SpongeBob SquarePants (Plug & Play)

SpongeBob SquarePants
Developer: HotGen Limited Publisher: JAKKS Pacific Platform: Plug & Play Released in US: 2003 This game has debugging material.

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To do: A test mode is accessible, but it is intentionally not known how. It also includes unused sound effects and music there. Get higher quality images.

SpongeBob SquarePants, being a children's property through the early 2000's, naturally got licensed out for a Plug & Play game. Features a breakout clone, a space-shooter type game, a game where you defend characters from hooks while they do absolutely nothing, a surprisingly-robust oldschool adventure game, and a Donkey Kong clone. It can be fun for those who can look past the Atari-grade sound effects.

Hardware Test Screen

Immediately after powering on the game, hold Up and press A, then release Up and press Down to access the game's hardware test. This screen is essentially an earlier and less-robust version of the hardware test screen found in later Plug & Play games by Jakks Pacific, with some graphics in a large region to the top-right of the screen (which takes up the majority of the screen space) and a version ID directly below. In a small region at the top-right of the screen is a color test which displays red, yellow, green, white, cyan, blue and magenta; below are some ROM addresses in a smaller region, and below that is an input test.

Debug Gameplay

Press Up and Fire on the hardware test screen to access a debug feature which runs each of the five games in sequence. As soon as you get a game over in the current game, the next is loaded and run in the following order:

1. SpongeBob's Bubble Pop
2. Invasion of the Hooks
3. The Super Chum Bucket
4. Sandy's Surf Adventure
5. Patrick and the Maze

Interestingly, this is not the order in which the main menu lists these games. Once all five games have been played, the main menu is loaded and the game returns to normal behavior.