Donkey Kong Trivia
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50 free Donkey Kong trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
43 free Donkey Kong trivia questions with answers. Donkey Kong has been throwing barrels since 1981, and this quiz covers the whole family tree. Forty-two questions run from the arcade game that saved Nintendo's unsold cabinets and gave the world Mario, through Rare's Donkey Kong Country trilogy on the SNES with its pre-rendered graphics and David Wise soundtracks, to Donkey Kong 64, Retro Studios' Returns and Tropical Freeze, and 2025's Donkey Kong Bananza on Switch 2. The Kremlings, King K. Rool's many aliases, Diddy and Dixie, Cranky's identity crisis, and the Billy Mitchell high-score saga all get their turn. The easy questions ask who Donkey Kong kidnaps and what he steals; the hard ones want the name of the studio behind Returns, the reason DK64 needed an Expansion Pak, and how many golden bananas that game hides. It suits anyone from casual Smash players to people who can hum Stickerbush Symphony. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the games and characters, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The 1981 arcade Donkey Kong helped establish which video game genre?
Platform games
Platform games got their name later: when Donkey Kong arrived, American magazines simply called its ladders-and-girders style a 'climbing game'.
Q 02In the instructions of the 1981 arcade Donkey Kong, the hero later renamed Mario was called what?
Jumpman
Jumpman was renamed during the American launch, too late to reprint the instructions, so the machine's own paperwork and its sales flyer disagreed about the hero's name.
Q 03Who designed the original Donkey Kong arcade game, his first as a game designer?
Shigeru Miyamoto
Shigeru Miyamoto was a staff artist who could not program, so he drew the game on paper and engineers built it; he went on to create The Legend of Zelda.
Q 04The 1981 Donkey Kong was created to salvage unsold cabinets from which failed Nintendo arcade game?
Radar Scope
Radar Scope flopped in America and left a warehouse full of unsold cabinets, so Nintendo's US boss asked Japan for a new game that could be fitted inside them.
Q 05What was the name later given to the woman Donkey Kong kidnaps in the 1981 arcade game?
Pauline
Pauline was just 'Lady' in Japan; Nintendo of America's small staff renamed her after Polly James, the partner of the man who ran its warehouse.
Q 06Which film studio unsuccessfully sued Nintendo, claiming Donkey Kong infringed its King Kong trademark?
Universal
Universal had gone to court itself in 1975 to prove King Kong's story was in the public domain, so the judge threw its claim out and made it pay Nintendo $1.8 million.
Q 07Mario was named after Mario Segale, who had what relationship to Nintendo of America?
Landlord of its office
Landlord of its office and warehouse, Segale is said to have burst in demanding late rent; a Nintendo veteran says the name was just a joke about a landlord nobody had met.
Q 08What do players call arcade Donkey Kong's level 22, where a bug ends every game?
The kill screen
The kill screen is a timer bug: the bonus clock starts so low that the hero dies before he can climb, so even the best players' games end there.
Q 09Which company licensed Donkey Kong from Nintendo for home consoles in 1982?
Coleco
Coleco packed the game in the box with every new ColecoVision console, which gave its machine a famous arcade hit to sell it from the first day.
Q 10By the best-known account, Donkey Kong's creator chose the word 'Donkey' to convey which quality?
Stubborn
Stubborn is the meaning he has repeatedly given, after a hunt through a Japanese-English dictionary; other tellings have him picking the word for 'stupid' or 'goofy'.
Q 11In arcade Donkey Kong, which tool can the hero grab as a power-up?
A hammer
A hammer suited the hero's first trade: he was written as a carpenter working on a building site, years before anyone called him a plumber.
Q 12Which 1982 arcade sequel cast Mario as the villain, keeping Donkey Kong locked in a cage?
Donkey Kong Jr.
Donkey Kong Jr. swaps the roles: the ape's son climbs vines to free his father, which makes it one of the very few games where Mario is the bad guy.
Q 13What is the job of Stanley, the greenhouse hero of Donkey Kong 3?
Exterminator
Exterminator Stanley came from an earlier Game & Watch title, Green House; armed only with bug spray, he has to drive the ape up his vines and off the top of the screen.
