Tire (object)

Tire (spelled Tyre in the Rareware games) are commonplace objects in a few titles of the Donkey Kong franchise, the first being Donkey Kong Country. Tires have bouncy properties that enable the Kongs to reach items or higher areas.

Donkey Kong Country / Donkey Kong Land
In Donkey Kong Country, there are two types of tires: round and half. Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong can move round tires, though halves of tires cannot be moved due to them being stuck in the ground. Halves of tires often appear on floating platforms. The level Bouncy Bonanza features the bouncing mechanic through, and as such, it features many bouncing many tires, both whole and half. Sometimes a tire is needed to enter inside a Bonus Barrel. Winky the Frog has a high bouncing ability that can be considered as roughly bounce about as high as when the Kongs bounce from a tire.

Tires reappear in Donkey Kong Land where their functionality remains unchanged. Both games feature a hazardous, spike-covered tire obstacle, Mincers. In early stages of development, tires were considered to be used for a much larger variety of uses throughout the game.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest
In Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, there are much larger tires (specifically R-1 Lug tires) resembling those from a farm tractor. They only appear in the level Jungle Jinx and retain the functionality of tires from their previous appearance. Due to their size, the tires can be hazardous, if one lands on the Kongs, crushes them into a wall, or pushes them into an obstacle such as spikes or pitfall.

In Klubba's Kiosk and The Flying Krock, tires appear in the background among other random objects.

Donkey Kong Country Returns
In Donkey Kong Country Returns and Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, a single tire appears beneath DK's Tree House and is used to bounce up to it. They later reappear in some temple levels with a golden hue, such as Platform Panic and Blast and Bounce. Normal tires also appear in Switcheroo.

Donkey Kong Country (television series)
Additionally, in a Donkey Kong Country television series episode, a tire appears in Donkey Kong's house as a swing.

DK: King of Swing / DK: Jungle Climber
Round tires reappear throughout DK: King of Swing, where they appear floating in midair. They often act as obstacles because they bounce Donkey Kong back if he hits into one. Tires otherwise retain their general purpose from Donkey Kong Country.

In DK: Jungle Climber tires are featured in numerous color variants.