Lego builds a playable Donkey Kong arcade cabinet from bricks
The brick-built set includes a joystick, jump button and rolling barrels, according to details reported by The Verge.
By Hana Yoshida · Markets Reporter
2 min read
Lego has made a brick-built Donkey Kong arcade machine with a working mechanical game inside, The Verge reported. The set turns the 1981 Nintendo cabinet into an interactive display model, letting the character originally known as Jumpman move and hop over rolling barrels.
The project involves Lego designer Carl Merriam, who has worked on several nostalgia-focused sets, according to The Verge. Merriam previously designed Lego’s Nintendo Game Boy and Piranha Plant sets, and assisted on Lion Knights’ Castle, Galaxy Explorer and Pirates of Barracuda Bay, The Verge reported.
The model does not play like the original Donkey Kong arcade game in full, The Verge reported. Jumpman, the character later renamed Mario, cannot climb all the way to the top of the course under his own control.
Instead, the set uses a simpler physical mechanism. The Verge reported that a joystick moves the character left and right within a limited range, while a button makes him jump. A separate lever releases barrels down the sloped track for the player to clear.
Merriam told The Verge that the barrels in the set are the same Lego barrel element first released in 1989 for the company’s original pirate sets. He described that reused part as his favorite detail of the model, according to The Verge.
Getting those barrels to move correctly was one of the main design problems, Merriam told The Verge. He said the challenge was making them roll slowly enough for the game to work without causing jams, and that he tested thousands of barrel runs while developing the mechanism.
Images credited to The Lego Group show a cabinet-style build with the Donkey Kong playfield on the front. The Verge reported that levers on the back control Jumpman’s movement, while sliding doors appear to provide access to the barrel path if the mechanism needs clearing.
The set also appears to have cleared an internal Nintendo milestone. The Verge reported that Merriam helped Lego create a Donkey Kong arcade machine that won favor from Shigeru Miyamoto, the Nintendo designer credited as the creator of Donkey Kong and Mario, though the details of Miyamoto’s involvement were not included in the publicly visible portion of the report.
The Donkey Kong machine follows other Lego products aimed at adults and longtime game fans, including Nintendo-themed builds and mechanical display pieces. The Verge compared the new model’s working game concept with Lego’s $230 pinball machine, another set built around a basic playable mechanism rather than electronics.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.