Nintendo has added two very important Mario Game Boy games onto Nintendo Switch Online, in the build up to MAR10 Day.
Donkey Kong was released on the Game Boy in 1994, launching with support for the also recently released Super Game Boy add-on for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It’s popularly known as Donkey Kong ’94 to differentiate it from the 1981 arcade original, as well as the ports of that game on the ColecoVision, Atari 2600, and of course, the Nintendo Entertainment System.
This was five years into the Game Boy’s life, and two years before Pokémon would disrupt portable gaming, as well as the entire industry, Nintendo thought of how to make their arcade classic relevant to a newer audience. After Super Mario Land 2 and 3, it was clear that the Game Boy was suited to longer play experiences. But because battery power life was a big concern, the ideal design would be to make a larger number of shorter levels. The first four levels of Donkey Kong ’94 are recreations of the four levels of the arcade game, but then the game takes a detour to become something else completely.
In 97 new levels, Mario has to escape each level by finding a giant key and then carrying it to the corresponding door. Mario can also use mallets, bridges, ladders, and springs, but he can’t use any mushrooms or fire flowers as he isn’t in the Mushroom Kingdom. So Mario also has his wits and surprising, Chris Farley-like agility to plow his way through these stages and rescue Pauline.
Donkey Kong ’94 would go on to launch a small franchise of puzzle platformers on Nintendo portables called Mario vs. Donkey Kong. It would also receive a 3D remake on the Nintendo Switch. But perhaps more importantly, it helped relaunch Donkey Kong himself, months before Rare’s Donkey Kong Country released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
Mario’s Picross was Nintendo’s entry into the brief nonogram craze. Nonograms received their name from Non Ishida, who conceived of a kind of picture grid puzzle where you guess which blocks in the grid had to be shaded to form a picture. It must also be said that another Japanese inventor, Tetsuya Nishio, came up with the same idea independently and had it published in another magazine.
The nonograms craze hit in the 1990s, when they also picked up names like Griddlers, Hanjie puzzle, and Paint By Numbers. Nintendo came up with the name Picross as a portmanteau of Picture and Crossword. Nintendo would go on to produce Picross games for years, with many of them appearing on the 3DS and Nintendo Switch.
Nintendo’s primarily developer for these Picross puzzles is Jupiter, who has been working with them for over 30 years. However, there’s another historically significant partner who helped make the first Mario’s Picross. Many Mother fans know Ape Inc. was Shigesato Itoi’s video game studio, but that’s only a partial understanding of its history.
Nintendo’s owner Hiroshi Yamauchi put in the investment to launch Ape, Inc., and put Itoi, a famous writer at that point, in charge of the company. They assembled a winning roster of talent in Ape, including Hirokazu ‘Chip’ Tanaka and Tsunekazu Ishihara. Ape would eventually end its video game development activities, and in 1995, Ishihara, Tanaka, and other former Ape staff would start a new company called Creatures, Inc.
Creatures, Inc. joined Nintendo and Game Freak as owners of The Pokémon Company. Ishihara and Tanaka would each become CEO of Creatures, and would Ishihara himself would later become The Pokémon Company’s CEO. Before all of these developers would join one of the biggest video game and media franchises of all time, they were making this small puzzle game for the Game Boy.
Both Donkey Kong ’94 and Mario’s Picross aren’t particularly ambitious games, but they both hold up well as fun little diversions. You can download both with the Game Boy app on your Nintendo Switch.
