

Because the tone differed from previous Donkey Kong games, the team excluded most of the franchise's existing elements and characters.

Koizumi conceived a game that used the DK Bongos instead of a standard gamepad to control the player character, and applied lessons he had learned from previous projects during development. Development was led by director Yoshiaki Koizumi and producer Takao Shimizu, who sought to create a simple, accessible game in contrast to more complex contemporary games. The debut project of the 65-member Nintendo EAD Tokyo, Jungle Beat 's development began around July 2003, after Shigeru Miyamoto suggested that Nintendo should commission a new Donkey Kong game. The player controls Donkey Kong through various side-scrolling levels as he collects bananas, swings on vines, chains combos, rides animals, and defeats enemies and bosses. Jungle Beat is designed for use with the DK Bongos, a bongo drum-style GameCube controller created for the Donkey Konga (2003) rhythm game. It follows the gorilla Donkey Kong as he sets out to defeat a series of evil kings (including Kongs Dread Kong, Karate Kong, Ninja Kong and Sumo Kong) and conquer the jungle.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is a 2004 platform and score-attack game developed and published by Nintendo for the GameCube.
