DK Runner

It is important to note that this idea was developed and implemented before the announcement of Super Mario Run.

In October of 2015, my team and I were challenged to recreate the original Donkey Kong arcade game and then re-envision it into something new. Over the course of the month, DK Runner was created. What started as a simple prototyping challenge turned into an interesting concept piece.

You play as Mario in an infinite-runner world. There will be the common obstacle that you would find in Donkey Kong and Super Mario that the player will need to avoid. Just like in the original Donkey Kong, you can pick up a Hammer and use it to smash those obstacles. You can also find Pauline's collectible items from the arcade game.

Running, dodging, and smashing obstacles with the hammer all award you points. Collecting Pauline's items also award you points. As you increase in score, Mario will run faster and faster. After gaining 2000 points, Donkey Kong will appear in the game world.

The game climaxes in a battle between the player and Donkey Kong. They will have to use the Hammer to smash special barrels back towards Donkey Kong to damage him.

The player wins the game by defeating Donkey Kong. Similar to the original Donkey Kong arcade game, the player will have three lives in which to beat the game. Getting hit by an obstacle will cause you to lose a life.

Upon completion of this concept level, we began talk of expanding the game to include other iconic characters from the Mario universe and pitching the idea to Nintendo themselves. A few days after this meeting, we saw Nintendo's announcement for Super Mario Run and abandoned the project.