Ha! My newest eBay purchase just arrived. It’s Donkey Kong for the Nintendo Game Boy. No, it’s not Donkey Kong Land nor is it Donkey Kong for GBA. It’s just Donkey Kong for the old GameBoy. You might not know it but it is one the most awesome games on the system.
Basically it seems like a simple remake of the old arcade machine. It even starts of with the 4 classic Donkey Kong levels. However the original arcade game was over after the 4th level. This one has 97 more levels after that! I love that kind of old-school approach. Establish some very basic, simple rules, stick with them and deliver masses of content. I would even classify it as a sub-genre: “the non-scrollable multi-level jump & run”. The first game of this kind was obviously Lode Runner. Other classics include Bubble Bobble and the less-known Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. There are even some contemporary games like n+ which follow the formula.
This kind of game design strategy works well even if the difficulty doesn’t increase. Overcoming the sheer amount of levels is challenge enough and you certainly feel as if you get a lot of value. Of course, today the game is ridiculously underpriced. I got mine for 5€ including shipment. If you see it somewhere in a second-hand store, I recommend you give it a try!
I found and bought it today. Suprisingly good. The jump is way smoother than it was on the atari.