How to play Congo Bongo online
- Walk and climb: arrow keys
- Jump: Z (or X)
- One or two players: press 1 or 2 when the game asks, after the title screen
- Start: Enter, if needed after choosing players
- Pause and resume: P
- Player 2 (alternating turns): I J K L to move, N or M to jump
- Full screen, save states: the emulator toolbar
Gameplay
You are a hunter chasing Congo the gorilla across two screens. The first screen is Jungle Mountain. Congo sits at the top rolling coconuts down the slopes while you climb towards him, jump a chasm (the cliff collapses behind you, so there is no way back) and cross Monkey Plateau. From level two a monkey can block your path, and after level two a pair of them can grab you and throw you off the cliff; jumping three times in a row without changing direction shakes them off.
The second screen is The Great River. You hop across lily pads, islands, hippos and fish to the far bank, then dodge charging rhinos on the way to Congo. The lily pads shrink a little every round, and the fish start to bite as the levels go up: at levels one and two they keep their mouths shut, by level five all four snap, and a fish turns its head yellow just before it does. Reach Congo and you go back to Jungle Mountain at the next, harder level.
Every step scores 10 points, landing on a hippo, fish or lily pad scores 100, and the chasm jump is worth 500. A bonus counter starts at 5,000 on level one and rises to 9,000 by level five, ticking down the whole time; if it hits zero you lose a life. Coconuts, water, falling off a ledge, a snapping fish or a rhino also cost a life. You have three lives, and 10,000 points brings an extra one along with a bonus screen.
Tips
- Keep moving. The bonus counter is a clock; dithering costs points and, eventually, a life.
- Three straight jumps for monkeys. If they cling to you on the plateau, do not change direction; just jump three times.
- Watch the fish heads. Yellow means a bite is coming. Wait for the mouth to close, then hop.
- Do not rest on a lily pad. They shrink each round, and a pad that was safe on level one may not hold you on level four.
The story behind Congo Bongo
Sega released Congo Bongo in arcades in early 1983, with development work credited to Ikegami Tsushinki. It used the same fixed isometric viewpoint as Sega’s Zaxxon from the year before and had four single-screen stages: a mountain, a snake-infested lake, a ridge with charging rhinos and a lagoon crossed on lily pads, hippos and fish.
Sega brought the game to many home systems, including the Atari 2600, the Atari 8-bit computers and the Atari 5200. The computer and 5200 versions keep only two of the four stages: the mountain, and a river screen that combines the lagoon’s lily pads, hippos and fish with the rhinos of the ridge. Electronic Games, reviewing the computer version in October 1984, complained that four coin-op screens had been cut to two and the opening cartoon dropped. AtariProtos says the 5200 cartridge is the same program as the computer version. Even so, the ColecoVision, Atari 5200 and Intellivision versions shared the 1984 Arkie Award for best audio-visual effects in a video game.
