Hey John I know you must be busy but even a few extra short little videos would go a long way to making us feel like your not almost retired from Youtubing. It kind of feels like the end of days for John's Arcade :(
You have inspired me to not only go out and start collecting the games I love but to also start posting my projects on youtube. Hope you are doing well. Always exciting to see what you are working on and your collection.
Hey John, great find. I am very surprised that someone actually owned one previously as it was a European game. And wasn't made for the US. I happen to also own a 'Crazy Kong' machine at home myself. I am currently 14 years old and since then, I have dedicated my life on Crazy Kong and all arcade games. I love it. I also started a little arcade machine collection of my own. Ever since my dad introduced me to Crazy Kong when I was 3, I was hooked. I would use all my spare change. After a week or so, the machine would be full. Ever since playing Crazy Kong, I have learned a lot of things. In Crazy Kong, Mario can wait underneath a ladder and a barrel won't hit him. Unlike Donkey Kong. On the forth level (Second level on Donkey Kong), Mario can walk through Donkey Kong. Those are just a few tricks/tips I know. I know many more, but that's for you guys to figure out. John, I hope you enjoy. It is a great game. Please look after it and keep it. You won't find that many. Quick question, do you happen to know a game called Pengo?? That's one of the games I own in my collection. I believe it was licensed by Sega. I you find one, can you add it to your collection?? Also, do you know anyone who has a Mole Hunter machine?? It is a extremely rare Data East game released in 1980. Very few machines were made. My dad played a Mole hunter machine in the local shop when he was young?? If you know anyone who has it, can you tell them to dump the rom so I can play it on Mame. Thank you, and once again, enjoy.
I absolutely love Crazy Kong. The Pizza place in the small mall on Long Island had one in one of those generic woodgrain bootleg cabinets that had a stencil type marquee. The arcade in that same mall had the real-deal but I always gravitated to CC instead. The awful sounds, the f'd up levels, and glitchy graphics were way too fun! I gotta say...I am jealous of that cab and would have traded a Pac Caberet in a second for one too! Nice find. I also remember a version where the levels were green instead of orange.
Omg John This was the version in my childhood arcade and in all the local arcades I new of in and around my home town in New Zealand. I found it weird when I seen donkey Kong on NES and believed it was inferior to crazy kong it's so good to see it again . Thank you for the video.
Nice find! My first arcade Donkey Kong experience was this version when I lived in Germany. A German restaurant near my school had an actual Nintendo version, but I was already used to playing this one.
I remember playing this a few times at a grocery store back in the day. The one I played was a Falcon...”Crazy Kong Part II”. I liked it because I could get farther than I could on Donkey Kong. Oh, and I love the sound of the springs and the sound of his jump... :)
I'm super psyched for you, I know you've mentioned wanting a Crazy Kong a few times, It sure is a funky take on the classic game. Another great video *and* I got an email read in a video for the second time so thanks for that too! Keep up the awesome stuff!
FindingTheSunRecords not if you're trying to conserve space and don't want to have a gigantic arcade machine in your room and you don't want to support businesses that will sell custom mame cabs for 400+ dollars not including shipping (100 dollars there). Same principle for the tools needed to make a custom arcade machine (400-600) people just see the one up and see it comes with a pcb and are like "nope nope nuhu I refuse to believe that a retro pi or pc can be put into there to have the ultimate emulator nope closing my ears not listening" did I mention these machines at walmart are 200 right now
@@tjyoyo3 I'd personally never buy one for a simple reason. My local Walmart had 3 of them and each of the boxes were so damaged, they looked like a product that was on the shelf for years in clearance than a new product, you could see the el cheapo product falling apart. If you watch online you can often find real cabs, mostly empty, for free, in fact, I've gotten 9 of them myself. I'm also not a purest i'll be more than happy to mame and lcd them. Space argument is fair if you want your house to be filled with these eyesore knockoffs. I think too often people get obsessed with a shiny toy but don't think about what are the advantages and disadvantages of a certain product. At the end of the day, it all comes down to personal preference if you are happy with spending 300 bucks on something that will break down in a year and can't be repaired great. But seriously Arcade1Up should be ashamed with their crap product.
My sf2 arcade1up came in great shape and plays well. The #1 issue w the machine is fhe dumb ass decision to go w only a right speaker instead of spending the extra $5 for stereo sound. While it may not have the best joystick and buttons all mine function and game plays fine. The design of the controller and ball top should be better. It screws on without using a screwdriver to keep it tight so the ball works itself loose. I ended up going with a bat top and teflon tape that is keeping the sticks tight.
cwgraham dude don't blame the company for shipping what even is that they just came out. Also really you're going to ignore that I said you can put mame in that in order to use the argument yeah you'll have a ton of eyesore knockoffs. You use the analogy shiny toy yet people go and rent uhauls ("well I have a truck." Well I don't so there's another argument for you) for a whole day to pickup arcade machines for "a dirty toy" is that what you consider real arcade machines vs those shiny 1uparcade. What am I even arguing for at this point you literally are trying to make the point "I wouldn't buy one because I have 9 real ones already" dude you can make your own control panels if you want to play other games you don't need 23 of these machines just get one. Again space. You have the space. Not everyone does.
