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An Artist Has Replaced Classic Nintendo Bad Guys with Donald Trump

Using ROMs and an emulator, an artist has replaced classic Nintendo bad guys with an 8-bit Donald Trump.
Ever wanted to punch the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the face? Well now you can, thanks to a Brooklyn-based artist and some inspired ROM hacking.

Artist Jeff Hong today launched Trumptendo, a group of old school Nintendo Entertainment System video games that replaces antagonists like Donkey Kong, Bowser, and Mike Tyson with The Donald. The games are fully functional and can be played inside any web browser that supports Adobe Flash (which rules out mobile devices, unfortunately). In 2014, Hong did a similar project with punk rock legends called "Punktendo."

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"The whole purpose of the site is to parody Trump and make him look like the bad guy" in the game, Hong told Motherboard in a telephone interview. "To make sure that people don't think I'm pro-Trump, I put Bernie Sanders in a few of the games just to show that this is a parody against Trump. That's the most important thing I was trying to get across, trying to make this as anti-Trump as I can."

Trumptendo took Hong about a month to put together, using common ROM hacking tools like Tile Layer Pro to put Trump inside games like Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros. and Mike Tyson's Punch Out. And despite Nintendo's litigious history, Hong doesn't expect Nintendo to come knocking and asking him to take down the games. "I'm kind of going under the assumption that I'll be protected under Fair Use," he said "since these are parodies and social commentary. I'm not taking these games are trying to re-sell them."

That's the most important thing I was trying to get across, trying to make this as anti-Trump as I can.

Hong told Motherboard that he doesn't expect Trump to reach out to him, but he is somewhat concerned about the reaction among Trump's supporters, pointing to the reported harassment of the artist who depicted the presumed Republican nominee with a small penis. "That's the backlash I'm fearing," he said. "I'm just fascinated that there are a huge number of people that support this guy."

ProTip: If you want to skip directly to boxing Trump in Donald Trump's Punch Out, select "Continue" on the main title screen and enter the code 007 373 5963.