Mr. Do's Castle/Gameplay

Controls

 * Joystick: Use the joystick to direct Mr. Do around his castle. He can run left and right, and climb up and down ladders. When Mr. Do is standing at the top of a leaning ladder, he can kick it over to the opposite side of a gap by running across the top. Once you walk away from a leaning ladder, it is very difficult to climb back down since you will almost always kick it instead.
 * Hammer: Press this button to swing your hammer. If a block is beneath the location where the hammer strikes, it will push the block out of the floor, causing it to fall to the ground and break. If a Unicorn is wedged inside a gap in the floor, you can use the hammer to push it through the gap to the floor below (this will anger the Unicorn and does not work if it is blue). If you collect the Flag Shield and turn the Unicorns into Alphamonsters, use your hammer to smash them and collect their letters.
 * 1-2 Players: Press either button to begin a one or two player game.

Mr. Do
Once again, you take the role of Mr. Do in his second adventure. Mr. Do has lost his power ball throwing ability, but in its place, he has received a magic hammer. Arguably a weaker weapon, the hammer is, nonetheless, Mr. Do's only means of offense. Mr. Do's primary goal is survival, as there are a number of ways in which he can clear the current scene and advance to the next. He can either pop out all of the cherry blocks from the floors with his hammer, he can kill every monster in the scene, he can collect every letter in the word "EXTRA", or he can collect the ultra-rare free game diamond. Mr. Do dies as soon as any of the unicorns catch him. He can, however, survive a fall of any height, so don't be afraid to jump off a ledge if it will save your life. ''Note that some methods of completing the scene are only available on later revisions of the game. See below.''

Unicorns
These are Mr. Do's nemeses, the dreaded Unicorns. They chase Mr. Do around the castle, trying to capture him. You can kill all of the unicorns to end a scene and advance to the next. When you end a scene, more unicorns join the party to chase you down.

Red unicorns are the first enemies you meet in the game. At first, they start out slow. If they try to walk over a gap in the floor, they fall through and become stuck. If left alone like this for for a couple of seconds, they wiggle themselves back out of the gap and fill the hole in with a fill block.

Unicorns can walk over the heads of stuck Unicorns to advance past them. The longer they run around a scene, the faster they become. They increase not only their running speed, but the speed at which they can climb out of gaps. You can swing your hammer to push Unicorns back. When they get wedged inside of a gap in the floor, you can hammer them through the gap, which angers them. Once they get angry enough, they turn green.

Green Unicorns are essentially the same as Red Unicorns, except that:


 * They wiggle themselves out of gaps much quicker than red unicorns do.
 * If you hammer a Green Unicorn through the floor, they turn into blue unicorns.

Blue unicorns are a lot more volatile than the Red and Green variety. They can not be hammered through a gap. If you spend a long time on a given scene, especially in later scenes, every Unicorn will instantly turn blue. Wait even longer, and each Blue Unicorn will split into two Blue Unicorns, doubling their numbers every few seconds. It is imperative to destroy the blue unicorns or find some other way to get out of the scene once that happens.

Alphamonster
There are three key blocks arranged in the floors of every stage. Every time you knock out a key block, the doors at the top of the castle open a little bit. Once you remove the last key block, the doors open wide. Behind the doors is the Flag Shield. Reach the top and collect the flag shield to temporarily transform the Unicorns into Alphamonsters. Alphamonsters contain one of the letters in the word "EXTRA" on their chest. Every time you kill an Alphamonster, either by squashing them with you hammer, knocking a block on top of them, or falling and landing on them, you collect one of the letters if you haven't already. The letters you have collected are signified by the flags at the top of the castle. If you manage to collect all five letters, you will be granted an extra life and immediately sent to the next scene. If you do not collect every letter, or clear the scene of every Alphamonster, they eventually transform back into Unicorns. The walls of the castle return to their normal color shortly before they transform back, so be aware of this change and stop pursuing them when it occurs.

Diamond
This ultra rare free-game diamond might appear when you knock a block to the floor. It is entirely random, and a very infrequent occurrence. If you collect it, you will earn 8,000 points, get a credit towards a free game, and immediately advance to the next scene. NOTE: In Mr. Do vs. Unicorns and early revisions of Mr. Do's Castle, there is no diamond; the diamond was added to the game in later revisions along with the cherry blocks.

Blocks
There are four types of blocks in Mr. Do's Castle. Understanding each of their functions is crucial to playing Mr. Do's Castle properly.