''Astro Pop'' is a 2004 video game from Creator/PopCapGames, where players control a ship capable of moving from side to side. A barrier of colored blocks forms on the opposite end of the screen, which would destroy the ship should any column of them extend to the bottom of the screen. To prevent this, the player has to grab these colored blocks and place them back to form groups of at least four of the same color. The player's ship can grab up to six blocks of the same color. In addition, any gaps caused from clearing blocks will cause blocks up ahead to recede toward the main group, and any groups formed through such will earn bonus points.

Each stage is cleared after the player clears a set amount of blocks to fill the [[InsistentTerminology Block-O-Meter]].

Players have choice between one of four pilots: AcePilot Vector, Vixx, a DamselInDistress whom Vector rescues, WrenchWench Sprocket, and Turbot, a robot under Sprocket’s maintenance. Both Vixx and Turbot have to be unlocked by progressing far enough on their respective pilots’ campaigns.




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!!''[=AstroPop=]'' exhibits the following tropes:
* AdvancingWallOfDoom: The wall of blocks the player clears to advance.
* AIIsACrapshoot: The Space Federation paints Turbot as a rogue robot. [[spoiler: Though he was just following his main directive to reunite Sprocket with her long-lost twin brother, Vector.]]
* AppliedPhlebotinum: Quadrillium is a recurring material mentioned several times within intermissions, which is something that is needed to stabilize Protoxx's destructive cataclysms.
* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler: Completing Vixx's story reveals Vector's Quadrillium supplies managed to save Protoxx's atmospheric shield generators before the planet goes kaput.]]
* BonusStage: After you clear level 3 and every 4 levels afterwards. Clear all the blocks until time runs out (if that occurs or no more moves are possible, points are deducted).
* BreadEggsMilkSquick: How the planetary database describes [[DeathWorld Protoxx.]]
--> '''Civilization:''' [[HigherTechSpecies Advanced]]
--> '''Aggression Factor:''' Low
--> '''Organizational Skills:''' Poor
* CharacterSelectForcing: Unlocking Vixx and Turbot requires you to respectively play as Vector or Sprocket, meaning you can't use Vector to unlock Turbot or use Sprocket to unlock Vixx.
* CompanyCrossReferences: Vector's boss is actually Mr. Moneybags, the man from another [=PopCap=] game, ''Big Money''.
* ConnectedAllAlong: It turns out at the end of the story, Turbot had been charged to take care of twin siblings after their parents died, but an incident involving SpacePirates caused him to lose the male twin, and the Space Authority's meddling didn't make it easier for him to get the male twin back. Who were these twins? [[spoiler:''Vector and Sprocket'']].
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Vector’s boss is implied to be this, as he views Vector [[spoiler:giving Quadrillium supplies he was tasked to deliver on a detour to save Protoxx's atmospheric shield generators]] as nothing more than a publicity stunt.
--> '''Mr. Moneybags''': You're going to GIVE AWAY your Quadrillium?! I LIKE IT!!! [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Vector you're a marketing genius!]] I can see it now... "BIG Corp: The Compassionate Mining Corporation". Good work, that's thinking out of the box!
* CheckPoint: Clear every fourth level to obtain.
* [[{{Cutscene}} Cutscenes]]: Effectively filler every four stages. None of them provide any justification of the core gameplay, nor do they explain how actions in-game ever relate to actions in these cutscenes. [[spoiler: Though the ending implies you're actually extracting Quadrillium by making matches of blocks, and justifies the addition of the teal-colored block after you complete a pilot's story (32 levels) with it containing a rare Quadrillium isotope to power Protoxx's core stabilizer.]]
* {{Determinator}}: Nothing will stop Turbot from reaching [[spoiler:Vector]], even if it's the Space Federation hunting him down for [[spoiler:allegedly going on a rampage]].
* DeathWorld: Vixx's home planet, Protoxx, is considered this.
--> '''Space Authority Travel Warning:''' While highly advanced, the Protoxxians suffer from a near statistically improbable rate of planetary cataclysms. Use extreme caution when in proximity.
* ExcusePlot: Subverted. You wouldn't expect a game about matching four blocks in space to have a plot that involves helping an alien to get back to her home planet in time before it explodes [[spoiler: and a subplot involving a robot's mission to reunite long lost twins]], do you?
