When I loaded Mr. Heading and started the game and faced the interrogative "How many aliens can you destroy?", I thought I was in for a Door Door clone (where they ask "How many aliens can you shut up?"). But it's not. it is a fun vertical-scrolling platformer which doesn't share much in the way of mechanics with Door Door. You can jump, but not over enemies or onto higher platforms. The way to kill enemies is to bump them twice from underneath (once to stun, once to finish off). You traverse platforms by ladders.

Destroy all the aliens on one screen and advance to the next. The levels seem to have decent variation from the four I've played so far. There are cash bonuses to pick up to rake in the points, and in addition to the aliens, there are nails to avoid.

You have to go both up and down the screen to avoid and destroy the aliens (in other words, it's not linear progression in one direction). Vertical scrolling is often a bad idea on early Japanese computers, but the game handles it well enough not to be a nuisance. There is a coffee break screen, but unlike Pac-Man with its 30-second or so animation, this gives you about 6 seconds. Maybe they didn't understand the purpose.

I was photographing this game in order to put it up on Yahoo Auctions. But I already have my own copy of it. I hadn't seen my own copy in a while so I pulled it out and to my surprise, the boxes are wildly different! Both are for FM-7 but mine is in a plastic shell while the one headed for the auction block is cardstock. Not only that, but they also completely changed the artwork! It's interesting because I always thought Apollo Technica was a budget software house, but this is a strong effort in terms of packaging (and game quality, for that matter).