Adventures of Tom Sawyer Nintendo

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer controls like a typical platform game with one top-down autoscrolling level. Tom can move left and right, jump, duck, and throw rocks with a curved trajectory. Most enemies follow a predictable path and can be killed with a single rock throw. Tom can only kill enemies by hurling rocks at them; any contact with an enemy results in death. Defeated enemies will usually drop one of the following items: T-block, skull block, slingshot block, or heart block. Collecting twenty T-blocks gives Tom an extra life; the number of T-blocks that Tom has collected is tracked onscreen. Collecting a skull block takes away ten from the T-block counter. The slingshot block allows Tom to use a slingshot for a short duration. The slingshot shoots rocks along a straight trajectory at a much higher rate than the Tom's normal attack. The heart-block makes Tom invincible for a short time and is noted in game by a change in music. In two levels, Tom can use a pelican or a balloon to fly over his enemies and essentially skip part of the level.

Tom Sawyer is a two-player game. Player two controls Tom's sidekick, Huckleberry Finn. Huck is identical to Tom except he wears a yellow hat, shirt, and shoes instead of Tom's red coloring. The second player takes turns with the first player between deaths.