Controls
- Trackball: Use the trackball to guide Bentley Bear throughout each of the castles. Roll the ball in the direction in which you would like Bentley to run. The faster you roll the ball, the faster Bentley will run. If you want Bentley to move more cautiously, roll the ball slower. Bentley can move in any direction, provided a pathway exists for him to run on.
- Jump: Press the Jump button to make Bentley Bear leap in the air. You will jump with whatever momentum you had when you begin the jump, and you will be unable to change that momentum until you land. So if you jump when you were not moving, you will jump straight up and down. If you jump when you were moving slowly, you will jump a short distance, and if you jump while moving quickly, you will jump farther. Press the left Jump button to begin a one player game, or press the right Jump button to begin a two player game.
Characters
Bentley Bear
Bentley Bear is under your control. Guide him throughout each stage and help him collect as many gems as he possibly can, until no more gems remain. There are plenty of menacing threats around that are trying to put an end to Bentley's caper, and Bentley must avoid all of them, or lose a life by coming into contact with one of them. Bentley can jump in the air and leap over the heads of his enemies. Not only can this help Bentley escape danger, but it will also stun the trees. Bentley can roam wherever paths exist for him to run on, including through tunnels.
Nasty Trees
The Nasty Tree will always attempt to take the shortest path to Bentley. On higher levels the tree is lighting fast, but its weakness lies in the fact that it always tries to take a straight path to Bentley. Trap it behind a wall or in a corner and it can do you no harm. When trapped behind a wall the tree will mimic exactly any back and forth motions that Bentley makes on the other side. The tree will go no farther to either the left or right than Bentley does, and will stop immediately when Bentley stops. Nasty Trees pick up any of the gems that they cross over.
Crystal Balls
Crystal Balls behave exactly like Nasty Trees with one exception: in the previous example, where Bentley was moving on the opposite side of a wall, a Crystal Ball would continue rolling in the direction Bentley is moving even after Bentley has stopped. If after rolling a bit the ball hasn't found a way around the wall it will roll back the other way, and after rolling back and forth a few times it will finally come to rest directly opposite Bentley just where a tree would. Something useful to know about Nasty Trees is that if Bentley jumps over one it will be stunned for a moment. Like Nasty Trees, Crystal Balls pick up any of the gems that they cross over.
Bee Swarms
Since Bentley is a bear, he enjoys honey, and most mazes include a honey pot which he can pick up for 1000 points. Not long after the beginning of a maze that includes a honey pot, a swarm of bees will come down to protect the honey. The swarm will leave after a short time only to return again much more aggravated. While the swarm is on the maze it will act like a Nasty Tree in the way that it tracks Bentley down. Also, after the swarm has landed about five times on the maze where the honey was, it will come down from the top of the screen directly over Bentley's head. Even on mazes that do not have a hone pot the swarm will appear if Bentley is taking an excessively long time clearing the gems from the maze. On the mazes that do include a honey pot, pick it up as soon as possible because this will delay the first appearance of the swarm for a considerable length of time. Bees cannot pick up any gems.
Gem Eaters
Gem Eaters are Bentley Bear's main enemy. Not so much because they try to track Bentley down, which they don't do unless he's very close, but because there are so many of them that they tend to get in the way. Gem Eaters are concerned with eating gems and that's about it. During the moment that they stop to gulp up a gem Bentley can eliminate them for 500 points apiece. When a maze is close to being completed and there aren't very many gems left, Gem Eaters will start becoming more and more frenzied. Irritated by hunger, they will calm doen and begin moving slow again only after they've eaten some gems or Bentley has jumped over them (which will stun them and cause them to slow down). Gem Eaters move along the edges of the maze and the obstacles and formations within the maze. They also tend to follow these edges in a clockwise fashion.