** Though it's kind of played straight to justify making the game harder by introducing a sixth, teal-colored block with the block containing some sort of {{Unobtanium}} that is in high demand by said alien planet.
* GreaterScopeVillain: [[spoiler: The SpacePirates are the reason the twin siblings Vector and Sprocket got separated.]]
* HonestJohnsDealership: Crazy Murray is implied to be this, as he cheaped out on the Space Authority-certified control circuits on the logic chip he sold for cheap to Sprocket.
--> '''Crazy Murray:''' Hmm, maybe there is a good reason for those extra government control circuits...
--> '''Sprocket:''' What, ''no control circuits?!?!'' That's illegal!
* HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace: The Dark Nebula that Vixx enters to evade the pirates causes her ship's navigation systems to freak out.
--> '''SYSTEM ERROR'''
--> ''Nebular particle overload... Navigation sensors shutting down. Recommended course of action: UNKNOWN''
* InterfaceSpoiler / SpoilerTitle: During intermissions, the game lists the title of the next intermission in the pilot's campaign. Oftentimes, this title can make it blatant on a pilot's fate later in the story.
* LimitBreak: Each pilot has a unique [[InsistentTerminology SUPA Weapon]] which they can use after it fully charges, which either uses the ship's weapons to destroy bricks in [[UnexpectedShmupLevel a way not too dissimilar from a shump]] for a short time, or instantaneous like a SmartBomb:
** Vector's Plasma Cannon fires a laser that destroys bricks at the bottom, but has the slowest recharge time.
** Vixx's Psychic Blast uses a crosshair that targets and removes clusters of bricks and has a moderate recharge time.
** Sprocket's Fusion Warhead destroys a large portion of bricks on the screen and has the fastest recharge time.
** Turbot's Neutron Pulse clears the screen of obstacles and prevents blocks from from entering the screen temporarily with a moderate recharge time.
* OneHitPointWonder: No ifs, ands, or buts: if any column of the wall of blocks hits the bottom of the screen or the ship, the game is immediately over.
* PaperThinDisguise: The SpacePolice doesn't seem to realize the robot with the Groucho glasses just happens to have the suspiciously same frame as Turbot. Though the Space Authority soon realizes that the robot with many disguises is Turbot after all.
* PhotoprotoneutronTorpedo: The game's story ''really'' loves to throw in random things that sound futuristic. (Antimatter ionization unit, anyone?)
* PlayingSick: The excuse Vector gave to his boss to skip work in order to save Protoxx? A case of space flu.
* PowerUp: Some blocks can be broken instantly to provide a positive effect on gameplay. Among those include blocks which detonate an entire row, another for columns, and one that freezes time, preventing new layers of blocks from coming on the screen.
* SmallRoleBigImpact: Crazy Murray selling a cheaped-out logic chip is what reactivates Turbot's main directive [[spoiler: to locate Sprocket's long lost twin brother.]]
* SongsInTheKeyOfPanic: The music becomes frantic when the blocks are about to reach the bottom of the screen. If you complete a level when this is happening, a completely different track plays on the level complete screen instead of the main gameplay track.
* SpacePirates: Vixx comes across Spacebeard and his pirate crew (and his parrot, Toothbrush), with her only option to escape the pirates is to enter the [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace Dark Nebula.]] [[spoiler: An encounter with the pirates caused Vector and Sprocket to be separated from each other, though it wasn't stated if it was Spacebeard's doing.]]
* SpacePolice: Apparently we'll still have [[DonutMessWithACop cops with donuts]] in the future according to this game.
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Sprocket is the WrenchWench tomboy to GirlyGirl Vixx.
* UnnecessarilyCreepyRobot: The Space Authority portrays Turbot as this much to its dismay. [[spoiler: This is Vector's point of view on Turbot until it explains that he has a long lost twin sister.]]
* TheVirus: Toxic Blocks, once they come into the playfield, have to be cleared by making a match directly adjacent to them, or else after a short time, they will convert other blocks into one. Even powerups.
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Vector is said to be deathly afraid of robots. [[spoiler: Naturally he is freaked out by Turbot's impeding presence.]]
* YouGetWhatYouPayFor: Logic chip for cheap is enough to get a robot running. But it may not come with the authorized control circuits that can reprogram a robot, which Sprocket found out the hard way on installing such a logic chip onto Turbot.