This page explains in detail the interactions between the Donkey Kong series and the Greenhouse series.
Donkey Kong 3[]
1983
Donkey Kong
Greenhouse
Gameplay screenshot from Donkey Kong 3.
The third main game in the Donkey Kong series puts the player in control of an exterminator who must protect some flowers from the attack of Donkey Kong and many bugs. This premise is identical to Greenhouse, only with the addition of Donkey Kong, so it's possible that this game was based on it, also considering that Donkey Kong 3 is very different from its prequels, being more of a shooter game, and less of a platformer. However, since they were released quite closely, it's possible that it's Greenhouse to be based on Donkey Kong 3, and just happened to be released first, given that the arcade game is considered a main release in the series, while the LCD game is considered a minor release, so the direction of this link is debatable. Anyway it's generally assumed that one was based on the other or that they were developed together, since it's highly unlikely that these similarities are just coincidences.
Aside for the premise and basic gameplay, the main character is considered by many to be the same, but it was never actually confiremed by Nintendo, and artworks for the two look different, most notably the one from Greenhouse wearing a hat. Most importantly, the main character from Donkey Kong 3 is named "Stanley" in each of his confirmed appearances, including the game's poster, the manual of each port of the game, the Donkey Kong 3-themed episode of the Donkey Kong cartoon, titled "Greenhouse Gorilla", as well as his appearance as a trophy in Super Smash Bros. Melee; the main character in Greenhouse on the other hand is called "Fumigator" in Greenhouse's manual, he's never named in descriptions for the game within the Game & Watch Gallery series, and he's called "the person with the spray can" in the description for the game within Game & Watch Collection. Additionally, Stanley's trophy in Melee cites Donkey Kong 3 as his only appearance (see the trophy here), so the two can't be proved to be the same.
Aside for the main characters, basically every other element of the game also is different: the greenhouse is shaped differently, the flowers are sunflowers and have a face in Greenhouse, while they're carnivorous plants in Donkey Kong 3, and even the animals attacking them are different, being spiders and inchworms in Greenhouse, while they're mainly bees and flying bus in Donkey Kong 3, with the inchworms replaced by a worm-like enemy called "Creepy the Snake". Greenhouse features a bee only in the alarm image, that shows a cat stung by a spear weilding bee, looking very similar to a Buzzbee, the main enemy in Donkey Kong 3, specifically resembling the ones in the Game & Watch version of the game, but since this is a common gimmicky way of representing bees in Japan, it still can't be said to be the same bee.
License[]
Copyrights for both series are held by Nintendo.