David Goldenberg on Dean Saglio, a 38-year-old real estate agent from Rhode Island, who holds the world-record score in Donkey Kong (1,206,800):
While “Donkey Kong” is a relatively simple game of running and jumping (and occasionally smashing) whose board layouts start to repeat after level four, there’s no fixed number of points you can score in a game; a random number generator determines the value of many of the prizes you encounter and the path some of the obstacles take. But the game does crap out due to a malfunction on the start of level 22 — the infamous kill screen — making it possible to figure out the maximum number of points possible. Young has calculated that a player using optimal strategy and getting as many lucky breaks as possible would score 1,265,000 points. Saglio is 95.4 percent of the way there.
That’s absolutely insane. But even more insane is this:
“The King of Kong” is the 2007 hit documentary about the machinations of a dueling duo of “Donkey Kong” world record holders, Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe, as they battled it out in the race toward 1 million points. In the film, Mitchell is presented as a hilarious ’80s-style villain who takes his record incredibly seriously and occasionally refers to himself in the third person. Wiebe is portrayed as a sad sack teacher looking for a break. While the rivalry between Mitchell and Wiebe was marked by secrecy and allegations of cheating, the new “Donkey Kong” record chasers are radically transparent about their strategies. “After the documentary came out, it became a collaborative effort — we were all trying to chase their scores,” Saglio said. “It was an ‘us vs. them’ mentality.” Now, anyone who wants to be competitive for the record has to be embedded in Donkey Kong Forum, or else they won’t learn the point-grinding strategies needed to chase glory. Saglio points out that Wiebe still is interested in the game and plays regularly but has handicapped himself by never getting involved with the community. “He fell behind,” Saglio said. “He’s no longer capable of challenging for the record.”
I remember watching that documentary and being amazed by how devoted two people can be to one video game – and now those guys have been left in the dust. And it’s that documentary that kicked off the “arms race” to beat them.
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