Go, Fizzy! Save your Iggle brethren!
"Iggles everywhere are being trapped in some kind of bubble cages! You must save them!"
— Doctor Iggle
Iggle Pop! is a casual game developed by PopCap Games in 2004. It is a Maze Game where you play as fuzzy little creatures called Iggles, which must save their brethren from the evil (and adorable) Zoogs. They are aided by a bespectacled scientist called Dr. Iggle, who creates uselful items to help the player get the other Iggles to safety.
Gameplay-wise, the player must free coloured Iggles (that come in green, orange, yellow and blue) from their bubbly prison and bring them to colour-coded teleportation tiles, while patrolling Zoogs try to kill you and imprison the Iggles again. The level is over when all the Iggles are safe!
There are five playable characters: an orange young male Iggle named Fizzy, his energetic little sister Dizzy, the doctor's teal assistant Rizzo, a tall brown Iggle wearing a tie named Bozz and Dr. Iggle himself. The player must explore five worlds while gradually learning the reason why the Zoogs are capturing the poor fluffy Iggles...
This game provides examples of!:
- Adorable Evil Minions: Sure, the Zoogs are evil. Sure they imprisoned defenseless fluffballs. But they still are somehow adorable.
- Bonus Stage: There is a timed one at the end of each world.
- Bubble Gun: One of the Zoog subspecies will shoot bubbles around the stage. Touching one will trap you in it (you can collect it as a 1-Up after you respawn). Should the bubble touch an Iggle instead, it will be recaptured and all the Iggles after it in the line will stop following you.
- Cartoon Bomb: The aptly named Bomb-Shooter Zoogs will throw such bombs at you.
- Cheery Pink: The pink-furred Dizzy is the youngest and easily the most upbeat playable character.
- Cowardly Mooks: Should the player touch a Zap balloon, the Zoogs will run away from them. Some of them even change their mean-looking expression to a worried one.
- Cumulonemesis: One of the most basic Zoogs is little more than a purple cloud with oversized, angry eyes.
- Desert Skull: The arid Dusty Valley is a desert which contains many skulls and bones as background decorations.
- Elite Mooks: The fiery Zoogs, that are immune to freezing and faster than the regular Zoog.
- Floating in a Bubble: The state the unfortunate Iggles are in. Some Zoogs can shoot bubbles, to trap either regular Iggles or the player character, costing them a life.
- Girlish Pigtails: Dizzy has upright ones held by cute little bows.
- Got Volunteered: Fizzy learns that he "volunteered" to help Dr. Iggle after he got vacuumed onboard Dr. Iggle's airship to risk his life saving Iggles. Although he doesn't mind too much.Dr. Iggle: "Ahh... There you are, Fizzy! I'm so glad that you've volunteered to help me, the Great Doctor Iggle, in out hour of need!"Fizzy: "I what? Volunteer? But I've never even heard of you..."
- Harmless Freezing: One of the items encase the Zoogs in a block of solid ice. After some time, they unfreeze and get back to chasing the player as if nothing had happened.
- Heavily Armored Mook: One of the Zoogs looks like a tank and is immune to zapping.
- Hedge Maze: The first, garden-themed world consists of levels that are hedge mazes. Said world actually shares its name with this trope. The levels in other worlds are also build like these, although they lack the vegetal theme.
- Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: The bonus mode reveals that Zoogs are not above capturing and imprisoning defenseless baby Iggles. Zoogs may be cute, but they sure are monsters.
- Non Fatal Explosion: If a Zoog is hit by a Bomb Shooter's bomb, he will be blown skyward instead of blowing up.
- Patrolling Mook: The Guardian Zoogs follow a set path. Even if they have one of the playable Iggles right next to them, they will keep following it.
- Platinum Makes Everything Shinier: The platinum medals sit at the very top of the Rank Inflation system and are even used to unlock more content.
- Rank Inflation: After each level, you get a medal based on the chains of same-colour Iggles you bring to teleportation pads. Should you get all the biggest possible chains and activate all the chain counters, you'll get a platinum one. While it is pretty easy on the earliest levels, getting platinum of the later ones can prove to be a real challenge.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Iggles are literal fluff balls with wide, innocent eyes. Isn't that enough to qualify?
- Science Hero: While the other playable Iggles do most of the work, they never would have succeeded without the gadgets created by Dr. Iggle. He also instigated the whole Iggle-rescuing plan. Moreover, he can even do the saving all by himself.
- Secret Character: Three of them, unlocked by stacking platinum medals up.
- Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: If a Zoog is hit by a bomb shot by a Bomb-Shooter Zoog, he will be sent away from the level for a few seconds. The player can use it to their advantage by tricking them under a falling bomb. You need to defeat the final boss this way.
- Sizable Snowflakes: The snow falling in icy levels consists of big, single starry snowflakes.
- Slave Race: The Iggle race is being enslaved by the Zoogs! Your goal? Freeing them, of course!
- Small Name, Big Ego: Dr. Iggle, while being a genius, tends to overestimate his notoriety. He even introduces himself as "the Great Doctor Iggle" to Fizzy.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: Both Dr. Iggle and his bookworm assistant Rizzo wear glasses.
- Snowy Sleigh Bells: Each time the player freezes a Zoog, loud sleigh bells are heard.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: The bomb-shooting Zoogs throw, well, bombs haphazardly all across the map.
- A Winner Is You: You only get a high-score screen after you defeat the final boss.