It's people like you who are going to put false info into people's heads and end up sinking the company that is a small startup just saying. So much for capitalism just hobbyists with vendettas. They sell really nice cabinets, I can give two shits about the controls I have sanwas already that I would put in them as soon as I get them. Like that's why boogie2988 said "it's not the end of the world that these are broken because you can upgrade the joysticks anyway to real fighter sticks or original Atari potentiometers." You are getting a nice size, all in one arcade machine that can fit in any conventional car for 200 dollars
I finnised the video you read about the trick. Thank you for all the information. Amazing video. hope youer well. I saw the video where you mentioned passing out. God Bless.
I'm digging this video because I picked up a Congorilla cabinet with a Crazy Kong board recently. Love your videos pal, they've helped me a ton! Edit: Also Crazy Kong was THE Donkey Kong for Europe. Nintendo hired Falcon to make Crazy Kong since they couldn't meet the demand for Donkey Kong in the EU. The EU arcades had Crazy Kongs and they thought Donkey Kong was the knockoff!
I live in New Zealand. Growing up in the 80's I never saw Donkey Kong, only Crazy Kong! I think NZ had a lot of bootleg games. Thanks for the great review!
Hey John great find. Early in the video you mention that Nintendo provided the assets to the manufacturers but not the code. I don't believe this is correct. I've done a side-by-side disassembly of DK and CK and match the binaries match precisely in most places. The differences generally can be chalked up first to some of the little anomalies we see in CK, but more to the hardware differences that required code changes to interface and control. The Crazy Climber architecture upon which CK is built is wildly incompatible with DK. It's a testament to Falcon (or whoever developed the conversion) that they were able to match the look as well as they did. You'll see, for instance, in CK Pauline doesn't shuffle her feet when crying for help. This is basically due to a limitation with the number of hardware sprites the game designers weren't clever enough to overcome--she's actually drawn in as a background character. IIRC the way the color ram is laid out explains why she "floats" above the platform. Sorry if I bored anyone, but I've been fascinated by this game since I first saw it at a donut shop in Long Beach, California some 35 years ago.
Our local convenience store had Crazy Kong when I was a kid. It was the first "Donkey Kong" I ever played and we played the hell out of it. Great fun. Way more interesting than Pac Man. The one I remember showed Kong in a cage, I think it was Crazy Kong 2. That might be what your falcon board has. It had better sounds and colors than the version you have here. There was no top edge glitch and the extra lives were in color at the very top. On the Pie Factory level, if you shake left and right with the hammer just right, he will drop it and you can pick it up later. A bunch of us watched an older teen get to the kill screen once. We didn't know it was called a "kill screen" back then. I remember thinking it was kind of a lame rip off thing to do. To crash the game on a good player. It would be years before I seen a real Donkey Kong machine and I thought DK looked boring compared to CK. I didn't realize the Pie Factory came later on in the real DK. I was like "this sucks, it doesn't even have the pie level!"
Ah this one was here in Indonesia! They were everywhere! I remember mimicking its die song whenever I was pretending to fell down from the chair! I was eight FYI.
The funny thing, John is, as you call this game "a weird version of Donkey Kong", that when I saw the first time Donkey Kong after having played Crazy Kong living in Europe, I thought that YOURS was "a weird version of Crazy Kong"! haha! BTW I think that the original board was a Falcon board. I still do remember the Name "Falcon" popping up on the screen back in time (1981) when playing the original Crazy Kong as a child.
My OCD is totally flipping out because of the broken plastic popcorn dispenser! Lots of people wondering where youre at dude. Hope you are well. Love the vids and the awesome basement! the Dragons Lair/Space Ace stuff made me pine for the 80s!
A second-hand store about half an hour from my house had a Congorilla dedicated cabinet a few years ago. I was looking for a cabinet to gut and make a MAME cabinet out of, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it because the thing looked pristine, and they only wanted $200 for it.
Tiny correction Falcon (Idk about Orca's or Zaccaria's licensed versions) actually started selling the Crazy Kong cabinets in the US, therefore they violated their licensing collaboration with Nintendo and it was quote on quote "turned" into a bootleg, I actually have a Crazy Kong at my grandparents (no cabinet art, but the marquee is black with red letters and white insides, Mario's jumping noise is also coincidentally from Crazy Climber! Elevators from the 75m area also go very slow and at times there aren't any elevators compared to the official game
Don't expect much from this channel anymore, John is to busy doing other things these days. There might be a video here and there, but don't hold your breath !
