🐵 Donkey Kong Board Game by Milton Bradley - 1982 🐵

Growing up in the 80s and frequenting Arcades as we all did in those days, it was impossible not to have heard of the platform game Donkey Kong.

http://gifsgallery.com/donkey+kong+gif

When home consoles became available it gave us all the ability to play our favourite Arcade games and even some of the most popular Arcade games which we always wanted to try but could never get a go on in the Arcade, without the need to have a load of coins to feed the machine with.

For those without access to Games Arcades or Home Consoles or just geeks like me, Milton Bradley had it covered when they launched a board game version of the Arcade hit!

I've already posted about my other Milton Bradley board game versions of popular Arcade games - Frogger from 1981 and Pac man from 1982. It seems like a weird concept at first, after all much of the Arcade games or even Home Console versions of these games comes from the difficulty, sense of achievement, sounds, music and speed in with the games move, but they oddly translate pretty well; this may of course depend on how big a Nerd you are, but meh I'm a pretty big one, and I like these versions for different reasons to why I like the Video Game versions but in some ways, just the same!

Anyway, on to game play and contents... The board is set out like the Video Game with the different levels and girders between each, for your Jumpman / Mario character counter to move up the board in an attempt to rescue The Lady / Pauline from the clutches of Donkey Kong. 

In keeping with the Video Game Donkey Kong throws Barrels and fireballs (once the barrels land at the bottom of the board)  in an attempt to hit and kill you.

The game features a large and quite dominating looking stand alone Donkey Kong, with a movable arm into which you place individual barrels which he then "throws" down the board. These barrels rolls are determined by throwing the "Donkey Die" which gives options for throwing barrels, or Donkey Kong taking a rest, so more more barrels or fireballs enter play until the next throw.

The game is for up to 4 players, each one has a different colour in order to differentiate while all the tokens are on the board. At the start of the game each player chooses one of the 4 Jumpman characters and is then dealt 3 cards before the game can begin.

The cards give players the ability to Jump or Smash the barrels with a hammer as you approach then, they also give the number of points you score when performing these acts as you move along and up the board. 

There are also opportunities to avoid obstacles on the board, again these opportunities are played with the use of cards. It is also possible to loose points accrued by not having enough cards in play during your turn and your opponent also has the opportunity to take a card off you at various points in the game. This of course makes the game harder than if it was just a case of getting to the top of the board to win.

 The winner is the player who scores the most points while travelling across and up the board.

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