DK Submission Rules

[corey.chambers]

Donkey Kong High Score List Submission Rules

for all scores submitted to the Main HSL, Level 1-1 HSL, Start HSL, No-Hammer HSL, No-Killscreen HSL, and Wild Barrel Hack HSL

Please review the rules below before submitting.

Submission Thread

Rules last updated: March 31, 2021 12:19 AM MST, by xelnia

A. Game Settings

• Number of Jumpman: 3
• Score Level for extra Jumpman: 7,000
• Coinage: Player's Choice
• Table/Upright: Player's Choice. The DK manual recommends always leaving this on Upright.

B. Platform

1. Arcade

• Arcade submissions should be done on a TKG4 PCB. Other hardware revisions may be accepted if the rom revision is US Set 1.
• 4-way controls are required.
• High score save kits, D2K kits, and Remix kits are allowed. However, should any of these kits prove to affect gameplay, scores may be invalidated after the fact.
• Multi-PCBs (x-in-1) are allowed.
• Double Donkey Kong (DDK) boards are allowed.
• Using the Pace feature on Remix kits is allowed.

2. MAME

• The only acceptable MAME platforms are WolfMAME versions 0.106 and newer, and Retro Uprising's Score Mode.
• The only acceptable romset is "dkong" / "Donkey Kong (US Set 1)"
• Pausing the game is not allowed.
• Intentionally altering the game speed is not allowed.
• Any modifications to WolfMAME, Retro Uprising, or the dkong romset will result in disqualification.

C. Evidence

1. Arcade

• For a player's FIRST submission to DKF, they must show the inside of their cabinet. We must be able to see: 1) 4-way controls, 2) TKG4 label, 3) DIP switch settings, 4) ROM chips, 5) the Z80 processor location. Players are not required to do this again for future DKF submissions unless they use new or different hardware.
• Video evidence must show the complete gameplay, from beginning to end.
• Players must make a reasonable effort to make their video evidence permanent.
• Scores done at live events will be accepted if it can be reasonably determined that game settings and platform requirements have been met.
• Video evidence that only shows the end of a game must include, in the same video, an immediate restart and demonstration of the Game Settings. Do not power cycle the cabinet before restarting.
• For scores done on a multi-PCB (x-in-1), only complete gameplay videos will be accepted.

2. MAME

• All MAME submissions must include an INP in a zip archive. If WolfMAME 0.106 is used, the corresponding WLF file must also be submitted in the zip archive.
• Players must make a reasonable attempt to make their INP evidence permanent.
• Retro Uprising submissions must also include a screenshot of the moderator information used to verify Retro Uprising submissions. This shows game time, recorded speed, and pause information.
• The average recorded speed in the INP must be at least 90%.
• Please submit only one attempt per INP.

D. Special

• High score lists may have their own Special Rules. It is up to the player to be familiar with those rules.
• Screenshots and photographs are not sufficient evidence for a score.
• Any score may be rejected if video quality is poor.
• Any score may be rejected if a player uses a technique or method not mentioned here, if it violates the spirit of the game and the spirit of fair play.

[cheetah33p]

Very awesome Job Corey and Jeff!  All explained awesome!  :-). 

[corey.chambers]

Question: In the rules, when I mention new players to briefly show us some parts of their cab I mention the "underside of the control panel with 4-way restrictor plate". I think this came up before but for the life of me I don't remember when or where it my be in the monster General thread. (Sure wish there was a quick and practical way of pulling out single submission posts etc, so I could create new topics to get that thing organized and into multiple new threads). I may have slipped this language into the rules without remembered what we may have discussed. I think someone said that as long as they use the original nintendo joystick with the four-way restrictor and the pcb is real that it would constitute as an Arcade submission. Though I think I know at least one person that may play with a ms pacman joystick, and I am pretty sure that the machine that Svarar played on was a multi-cab that may not have had the nintendo joystick with 4-way restrictor... hmm. I mean, what is the point of an original power supply too because I know that Ethan has a newer power supply.

I don't think I ever officially decided what would be considered an Arcade submission. Some may have a mame cab with different types of joysticks, and some use a joystick on their computer. So if someone is using the TKG-4 pcb, and they happen not to have a fourway restrictor, then is this any different than a joystick that one could be using with mame on their computer? There does not seem to be a hard and fast rule. I mean, what if one player's score is higher than another, both were on an Arcade, but the one with the lower of the two scores was done with a 4 way restrictor.

