Tomato Adventure started off as a Game Boy Color game called Gimmick Land. While presenting the game to Nintendo, AlphaDream learned about the new Game Boy console being developed called the Game Boy Advance. After the presentation, Nintendo insisted they remake it on the new console, resulting in Tomato Adventure.

Nintendo initially planned to give the Game Boy Advance a large-scale release in mainland China through their subsidiary in the region, iQue. However, they ultimately pulled out following rampant piracy of the system's first few Chinese releases. Consequently, Chinese localizations of several other games were cancelled despite being mostly complete and sent to the Chinese government for review. On March 25, 2019, game preservationist collective Forest of Illusion would leak twelve of these Chinese-language builds online, covering the following games:

• Advance Wars
• DK: King of Swing
• Densetsu no Starfy
• Densetsu no Starfy 2
• Famicom Mini Collection
• Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade
• Kuru Kuru Kururin
• Kururin Paradise
• Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
• Mario Kart: Super Circuit
• Polarium Advance
• Tomato Adventure