Q 21In Donkey Kong Country 2, the Kremling king adopts which persona?
Kaptain K. Rool
Kaptain K. Rool is the Kremling king playing pirate; this time he kidnaps Donkey Kong himself, so the usual hero spends the whole game waiting to be rescued.
Q 22What is the name of the Kremlings' home island where Donkey Kong Country 2 takes place?
Crocodile Isle
Crocodile Isle does not outlive the game: when K. Rool is knocked into its core at the end, the blast sinks the whole island into the sea.
Q 23What does Dixie Kong spin to glide through the air?
Her hair
Her hair is a ponytail she whirls like a helicopter rotor to slow her fall; in the SNES games it also works as a spare hand for lifting barrels and hanging from hooks.
Q 14Donkey Kong was first planned as a game starring which cartoon character, before its cast was redrawn?
Popeye
Popeye was meant to rescue Olive Oyl from Bluto; when the cast was dropped, the brute became a gorilla, and Nintendo made a real Popeye arcade game a year later.
Q 15What have the Kremlings stolen at the start of Donkey Kong Country?
The banana hoard
The banana hoard never stays safe: in the sequel the villains kidnap Donkey Kong and demand it as ransom, and in 2010's Returns hypnotised animals carry it away.
Q 16Which company's workstations did Rare buy to render Donkey Kong Country's 3D models?
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics machines built the characters as 3D models, which were then flattened into ordinary sprites, so the 16-bit console never had to draw any 3D itself.
Q 17Which game tops the Super Nintendo's all-time sales chart, on which Donkey Kong Country ranks third?
Super Mario World
Super Mario World had a head start, because it came in the box with the console; Donkey Kong Country still outsold everything else but one Mario compilation.
Q 18Who composed most of the Donkey Kong Country soundtrack, including 'Aquatic Ambience'?
David Wise
David Wise wrote the underwater theme after a breakup that, he said, left him feeling as if he were drowning; he still names it his favourite of his own tracks.
Q 19To promote Donkey Kong Country in 1994, Nintendo mailed what to Nintendo Power subscribers?
VHS tape
A VHS tape called Donkey Kong Country: Exposed took viewers inside the office where Nintendo tests games, so fans saw the new graphics moving instead of in magazine stills.
Q 20What is the subtitle of Donkey Kong Country 2, released for the SNES in 1995?
Diddy's Kong Quest
Diddy's Kong Quest is a pun: say 'Kong Quest' aloud and you hear 'conquest', which is why the apostrophe sits on Diddy and not on Kong.
Q 24'Stickerbush Symphony' from Donkey Kong Country 2 plays in which kind of level?
Bramble
The gentle track became a fan favourite despite scoring some of the game's most punishing stages.
Q 25Which animal buddy in Donkey Kong Country 2 is a spider that shoots webs?
Squitter
Squitter does more than shoot enemies: his webs can also hang in mid-air as temporary platforms, so the Kongs can build their own bridge across a gap.
Q 26Donkey Kong 64 was the first of only two games to require which Nintendo 64 accessory?
Expansion Pak
Expansion Pak memory came bundled in the box, so nobody had to buy it; a much-repeated tale that it was only there to hide a crash bug was called a myth by one of the game's developers.
Q 27Which Kong in Donkey Kong 64 takes to the air with a jet pack?
Diddy
Diddy has to earn the jet pack first: like the other Kongs' special moves, it must be bought with banana coins before he can use it.
Q 28A Hat in Time's creator blamed Donkey Kong 64 for which genre's decline?
Collect-a-thons
Collect-a-thons send players after piles of trinkets, and this one colour-codes its bananas so that each of the five Kongs can pick up only his or her own.
Q 29Who composed the Donkey Kong 64 soundtrack, including the DK Rap?
Grant Kirkhope
Grant Kirkhope scored the DK Rap as a joke, with words by the game's designer, and has said it took twenty years for listeners to get it; he also voiced Donkey Kong in the game.
Q 30Which company bought Rare in 2002, taking the Donkey Kong Country studio out of Nintendo's hands?
Microsoft
Microsoft outbid Activision for the studio, but it had no handheld console of its own, so Rare kept remaking its Donkey Kong Country games for Nintendo's Game Boy Advance.