Super Monkey Ball is a series of arcade platform video games developed by Amusement Vision and distributed by Sega. It features four characters: Aiai, Meemee, Baby and Gongon . The game debuted in Japan in 2001 as an upright arcade cabinet called Monkey Ball which featured a banana-shaped joystick. Later that year, it was released as a GameCube game. Several sequels and ports have been released.