Although commonly believed to be a bootleg version, the game was officially licensed for operation in Japan when Nintendo couldn't keep up with demand at home (even though Donkey Kong was still released in Japan), and is based on different hardware. The game retains all of the game play elements of Donkey Kong, but has all of the graphics redrawn and re-colorized. Crazy Kong is also known as Congorilla, Crazy Kong Part II, Donkey King, and Monkey Donkey. There are two versions of the original: Crazy Kong and Crazy Kong Part II. The differences between them are in minor cinematic artifacts and bugs, color palette choices and minor game play differences. Crazy Kong Part I shows no copyright or company name on the title screen. Crazy Kong (parts I and II) runs on modified Crazy Climber hardware. In addition there are other versions of the game that run on Scramble, Jeutel, Orca, and Alca hardware. The official versions of game came in two different stand up cabinets that featured a large and angry, rather than comic, ape embedded in the artwork. The cabinets were created by Zaccaria. Nintendo allowed these versions to be created because they could NO LONGER KEEP UP DEMAND with their hardware etc. Crazy Kong (クレイジーコング) is a clone of Nintendo's Donkey Kong published by Falcon in 1981. Despite the fact it's a clone and its notorious presentation, it is actually an official licensed clone intended for Japan only. However, it has been distributed elsewhere in other parts of the world without a license from Nintendo.
I've noticed the change in cars once again; compared to the first-gen Explorer you first had, the new Explorer is kind of a pain to load tall items (like arcade cabinets, for example) in the back of because the rear hatch area swoops way down, so you grabbed a last-gen Grand Cherokee. Good choice, they use their interior space well.
Don’t change the marquee brackets! As crappy as those wood grain brackets are they are correct and original! I’ve had other copies of their cabs and many used the flimsy wood grain marquee brackets
You got a Crazy Kong! That's awesome! It's SOOO PINK! I went after watching this video to MAME and searched Crazy Kong, there's quite a few different bootlegs using different hardware, Galaxian, Moon cresta, which I'm sure you browsed MAME yourself. But ended up playing a few of them myself. As far as the Poker Machine monitor for Joe, if he chooses there are LCD alternatives out there like an Ceronix LCD kit. Hope that helps Joe.
I grew up with this game for years. Every summer, this was one of 2-4 games at the beach club my best friend owned. I wish I was old enough to buy it when they sold it. ARGH
This channel is awesome. I can't stop watching it. I think I'm at the point where I would like to get a cabinet. Are there any good video on getting started in buying (what to look for) and restoring a cabinet? What's the cheapest most common cabinet out there?
I miss you John! A funny thing happened today. I heard the song "Sophomore Makeout" by Silent Partner on a random video. I personally associate that song with you and your channel so much. To me it screams John's Arcade and up to this day, I've always thought it was a song made by The Kill Screens. Now I'll get a short circuit in my brain every time I think of this. I took it too literally when you once said that all music in your videos is made by you. Hope you'll be back soon bud!
When Jump man jumps, the sound is the same as Condor ‘unloading’ on Crazy Climber. The bouncing springs sounds are a sample of the Japanese CC falling - not the ‘oh noooo’ but an ‘ahhh’. I’d love to know if the manufacturer is Nichibutsu on that board of yours?
Love your videos, thanks for all you do for the community. Wondering if you know about the MiSTer project. It runs on a DE-10 Nano FPGA and it has a crazy kong core. This could easily be hooked up to your cabinet if you want another option. If your ever in NJ you should look me up as I have a similar arcade setup to you. Cya
It's weird. Sounds like jumpman (or this "evil version" of jumpman) is doing karate on the barrels when he jumps and is wearing suction cup sandals on the metal beams.
Finally! I always wondered what the hell was going on when I watched your donkey kong games, the levels were always completely out of order, compared to the way I remembered it as a kid (in the UK) Finally an explanation :D
9:19 I understand that "grey" importing of boards would have been pretty common in Europe, so there'd have been all kinds of clones of anything popular. But Crazy Kong is one of those names you'd see turn up on a lot of "unofficial" kong ports for home computers. 47:27 Would be interesting to compare the code. The CPU is the same between both boards, so should be natively compatible with the original code, but likely needed hacks to account for differences in other hardware which is probably the source of most of the glitches. The DK sound hardware was pretty weird. IIRC MAME used recorded samples for years because it didn't fully emulate the unique and original sound hardware, so the subsitution for sounds that the crazy climber board could already generate makes sense.
