Billy Mitchell congratulating me @ Kong Off 4!

memesteemit (59)in #video • 8 years ago

With all the talk of Billy Mitchell's high score on Donkey Kong being disqualified and taken down from Twin Galaxies, I thought I would share my experience with the Donkey Kong community...and reaching a competitive spot with all the Donkey Kong greats.

It all started with a documentary I watched many years ago called The King of Kong:

The story is told of Steve Wiebe's quest to take the world record in Donkey Kong, and more so, get his score recognized and approved by the evil empire Twin Galaxies. I won't go into the movie, but if you haven't seen it before, it is a great watch...even if you have no interest in video games. It is a great good vs. evil story.

After finding and buying an original DK machine, I spent hours playing, obsessed with the quest of scoring a million points and being able to compete against these guys. Only the best were invited to the Kong Off competitions. Flash forward a year of many failed attempts, and I have finally done it:

Next stop, Denver, CO, site of the Kong Off 3. I had made it. The star from the documentary and all the great players were there. Below is the first time meeting Steve Wiebe:

I snapped this photo of Bill and Steve, along with the man behind the Kong Offs, Richie Knucklez:

Billy and Steve are both really nice people when you talk with them in person. I can't say a bad thing about either of them. Steve is a very humble guy, went out to lunch with us players, played chess during breaks from the competition, and just enjoyed being around everyone.
Billy was more there for the show, promoting, and also did a lot of engaging with the crowd and hyping up the players. He never did a whole lot of playing though. In fact, the highest score I ever saw him put up at a live event was just over 900,000, which I snapped a photo of here (taken at the Kong Off 3 in Denver, CO - at the 1UP barcade):

This was not a kill screen, as you can see in the upper right the level he dies on was 21. L22 is the kill screen, so it was possible to score more points in this game, but not enough to get to 1,000,000.

My highlight of the KO3 can be seen here, a video taken by Shaun Boyd of me, reaching the kill screen and making the top 10 for the weekend:

The entire weekend was documented by The Verge, who focused on Shaun and did a short documentary, which can be viewed here:

Flash forward to the Kong Off 4, which changed venues from Denver to Pittsburg, at an event called Replay FX. This is the location most of the photos of Billy were taken at...that are being used in the recent articles which talk about his high score being removed from the record books.

This video at the front of my post is of me, being congratulated by Billy and Richie, after reaching the kill screen, and securing a spot in the top 8, which get to advance to the final round of play to take place the following day (Sunday).

I ended up getting matched against one of the best players in the world, Dean Saglio. Below is a pic of us battling head to head on Sunday:

I lost that match, and that ended my run. Was a great run, though.

From there I slowly lost interest and faded away from competitive Donkey Kong. My goals, in the end, were reached. I had made it to the top, competed with the best, and even made it to the final day of competition where only the strongest had survived.

I still have my DK machine, and will never sell it. It is a memento that I will keep with me as a reminder of my 15 minutes of fame within the Donkey Kong community.

Check out www.donkeykongforum.com if this interests you. Tons of great info there, and a very nice community of players.

Video credit of my KO4 kill screen goes to TJ Jones.