Donkey Kong Country

Donkey Kong revolutionized the arcade in 1981 and put Nintendo on the map.

The Big Ape paved the way for Mario, the NES, and everything else that followed.

However, Nintendo struggled to recapture that success, and after a few mediocre sequel attempts, they shelved the character completely.

Enter Rare, a

British game developer founded by brothers Tim and Chris Stamper.

They got their start with arcade titles like Jetpack and Sabrewolf, before turning their attention to the home market.

Their relationship with Nintendo began when they managed

to reverse-engineer an imported Famicom, a feat so technically impressive it convinced

Nintendo to give them a massive budget to create games for their system, which they used to produce series like Battletoads.

Their partnership deepened when Rare began to experiment with Silicon Graphics advanced computer technologies.

Nintendo was so blown away by the early results, they gave them license to resurrect Donkey Kong himself, with little oversight from Miyamoto or any other Japanese producers.

The stampers put their pre-rendered graphics tech to good use, creating 3D models for DK and new characters like Diddy and Cranky, plus lighting and weather effects that had never been seen before in 16 bits.

The end result was a side-scrolling platformer inspired by DK's former nemesis, Mario.

Only this time, he would be the player-controlled hero.

It was met with such an overwhelmingly positive response, it single-handedly expanded the lifespan of the Super Nintendo at a time when 32-bit systems were starting to take off.

Even more outrageous, Nintendo decided to purchase a stake in the company, making Rare their first ever non-Japanese second-party developer, a relationship that would go on to shape the industry over the course of the next several years.

On today's episode, expect plenty of monkey business.

As we look back at a revolutionary platformer that changed everything, not just a city, not just a state, we're taking a trip to Donkey

Kong Country.

It's a video game podcast And there's so much to discuss One of us knows all about them And the other one's a dunce You're gonna learn about the very best games With two annoying dorks From asteroids to Zelda.

From adventure to Zork.

We have no life.

And we feel no shame.

We need your help.

Cause we're bad

with games.