John talk to CrazyKongFan (Fred) on the KLOV forums, he knows a LOT about Crazy Kong, from what I understand Crazy Kong is based on a early unfinished version of the Donkey Kong code. You should interview Fred.
actually there IS a version of Crazy Kong that's on Galaxian hardware, so you weren't technically wrong there. (might be a bootleg of official crazy kong, which was of course crazy climber hardware.... which is where the terrible sounds are coming from :P) Also I believe that skip mentioned when you had the wiki page up works in one of the Japanese versions of Donkey Kong? so I've heard anyway) And your arcade 1up review is about what I expected, though that's about where I'm at on those... I do want one because with a craigslist cab stuff might be broken on it and you'd have to do extra work to get it going, with these you just spend an hour or whatever assembling it it works out of the box! from reviews I've seen most of the cabs aren't that bad, the street fighter one's supposed to be mostly spot on, though the tempest one I hear the spinner kinda sucks out of the box but could be fixed with a modification) and at least they all come with more than one game so you'll have at least a little variety there. I do have a USB joystick to play stuff in mame but it's still only partly the arcade experience.
I find it really interesting that the side art of this bootleg game features a brunette Pauline, very similar to her official modern Nintendo design, where as the original Nintendo Donkey Kong cabinets feature her with blonde hair.
John, re the shaker motor in the Ghostbusters pinball question: according to your video, your motor did not come with the bolts and you had to run to the store to get some and the t-nuts were already installed. Could it be a voltage issue that the guy from Australia might’ve had that maybe made the motor louder?
to be honest there are a ton of Crazy Kong versions out there, I've even seen versions that ran on Namco Galaxian hardware and even Scramble Hardware. Though most I've seen were based on Crazy Climber hardware, hence "Crazy Kong". sometimes the bootlegs are more interesting than the originals in some cases
Hey John, great to meet you. Glad my Crazy Kong went to a good home! I'm 99% sure those ugly woodgrain marquee brackets are actually original! By the way, I did not drill the holes in the control panel, I would never do that. The guy I got it from had a joystick in it with different holes he drilled. The one I put in uses the original holes. Great to see the video! Best of luck with it and enjoy. -Carl
Hey John I know you must be busy but even a few extra short little videos would go a long way to making us feel like your not almost retired from Youtubing. It kind of feels like the end of days for John's Arcade :(
Did John's Arcade shut down? Like the real arcades did long ago?
Joy! A monday John's Arcade video. And it's in the garage again.
I've missed these.
John!! We ALL Miss You!!!
On the next John's Arcade - John picks up a replacement Pac-Man.
Yay!! I needed my John's Arcade fix today.
It’s great to see you excited about an arcade machine again. I was beginning to think MKII had performed a fatality on the channel.
You have inspired me to not only go out and start collecting the games I love but to also start posting my projects on youtube. Hope you are doing well. Always exciting to see what you are working on and your collection.
Hey John, great find. I am very surprised that someone actually owned one previously as it was a European game. And wasn't made for the US. I happen to also own a 'Crazy Kong' machine at home myself. I am currently 14 years old and since then, I have dedicated my life on Crazy Kong and all arcade games. I love it. I also started a little arcade machine collection of my own. Ever since my dad introduced me to Crazy Kong when I was 3, I was hooked. I would use all my spare change. After a week or so, the machine would be full. Ever since playing Crazy Kong, I have learned a lot of things. In Crazy Kong, Mario can wait underneath a ladder and a barrel won't hit him. Unlike Donkey Kong. On the forth level (Second level on Donkey Kong), Mario can walk through Donkey Kong. Those are just a few tricks/tips I know. I know many more, but that's for you guys to figure out. John, I hope you enjoy. It is a great game. Please look after it and keep it. You won't find that many. Quick question, do you happen to know a game called Pengo?? That's one of the games I own in my collection. I believe it was licensed by Sega. I you find one, can you add it to your collection?? Also, do you know anyone who has a Mole Hunter machine?? It is a extremely rare Data East game released in 1980. Very few machines were made. My dad played a Mole hunter machine in the local shop when he was young?? If you know anyone who has it, can you tell them to dump the rom so I can play it on Mame. Thank you, and once again, enjoy.
It's almost March.... RIP John's Arcade 😥😥😥
I'm alive
John please, pretty please,do a brief 5-10 minute update video this weekend so everyone can relax 👑🎈🌭💥 🍲🍥🥢🍤
@@Johnsarcade woohoo!
I absolutely love Crazy Kong. The Pizza place in the small mall on Long Island had one in one of those generic woodgrain bootleg cabinets that had a stencil type marquee. The arcade in that same mall had the real-deal but I always gravitated to CC instead. The awful sounds, the f'd up levels, and glitchy graphics were way too fun! I gotta say...I am jealous of that cab and would have traded a Pac Caberet in a second for one too! Nice find. I also remember a version where the levels were green instead of orange.
Omg John
This was the version in my childhood arcade and in all the local arcades I new of in and around my home town in New Zealand. I found it weird when I seen donkey Kong on NES and believed it was inferior to crazy kong it's so good to see it again . Thank you for the video.
Wow, those sound effects brought me back! I remember playing Congorilla at the local pizza joint. Cool back round story on this game.
