The Kong Off II

[P-Man]

hi all..

l thought i would tell you about the Kong Off II happening in Denver, Colorado right now at the 1UP bar..

If you can imagine the scene, 16 - yes, 16 original Donkey Kong machines in a row, with top players competing head to head. Billy Mitchell, Steve Wiebe, Hank Chien, all the masters. (although Billy Mitchell isnt really in contention here).

We are halfway through the first day and we have several 1 million+ games plus 2 killscreens.

The machines are holding up well, all things considered! no dead ones yet.

there are live streams and videos to watch during the event, so take a look!

thekongoff.com

enjoy!

 

[forcefulfil]

NICE ONE!
u lucky fella,cheers for the linky

phil

 

[dragonv480]

It was the discussion about this on another forum that made me cease my UKVAC abstinence! Was glad to hear you were playing a part in this event, P-Man

 

[P-Man]

I'm back home now.. phew..

The machines held up well, only a few tweaks needed, one monitor swapout, one pcb swapout and some joystick/button tuning/twiddling was all it took. The event also showcased a Berzer/Frenzy hiscore attempt as well as joust and a few others...

It was a resounding success with local and national TV news coverage, lots of magazines and newspaper articles etc... There were three documentary film crews at the event so i might pop up somewhere in them too when they hit the screens...

I brought back some Kong Off II marquees as well, a nice little memento, i even had a couple signed by Billy Mitchell, Steve Wiebe, Hank Chien (current hiscore world champ) and Jeff Willms (event winner)

Main Kong Off II page :

http://donkeykongblog.blogspot.co.uk/p/the-kong-off-2.html

results page :

http://donkeykongblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/kong-off-2-final-results.html

Are there any outstanding Donkey Kong players here in this country? We need to give these yanks a run for their money. Start Practising for next years event!

P-Man2012-11-25 16:03:47

 

[Jodo]

Sounds like you had a great time

Thanks for sharing! Did you get many words with Billy?

 

[P-Man]

I've met Billy a few times at arcade events since 2001, he's ok - dont let the King of Kong movie fool you into thinking otherwise. He's a personality and loves the attention, this is also true. He's a good all-round player but has been party to some unscrupulous behaviour in the past in order to advance the face of videogaming hiscore competition. At the end of the day we're talking about videogames, and we all know that its not always the right person takes credit for a discovery in the history books

Prep work finishing off the machines before moving them downstairs :

http://www.andysarcade.net/pix/KODKS.jpg

Here's the final lineup:

http://www.andysarcade.net/pix/KODKROW.JPG

(we had already removed the Kong Off II marquees and put in originals - the day after the event)

Here's a pic of me, Jason, Jon and Billy, me doing a cheeky thumbs up too

http://www.andysarcade.net/pix/KO2.jpg

here's my own signed marquee from the event :

http://www.andysarcade.net/pix/KO2MQS.JPG

Signed by Billy Mitchell, Steve Wiebe, Hank Chien (current hiscore world champ) and Jeff Willms (event winner)

P-Man2012-11-26 10:43:18

 

[Bensonrad]

Great stuff Andy, so how did you manage to get involved with it all in the first place. Events like this are great and really help promote the old skool games.

 

[P-Man]

I've been good friends with Jon for at least 12 years or more and usually visit him once a year. He happened to get involved with the 1Up, and supplies/runs/maintain all of their games and is a partner in things. I decided to time my visit this year to the Kong Off 2 and of course got roped in to help as it was a lot of work for Jon do get everything ready and keep it going, i was there to help Jon really, but of course my technical talents got me thrown right into things.

I ended up verifying all Donkey Kong pcb romsets with a rom burner so that the competition was fair across the 16 machines... There are two romsets for donkey kong, and people that burn roms to replace faulty ones (on some of the pcbs we had) don't always put in the right code to match the game. Donkey Kong has no CRC or rom check on boot, you can put in roms with bad bits or from different versions and it will still run and wont say anything, but might act weird down the line. everyone uses (US set 2) from mame (usually you see a red 'G' stamped on the rom labels, or you see no 'G' at all. If you see 'E' then its the earlier set)

I will probably help out on future events over there too. Further involvement is under discussion considering the 1up runs TwinGalaxies now.

P-Man2012-11-26 12:37:22

 

[Nintendo Arcade]

Great pictures andy
Amazing to see all those Nintendos together .

 

[virtvic]

Nice!

The first picture looks like pman is being bullied into the repairs by all the DK machines looking in on him!

 

[andyman]

I ended up verifying all Donkey Kong pcb romsets with a rom burner so that the competition was fair across the 16 machines

How enjoyable was that, highlight of the trip or what