Early Beginnings
When I was 8 years old I remember visiting a friend’s house and learning about the Nintendo Entertainment System for the first time. While feeling enthralled with video games, I was never very good at them. I spent most of my time watching my older brother play RPGs such as Final Fantasy. My father played guitar in a band in bars and while he was busy setting up the stage I was placed in front of arcade games. I remember playing Pacman, Ms Pacman, and Pole Position but I don’t recall the other games I may have played. I was not exposed to Donkey Kong on the arcade machine at all that I can remember. I didn’t learn about Donkey Kong until I played the version on the NES around the age of 12. I remember that I was not able to time the springs and felt awe over the individual who had reported a score of over two million points in Nintendo Power magazine. Games, including Chess, have played a role in my life, but ultimately no games were an obsession to me, and I certainly was not very good at any of them.
Invitation and Inspiration
While working at a bank a couple years ago, an acquaintance there was fond of watching documentaries and recommended the King of Kong to me. There was no real reason why he recommended this particular documentary but needless to say I watched it on 11/10/11. Both my wife and I were moved by Steve Wiebe and I personally identified with him at levels only I understood. I know what it is like to not be successful or to have lost much in their life. Having lost my father at the age of 10 and my mother at the age of 27, I have had to carve my own way through life.
NES Donkey Kong
Having been inspired I went and purchased a regular Nintendo with the Donkey Kong Classics which included the NES version of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior. I was determined to learn the game and played it for hours. My first million point game was on 1/7/12, with a score of 1,042,000, which was about two months after watching the King of Kong. Two days later I got 1,406,400. Five days later I got 1,795,500. Then thirteen days later on 1/27/12, I achieved a score of 2,808,400, finally being the guy who got over two million on NES Donkey Kong! So I progressed rather quickly and I found it fascinating. However, since it took me just over six hours to complete this new high score, I decided to place my focus elsewhere and spend more time with my family.
NES Donkey Kong 2,808,400:
http://www.twitch.tv/clchambers00/c/2417214MAME
It was during this time I learned about MAME. I had no idea what it was or how to use it. But once I got everything up and running, I was finally playing a version of Donkey Kong that was being emulated like the Arcade game. After playing for several months I reached a plateau of 505,600, which was achieved on 4/28/12. I was discouraged and did not play it very much, but instead I turned to other games, especially to memorize Pac-man, something I found to be rather interesting. I thought that maybe if I learned Pac-man like Billy Mitchell, that maybe it would ultimately help my Donkey Kong game. I started watching Billy Mitchell, Steve Wiebe, and Hank Chien youtube videos over and over again, and also watched the World Record holder on MAME, Dean Saglio repeatedly. So for about eleven months I absorbed these clips and would try things out but with very little success. Looking back I still wonder why I stuck with it, despite the constant failure.
How to Play Donkey Kong on MAME:
How to play Donkey Kong on WolfMAMEThe Break-Through
Then, something amazing happened on 4/1/13, I finally blasted through the plateau and psychological barriers with a two hammer score of 696,800. I was so excited about my game that I wanted to start showing people so I created a youtube account and uploaded the video so I could share the link with some friends. This was fate I think, for as I perused youtube a bit further I learned about a player by the name of Vincent Lemay, and he had linked his Twitch stream page to one of his videos. I had no idea what Twitch.tv was. So I sought him out on facebook and began the slow process of friending a couple people that I knew also played Donkey Kong. It was only a short while before I had made my own Twitch account so I could watch games with the chat function and was introduced to the Donkey Kong Forum.
I had realized that my score of 696,800 was just under the score that Brian Kuh had on the TwinGalaxies website, and I had been joking with this acquaintance at work that my first goal was to beat him, only because we were both familiar with him from the King of Kong. So I started playing again, but this time went back to just running boards only grabbing the top hammer. This was the same time I started streaming my games on Twitch.
Twitch.tv Account:
http://www.twitch.tv/clchambers00Killscreen!
Seven days later after this breakthrough I got a score of 714,200, finally beating Brian Kuh. Then three days later, a most wonderful accomplishment, I achieved a Donkey Kong killscreen, with a score of 893,800. This live streamed game helped people know who I am, since I was still new to the scene. There was about 20 people watching including Vincent Lemay himself. That evening I receive many, many friend requests, and congratulations from many people I have not known. I even got a personal facebook message on my wall from Hank Chien. I was on cloud nine for a couple days.
My First Killscreen:
Donkey Kong Killscreen Game 893,800Donkey Kong Forum High Score List
Ten days later, I never would have thought what would come next. I had been upset over the fact that TwinGalaxies was now charging fees for their submissions and since I had a killscreen I thought that it should be submitted. I began reading discussions where some players were saying that they were not submitting their scores to TwinGalaxies any more, and some started submitting to MARP, or just putting a picture up on facebook. I knew that as long as players were not posting their scores to the TwinGalaxies Scoreboard that over time it would become less accurate and less relevant to people. Inspired by my own desire to have my score posted, encouraged by my recent killscreen, and the general culture that was created by the change within TwinGalaxies, was the catalyst to start the Donkey Kong High Score List, on 4/21/13. I began compiling scores. People helped me learn how to format the list and over time I added new functions to the list such as linking twitch urls, youtube urls, inp files, their streaming page, and noting who had a killscreen, and what scores were a killscreen game. Many, many hours of hard labor went into this list, and lots of debate concerning the precise criteria that we would use to determine whether or not a score had adequate evidence. I began the long process of learning about streaming, inps, arcade machines, and verification processes. Recently I have re-amped the entire list, now enjoining its own sub-forum, reformatting the Submission Rules, and creating an additional thread for Score Submissions. Within the last three days I created new lists that will also track Level 1-1 challenge scores, as well as no-killscreen, and no-hammer, challenges. I began slowing my game play because of the amount of time that was required to create, edit, and do on-going maintenance to the lists. But within the next month of creating the list I improved my with a two hammer score of 915,000.
Donkey Kong Forum High Score List:
https://donkeykongforum.net/index.php?topic=366.0Donkey Kong Training Videos
Within 20 days, on May 12th when I was streaming, a newer player was watching and upon request I began sharing some techniques on the Rivet screen using save states. It was rather helpful and so I highlight it. Then I had the idea of creating a real training video of the Rivet stage that would be smooth, better quality, well thought out, and narrated better. I began looking for free software that would enable me to capture what was on my monitor and started using Windows Movie Maker to clip and narrate. I completed and published my very first Donkey Kong Training Video on May 18th. I had intended at that time to eventually do a video on all the stages in order to assist new players in a way that did not exist when I was trying to learn the game.
Rivet Training Video:
Donkey Kong Rivet Training VideoRecent Events
On June 23, 2013 I achieved a score of 964,500 for the WildCard Rematch #3/WildCard Division Qualifier #1 placing me in the present list of top 8 qualifiers for this tournament which will be held at the Kong Off 3.
High Score:
Donkey Kong Killscreen Game 964,500 (High Score)My most recent accomplishment has been the creating of the next video in my four part series on Donkey Kong. In two parts, I recently released a total of 1hr 23min worth of Barrel board training. Now that I have completed this video, I will be refocusing myself now to make one million point attempts and finally break through that next plateau.
Barrel Training Video Part 1:
Donkey Kong Barrel Training Video Part 1Barrel Training Video Part 2:
Donkey Kong Barrel Training Video Part 2