Nice find! My first arcade Donkey Kong experience was this version when I lived in Germany. A German restaurant near my school had an actual Nintendo version, but I was already used to playing this one.
Where'd you go John?! You should do a video of you and a couple friends just gaming in the basement!
Missing John's arcade videos
I love the regular uploads, keep it up John.
Yeah, I guessed pretty quickly what the game was. When you said you've been looking for one forever, I knew. Great find John!!
Dam!! You took me back to my childhood. I remember going to the grocery store where they had this game. Thank you.
Feel the same way about arcade 1up cabs.made too cheaply,much too short.great video,crazy kong is fun.keep the videos coming!
I've got one too! It's definitely a conversation piece and the family loves it.
Seeing arcade machines again makes me happy and sad at the same time. You can play them but never have that time back as a kid.
YES!!!! I played this all of the time, back in the day! Man, what a find, congrats John!
You got it! Great job (and thanks for the shout out). Glad you were able to make it work.
Your pac-man was/is beautiful, you did a great job restoring it. So, the rarity of Crazy Kong probably makes sense. Seems like a fair trade.
RIP John...No more brofest or hanger(which it been over 1 year)sense the last update....Sad
I remember playing this a few times at a grocery store back in the day. The one I played was a Falcon...”Crazy Kong Part II”. I liked it because I could get farther than I could on Donkey Kong. Oh, and I love the sound of the springs and the sound of his jump... :)
Hi John, I grew up playing this in the 80's in NJ. I play it every once in a while in Mame. I like it. Thanks for sharing.
I played this version of Kong in an arcade as a kid, and hated it. Thanks for a trip down memory lane. :D
I'm super psyched for you, I know you've mentioned wanting a Crazy Kong a few times, It sure is a funky take on the classic game. Another great video *and* I got an email read in a video for the second time so thanks for that too! Keep up the awesome stuff!
Yes... those Arcade1up cabinets are Crap...!! Your table top Popcorn Machine is better built.
FindingTheSunRecords not if you're trying to conserve space and don't want to have a gigantic arcade machine in your room and you don't want to support businesses that will sell custom mame cabs for 400+ dollars not including shipping (100 dollars there). Same principle for the tools needed to make a custom arcade machine (400-600) people just see the one up and see it comes with a pcb and are like "nope nope nuhu I refuse to believe that a retro pi or pc can be put into there to have the ultimate emulator nope closing my ears not listening" did I mention these machines at walmart are 200 right now
@@tjyoyo3 I'd personally never buy one for a simple reason. My local Walmart had 3 of them and each of the boxes were so damaged, they looked like a product that was on the shelf for years in clearance than a new product, you could see the el cheapo product falling apart. If you watch online you can often find real cabs, mostly empty, for free, in fact, I've gotten 9 of them myself. I'm also not a purest i'll be more than happy to mame and lcd them. Space argument is fair if you want your house to be filled with these eyesore knockoffs. I think too often people get obsessed with a shiny toy but don't think about what are the advantages and disadvantages of a certain product. At the end of the day, it all comes down to personal preference if you are happy with spending 300 bucks on something that will break down in a year and can't be repaired great. But seriously Arcade1Up should be ashamed with their crap product.
My sf2 arcade1up came in great shape and plays well. The #1 issue w the machine is fhe dumb ass decision to go w only a right speaker instead of spending the extra $5 for stereo sound. While it may not have the best joystick and buttons all mine function and game plays fine.
The design of the controller and ball top should be better. It screws on without using a screwdriver to keep it tight so the ball works itself loose. I ended up going with a bat top and teflon tape that is keeping the sticks tight.
cwgraham dude don't blame the company for shipping what even is that they just came out. Also really you're going to ignore that I said you can put mame in that in order to use the argument yeah you'll have a ton of eyesore knockoffs. You use the analogy shiny toy yet people go and rent uhauls ("well I have a truck." Well I don't so there's another argument for you) for a whole day to pickup arcade machines for "a dirty toy" is that what you consider real arcade machines vs those shiny 1uparcade. What am I even arguing for at this point you literally are trying to make the point "I wouldn't buy one because I have 9 real ones already" dude you can make your own control panels if you want to play other games you don't need 23 of these machines just get one. Again space. You have the space. Not everyone does.
It's people like you who are going to put false info into people's heads and end up sinking the company that is a small startup just saying. So much for capitalism just hobbyists with vendettas.
They sell really nice cabinets, I can give two shits about the controls I have sanwas already that I would put in them as soon as I get them. Like that's why boogie2988 said "it's not the end of the world that these are broken because you can upgrade the joysticks anyway to real fighter sticks or original Atari potentiometers." You are getting a nice size, all in one arcade machine that can fit in any conventional car for 200 dollars
Awesome surprise. Congrats! Laundry mat next to our grocery store had one.
