Who Designed Mr. Do!?

Ice Cream Jonsey

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Mr. Do! is a ground-breaking and deep game that was a couple years ahead of its time. A blog post here asks the question, "Who designed Mr. Do!?"

Now, the point of the blog post is that it is important to put our computer history and stories in some kind of form, because there are gaps out there. Mr. Do! is just an example. So I am going to take it very literally and ask the question, who DID design the game?

This would be the best place to ask. Is there some treasure trove of information on the web about the game? (For instance, this page by Mark Alpiger has a ton of stuff on Crystal Castles. There is a similar thing by the developers of Zoo Keeper that is out there. Are there pages kicking around with information on Mr. Do!?

Or maybe there isn't info written down and you guys just know.

Very curious to see where this might lead.
 
Well for instance, even the Wikipedia article doesn't attach a name or names to Mr. Do!. We all know that Toru Iwatani designed Pac-Man and Miyamoto designed Donkey Kong. But there's nobody attached to what was a fairly big arcade license in the 80s. It's intriguing. It's odd, that it seems to just stop with "Mr. Do! was made by Universal."

I am going to attempt to contact a few people who might be in the know about this. I will not rest until we get some answers here.
 
1. Jack the Ripper?
2. Oswalt act alone?
3. Who created Mr. Do?
4. Flowers at Poe's gravesite?
5. Menudo gender question?

That about capture it?

;-)
 
Well for instance, even the Wikipedia article doesn't attach a name or names to Mr. Do!. We all know that Toru Iwatani designed Pac-Man and Miyamoto designed Donkey Kong. But there's nobody attached to what was a fairly big arcade license in the 80s. It's intriguing. It's odd, that it seems to just stop with "Mr. Do! was made by Universal."

That's not odd at all. In fact, it was par for the course in those days. During the late '70s to early '80s boom there were scores of arcade game manufacturers. The competition was intense and companies regularly poached talent from each other when and where they could. This quickly led to companies barring individual credit/recognition for game design. They didn't want anyone to know who their programmers were out of fear they would be recruited away.

Hell, that's how Activision started -- a few star programmers from Atari were pissed about being underpaid and anonymous, so they quit and started their own company where the programmers ruled the roost.
 
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Hell, that's how Activision started -- a few star programmers from Atari were pissed about being underpaid and anonymous, so they quit and started their own company where the programmers ruled the roost.
Just like how Stonervision started out of Gameavision
 
That's not odd at all. In fact, it was par for the course in those days. During the late '70s to early '80s boom there were scores of arcade game manufacturers. The competition was intense and companies regularly poached talent from each other when and where they could. This quickly led to companies barring individual credit/recognition for game design. They didn't want anyone to know who their programmers were out of fear they would be recruited away.

Yes, exactly. In fact, Donkey Kong and Pac Man are simply exceptions to the general rule in that era. At most you'll see the programmers initials as the default high scores after you reset the table.
 
On a sidenote, I was just wondering if the Mr. Do character has been some kind of mascot for Universal even before the game was released and if he was called Mr. Do then. There's is a depiction of a clown on the backcover of the Cosmic Monsters manual (1979):
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Wasn't Mr. Do basically just a knock-off of Dig Dug, or was Mr. Do first?

Mr. Do! is a knock-off of Dig Dug the way Gyruss is a knock-off of Galaga.

In other words, similar themes and tactics, and piggybacking on the other's success. But very fine games in their own right with more than enough differences to make them unique.
 
Me and a buddy from school wrote it. It was just for fun and we kept adding stuff and adding stuff because it was still too easy.
You know- first it was a shovel wiping off the screen, then it was a clown man wiping off the screen. Then we put rocks in the way and changed them to apples that cracked open. Then we put some critters in the way. Then we had to make a path for them. Once we made the path, it was easy to make new paths and I made the path look like the level number. Then we gave the clown a piece of birthday cake and we could change it to different things. Then it was too easy to kill the critters so we made them smarter, but they were still stupid so we put in the rock monsters and you could get an extra Mr Do if you got all the letters. Mr Do was out teacher Mr Doober and he thought it was cool, but we were really making fun of him.

I wonder where my buddy is today.
 
Mr. Do! is a knock-off of Dig Dug the way Gyruss is a knock-off of Galaga. In other words, similar themes and tactics, and piggybacking on the other's success. But very fine games in their own right with more than enough differences to make them unique.

Well put. I have always been a big Mr. Do! fan. While I do enjoy Dig Dug as well, Mr. Do! is a deceptively complex game in terms of scoring and gameplay. Dig Dug gets old after a while, but there are a lot more interesting strategies behind optimizing your Mr. Do score.

There used to be a fair amount of scattered Mr. Do information on the web, including the "Mr. Do Wall", which I can't seem to find anymore. I have heard the same thing about programmers vs. companies -- the culture of those companies was to give credit to the entire team (or company) rather than to brag about individual accomplishments. As an interesting fun fact, I'm fairly certain that Nicola Salmoria's Mr. Do emulator predated MAME... I remember playing it in college back in 1996.

It's an interesting topic though... good luck!
 
Mr. Do! is a knock-off of Dig Dug the way Gyruss is a knock-off of Galaga.

In other words, similar themes and tactics, and piggybacking on the other's success. But very fine games in their own right with more than enough differences to make them unique.

I like both games, and I agree that they are both good. The question was "who designed Mr. Do", and my opinion is that it doesn't really matter who designed it because it isn't an original work – it is still basically a knock-off.
 
I like both games, and I agree that they are both good. The question was "who designed Mr. Do", and my opinion is that it doesn't really matter who designed it because it isn't an original work – it is still basically a knock-off.

I would say it is more "heavily inspired" by Dig Dug more than it is a knockoff. I think Mr. Do is a far superior game to Dig Dug in every way.

For as great as Galaga is though I also prefer Gyruss over it any day of the week. It is less monotonous and I never get tired of the music!
 
Both games were released around the same time. Most likely neither was inspired by, or a konckoff of, the other.
 
I think Mr. Do is a far superior game to Dig Dug in every way.

For as great as Galaga is though I also prefer Gyruss over it any day of the week. It is less monotonous and I never get tired of the music!

+1

Jeff Rothe knows a lot about Mr.Do!. You can drop him a pm over on his blog (http://www.rotheblog.com/) or on coinopspace.com and see if he knows who designed it.
 
Kazutoshi Ueda [和俊上田]

Kazutoshi Ueda [和俊上田] made Mr. Do! and Lady Bug.
He also did most of the work on Bombjack.
 
Do! Knowledge!

On a sidenote, I was just wondering if the Mr. Do character has been some kind of mascot for Universal even before the game was released and if he was called Mr. Do then. There's is a depiction of a clown on the backcover of the Cosmic Monsters manual (1979):
attachment.php






The clown is a French Pierrot style clown/mime. Pierrot clowns seem to pop up allot in Japanese culture in things like Manga,Anime,J-pop and even movies.
It has been the symbol of Universal since sometime in the 70's.

In the original Mr. Do code the player was actually referred to as 'Super Pierrot' . Later in the 80's Universal also released a modern version of the game with that same 'Super Pierrot' title (AKA Neo-Geo Mr.Do!).


..
 
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