Gaming on AmigaOS 4.1: Donkey Kong – Game and Watch LCD Remake (A. Myren)

The game running on the AmigaOS 4.1 desktop. Looks very nice!

Hi and welcome to a new review here on the Gaming on AmigaOS 4.1 blog.

Do you remember the old Game & Watch games from Nintendo?

If you do and enjoyed playing those, then you might find this new remake for AmigaOS 4 interesting. The developer, A. Myren, has created a version of the game running on your desktop!

The game should run fine on all AmigaOS 4 setups. I have tested it on both a SAM 460 and in WinUAE.

Installation

The game is available for download at Aminet. I have included a link below:

http://aminet.net/game/wb/DonkeyKong_OS4.lha

To get the game up and running, click on the download link and choose the destination. Once it finishes downloading, enter the appropriate drawer. Right click on the icon and select “extract to”, then choose where you want it unpacked. Once unarchived, navigate to where you unpacked it and double-click on “DonkeyKong_OS4”. The game starts right away.

Gameplay

As mentioned earlier, this is a remake of an old Game & Watch game. I remember playing a few of those in the past, but that is a long time ago and I never owned such a handheld myself during childhood.

The developer has done a great job bringing such a game to the AmigaOS 4 desktop. The interface looks like the old physical handheld as I remember it, which is very cool. The buttons you see on the picture can actually be pressed using the mouse or keyboard and that is a nice feature. Buttons are not only for decoration, but for actual use.

Now, how does it play?

If you are not familiar with the game from before, the purpose is to save the girl at the top of the screen who has been captured by a gorilla. To reach the girl, you need to jump over rolling barrels and avoid beams. It is not easy and will require a bit of playing to master it.

To control the character, you can either use the mouse or keyboard. There are two game modes available, A and B. You can read more about the different keys in the documention of the game. I found it best to use the cursor keys to move the charachter and space to jump.

I played it a bit on the SAM 460 and it played like I remembered the old Game & Watch games. Controls are responsive and everything seems to be working correctly on the screen. It also worked fine in emulation with WinUAE (FlowerPot).

The graphics looks very nice and authentic, like the real thing. That counts for the sound as well.

So, is it worth checking out?

Definitely. It is free and quick to download. If you are into games like this and want a nostalgic experience, then I highly recommend checking this game out. 🙂 I will keep it on the HD for nostalgic adventuring, but also for showing it to people who might ask if I have something fun to show them on the SAM 460. 😉