Looking forward to the year end review :) Hope you had a nice Christmas and all the best for the new year!
Soon
@@Johnsarcade yay
I finnised the video you read about the trick. Thank you for all the information. Amazing video. hope youer well. I saw the video where you mentioned passing out. God Bless.
I'm digging this video because I picked up a Congorilla cabinet with a Crazy Kong board recently. Love your videos pal, they've helped me a ton!
Edit: Also Crazy Kong was THE Donkey Kong for Europe. Nintendo hired Falcon to make Crazy Kong since they couldn't meet the demand for Donkey Kong in the EU. The EU arcades had Crazy Kongs and they thought Donkey Kong was the knockoff!
I live in New Zealand. Growing up in the 80's I never saw Donkey Kong, only Crazy Kong! I think NZ had a lot of bootleg games. Thanks for the great review!
Glad you found a Crazy Kong. Seems like you’ve been after that for awhile. Have fun with it!!! Thanks for the vid.
John where are all the videos at?
Hey John great find. Early in the video you mention that Nintendo provided the assets to the manufacturers but not the code. I don't believe this is correct. I've done a side-by-side disassembly of DK and CK and match the binaries match precisely in most places. The differences generally can be chalked up first to some of the little anomalies we see in CK, but more to the hardware differences that required code changes to interface and control. The Crazy Climber architecture upon which CK is built is wildly incompatible with DK. It's a testament to Falcon (or whoever developed the conversion) that they were able to match the look as well as they did. You'll see, for instance, in CK Pauline doesn't shuffle her feet when crying for help. This is basically due to a limitation with the number of hardware sprites the game designers weren't clever enough to overcome--she's actually drawn in as a background character. IIRC the way the color ram is laid out explains why she "floats" above the platform.
Sorry if I bored anyone, but I've been fascinated by this game since I first saw it at a donut shop in Long Beach, California some 35 years ago.
Awesome! That's really interesting and good to know. It's crazy that they got the code to run on different hardware.
7:40 joystick discussion... love John's dedication to the little important details. :)
Our local convenience store had Crazy Kong when I was a kid. It was the first "Donkey Kong" I ever played and we played the hell out of it. Great fun. Way more interesting than Pac Man. The one I remember showed Kong in a cage, I think it was Crazy Kong 2. That might be what your falcon board has. It had better sounds and colors than the version you have here. There was no top edge glitch and the extra lives were in color at the very top. On the Pie Factory level, if you shake left and right with the hammer just right, he will drop it and you can pick it up later. A bunch of us watched an older teen get to the kill screen once. We didn't know it was called a "kill screen" back then. I remember thinking it was kind of a lame rip off thing to do. To crash the game on a good player. It would be years before I seen a real Donkey Kong machine and I thought DK looked boring compared to CK. I didn't realize the Pie Factory came later on in the real DK. I was like "this sucks, it doesn't even have the pie level!"
Ah this one was here in Indonesia! They were everywhere! I remember mimicking its die song whenever I was pretending to fell down from the chair! I was eight FYI.
I love how I watch the final pac man cabiret video and now he’s getting rid of it, I’m heartbroken
The funny thing, John is, as you call this game "a weird version of Donkey Kong", that when I saw the first time Donkey Kong after having played Crazy Kong living in Europe, I thought that YOURS was "a weird version of Crazy Kong"! haha! BTW I think that the original board was a Falcon board. I still do remember the Name "Falcon" popping up on the screen back in time (1981) when playing the original Crazy Kong as a child.
I guess John's Arcade is over.... RIP.
RIP
@@Johnsarcade He lives! But the channel doesn't apparently :(
My OCD is totally flipping out because of the broken plastic popcorn dispenser!
Lots of people wondering where youre at dude. Hope you are well. Love the vids and the awesome basement! the Dragons Lair/Space Ace stuff made me pine for the 80s!
A second-hand store about half an hour from my house had a Congorilla dedicated cabinet a few years ago. I was looking for a cabinet to gut and make a MAME cabinet out of, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it because the thing looked pristine, and they only wanted $200 for it.
The wood grain on the crazy kong marquee holder is original. Don't paint over it please!
Tiny correction
Falcon (Idk about Orca's or Zaccaria's licensed versions) actually started selling the Crazy Kong cabinets in the US, therefore they violated their licensing collaboration with Nintendo and it was quote on quote "turned" into a bootleg, I actually have a Crazy Kong at my grandparents (no cabinet art, but the marquee is black with red letters and white insides, Mario's jumping noise is also coincidentally from Crazy Climber! Elevators from the 75m area also go very slow and at times there aren't any elevators compared to the official game
So...4 months since last video. Are you okay? Have you left arcadedom? Hope your okay. Just discovered your channel but its tumbleweed at the moment.
Don't expect much from this channel anymore, John is to busy doing other things these days.
There might be a video here and there, but don't hold your breath !
