Devoted Dad Recodes Entire Videogame So His Daughter Can Play As A Female Character

We don’tnow about you but we’re inclined to think that when it comes to awesome dads, Mike Mika from California is right up there. Why? Well, the software developer hacked the classic arcade game Donkey Kong so his three-year-old daughter could play as a female character instead of Mario.

Wired magazine reports that Mike used his technological knowledge to change the coding of the classic Nintendo game after his daughter, Ellis, asked him: ‘How can I play as the girl? I want to save Mario!’

“For whatever reason, she was more motivated to play as Pauline [the female character] than as Mario,” explained Mike.

“I can’t read into that too much because it does feel a bit like a new game to her still. So we’ll see how she does after a week with it,” he added.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Mike admitted that Nintendo (the company who owns the rights to the game) have not been in contact with him  yet.

“I hope they don’t mind the hack,” said Mike.

While Mike only told a couple of friends and colleagues about his hack, word soon spread and before he knew it, his changes to the game were common knowledge online.

Mike spent hours recoding the classic game Donkey Kong

Seeing the interest that his project had garnered, Mike posted a clip of his reworked game on Youtube. Loads of commentators praised his efforts, dubbing him an “awesome” and “super dad.” However a handful of people accused him of “pushing the feminist agenda.”

Mike's changes to the game meant that his daughter could play as a female character

“I just expected a bunch of fellow coders to chat about the merits of the mod. I never expected it to ignite a gender-role debate. The comments under the YouTube video can, at times, be just as horific as they are encouraging,” said Mike.

“While some of the things people have said about my daughter are almost comically inapproprate, they are still downright disturbing. One person wished her ‘dead’ because ‘it would do the world a favour and be one less feminist in our future,’” he added.

Despite the negative comments, Mike is simply happy that his daughter is enjoying his hack as, at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.