No One Can Stop Mr. Domino!

08.01.1998

Genre: Puzzle

No One Can Stop Mr. Domino! is a puzzle video game developed by Artdink and released for the PlayStation console in 1998. The user controls one of five anthropomorphic dominoes, placing other dominoes in rows that will successfully topple while avoiding obstacles and working under a time limit.

The game includes 6 stages: a casino, a grocery store, a family home, a local park, an amusement park, and a city. Each stage is set up like a racetrack as the character will go back to the starting point after each lap. The player can make as many laps as needed to clear a given stage. When the level is cleared, the player will proceed to the next stage. Once a stage starts, the character will start to run, and he/she will not stop running. To control the character's speed and where he runs, the player dictates movement with the D-Pad. The characters that are not under the player's control will attempt to hinder the avatar's progress in ways such as throwing dice, turning on electrical wire, making fruit appear out of nowhere; making the evasion of such obstacles a primary concern of the player. A game element called a "trick tile", places the dominoes effectively by input of the Circle, X, Triangle, or Square button. This will place a domino on the current path. The player can continue to keep placing dominoes by holding down one of the aforementioned buttons. When a full lap is completed around the stage and returned to where the first domino was laid, the character will bump into the domino. The dominoes will begin an effect of inertia, and the character will stand still while the dominoes are falling. While active, the character's stamina will decrease. This is signified by the character's body gradually darkening. If the character's stamina is depleted, the character will transform into an ordinary domino, and the game will end. This is prevented by encountering on special Recovery Tiles that can recover the character's stamina, but can only be used once for each tile. The player clears a stage by activation of the required number of trick tiles for each stage. The player heightens their score by activating the trick tiles in a shorter time and in as long of a chain as possible. If the stage is cleared with a High Score, the player will be able to unlock new characters.