Is this a level playing field for an Arcade submission? 

Another question to ask along these lines has to do with the platforms. We have one for MAME, and we have on for Arcade, and I added the Arcade(multi) next to Svarar's to ensure people knew it was not an original TKG-4 pcb, but rather a multi-board. Maybe the Arcade designation can be for those that fit an "Arcade Criteria" and then those cabs that don't fit that criteria will be on the list as something other than Arcade, or MAME. What do you guys think?

EDIT: I mean, if we did an "Arcade Criteria" then we could maybe have a minimum requirement of an original TKG-4 pcb and an original or reproduction of the nintendo joystick with the four-way restrictor. But I need all you to chime in on this possible distinction for the list.

[ChrisP]

My thoughts:

1. The four-way should not be a requirement. As has been discussed elsewhere, anything other than a four-way is gonna hurt way more than it helps! I had an 8-way restrictor on my joystick for a short time while waiting for the 4-way and it was awful. The concern, for example, that one could "steer while climbing" with an 8-way by using the diagonals is not valid. DK doesn't acknowledge simultaneous directional inputs. You're either pushing up, left, right, or down - there is no "up-right" or "up-left."
EDIT (two years later): as it turns out, I was incorrect about this, at least in part. While I still think it's much harder to play with an 8-way, on an arcade machine you can indeed hit two directions simultanously, register two inputs, and do "steer-climbs". I was basing my assertion that you couldn't on tests I did in MAME. What I didn't know at the time is that for DK (and other 4-way games) it's hardcoded into MAME to only register one directional input at a time.

I think people should be allowed to submit using whatever controls work best for them because nobody has ever identified a control setup that would give an advantage in DK (except the old "keyboard vs. joystick" debate, where the keyboard can add a tiny bit of precision at the very, very highest skill levels of play).

2. The power supply thing is something that PSP added to the requirements when he was with TG because he noticed sometimes that certain elements of the game (the pie boards specifically) behaving strangely with certain new power supplies. I don't like this rule either. It's an extra layer of needless bureaucracy, IMO. If the power supply makes the game glitchy, it will be apparent in the gameplay. Certainly won't give anybody an advantage, in any case.

3. I like "Arcade(multi)". I think it says everything it needs to say!

4. The board is worth thinking about though, because the TKG-3s DO offer an advantage in the form of the ladder cheat. However, the title screen on the TKG-4s say "(C) 1981 Nintendo of America," whereas the TKG-3s say "(C) 1981 Nintendo", so there's no need to show the physical board because the title screen will make clear which version is running.

[corey.chambers]

Good thoughts, Chris.

Here are some more questions:

I enabled cheats in MAME and then clicked play and record input. Then I turned off cheats, even moved the cheat.dat file to a different location, and then replayed the inp and it played. The inp playback did not show me going into the settings to enable the cheat. Therefore, if someone submits only an inp, then someone will have to watch every second of it to ensure that invincibility was not enabled on the springs and then shut off. There must be an easier way. How does MARP submissions work? Cheats are not allowed as I understand it but how do they know without watching every second of the game. IF there is no easy solution and the inp must be watched completely, then who would be interested in assisting me with inp verification. I can check the checksum etc, but I don't think that I can watch absolutely every second of every inp. I could require it to be streamed on Twitch and hope at least someone watched it and would report any problems, but then how does MARP handle their submissions? 

[Fast Eddie]

i always thought 106 wouldnt let you enable cheats if recording, dont think i ever tried it though...

i think if you fast forward the game and it gets to the end ok that should be fine. if someone enables invincability to get past an enemy it will still kill them when you play it back...

 

[corey.chambers]

I just witnessed this to be true. Good thinking. Thanks!

[corey.chambers]

I have added the following Special Rules to the top of their respective High Score List:

No-Hammer: Special Rules: Score Submissions must not contain any use of the hammer for any reason, whether on purpose or accidental.

No-Killscreen: Special Rules: Score Submissions must reach and proceed after normal killscreen time.

Level 1-1: Special Rules: Score Submissions must be played on the first barrel board on level 1. The score must be achieved by one man only. You may achieve your score with any of your remaining men, it does not have to be achieved on your first man only. The board must be completed and the points accumulated during that completed run will be adjusted accordingly.

[corey.chambers]

The following question has been proposed: Can you submit a score from a Bartop multigame cabinet? Here is the link that was shared: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/bartop-arcade-machine-with-1440-classic-games/1025257302#photo-content

I am unfamiliar with this item. Has anyone seen anything like this?

