In mid-2023, The Strong National Museum of Play established a bright monument to arcade gaming: a giant, nearly 20-foot-tall playable Donkey Kong arcade cabinet. Now, the museum is encouraging everyone to visit its 370% bigger Donkey Kong, to compete for high scores.
This does come with the caveat that you’ll need to be around Rochester, New York in the United States, but with the hurdle of location cleared, you’ll have free rein to test your skills against every visitor to the museum. Currently, the high score to beat is 52,600, so there’s a high fence to climb (and plenty of patience needed) but there’s always further horizons to reach for.
That’s not to mention the novelty of playing on a giant-sized arcade cabinet. The Strong National Museum of Play was certainly having fun when they devised their larger Donkey Kong.
“Donkey Kong is a true titan in the video game world – both in terms of character size and the iconic status of the game – so it lends itself perfectly to this playful, whimsical installation,” Jon-Paul Dyson, PhD, vice president for exhibits at The Strong said of the cabinet on reveal.
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As detailed, Nintendo of America played a hand in its creation, providing guidance to the team of The Strong to make the cabinet “as authentically and true to the original game as possible.” It actually runs off a motherboard from an original Donkey Kong cabinet, so players can experience the game as it was originally created, rather than through emulation.
Anyone keen to test their mettle with this enormous Donkey Kong arcade machine can find it located outside the ESL Digital Worlds gallery on the second floor of The Strong National Museum of Play. You can learn more about The Strong on its website.
