When Mike Mika saw the disappointment on his daughter's face when she realized Pauline wasn't a playable character in Donkey Kong, he felt a call to action. Thankfully Mika happens to be a competent developer, and after a few late-night hours spent hacking the NES version of Nintendo's classic, he accomplished the role reversal his daughter had wished for. Mario was now under Donkey Kong's control, and Pauline was tasked with rescuing the plumber in distress. Following the successful endeavor, Mika shared some details of how he swapped the characters on a YouTube page demonstrating the hack. "I've redrawn Mario's frames and I swapped the palettes in the ROM," he wrote. "I replaced the M at the top with a P for Pauline."

In November of last year, Mike Hoye also set out to alter Nintendo folklore when he switched Link's gender from male to female in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. As his daughter played through the game, Hoye concluded, "she's not an NPC, and Dad's favorite pastime shouldn't treat girls like second-class citizens."