Dad Hacks ‘Donkey Kong,’ Lets Daughter Play Pauline Instead [Video]
One dad has hacked Donkey Kong to let his three-year-old daughter play Pauline instead of Mario. Both the father, YouTube user Mike Mika, and his young daughter love to play old video games together.
But, as Mika explained on YouTube, his toddler daughter was disappointed when she wasn’t able to play the character Pauline and rescue Mario in the classic Donkey Kong game.
The hero dad explained that his young daughter was able to play Princess Toadstool in Super Mario Bros. 2. Therefore, she assumed she would also be able to play as a girl in Donkey Kong as well.
The father explained to the three-year-old that she wasn’t able to be the girl in that particular Mario game. As he puts it, “She seemed really bummed out by that.” So, what does a hero father do? He hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter. Mika went on to say, “Now I’m up at midnight hacking the ROM, replacing Mario with Pauline.”
He went on to detail his efforts via Facebook screenshots uploaded by a friend how he used the 2010 NES Donkey Kong REM to redraw the frames. He had his daughter’s help Beta testing the new game, which he also renamed “Donkey Kong: Pauline Edition.”
Screenshots, as well as the link to the video, were uploaded on Reddit, where the user suggested it isn’t the first time Mike Mika has used his digital artistry skills to express his love for the women in his life.
The Reddit user explained: “He also proposed to his wife through an Easter egg in a shipped game he worked on and has the greatest vintage video game collection I (and most others) have ever seen in person.”
The dad who hacked Donkey Kong is not the first father to redraw the gaming lines to please his daughter. Another dad, Mike Hoye, changed the text of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker to allow his three-year-old daughter to play Zelda instead of Link. He explained, “I’m not having my daughter growing up thinking girls don’t get to be the hero.”
The dad who hacked Donkey Kong for his young daughter is just one of several hero dads we’ve come across on the internet.
