Mr. Do!

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Mr. Do!
Studio Universal entertainment
Publisher Taito
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 1982
genre Maze
Game mode 2 players take turns
control 4-way joystick ; 1 button
casing default
Arcade system CPU : Z80 (@ 4 MHz)
Sound CPU: -
Sound chips: 2 × SN76496
monitor Raster , resolution 192 × 240 (3: 4 vertical), color palette 256
ColecoVision module from Mr. Do!

Mr. Do! is a series of computer game classics first developed as an arcade game by Universal Entertainment in 1982 and published by Taito . The games belong to the genre of labyrinth games and are similar to the principle of Dig Dug .

Game principle and technology

The player controls the figure of the clown Mr. Do and has to collect cherries in various underground labyrinth systems, as well as avoid monsters or destroy them. He can dig horizontal and vertical tunnels. In addition to the cherries, there are also apples in the labyrinth, but they are not collected. These fall down as soon as a passage is dug underneath them and ideally kill monsters that are underneath, or even Mr. Do himself. The apples can be moved. The monsters can also be destroyed with a Powerball, which the player can throw off at the push of a button. However, there is only one Powerball available, so you have to wait until it returns to the character. The monsters also leave food behind which can be collected as bonus points.

The level is over when either all cherries have been collected, all enemies have been destroyed, the five letters EXTRA (= additional life) or a diamond has been found. The screen shows the respective level as an existing tunnel in the form of a large number (first level D, then numbers 2–9, and the 0). A cutscene appears after every third level.

monster

The default monster is a red mini dinosaur that can only move in the corridors. Later, however, he turns into a digger who can also dig tunnels. Then there is the blue Muncher , which can also eat apples, and the alpha monsters (letters).

Production notes

Six months before Mr. Do! Namco had triggered a short-lived boom in such games with Dig Dug , which other manufacturers tried to join. Even before the arcade machine came on the market, Coleco acquired the rights for any console conversions from Mr. Do! to forestall Atari . There were conversions and remakes. a. for the following systems:

year system Publisher
1983 Atari 2600 Coleco
1983 ColecoVision Coleco
1983 X68000 Universal
1983 Tomy Tutor Takara Tomy
1984 Atari 8-bit Datasoft
1984 MSX Colpax
1985 Apple II Datasoft
1985 C64 Datasoft
1995 SNES Imagineer
1996 Neo Geo Visco Games
1996 PC-98 Mindware
1992 Game Boy Ocean software
2008 J2ME Namco
2010 Wii Hamster Corporation

successor

Except for Neo Mr. Do! The other Mr. Do! games basically only share the character, not so much the gameplay.

Mr. Do's Castle is more of a lode runner style game.

Mr. Do's Wild Ride, on the other hand, is extremely difficult and is based on sneaking up to the finish on a roller coaster.

Do! Run Run has more similarities with Mr. Do !, but also introduces a new gameplay, framing the fruit in order to make it ripen.

All Mr. Do! Games from Universal have a strange sense of humor, as was already evident in the game Snap Jack (1981).

  • Mr. Do's Castle (1983) (Universal)
  • Mr. Do's Wild Ride (1984) (Universal)
  • Do! Run Run (1984, also known as Super Pierrot ) (Universal)
  • Neo Mr. Do! (1996), (Visco for the Neo Geo )

There are also several bootlegs under slightly different names such as Mr. Du and Mr. Lo, as well as other ports and variants such as Digger .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Retro Gamer 1/2017, p. 77