Skeletons & Ghosts
Skeletons and ghosts are scattered throughout some of the stages. They are not quite as dangerous as some of the enemies mentioned above, since they are typically slow, and do not actively seek to chase Bentley. Instead, they are content to randomly wander around whatever section of a stage they have been posted to. In this sense, they are safer since you don't have to worry about them chasing you down, but they are also more dangerous since you have no idea which way they will go. Use extreme caution when trying to clear an area that they occupy. Wait until they move to another location to ensure Bentley's safety.
Berthilda the Witch
Some stages contain the witch's cauldron. If Bentley runs into the cauldron, you'll lose a turn. The ways to avoid the cauldron are to jump over it or wear the hat and pass through it. One useful thing to know about the cauldron is that none of the other enemies can pass through it to get to Bentley if he's on the other side, although they can go around it if the path is wide enough. The witch to whom the cauldron belongs is named Berthilda. If Bentley can nail Berthilda while wearing the hat, you'll get 3000 points. Any collision with the witch while not wearing the hat are fatal. The witch's movements tend to be repetitive. If she's going back and forth at the top of a wall she'll continue going back and forth. In dealing with the witch, your best course of action is to assume that she will repeat the last thing she did, but always keep in mind that she could do something new. The witch is incapable of picking up any gems.
Magic Hat
One of Bentley's most powerful tools is the magical hat. The hat, worth 500 points, appears on every maze in the game except for the first and the last. None of the other enemies can pass through the hat if trapped behind it and Bentley can wear the hat by crossing over it. During the time that Bentley is wearing the hat, he is invincible and can pass through any of the enemies without being harmed. After a time, however, the magic of the hat wears off and it disappears from Bentley's head, leaving him vulnerable to attack once again. On the early levels of the game, the hat will sit in one place waiting for Bentley to come along and pick it up. On intermediate levels the hat will bounce in place. On the later levels, the hat will actually bounce randomly around the maze. On level 9, the hat will transform into a Crystal Ball if Bentley does not pick it up in time. When the hat is bouncing up, it is possible for Bentley to walk under the hat and not end up wearing it. One way to get around this rare but annoying occurrence is to jump for the hat. If you jump Bentley over the hat, he will never miss it.
Scoring
| Collecting gems | 1 point × the # of gems collected (max: 99 points) |
| Killing Gem Eaters | 500 or 1,000 points |
| Collecting the honeypot | 1,000 points |
| Collecting the witch's hat | 500 points |
| Killing Berthilda | 3,000 points |
| Last gem bonus | 900 points + 100 × stage. |
Tricks
Note: Stage warps are discussed in the walkthrough.
- If you jump at least 128 times in the front right corner of any maze, the next maze that is fully drawn from the beginning will have a string of the words ATARI stretched across the middle of the screen. It disappears on the next maze, unless you are playing a two-player game, in which case it can appear on two screens.
- On Level 6, Berthilda's Palace, grab the hat and enter the large door where Berthilda is. Run over her for 3000 points, then head to the back corner of the room (where Berthilda was) and jump. The initials FXL will appear in the lower-right hand corner of the screen, which stands for Franz Lanzinger, one of the designers of Crystal Castles.
- When the machine is in its demo mode, wait until the first stage appears. When Bentley gets killed, hold down BOTH jump buttons and the accounting screen, which shows customer play information, will appear.
- Secret Message : When you complete level 10, a special screen appears that says, I GIVE UP : YOU WIN YOU MUST BE _______________, while the 1812 Overture plays. What goes in the blank depends on the number of lives you have left.
- For 1 life, it says AMAZINGLY GOOD
- For 2, RIDICULOUSLY GOOD
- For 3, FANTASTICALLY GOOD
- For 4, VERY GOOD
- For 5, AN EXPERT
- and for 6, A VIDEO WHIZ.
- Time Bonus : For every four seconds of game play, you lose 1000 points. The amount of time bonus starts at 200,000, so you can figure that a 5 minute game will have a time bonus of 125,000. Also, for every life you lose, you lose at least 1000 time bonus points, so even though you can make up for your life as far as the life bonus, you still lose in time bonus.