4 New Millionaires, 2 Sweet Cabinets

June 20th, 2013 - 2013 has been an exciting year for the Donkey Kong faithful. With the arrival of the Donkey Kong Forum, the community is now all together in one place, sharing news, scores, strategies, and stoking the competitive fires.

For those who are not regulars and may be out of the loop on the latest happenings, here's a little catch-up...

Millions and Millions

In the months since the Kong Off 2, four players have managed to "roll it" to million-plus scores:

On January 27th, Steve Wiltshire (whose 964,600 breakthrough game came last October) upgraded his official Twin Galaxies standing to 1,019,600, good for 9th all time. Unless four players can beat that score between now and November, Wiltshire is now a lock for a place among the All Time Top 12 at the Kong Off 3.

On February 22nd, Phil Tudose, who really, really likes the first board (1-1) and officially plays it better than anyone, hit 1,005,700 on the MAME arcade emulator.

On March 6th, Robbie Lakeman did the deed, also on MAME, with 1,007,600. Great progress for someone who scored his first kill screen only four and a half months prior.

Finally, Icelander Svavar Gunnar Gunnarsson, who created fireworks with a very impressive showing during the second Wildcard Rematch Tournament in March, pulled off the feat on May 29th at an arcade in his current home of Denmark, scoring 1,008,800.

Kongratulations to all!

There are now a total of sixteen million-point players (seventeen if you count Estel's brutal 999,800 last year). 5 of those millions (including the latter three above) were informal performances not officially-verified by Twin Galaxies, but it's safe to say that it won't be long until the top 20 scores are all in the seven figures.

Pauline Lives!

Two months ago, it existed only as a modded ROM and an "April Fools" art package. But Dig Dug world record holder and Twin Galaxies referree Ken House was inspired to hammer it into solid reality. Behold the first-ever "Pauline Edition" Donkey Kong cabinet:

House's labor of love is now playing at the "Kencade" in Oregon (where, incidentally, Mike Kasper just set a new world record on Donkey Kong Junior in April).

A Barrel of Kong

In other custom cabinet-related craziness, there is now "A Barrel of Kong", the brainchild of Joel Griffin Dodd of the Arcade Controls forum:

Check out the full thread where he documents the design and construction of his masterpiece.