Tom Bola

Tom Bola is a character in Shovel Knight Dig.

Appearance

Tom Bola appears as a tan coloured mole with closed eyes, a pink nose, white claws, and a small purple hat.

Game information

The Well

Tom Bola is a merchant who can be found in The Well in siderooms operating a roulette wheel game. For 250 gems, Tom Bola will select 5 items and cycle through them until a short period of time has passed or Shovel Knight cause him to stop via a Shovel Slash, whereupon Tom Bola will stop on an item and Shovel Knight will receive it. After his barrel stops moving, Tom Bola will be flung off screen and his purple hat will come off.

The possible items Tom Bola can select include any Accessory, food item, Shovel Blade technique, Health Upgrade, and Magic Upgrade. If the Armorer has been rescued, in Smeltworks Tom Bola has a chance of having the armor template for Brash Bracers in his item selection. Tom Bola's item selection tends to consists primarily of food and Accessories and sometimes of Shovel Blade upgrades, Health Upgrades, and Magic Upgrades. When cycling through the items, if not stopped by the player Tom Bola will complete at least two cycles of the items before choosing one to stop on.

During the time Tom Bola's roulette game is active, while it appears all game entities (hazards, interactive objects, etc.) are stopped like when interacting with other merchants, this is actually not the case and any game entities in the room will behave as normal. Additionally, Shovel Knight is able to freely move around and if he has been shrunk he can grown back to normal during Tom Bola's game, which will temporarily freeze the roulette barrel in place as the growing animation plays.

Like other merchants, if Tom Bola is in an ambush room he cannot be interacted with until all enemies are killed. The price for Tom Bola's game is modified in some levels in the Knightmares mode, being raised to 500 gems in Knightmare VIII and 625 gems in Knightmare X.

Surface

This collapsible box contains a spoiler! Use [show] to reveal.

In the game's ending, when Shovel Knight and Shield Knight reach the surface on the Rocket Drill and drill out of the hole leading into The Well, Tom Bola is also pushed out of the hole among some rocks.

Quotes

I'm Tom Bola the mole-ah! My role is to roll the tombola! You ready to roll-ah? Feast your eyes-es on the prizes! You get one spin, but every spin's a win! Shall we begin? Only [gems] and I'll give it a roll. Can you pay the roll-the-tombola toll?

- When talked to

Hey! No free roll! It's out of Tom Bola's control-ah!

- When trying to play Tom Bola's roulette game with insufficient gems