Mike Mika plays a lot of old video games with his 3-year-old daughter. After noticing that she plays as Princess Toadstool in Super Mario Brothers 2 and was disappointed that she was unable to play as the Princess Pauline in the original arcade game Donkey Kong, Mika hacked into the ROM and created a customized NES edition of the game.
As he notes in a piece for Wired titled “Why I Hacked Donkey Kong for My Daughter,” the question kept nagging him: “Kids ask parents all the time for things that just aren’t possible. But this time, this was different. I’m a game developer by day. I could do this.”
His version swaps the roles completely giving Pauline the freedom to save Mario from the barrel-tossing clutches of the large gorilla.
After earning a few brownie points at home, Mika has made his Donkey Kong hack available for download, hopefully encouraging a new generation of young girl gamers.
