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Donkey Kong Country[a] is a 1994 platform game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The game centres on Donkey Kong and his nephew Diddy Kong, who must recover their stolen bananas from King K. Rool and the Kremlings.
Development began shortly after Rare founders Tim and Chris Stamper ran experiments with a Silicon Graphics (SGI) workstation to render 3D sprites. Nintendo became interested in Rare’s work and acquired 49% of the company, which culminated in the production of a game using Alias and SGI technology for the SNES. The Stampers expressed interest in creating a standalone Donkey Kong game and assembled a team of 12 to work on the game over 18 months. Donkey Kong Country is the first Donkey Kong game that was not produced or directed by Donkey Kong creator Shigeru Miyamoto, although he was still involved with the project.
Following an aggressive marketing campaign, Donkey Kong Country received critical acclaim and more than nine million copies were sold worldwide, making it the third-best-selling SNES game. It is considered one of the best video games of all time. It was rereleased for the Game Boy Color (2000), Game Boy Advance (2003), Wii Virtual Console (2007), Wii UVirtual Console (2014), New Nintendo 3DS (2016), and is pre-installed on the Super NES Classic Edition (2017).[2] The first in the Donkey Kong Country series, it was followed by two sequels, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest in 1995 and Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble! in 1996.