On December 21, 2017, Robbie Lakeman sat down to a game of Donkey Kong on his personal home arcade cabinet. He turned on Facebook Streaming and before the eyes of thousands that watched during and after the fact, he logged a nearly three-and-a-half hour run on one credit, scoring 1,230,100 points and snagging the world record for the game. After doing a thorough filming of his machine to show it was the real deal, he submitted his score to the Twin Galaxies database, where it was verified, making him the current and undisputed world champion of a “Hammer Allowed” run through the classic 1981 game.

With such an amazing run in the books, we managed get a hold of Robbie about what made this a breakout run from the pack. According to him, it was his very first credit of that day.

“Anytime I record my gameplay, I’m intentionally trying to get the world record,” says Lakeman. “At the same time, you don’t really sit down and expect something like that to happen at a first attempt. That was the amazing part. It was the first credit I played that day and I was streaming on Facebook when I did this.”

It's worth noting Robbie has been at the peak in Donkey Kong on several occasions in the past, at one point breaking fellow pro Kong player Hank Chien’s two year record in 2014. This time he topped Wes Copeland, who set a record of 1,218,000 in May of 2016. It took some time, but Robbie didn’t just cross it by degrees - he rolled over Copeland’s score handily with over 12,000 extra points. To this, Robbie Lakeman spoke to a difference in their styles.

“In Wes’s record game, he didn’t die until the very last barrel screen,” Lakeman explains. “He got to cash in all the extra lives he had for more points. That’s where a lot of his points came from. For me, I was playing a little more aggressive and I ended up with only one extra life at the end. We both have very different playing styles and our run at the records show very different ways of getting there, but we still get similar scores, showing how these different ways work. It’s a pretty cool thing about the game.”

He also mentioned just how close he was to possibly losing the chance to be verified, due to Facebook's apparent background restrictions on streaming.

“Funny story, and I didn’t know this, but I guess the maximum stream time is four hours on Facebook. So almost right after I did the verification on the arcade machine, the stream actually cut. It could have really been a problem if I’d taken any longer. I just got everything barely in time.”

Robbie refers to Twin Galaxies’ strict guidelines for verifying an arcade machine for a high score submission. The motherboard, monitor, joystick, and attraction screen of the game must be all be clearly filmed in order for the score to be verified and registered as undisputed on the Twin Galaxies leaderboards. By his account, he made the run and full machine verification with only seconds to spare. Any longer and the entire nearly perfect run could have gone to waste.

Luck wasn’t just in the video verification though. Robbie attributes a lot of the difference between his and previous records to luck of the draw when it comes to the programming of the Donkey Kong machine.

“Not every game is equal as far as what you can potentially score,” claims Lakeman. “Some games are going to have more potential than others. That’s an unfair fact of the game. There were a lot of times in the run where I was in a really bad situation, especially with the fireballs on the rivet screens. You have very little influence over the fireballs. They’re easily the most random thing in the game. I got trapped a lot and barely got out of the situation just by luck and guessing correctly. I could have easily died so many times, so I guess I’d say between luck and skill, it feels like 50/50 to me. It really is just using your instincts and hoping it works out sometimes.”

Indeed, Robbie’s record run contains a multitude of amazing techniques, including careful barrel facing and grouping, perfect timing on getting hammers to get the most barrels, point pressing near fireballs near ladders, and even further interesting techniques like jumping to and bouncing off the edge of a level to dodge tricky and dangerous spots. Even still, the champ inevitably found himself in a multitude of tricky predicaments in the run that came down to simply being patient and coming through the very narrowest of escapes at the last second. Truly, the run (which can be seen below) is a veritable mix of masterclass skill and the game putting obstacles in the right place at the right time for Lakeman to capitalize upon.

1,230,100 points is a lofty number in Donkey Kong. It’s one that will undoubtedly be difficult to beat just as the year-long record before it was. Lakeman as well speaks to just how important those final moments are in the game.

“At the bottom line, what people see is a number, but there’s a lot more than people really think that goes into a score like this.”

For those who don’t know, there is an issue in the 1981 Donkey Kong’s code which automatically kills Mario a few seconds into the board at the barrel stage of the 22nd level (the 117th screen of the game). This is known throughout the gaming community as the original and infamous “kill screen”. It introduces an element to the game that players actually have a finite amount of time and space to score points before the game inevitably ends. To that point, Robbie stresses that it makes the final moments of a run like his or Copeland’s that much more intense.

“People might think, ‘oh, these two scores are only 12,000 points a part,’ but at the end of the game, they might not realize just how hard it is to get 12,000 points.”

That said, Lakeman also pointed out that though his high-score is considerable to say the least, he believes it’s completely beatable and his best may still be yet to come.

“I still would like to raise my Donkey Kong score,” said Lakeman. “I know I could have gotten a lot more points. At this point, I’m just going to be playing a casual game here and there and hoping something happens. There’s not too much more to learn about the game. It’s just sitting down and actually taking the time to do a run like this, but I’m at least going to be playing so I don’t lose the current skills I have now. It works better for me right now to be playing occasionally as opposed to playing 30 hours of Donkey Kong at a time like I used to do.”

In closing, the new King of Kong also offered a friendly bit of support to anyone who wants to chase after his crown.

“I know a lot of people who are going to be chasing after this score at some point. I’d say good luck. I hope you succeed, but I’m going to do my best to stay on top in the process.”

For the time being, Robbie Lakeman is the world champion of Donkey Kong. The score has been verified and the top spot has been awarded to him in Twin Galaxies' official records. It will be interesting to see what it takes for him or anyone else to overcome the bar he’s set in the game.