Reports of a disturbance at the E2 building of the University of California, Santa Cruz, have been traced to yet another violent confrontation between the angry super-simian Donkey Kong and Mario, his diminutive Italian nemesis.
Or, at least, a reasonable facsimile thereof.
Created entirely in colored Post-It Notes, the work is a remarkably true-to-the-original recreation of the first level of the classic arcade game that put Nintendo on the map and launched a gaming empire.
First appearing in 1981 as a coin-operated video arcade game, Donkey Kong was released a year later for numerous home consoles, including the Atari 2600, the Intellivision, the Commodore VIC-20 and the TI-99/4A, and over the years has been ported to a variety of more modern and advanced systems. More importantly, for the benefit of gamers worldwide, it spawned one of the longest-lived game franchises in history, and new Donkey Kong titles continue to be released for the Wii and DS consoles, helping Nintendo maintain its position as a major industry player.
The image is intended to promote the UCSC Engineering Department in general, and the university’s new Game Design major in particular. Approved in 2006, the program leads to a B.Sc., providing a strong foundation of technical, artistic and narrative skills required for interactive game design.
Perhaps a bit ironically, most of the students at UCSC today hadn’t even been born when the Donkey Kong phenomenon first swept through video arcades worldwide.
The massive faux-screenshot was put together by ten people, requiring five hours of effort and about 6400 Post-In Notes, although 14000 Post-It Notes had to be purchased in order to have the required colors. The work is scheduled to come down by May 1.
