avoid giving free passes?   Something like that.

   

[Sock Master]

Here's a not so quick video of DKDE gameplay.  This is the V1.3 ROM from Oct 11.

I'm pretty confident that this is the final ROM.  There is only one thing I'm not 100% certain about and that's the rate of the springs in the elevators stage - whether I made them too hard.   In V1.3 the springs keep increasing in speed up until L=15, but the increases are very gradual between L10 and L15.

If anyone plays through L15 springs, feedback would be appreciated.  I want to make it a hard rom, but not impossibly hard.

Thanks!