Mr. Do!'s Castle

Mr. Do!'s Castle is an action game released in arcades by Universal in September, 1983 and later ported to several home computers and game consoles. The game is a sequel to Mr. Do!, although the game play is quite different from it's predecessor. In the game, players control Mr. Do! the clown in a castle with numerous unicorns; the goal is to earn as many points as possible by collecting all of the cherries while avoiding being caught by unicorns chasing him.

In Mr. Do!'s Castle the game screen consists of a castle which is made up of of 7 floors. Except for the basement and roof, each floor is made up of blocks with different symbols on them. To progress through the levels in the game, players need to either knock out all of the blocks with a cherry symbol on them or defeat all of the deadly unicorns that are chasing Mr. Do!.

To help out, Mr. Do! has a hammer which can be used to knock the blocks out of the floor leaving a gap behind. Throughout the castle are ladders to climb up or down to different floors; Ladders that aren't along either side of the castle swing back and forth when kicked by Mr. Do! so players can reach different platforms or aid in escaping from unicorns. There are several types of blocks found in the castle. On each level there are three key blocks; knocking out all three opens the door on the roof. If players reach the door, the unicorns temporarily become harmless and players have an opportunity to gain an extra life. On some floors there are two blocks with skulls; if both skull blocks are knocked out, a bridge is formed between them rather than the usual gaps in the floor. Most of the blocks in the castle initially have cherries on them; by knocking out all cherry blocks players continue on to the next level. Lastly are blank blocks created by unicorns. Whenever a unicorn falls into a gap, it will slowly climb its way out and leave one of the blank blocks behind.

The unicorns enter the castle from the door on the roof and are constantly chasing the player. There are four different types of unicorns encountered:

• Red unicorns: These are the most common kind of unicorns and are the first to appear in the game. Red unicorns can be eliminated by dropping a block on them from a floor above or by hitting them with the hammer when they are standing on a block. If red unicorns are trapped in a hole, hitting them with the hammer causes them to fall to a floor below.
• Green unicorns: Similar to the red unicorns, but faster and smarter. In some versions of the game hitting a green unicorn with the hammer turns it into a blue unicorn.
• Blue unicorns: The fastest and trickiest type of unicorn. When there is only one unicorn left on a level, it will turn into a blue unicorn (on later levels, one or more of the initial unicorns may also be blue). Each blue unicorn will split into two periodically plus they can't be knocked through the floor with the hammer.
• Bonus letter unicorns: When Mr. Do! knocks out all of the key blocks, the door on the roof is unlocked. If players reach the door safely then all unicorns temporarily turn into harmless unicorns each bearing a letter from the word EXTRA. For each unicorn the player eliminates, the letter shown on the unicorn is awarded and if players spell the complete word EXTRA a bonus life is earned. After a short time these unicorns change back into their previous form.

There are 8 different scenes in the game, each with a slightly different castle layout. As the game progresses the scenes get more difficult by having missing ladders and additional gaps in the castle that make reaching certain blocks without getting trapped by unicorns more difficult. Additionally, the unicorns become faster and the levels begin with more green and blue unicorns instead of all red ones. If the player completes all of the scenes the game repeats with a higher level of difficulty.

In the original arcade version Mr. Do! vs. Unicorns and early arcade revisions of Mr. Do!'s Castle there are no cherry blocks. In these versions of the game the only way to progress through the levels is to eliminate all of the unicorns.