Arcade Donkey Kong Attract Mode Scoring Discrepancy.

[Pantechnicon]

Mrs. Pan has been playing a lot of Donkey Kong on the family's MAME cab lately and noticed something I had never thought about before (and I'm supposed to be the house expert on these things ).

When a Donkey Kong ROM (and presumably a real machine) starts up, three of the five default high scores listed in attract mode end in increments of 50:

1st Place: 7650
3rd Place: 5950
4th Place: 5050

...and yet, Mrs. Pan rightly points out that these scores are impossible to get since all the scoring values in the game occur in increments of 100's

So, what's the deal, Neil? My working guess is that in the early iterations of the game the scoring values might have been different. Say, 50 points for jumping a barrel. Then at some later point the actual values were adjusted, but the values programmed early in attract mode were not adjusted to reflect the new scoring system. Does anyone know something maybe more specific about this?

[Blitzwing256]

I always assumed it was so you knew what scores were earned and which were the default.

[Pantechnicon]

I always assumed it was so you knew what scores were earned and which were the default.

Well, possibly, but that doesn't explain why the scores for 2nd Place (6100) and 5th Place (4300) are consistent with the values in the actual game.

[Jorpho]

Clearly it is a secret message that, when decoded, will yield the coordinates of Miyamoto's home planet.

Or not.

[Pantechnicon]

Clearly it is a secret message that, when decoded, will yield the coordinates of Miyamoto's home planet.

...wherein we will discover it's populated by sentient mushrooms and littered with gold coins and scenic lakes.

But seriously, I'm bumping this just once in case someone has an actual answer. Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

[DonMarco]

Maybe everything was originally in increments of 50 points, and later on they figured 100 was a good number for the Americans?

[jb143]

Maybe they weren't paying much attention and just made up numbers. I wouldn't be surprized if this was the case on other games as well.