Donkey Kong Bongos Ditch The GameCube, Go Mobile

Historically speaking, optional peripherals for game consoles tend not to be terribly successful. You’ll usually get a handful of games that support the thing, one of which will likely come bundled with it, and then the whole thing fades into obscurity to make way for the next new gimmick.

For example, did you know Nintendo offered a pair of bongos for the GameCube in 2003? They were used almost exclusively by the trio of Donkey Konga rhythm games, although only two of them were ever released outside of Japan. While the games might not have been huge hits, they were successful enough to stick in the memory of [bl3i], who wanted a way to keep the DK bongo experience alive.

The end result is, arguably, more elegant than the hokey musical controller deserves. While most people would have just gutted the plastic bongos and crammed in some new hardware, [bl3i] went through considerable effort so the original hardware would remain intact. His creation simply snaps onto the bongos and connects to them via the original cable.

Internally, the device uses an Arduino to read the output of the bongos (which appeared to the GameCube essentially as a standard controller) and play the appropriate WAV files from an SD card as hits are detected. Add in an audio amplifier module and a battery, and Nintendo’s bongos can finally go forth into the world and spread their beats.

As far as we’re able to tell, this is the first time the Donkey Kong bongos have ever graced the pages of Hackaday in any form, so congratulations to [bl3i] for getting there first. But it’s certainly not the first time we’ve covered ill-conceived game gadgets — long time readers will perhaps be familiar with Nintendo’s attempt to introduce the Robotic Operating Buddy (ROB) to households back in 1985.

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A Model Of Dry Humor

If you want to see a glorious combination of model bananas in a treehouse mixed with a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor, you will appreciate [Studson]’s build video. Video also after the break. He is making an homage to Donkey Kong 64 from 1999, which may be a long time ago for some folks’ memory (Expansion Pak). Grab a piece of your favorite banana-flavored fruit and sit tight for joke delivery as dry as his batch of baked bark.

The treehouse uses a mixture of found material and crafting supplies. In a colorful twist, all the brown bark-wielding sticks are green, while the decorative greenery came from a modeling store shelf. It all starts with a forked branch pruned from the backyard and a smooth-sided container lid that might make you look twice the next time you nuts are buying a bin of assorted kernels. If you thought coffee stirrers couldn’t be used outside their intended purpose, prepare to have your eyes opened, but remember to wear eye protection as some of the wood clippings look like they could achieve escape velocity. The key to making this look like an ape abode, and not a birdhouse, is the color choices and finishing techniques. Judging by the outcome and compared to the steps, making a model of this caliber is the sign of an expert.

If you wish to binge on wooden Donkey Kong, we can grant your desire, but if you prefer your treehouses life-sized, this may launch your imagination.

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Creative Limitation And The Super Nintendo Sound Chips

The Super Nintendo recently experienced a surge in popularity, either from a combination of nostalgic 30-somethings recreating their childhoods, or because Nintendo released a “classic” version of this nearly-perfect video game system. Or a combination of both. But what made the system worthy of being remembered at all? With only 16 bits and graphics that look ancient by modern standards, gameplay is similarly limited. This video from [Nerdwriter1] goes into depth on a single part of the console – the sound chips – and uses them to illustrate a small part of what makes this console still worth playing even now.

The SNES processed sound with two chips, a processing core and a DSP. They only had a capacity of 64 kb, meaning that all of a game’s sounds and music had to fit in this tiny space. This might seem impossible if you’ve ever played enduring classics like Donkey Kong Country, a game known for its impressive musical score. This is where the concept of creative limitation comes in. The theory says that creativity can flourish if given a set of boundaries. In this case it was a small amount of memory, and within that tiny space the composer at Rare who made this game a work of art was able to develop a musical masterpiece within strict limitations.

Even though this video only discusses the sound abilities of the SNES, which are still being put to good use, it’s a good illustration of what made this system so much fun. Even though it was limited, game developers (and composers) were able to work within its limitations to create some amazingly fun games that seem to have withstood the test of time fairly well. Not all of the games were winners, but the ones that were still get some playtime from us even now.

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Mechanical Donkey Kong Features Laser Cut Mario

[Martin] just sent in a project he’s been working on that takes Donkey Kong out of the realm of pixels and sprites and puts our hero Mario into a world made of laser cut plywood.

This mechanical version of Donkey Kong uses an Arduino stuffed into an old NES to control Mario jumping over ball bearing ‘barrels.’ The game starts with 12 of these barrels ready to be thrown by our favorite gorilla antagonist, which Mario carefully dodges with the help of a pair of servos.

This is only the first iteration of [Martin]’s mechanical version of Donkey Kong. The next version will keep the clever means of notifying the player if Mario is crushed by a barrel – a simple magnet glued to the back of the Mario piece – and will be shown at the UK Maker Faire next year.

Although [Martin]’s ideas for a mechanical version of Donkey Kong aren’t fully realized with this build, it’s already a build equal to electromechanical Pong.

Propeller Arcade

This arcade cabinet has been saved from a gruesome death. [Oldbitcollector] picked the broken rig up for $50 and is building a Parallax Propeller based arcade machine. This began back in October and he’s just dropped in a newly painted control panel to replace the NES controller seen above. He pulled the replacement screen out of an old 19″ TV and found it to be a perfect fit. We didn’t find a complete list of available games but we know he’s got a menu system to choose the game and have seen Donkey Kong, Frogger, Defender, and at least one other in the videos. There’s less choices than a MAME cabinet but who needs more than a handful of the old 8-bit gems anyway?

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