Mr. Do!

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Mr. Do!

Developer(s)	Universal
Publisher(s)	Taito
Release date(s)	1982
Genre(s)	Maze
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Platform(s)	Arcade
Input	Joystick
Arcade cabinet	Upright
Arcade system(s)	Main CPU: Z80 (@ 4 MHz) Sound Chips: 2x SN76496 (@ 4 MHz)
Arcade display	Raster resolution 192×240 (Vertical) Palette Colors 256

Mr. Do! is a 1982 arcade game created by Universal. The game is similar to Namco's popular Dig Dug, and saw release on an extremely wide variety of systems. It was the first of a series of games, the most notable (and one could argue more popular than the original) being Mr. Do's Castle, which was released in 1983. There were also Mr. Do's Wild Ride and Do! Run Run, both from 1984. The original Mr. Do! is still occasionally encountered at video arcades. The game was also released as an arcade conversion kit by Taito, where the case of an older (or perhaps broken) arcade game was refitted to play Mr. Do!.

1 Gameplay
- 1.1 Scoring
2 Ports
- 2.1 Battle
3 Trivia
4 External links and sources

[edit] Gameplay

The title character, whose movements are controlled by the player using a joystick, is a clown. Mr. Do can be made to dig vertical and horizontal tunnels through an underground maze that already has one such path dug through it when play begins. The existing path also indicates which game's level (or "scene") of play, e.g., the first, eleventh, twenty-first, thirty-first and every level with a 1 in the ones digit, looks like a 'D' (with a tiny "o" in the bottom left-hand corner to spell out a backwards "Do"), the second, twelfth, twenty-second, and every outher level with a 2 in the ones digit, looks like a '2,' and so on, up to scene 10, 20, 30, 40, and every tenth level starting from 10, (which looks like a 0). Eight Mini Dinos (on the first level only six) emerge from a point at the center of the board. Laid out on the board are five clusters of cherries (eight to a cluster, arranged in two rows of four or four rows of two) and six apples at various locations. If a horizontal path is dug directly beneath an apple, the apple will fall into the excavated path; the apple can then be pushed to the edge of an intersecting vertical path, and from there can be pushed into the latter path, squashing any monsters that happen to be traveling along it. If a vertical path is dug directly beneath an apple, the apple will immediately fall to the bottom of that path after the player has maneuvered Mr. Do to the left or right, with similar results. Mr. Do also possesses a "power ball" which can be thrown at a monster by pushing a dedicated button, the monster being destroyed if hit by it (however, the ball may ricochet wildly if many paths have already been carved out of the board, so this method of destroying monsters can become unreliable in the later stages of a scene).

Once all the Mini Dinos have left the center, a type of food appears in their place; if Mr. Do then runs over it, the screen changes color and all Mini Dinos remaining on the board become frozen in place (while remaining still deadly to the touch). Three new "Munchie Monsters" (blue in color) plus an additional character known as an "Alphamonster", named as such because it bears one of the letters in the word "EXTRA," emerge from the top of the screen and begin to pursue your Mr. Do, traveling towards him via the shortest distanct possible. A single Alphamonster will appear (without Munchie Monster accompanyment) at each increment of 5,000 points i.e. at 10,000, 15,000, 20,000pts, etc; however in no case there can be more than one Alphamonster ever on the board at any one time. The Munchie Monsters have the capability to swallow apples whole, and protect the Alphamonster, whose destruction is your main goal, for each Alphamonster bears one of the five letters, and once each E-X-T-R-A has been captured, the player receives an extra life (the player begins the game with three lives - optionally set by the arcade operator to five. There is a limit of 8 Mr Do!'s a player can have at any given time. Once either the Alphamonster or all three Munchie Monsters have been destroyed, the frozen Mini Dinos cease to be frozen and begin to attack again. If the three Munchie Monsters are killed and the Alphamonster stays alive, it will eventually travel back to its starting point at the top of the screen, no longer able to be destroyed (and his letter, subsequently, no long able to be captured). Also, when the AlphaMonster is destroyed, any undestroyed blue monsters immediately turn into falling apples (which can destroy the resuscitated Mini Dinos if the apples then fall onto vertical paths).

A scene ends when either all cherries have been eaten (digging Mini Dinos can eat them too to end a scene with no point gain), all regular Mini Dinos have been destroyed, the fifth and final-letter Alphamonster had been hit, or if you capture the random diamond. If the player takes too long to clear a board, the Mini Dinos have a better shot at catching you since more tunnels have been dug (for they continue to tunnel through unexcavated sections of the board as Driller Dinos). The player loses a life when either any of the monsters make contact with Mr. Do, or if an apple falls on him. Note: when one falling apple comes in contact with another apple, both apples split in half and cause no damage to the enemies or Mr. Do.

Power ball weapon (regeneration & characteristics) -- Power ball regeneration varies. If you destroy an enemy with the initial deployment of the power ball to start a scene (meaning that it is the first time you've engaged the "fire" button for that scene and the ball hasn't bounced around and come back to you), the ball will immediately regenerate. After that, ball regeneration takes between 4-8 seconds based on the number of cherries dug through. Immediate power ball regeneration ALWAYS occurs when you destroy an Alphamonster, or during the frozen, changed-color period (after you've grabbed the center prize). At this time, the power ball immediately regenerates after the destruction of both Munchie Monsters and Mini Dinos. Note: your power ball will blow up on its own if it fails to strike an enemy or return to you after several dozen ricochets (this occurs quite quickly if the ball becomes pinned in a corner or gets stuck by an apple). Also, the ball will blow up wihtout an enemy strike if it hits an apple that is in the process of cracking in half or has just squashed an enemy and is awarding a point score. Ball regeneration tends to be longer in both of these instances.

Mr. Do is one of the rare arcade games (not including pinball machines) that provide an opportunity for free games. On occasion, and strictly at random, breaking open an apple will reveal a diamond; running Mr. Do over this diamond provides an extra credit (free game) and also 8,000 points, along with advancement to the next scene. Hurry up! It will disappear if you take too long to get it. Mr. Do's Castle also incorporates this feature.

After every scene ending in "3," "6," or "9," the machine plays a brief intermission, and a slightly different one following the completion of scenes ending in "0" (10, 20, 30 etc.).

As the game continues, Mini Dinos move progressively faster, and also start to become Driller Dinos and dig their own paths earlier in the scene, leading to the board becoming steadily more difficult to clear.

If, at the end of the game, the player's score is one of the ten highest since power to the machine had last been turned on, (all ranks are at 10,000pts when machine is turned on) the player gets to post three initials beside his/her high score, ranked in the appropriate position among the top ten. The high scores also list the level number that the player lost his/her last life on, and play time.

The screen that appears when players collect the letters E-X-T-R-A and receive a free man

The screen that appears when players collect the diamond and win a free game

[edit] Scoring

Digging though a single cherry scores 50pts; digging through 8 consecutive cherries without pausing (completing the do-re-mi musical scale) gives a 500pt bonus for the 8th cherry (Group of 8 cherries in a cluster = 850 pts).

Shooting any monster with your Power Ball scores 500pts. Crushing an enemy with an apple scores on a scale of how many are crushed at one time (1 enemy = 1000pts; 2 = 2000pts; 3 = 4000pts; 4 = 6000pts; 5 or more = 8000pts).

On random occasions, a spilt apple with yield a diamond, which awards the player 8,000pts as well as one free credit.

Points are also awarded for capturing the center bonus object, the scale of which increses with each scene -- from 1000pts in Scene 1 up to 8000pts for the prize in Scene 22 and beyond.

[edit] Ports

Mr. Do, like most of the games of its era, was ported to numerous machines, including the Atari 2600, Atari 8-bit home computers, Colecovision, Apple II, MSX, Commodore 64 and later, the Game Boy, Super NES and the Neo Mr. Do! for Neo-Geo. The most unique port was an LCD version released by Tomy in 1983 with a fluorescent backlit display.

Unlike other games of its era, though, Mr. Do and its sequels have not been a part of the popular compilations of classic games. This is probably because Mr. Do was not made by one of the main video game manufacturers, i.e. Williams Electronics, Sega or Namco. In fact, Universal Games (which also made Lady Bug) stopped making games after the video game crash of 1983.

The game was successful enough to spawn several clones, including:

Mr Lo!, a bootleg arcade game
Mr. Dig for the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit and Dragon 32; programmed by Rita Jay and published by Microdeal in 1984
Digger for the PC

[edit] Battle

On the SNES verson, ther is a mode called "Battle Mode" that uses enhanced graphics for dirt and everying else, and is a 2-player co-op game, where player 1 gets the standard Mr. Do, and player 2 takes on a blue look-like of Mr. Do. There are only 20 levels in Battle mode and there is also a "Green apple" which if it doesn't squish anybody, in will cough up either a star which makes the player harmless to enemies and falling apples, or a clock which freezes time.

There is also a cheat on the SNES verson, when the Universal logo appers before the tittle appears, the player quicky presses down 9 times. On the main menu, they will be able to choose a level.