Barreling Towards the Impossible
The goal for We Almost Didn't Get Donkey Kong Country was to entertain and inform, telling the story of Donkey Kong Country from a documentary style viewpoint. Since this topic has been covered countless times by many other creators, I decided to pair it with thorough design analysis through my commentary, providing much greater detail on topics concerning its overall aesthetic, storytelling, mechanics, and level design than I had ever attempted before.
Donkey Kong Country tells a rich story purely through the evolution of its aesthetic and environments. The two main characters climb a mountain that could very easily mirror a basic plot diagram, with each 'World' representing a different segment.
Because of this, my plan was to, 'tell the story as it appears.' Throughout a comprehensive walkthrough of all of the game's contents, I would address key topics with arguments and supporting examples as they became relevant in the game itself. With an introductory segment chronicling the development history building into my thesis, each of the following chapters primarily use a single world within the game to frame my analysis. A Story With No Words sets the stage of the narrative and analyzes the fundamental presentation and game design. Pockets of Danger touches upon some rising tension, thematic highs, and tone setting. A Fast and Flowing Game dives deep into the game's highly satisfying and addictive mechanical feel and design. Gorilla Glacier refocuses back on narrative, specifically the game's true climax, while The Chimp Caverns Rant addresses wider pacing issues and The King of the Krocs uses the final boss to frame the development team's impact and legacy, building naturally into the conclusion.
Structuring the piece this way allowed my observations and analysis to flow as seamlessly from point to point as Donkey Kong Country flows from level to level while also featuring clean breaks to maintain pace. Each segment thus needed a unique visual identity to match their respective tone and purpose served within the larger story. The development segments came together naturally, relying on various footage and image sources with some nice pans and zooms to keep things moving, but each in-game segment needed an additional visual quirk to aid the storytelling.
My favorite instance of this is throughout A Story With No Words. I asked myself how I could make what is typically the most boring segment of a piece like this, the plot summary, as interesting and fun as possible. The answer was a visual recreation of a prologue story taking place outside of the game using existing character sprites and recreated assets. To be economical I stuck to still images, but I was able to elevate the entire sequence with a typewriter effect in addition to some humorous voice acting, fitting the spirit of the game.
The other segments followed a similar logic to mostly strong results. I paired some thematically resonant and memorable moments throughout Pockets of Danger and Gorilla Glacier with some strong imagery and sound design, while A Fast and Flowing Game focused more on showcasing interesting and pristine gameplay scenarios similar to Nintendo's own Beautiful Playthrough marketing strategy.
The area around this spotlight was masked out to better frame this red eye effect
The Beautiful Playthrough pairs skilled gameplay with precise framing and speed ramping to market player fantasy
The introduction to Gorilla Glacier, this story's true climax
Upon reflection, The Chimp Caverns Rant was probably the weakest section. The final world of Donkey Kong Country is infamous for its poor design and pacing issues, which was the point being addressed here. I believe the lead-in was strong, but ironically, some of the content could have been cut for a more concise product. If I could go back and tweak it, I would try to give it a more comedic spin to synergize better with A Story With No Words while contrasting nicely with the other sections. Montaging some other player's reactions to the lesser quality of this world could have served the point better and provided a stronger lead-in to the final sections.
A pace breaking transition to fit a pace breaking chapter
While the structure of many of my past projects often emerged more gradually through many drafts, We Almost Didn't Get Donkey Kong Country was an exercise in more deliberate planning, ultimately supporting a stronger thesis and visual identity. Hammering out that structure not only elevated my editing and storytelling, it was vital in eliciting a strong audience response to what I believe to be my most cohesive and intentional work to date.
