Dr. Mario
1990 · Puzzle · NES / Game Boy
Overview
Dr. Mario (1990) is Nintendo's falling-capsule puzzle game, in which the player drops two-coloured capsules into a bottle to wipe out red, yellow and blue viruses.
Deep Dive
Lining up four of the same colour destroys capsules and viruses, and a level ends when every virus is gone. The game is lost if capsules block the bottle's neck. Two players can compete head-to-head.
Developer Story
Gunpei Yokoi produced it, with Takahiro Harada programming and Hirokazu Tanaka composing. It came out on the NES and Game Boy together in Japan in July 1990 and sold about 3.86 million copies there.
Did You Know?
- In North America it sold 2.5 million copies within six weeks.
- ACE called it a "plagiarism" of Tetris, and some parents objected to the medicine theme.
Sources & further reading
- Dr. Mario — Wikipedia