Also, this is a good time to ask some other questions. If the only difference between a cocktail and upright is the location of the monitor, I don't see why anyone in the community would not accept a score on one of those. Obviously, any submissions on a newer cab would need to be seen just so we know and understand the cab and the particulars. Even if it was a cocktail with a TKG-3, well... we have never really specified this point. Are there any emulation differences between the TKG-3 and the TKG-4? Any reflections from the community?

[Fast Eddie]

TKG3 is the early version with the ladder cheat i think...

 

[corey.chambers]

Other than the ladder cheat are there any emulation differences at all? We can clearly see if someone uses a ladder cheat or not, but would require every moment of that game to be reviewed.

[up2ng]

No, you can't do it that way.  In the correct version of DK, you CAN still survive by hanging out on a ladder and having the barrel roll over your head.  The key is that the survival rate is low when doing this on the correct version (but it's higher than zero).  So, just because you see someone use a "ladder cheat" move does NOT mean that they are using the incorrect version of the game.  Conversely, just because someone never uses such a move does NOT mean that they are using the correct version of the game.

There may or may not be other differences between versions of the game.  It's pretty much the one thing that keeps the legitimacy of any high score board is to make sure everyone is using the same software.  All of the other nonsense regarding power supplies, the shape of a cabinet, and to some extent even the controls that are used really don't matter -- but it DOES matter that we are all using the same software, which you can't necessarily tell just from witnessing the gameplay.

IMO, scores achieved using anything other than TKG4 should not be counted (or should be tracked completely seperately).

[corey.chambers]

Thanks Dean. Though by "ladder cheat" I thought it was meant that one could go down the far right ladder on the 1st girder and come down from the top of the screen, lol. I may have misunderstood what was meant by "ladder cheat". We have allowed TKG-4 and the multi-pcb such as in the case of Svarar but it is listed in the format section, ,and is the only case. It was said that the multi-pcb emulates the TKG-4. What is the ladder cheat? And what is the TKG-3 in relation to emulation? If we have allowed the multi-pcb then that is why I wanted to know about the TKG-3. Of course, no one has made such a submission.

[up2ng]

The different "versions" of Donkey Kong has been discussed a few times on older cagdc or TG threads and of course I can't really recall how to find them.  I'm also not much of a hardware guy and am much less familiar with the cabinet side of the hobby than most other members.  Note also that by "versions", I'm not speaking of obvious hacks or clones with different Titles or misspelled Titles or anything that wasn't licensed and copyrighted by Nintendo.

But even within Nintendo, there were apparently several different versions of the game released.  In fact, it's possible to find several different Manuals which cover some of them (someone in one of those old threads uploaded pdf scans of a few of these Manuals).  It became likely that there may actually be more versions of the game than many of us thought or realized.  It's possible that not all changes to the software were tracked with a seperate TKG number -- some of the earliest versions may not have even had a TKG number or may have been tracked by Nintendo another way.  There also exist anomalies out there such as the "hard chip" which a few active members here actually owned on their cabinets without realizing it at first -- where, for example, the Pie Factory and Rivet screens immediately behaved as if it was Level 5 right off the bat.  It's unclear whether this was actually released by Nintendo (as a mod for arcade owners to install to make their games harder to earn more quarters) or by some unknown third party.

There are also different hardware configurations -- for example, there are 2-chip sets and 4-chip sets and after reading some of these threads it wasn't clear to me whether or not this necessarily correlated with certain versions of the software or not.

One of the decisions that TG made, and which most of the players seemed to buy into, is that you could tell that the correct software was running by seeing "Nintendo of America" on the opening screen, as opposed to just "Nintendo".  It's not clear to me how accurate that really is, but it could be a good start anyway.

So, the issue is complicated, but I think it would generally be a mistake to be lax on this issue where scores on games that are played on different versions of the software get sort of lumped together on the same scoreboard.  I'm not sure what the "best" way is to make sure a game is legit, but it's important to know that there ARE other versions of DK out there that DO play differently and CAN impact scoring.  I'll leave the rest up to you and the others to research this issue further and to determine how you want to run your high score lists based on your findings.

[Fast Eddie]

the ladder cheat is where you can just chill right at the top of any ladder and all the barrels will roll by rather than come down on your head...

i believe TKG3 is emulated on the 'US set 2' rom, iv no idea if any multiboards use this set...