Game developer Mike Mika is the proud father of a three-year-old daughter who loves to play Donkey Kong on Nintendo, but she has one small hang up: sure, Mario’s great and all, but why can’t the roles be reversed? Why can’t Mario be the dandy-in-distress and be rescued by the heroic Pauline? So that’s what Mike did.
Two days ago, she asked me if she could play as the girl and save Mario. She’s played as Princess Toadstool in Super Mario Bros. 2 and naturally just assumed she could do the same in Donkey Kong. I told her we couldn’t in that particular Mario game, she seemed really bummed out by that. So what else am I supposed to do? Now I’m up at midnight hacking the ROM, replacing Mario with Pauline. I’m using the 2010 NES Donkey Kong ROM. I’ve redrawn Mario’s frames and I swapped the palettes in the ROM. (Via)
Mike even replaced the “M” at the top of the screen with a “P,” though he really should have swapped out Donkey Kong for Birdo for maximum effect.
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Great, just another example of the patriarchy – his “helpless” daughter needs saving and the big strong “dad” comes in to save the day? Spare me, seen this tired trope far too many times.
Insert “Can’t tell if trolling/Fry meme”
Best part of the story is that this girl is playing the classics and enjoying it
Niiice. Although if he really wanted to be accurate (check out the original story) it should have been Pauline saving Donkey Kong from the evil Italian stereotype that imprisoned him.
Jumpman seems like an inaccurate moniker now, more along the lines of “Stand man” or “Monkey-adjacent man” (Which is incidentally my superhero alter ego)
Monkeys aren’t donkeys!
Great, overachieving dad just raises the bar for all other men. THANKS, DAD.