(Super) Monkey Ball is an arcade platform game developed by Amusement Vision and distributed by Sega featuring 4 characters (3 in the arcade version) named Aiai, Meemee, Baby and (appearing only in the console versions) Gongon. The game debuted in Japan in 2001 as an upright arcade cabinet called simply "Monkey Ball" (which featured a banana-shaped joystick) and later that year was released as one of the three original Nintendo GameCube games. Since then, many sequels and ports have been created. Some of the most popular Super Monkey Ball games released after the first one are Super Monkey Ball 2, Super Monkey Ball Deluxe, Super Monkey Ball Adventure, and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz.