Hey Arcaders!
Universal just had their breakout hit Mr. Do! … the big question on everyone’s mind- how do we repeat the success- without just making another copy? So Universal decided to give their clown a home… a castle! Mr. Do!s Castle!
Developer / Publisher: Universal (Arcade)
Initial Release: September 1983 (arcade)
Series: Sequel to Mr. Do! (1982), though it plays very differently from the original maze game.
Alternate Title (Japan): Mr. Do! versus Unicorns (ミスタードゥ vs ユニコーンズ).
The game originally started as a project called Knights vs. Unicorns, but Universal’s U.S. division had the Japanese development team rework the graphics so it could be released as a Mr. Do! sequel, capitalizing on that title’s success.
Instead of the digging and fruit features of the original Mr. Do!, Mr. Do’s Castle is a platform/strategy game with action elements:
You control Mr. Do, now a clown with a hammer.
The action takes place across multi-story castle levels filled with platforms and ladders.
Your goals per level are to:
- Collect all the cherries,
- Or defeat all unicorn-like monsters roaming the stage.
You can knock out blocks with your hammer to collect items, create traps, and manipulate the stage.
Monsters can fall into holes you create—then you can defeat them by dropping blocks on them.
Collecting all three key blocks opens a door to a magic shield, temporarily turning enemies into easier “alphamonsters” bearing letters in the word EXTRA. Filling “EXTRA” awards an extra life—a staple of the series.
Levels get progressively harder and the unicorns mutate… like in the original game- becoming faster and more aggressive the longer you take.
This design is closer in style to Space Panic, an early platform game from 1980, rather than the original Mr. Do! maze gameplay.
After its arcade debut, Mr. Do’s Castle was ported to many home systems in the mid-1980s, including:
Atari 2600
Atari 5200
Atari 8-bit computers
ColecoVision
MSX
Commodore 64
The thing I love the most with the Mr. Do! series is they kept trying new things- even it started life as another idea. I just added to the mythos of the character and help galvanize his status as legendary arcade character! And in my opinion- the games got more fun as the sequels came out! And Castle is my favorite in the series!
What do you think of Mr. Do!s Castle? Do you think it’s harder than the original game? I’ve always loved how in each game – there’s more than one way to clear a round! you can go after the unicorns different ways- dispatching them in groups with the skull blocks, dropping them in different holes to lower levels, getting the keys to turn them into Alphamonsters, or just get the cherry boxes to clear a level- it’s up to you!
Let me know in the comments!
Keep Playin’ Like It’s 1981!
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