John is stuck in the grid, we need to save him... John Lives!
Crazy Kong is a great game! Play it a lot up at FunSpot... great find John...👍👍👍
The Crazy Kong sounds sound metallic on the first screen during the Donkey Kong 'stomp'
How cool.thanks for the history lesson john! Fan from Australia
Oh yeah! I played a cab of this at Fun Spot once. As a Donkey Kong player I found it very amusing. ^_^
Although commonly believed to be a bootleg version, the game was officially licensed for operation in Japan when Nintendo couldn't keep up with demand at home (even though Donkey Kong was still released in Japan), and is based on different hardware. The game retains all of the game play elements of Donkey Kong, but has all of the graphics redrawn and re-colorized. Crazy Kong is also known as Congorilla, Crazy Kong Part II, Donkey King, and Monkey Donkey.
There are two versions of the original: Crazy Kong and Crazy Kong Part II. The differences between them are in minor cinematic artifacts and bugs, color palette choices and minor game play differences. Crazy Kong Part I shows no copyright or company name on the title screen. Crazy Kong (parts I and II) runs on modified Crazy Climber hardware. In addition there are other versions of the game that run on Scramble, Jeutel, Orca, and Alca hardware. The official versions of game came in two different stand up cabinets that featured a large and angry, rather than comic, ape embedded in the artwork. The cabinets were created by Zaccaria. Nintendo allowed these versions to be created because they could NO LONGER KEEP UP DEMAND with their hardware etc. Crazy Kong (クレイジーコング) is a clone of Nintendo's Donkey Kong published by Falcon in 1981. Despite the fact it's a clone and its notorious presentation, it is actually an official licensed clone intended for Japan only. However, it has been distributed elsewhere in other parts of the world without a license from Nintendo.
I've noticed the change in cars once again; compared to the first-gen Explorer you first had, the new Explorer is kind of a pain to load tall items (like arcade cabinets, for example) in the back of because the rear hatch area swoops way down, so you grabbed a last-gen Grand Cherokee. Good choice, they use their interior space well.
I know you’re busy with your podcasts etc, but I’ve really missed your videos John! Really happy to see this one in my notifications this morning 👍
RIP John's Arcade
Nice one John! Gonna play Crazy Kong next time I go to Arcade Club in Bury UK. 😎👍👍👍👍
No year end tour of the arcade for 2018?
the jumping sound on Crazy Kong sounds like Mario is screaming in pain haha
I think Crazy Kong made it as far as South Carolina because I seem to remember playing this at a pizza joint down in Myrtle Beach in the mid 80s
Don’t change the marquee brackets! As crappy as those wood grain brackets are they are correct and original!
I’ve had other copies of their cabs and many used the flimsy wood grain marquee brackets
I was going to say the same. I've had one and I also thought it was weird and not correct but they are original.
You got a Crazy Kong! That's awesome! It's SOOO PINK! I went after watching this video to MAME and searched Crazy Kong, there's quite a few different bootlegs using different hardware, Galaxian, Moon cresta, which I'm sure you browsed MAME yourself. But ended up playing a few of them myself. As far as the Poker Machine monitor for Joe, if he chooses there are LCD alternatives out there like an Ceronix LCD kit. Hope that helps Joe.
I grew up with this game for years. Every summer, this was one of 2-4 games at the beach club my best friend owned. I wish I was old enough to buy it when they sold it. ARGH
This channel is awesome. I can't stop watching it. I think I'm at the point where I would like to get a cabinet. Are there any good video on getting started in buying (what to look for) and restoring a cabinet? What's the cheapest most common cabinet out there?
I miss you John! A funny thing happened today. I heard the song "Sophomore Makeout" by Silent Partner on a random video. I personally associate that song with you and your channel so much. To me it screams John's Arcade and up to this day, I've always thought it was a song made by The Kill Screens. Now I'll get a short circuit in my brain every time I think of this. I took it too literally when you once said that all music in your videos is made by you. Hope you'll be back soon bud!
As soon as you said it was a crazy bootleg I knew it would be Crazy Kong. We all know you can’t resist a Donkey Kong game! ;)
When Jump man jumps, the sound is the same as Condor ‘unloading’ on Crazy Climber. The bouncing springs sounds are a sample of the Japanese CC falling - not the ‘oh noooo’ but an ‘ahhh’.
I’d love to know if the manufacturer is Nichibutsu on that board of yours?
Hope you are keeping well John. Miss you videos but look forward to your comeback when your ready. Good luck from Dublin.
There's a cocktail cabinet for sale up here in Canada and it's in a crazy climber cab.
Love your videos, thanks for all you do for the community. Wondering if you know about the MiSTer project. It runs on a DE-10 Nano FPGA and it has a crazy kong core. This could easily be hooked up to your cabinet if you want another option. If your ever in NJ you should look me up as I have a similar arcade setup to you. Cya
John, did you get rid of Mad Planets (missing 37:08) because the game pertrays other planets and that they are round and not flat?
