As video games entered the 80s, Atari was clearly the leader of the pack, with games such as Asteroids, Missile Command and Centipede filled with a steady supply of quarters. In 1981, however, the folks over at Nintendo shook their confidence a little with a new offering called Donkey Kong, which caused the industry as a whole to ponder the power of the platform game genre. Not wanting to be behind the curve, Atari decided to purchase and release their own platform game the same year called Kangaroo,  which had previously been developed by Sun Electronics.

For the most part, Kangaroo actually wasn’t that different from Donkey Kong in concept. Atop some interconnected trees, a protective mother kangaroo is trying to save her baby from the clutches of some mischievous monkeys. While climbing various ladders and leaping across platforms, she utilizes her wicked punching power to knock the primates senseless.

In the first level, the task wasn’t terribly difficult. Mrs. K traversed her way around the playing field, climbing, jumping and flailing away at any monkey that dared get close enough. Meanwhile, the monkey attempted to pelt her with their apples, or drop their cores on her head. Along the journey, various fruits dangled from above, offering bonus points. By ringing a bell present at each platform level, more fruits materialized. Time was of the essence, as lurking nearby, a huge gorilla bided his time, eager to step into the mix and rob her of her own defense, her trusty boxing gloves.

Should mother and her joey manage to reunite at the top of the screen, a rousing rendition of Stephen Foster’s “Oh Susanna” would begin to play and all seemed right in the jungle. That is, until the monkeys snatched baby away yet again. Or, in other words, on to level two…

The second level resembled the first, although mama moved diagonally this time, and had to proceed more cautiously. One wrong step could cause her to fall to her demise. Should she emerge victorious, it was off to the next level, which offered an entirely new challenge. This time, baby K was held in a cage, propped up by a column of monkeys. The only way to reach her child was to pummel the primates one by one, forcing them to lose their place in the supportive columns and thereby lowering the cage a little with each success. If the cage descended enough, she could reach her baby, but this had to be done swiftly because more monkey were waiting on the sidelines to replace their fallen comrades.

Successful completion of the third stage led to the fourth and final stage. It resembled the design of the first two levels, but was decidedly trickier to navigate. Complicating matters further, the monkeys moved more quickly and never let up on their merciless bombardment of apples.

Kangaroo offered the same cutesy premise of its competitor, but arcade gamers never quite warmed to the game in the same way they embraced Mario and Kong. Undaunted, Atari would continue its steady supply of arcade hits, such as Pole Position and Gauntlet, but these were the end times for Kangaroo, with nary a sequel to materialize. Fans did get one more glimpse of Kangaroo, thanks to a short-lived cartoon on Saturday Supercade, and the game did make it into homes across the country as part of the 2600 home platform, but the marsupial’s monkey boxing career eventually came to an end.