Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong is a 1981 arcade video game released by Nintendo and designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, in which a carpenter, originally named Jumpman and later renamed Mario, must climb a series of construction-site platforms to rescue a woman from a giant ape, the game's title character. The game introduced both Mario and Donkey Kong, characters who went on to anchor two of the most successful video game franchises in the medium's history, and its level design, built around jumping, ladders and obstacle avoidance, is widely credited as foundational to the platform game genre. Donkey Kong is widely regarded as a landmark early video game and a pivotal factor in establishing Nintendo as a major video game company outside Japan.