Crazy Kong...its like “Donkey Kong in bizarro world” cool game!
The Crazy Climber sounds crack me up
It's weird. Sounds like jumpman (or this "evil version" of jumpman) is doing karate on the barrels when he jumps and is wearing suction cup sandals on the metal beams.
It's interesting. I'd swear I played a BBC Micro clone of Donkey Kong that used those sounds.
Finally! I always wondered what the hell was going on when I watched your donkey kong games, the levels were always completely out of order, compared to the way I remembered it as a kid (in the UK) Finally an explanation :D
Awesome! Play the hell out of this game as a kid! Great backstory!
As soon as I saw the pink, I knew what it was. I’d love to get a Crazy Kong. It’s the only original Kong I don’t have. Nice score!
I believe the board you were playing in your garage was Crazy Kong II. The girders in the original Crazy Kong are green.
Cheers for the upload John! Looking forward to watching tonight!
Funny cuz this is the version they had at the 7-11 back in the day....great memories!
Great to see you've finally found a Crazy Kong at last. It looks in lovely condition considering!
I have a Crazy Kong in the UK with various PCBs, the Falcon Crazy Kong Pt 2 is the best version for sure.
9:19 I understand that "grey" importing of boards would have been pretty common in Europe, so there'd have been all kinds of clones of anything popular.
But Crazy Kong is one of those names you'd see turn up on a lot of "unofficial" kong ports for home computers.
47:27 Would be interesting to compare the code. The CPU is the same between both boards, so should be natively compatible with the original code, but likely needed hacks to account for differences in other hardware which is probably the source of most of the glitches.
The DK sound hardware was pretty weird. IIRC MAME used recorded samples for years because it didn't fully emulate the unique and original sound hardware, so the subsitution for sounds that the crazy climber board could already generate makes sense.
John talk to CrazyKongFan (Fred) on the KLOV forums, he knows a LOT about Crazy Kong, from what I understand Crazy Kong is based on a early unfinished version of the Donkey Kong code. You should interview Fred.
actually there IS a version of Crazy Kong that's on Galaxian hardware, so you weren't technically wrong there. (might be a bootleg of official crazy kong, which was of course crazy climber hardware.... which is where the terrible sounds are coming from :P) Also I believe that skip mentioned when you had the wiki page up works in one of the Japanese versions of Donkey Kong? so I've heard anyway)
And your arcade 1up review is about what I expected, though that's about where I'm at on those... I do want one because with a craigslist cab stuff might be broken on it and you'd have to do extra work to get it going, with these you just spend an hour or whatever assembling it it works out of the box! from reviews I've seen most of the cabs aren't that bad, the street fighter one's supposed to be mostly spot on, though the tempest one I hear the spinner kinda sucks out of the box but could be fixed with a modification) and at least they all come with more than one game so you'll have at least a little variety there. I do have a USB joystick to play stuff in mame but it's still only partly the arcade experience.
In Germany they had these games as well, but in Holland we had normal Nintendo donkey kong cabs.
It seems those glitches are your machine, John. They don't appear evident in MAME. You probably checked that out already, though.
I had Crazy Kong in my garage for a couple of years. Didn’t even know it was rare. Should have kept it. :(
I find it really interesting that the side art of this bootleg game features a brunette Pauline, very similar to her official modern Nintendo design, where as the original Nintendo Donkey Kong cabinets feature her with blonde hair.
John, re the shaker motor in the Ghostbusters pinball question: according to your video, your motor did not come with the bolts and you had to run to the store to get some and the t-nuts were already installed.
Could it be a voltage issue that the guy from Australia might’ve had that maybe made the motor louder?
The more obscure and weird a game is, the more i love it
love the sound Mario makes when he jumps
From what Fred told me is the crappy Donkey Kong on some levels is it's from an older version before Miyamoto had sent all the art to Ikegami.
to be honest there are a ton of Crazy Kong versions out there, I've even seen versions that ran on Namco Galaxian hardware and even Scramble Hardware. Though most I've seen were based on Crazy Climber hardware, hence "Crazy Kong".
sometimes the bootlegs are more interesting than the originals in some cases
The sound sample of Mario walking is the exact same sample of crazy climber climbing
Always love the show..No I have enough full size arcade projects..I would spend the $250 on parts or monitor rebuilds...Cheers😎👍😎
Hey John good to see you back! I picked up a Data East Laser War, super excited!
Hey John, great to meet you. Glad my Crazy Kong went to a good home! I'm 99% sure those ugly woodgrain marquee brackets are actually original! By the way, I did not drill the holes in the control panel, I would never do that. The guy I got it from had a joystick in it with different holes he drilled. The one I put in uses the original holes. Great to see the video! Best of luck with it and enjoy. -Carl