Kirby's on a roll.
Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble is an action/puzzle spinoff developed and published by Nintendo and released in 2000 for the Game Boy Color. The player uses the cartridge's motion sensor to tilt the in-game field and guide a rolling Kirby across stages. With a quick lifting motion, the player can also make Kirby jump and interact with a variety of objects and obstacles.This game was meant to have a GameCube sequel, but it was renamed Roll-O-Rama with a plain marble in Kirby's place and then unfortunately cancelled in 2002. Tilt 'n' Tumble would later serve as inspiration for the "Tilt-and-Roll" mini-game in Kirby and the Forgotten Land twenty-two years later.
The game would later be ported on the Nintendo Switch via Nintendo Switch Online's Game Boy app, which is playable via the in-built gyro controls.
This game features the following tropes:
- Bottomless Pits: Kirby will be knocked out if he falls off course. Despite being able to float. Water and sand also count as pits, though you can float over them for a while.
- End of an Age: Final game to use the original Kirby English logo design. The series would adopt the logo design used in Kirby: Right Back at Ya! starting with Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land.
- Excuse Plot: King Dedede is building marble courses for some reason and Kirby gives chase, suspicious of him being responsible for planet Popstar losing its stars.
- Gotta Catch Them All:
- By collecting enough red stars, all the following ones will be worth extra lives.
- Each stage has hidden stars that can unlock certain secrets.
- Level Goal: At the end of each stage is a target which Kirby must land in the center of for the best prize.
- Oddball in the Series: Main Kirby games are platformers where the hero can use his enemies' own attacks against them. This spinoff is instead a marble run toy akin to (and, ironically, considerably better than) Sonic Labyrinth.
- Platform Hell: The game gets pretty tough with later on, as you need to carefully roll Kirby along narrow roads and obstacle sequences surrounded by pits.
- Recurring Boss: Most of the boss fights are against an Orbservor, a giant eyeball.
- Rolling Attack: Under normal conditions, Kirby cannot attack just by rolling on people and has to either flip enemies or bounce off them.
- Score Multiplier: Bouncing Kirby between two bumpers will raise a score multiplier until he starts flashing. At this point, he can knock bumpers and enemies away for extra lives.
- Spectacular Spinning: One of several spinoffs entirely dedicated to Kirby's roundness.
- Springs, Springs Everywhere: Because the game is largely based off marble run/carrying toys, several levels have chains of launch pads you must carefully bounce Kirby across.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Despite everything he's done throughout the game, Kirby still goes to comfort the crying King Dedede after his defeat.
- Timed Mission: Each level runs on a timer, with warnings for every 50 seconds that pass. Every time Kirby is bounced, item tiles will flip between stars worth points and clocks worth time.
