Tumble Pop

Overview

Tumble Pop (also known as Tumblepop) is a comedic puzzle-platformer developed and released by Data East for arcades in 1991.

A single-screen platformer similar to both the 1986 Taito game Bubble Bobble and the 1990 Toaplan game Snow Bros.: Nick & Tom, Tumblepop has players "cleaning up" each level by sucking up enemies with their vacuum cleaner and blasting them away as rolling projectiles. The twin protagonists (player one wearing green and player two wearing yellow) must travel throughout the world, eventually ending up traveling up to the Moon to battle a mad scientist.

Comedic in nature, most stages are themed after their location. It also contains references to some of Data East's other arcade games, such as Caveman Ninja, Karnov, and Chelnov. It later received two sequels: the 1992 game Diet Go Go and the 1994 Joe & Mac spin-off Joe & Mac Returns.

The game was later ported to the Game Boy, released in Japan on November 20, 1992 and in North America on March 1993. This version was notable for having scrolling stages of different sizes, different stage progression (with an overworld system), bonus rounds, an in-game shop (with a coin-based currency system), and an in-game level editor. It was later digitally re-released for the Nintendo 3DS (as a Virtual Console title) in Japan (on April 11, 2012), Europe (on June 7, 2012), and North America (on July 19, 2012).

Stages

Players can start the first eight stages in any order, and once all

1. Moscow (clown)
2. Egypt (genie)
3. Paris (robot)
4. New York (octopus)
5. Rio (fire dragon)
6. Antarctica (snowman)
7. Australia (plant monsters)
8. Japan (daruma doll)
9. Space (Flatwoods Monster)
10. Moon (boss rush, followed by Dr. DePlayne)