Twin Galaxies' Official Top 20 Donkey Kong Scores

Presented for your information and adulation: the official top 20 Donkey Kong scores!

If you're coming in "off the street"-perhaps from a Google search after a viewing of The King of Kong-the first thing you need to understand is that a great deal has changed since the movie.

Neither Steve Wiebe nor Billy Mitchell hold the Donkey Kong world record anymore, or even a top 3 score. Both players are still great, and highly revered (Wiebe's stunning performance at the Kong Off 2 in November 2012 was nothing less than historic), but their status as the undisputed best has been challenged.

The "Billy vs. Steve" era is now history, the record chase having been passed on to a new generation. The movie brought hundreds of new competitors to the game from all over the world (even Eminem!) and intensified the competition to an extreme level.

Brilliant, talented players like Hank Chien, Vincent Lemay, Jeff Willms, and Dean Saglio have risen to the top.

Poke around the blog or join us at the Donkey Kong Forum if you'd like to go deeper.

Links within the table will take you to posts on Donkey Blog that offer more details on the particular game in question.

This leaderboard was last maintained on March 7th, 2013.

Arcade MachineStandard (hammer-allowed) play, Tournament Settings (3 lives to start , extra life at 7,000 points)

RankScorePlayerDate

11,138,600Hank S Chien 11/1/2012

21,135,900Vincent Lemay 1/11/2013

31,105,400Jeff Willms 11/18/2012

41,079,400Dean Saglio 11/18/2012

51,064,500Steve J Wiebe 8/30/2010

61,062,800Billy L Mitchell 7/31/2010

71,052,900Mark Kiehl8/7/2012

81,037,500Shaun Boyd 5/21/2012

91,015,000Dave McCrary 12/30/2011

101,012,800Kyle Goewert 4/27/2012

11999,800Estel J Goffinet 2/11/2012

12964,600Steve Wiltshire9/17/2012

13957,400Eric Howard 2/23/2011

14903,400Benjamin M Falls 6/13/2009

15900,900Ike Hall 6/14/2009

16900,500Eric Tessler 11/18/2012

17895,400Scott Kessler 5/30/2008

18892,800Jeff Wolfe 11/18/2012

19885,800Hans Kollinger 5/17/2012

20879,200Timothy F Sczerby 8/17/2000

M.A.M.E. Arcade Machine EmulatorMAME is a piece of software that runs old arcade games via PC. This table includes games submitted to Twin Galaxies as INP recordings made in WolfMAME Plus 0.106-one of many MAME variants, and the official Twin Galaxies competition edition of MAME. You can download the program here.

Want to play Donkey Kong? Unfortunately, it would be against Blogger's Terms of Service for me to link you to the Donkey Kong ROM images, so you're on your own on that one. (What I definitely won't do is tell you to go to Google right now and type "MAMEST", because that's a silly-sounding word that doesn't exist.)

RankScorePlayerDate

11,167,400Dean Saglio 4/21/2012

21,107,600Jeff Willms 8/15/2011

31,050,200Vincent Lemay 2/16/2011

4917,600Ross Benziger 9/4/2008

5916,600Scott Kessler 4/6/2008

6916,300Josh Criss 11/7/2010

7904,100Benjamin J Walbeehm 2/8/2005

8897,400Hank S Chien 2/21/2009

9874,100Benjamin M Falls 6/22/2008

10871,400Juan C Medina 12/9/2009

11860,600John Marks 9/22/2007

12855,400Andrew J Gardikis 5/9/2011

13849,800Chris R Psaros 12/28/2011

14789,700Allan Edwards 2/8/2005

15777,400Jeff Harrist 6/2/2012

16758,500Philip M Tudose 4/19/2010

17757,400Scott Cunningham 1/19/2012

18741,700David A Shoup 6/8/2010

19740,200Jeff Wolfe 2/8/2005

20666,400Jonathon Mckinnell 8/23/2010

The Aggregated Top 20This table shows the top 20 overall scores between the two platforms. Some (myself included) would say that this is the "true" top 20, since there is virtually no debate that Donkey Kong plays identically on MAME: It's the exact same code that the arcade machine runs, and the emulation is perfect. The only difference is the controls.

RankScorePlayerDatePlatform

11,167,400Dean Saglio 4/21/2012MAME

21,138,600Hank S Chien 11/1/2012Arcade

31,135,900Vincent Lemay 1/11/2013Arcade

41,107,600Jeff Willms 8/15/2011MAME

51,105,400Jeff Willms 11/18/2012Arcade

61,079,400Dean Saglio 11/18/2012Arcade

71,064,500Steve J Wiebe 8/30/2010Arcade

81,062,800Billy L Mitchell 7/31/2010Arcade

91,052,900Mark Kiehl8/7/2012Arcade

101,050,200Vincent Lemay 12/30/2011MAME

111,037,500Shaun Boyd 5/21/2012Arcade

121,015,000Dave McCrary 12/30/2011Arcade

131,012,800

Kyle Goewert 4/27/2012Arcade

14999,800Estel J Goffinet 2/11/2012Arcade

15964,600Steve Wiltshire 9/17/2012Arcade

16957,400Eric Howard 2/23/2011Arcade

17917,600Ross Benziger 9/4/2008MAME

18916,600Scott Kessler 4/6/2008MAME

19916,300Josh Criss 11/7/2010MAME

20904,100Benjamin J Walbeehm 2/8/2005MAME

Hank Chien, Vincent Lemay, Dean Saglio, and Jeff Willms each appear twice in the aggregated list. Twin Galaxies enforces a "one score per player" policy, but only by platform, so both their arcade and MAME scores are included.