As anyone with more than a passing familiarity of the original Donkey Kong arcade game knows, it’s not usually possible to progress past the girder stage on level 22. That’s because the game gives you so little time that Mario dies in a matter of seconds, and the odds of actually making it up to the top are virtually non-existent because of that.

But as it turns out, that’s not actually the end of the game. No, it’s actually possible to get further in this arcade classic, even if the odds of doing so are incredibly low.

Yep, as YouTuber Kosmic shows in his latest video, the kill screen isn’t actually unbeatable in the original DK arcade game. It’s just very difficult to get past due to required glitches and RNG.

Here’s the video in question:

As you can see, there are two major ingredients necessary to passing the screen. The broken ladder glitch, and DK delaying his barrel throws enough to give you the chance to make it up there.

With the first one being the most obvious. If you do a certain set of precise inputs on a broken ladder in this game, it’ll actually let you keep climbing despite there being no valid place to climb to. This lets you do things like wrap around to the top of the screen, or climb up the screen without stopping instead of running and jumping over the barrels.

And if this glitch is done perfectly, it’s possible to be quick enough to make it much further up the stage than you would otherwise. So that’s the first part of the puzzle here.

But it’s not the important one. No, the important one is a delay in DK’s barrel throwing allowing you to get there.

Since the timer is actually connected to how DK throws the barrels. If he runs out of barrels, time is up and Mario dies.

So, by getting luck with the frame counter, this can be delayed and you can get more time to play the stage. If you get very lucky, these delays will stack, and that’ll be enough time to use the glitch to make it to the top and finish the level.

Unfortunately, the odds of such are so ridiculously low that doing this is virtually impossible for a human player. The movement speed needed for the glitch here is just too high, and the odds of the delays lining up to give you enough time are just too low.

But it can happen. The kill screen is not the end of the game, nor the place where Donkey Kong runs necessarily go to die.

No, that’s the rivet stage on level 22. You simply don’t have enough time to remove more than 6 of them before dying, so that’s the true end of the run. The point where the Donkey Kong arcade game becomes completely unplayable, with no way past that point.

Regardless, it’s interesting to think about, isn’t it? That after all these years, there was indeed the possibility of making it past the girder stage on the 117th screen, and playing through even more of this arcade classic.

Wonder what other titles are in a similar situation?

Source:

After 44 Years, Someone Beat the Donkey Kong Kill Screen (Kosmic on YouTube)