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The banner for Balloon as seen on the Menu of Mega Mash
Balloon is one of seven games in Mega Mash. Balloon stars a blue balloon, who is also named Balloon. Balloon is one of two Mega Mash games based of another game made by Nitrome, Balloon being based of the Hot Air series, the original Hot Air being Nitrome's first flash game.
Setting[]
The World of Air has a yellow background with clouds, which is the only seen background. There are also pink platforms, but these are very rarely seen.
Gameplay[]
Balloon, unlike the two games it was based off, does not use the mouse to move the balloon. Balloon is moved by using the 
, 
, and 
arrow keys. Balloon slowly descends while in the air, so the player has to often press to move the balloon up. The and arrow keys are used to move the balloon in the two desired directions. All the enemies cannot be killed, and have to be avoided by the balloon.
Main character[]
- Main Article: Balloon (character)
The balloon is a blue balloon sphere with a string attached. It moves via the arrow keys and , and is a reference to Hot Air.
Enemies[]
- Octopi - purple octopus enemies that follow the player
- Green bug - flying bug enemies that home in on the player
Pick Ups[]
- Stars (Hot Air) - Grants points
Hazards[]
- Crusher blocks - Blocks that move up then down consecutively, in an attempt to crush the player
- Bullets - Electric orange balls that harm the player on contact
- Spikes - Hazards found commonly on platforms
Beta elements[]
The image as seen in one of the NES Promo Poster's
A beta image of Balloon was first seen on the 1st NES Promo Poster. This image seen on the top left of the screen has an almost exact setup to level 1 of the original Hot Air.
The level seen in the image appears square, with a wall coming up out of the bottom of the bottom left side of the room. Stars are placed on the edges of the level, and where the balloon would start and end probably marked by pads.
A green pad probably was where the balloon started, a red pad was likely where the balloon ended, based on the action of what pads of the same colour did in the Hot Air series. The balloon character appeared almost exactly as it appeared in Mega Mash, only it had no face on the balloon. This image was again seen in the NES skin.
The preview for Balloon
One of the seven images Nitrome previewed to fans when they announced Mega Mash had an image of what seemed to be an updated version of balloon. The image had the balloon going down a diagonal corridor, getting close to a block which had a ball on chain, and a spike ball. The balloon appeared as it looked like in Mega Mash.
Cut content[]
The ball on chain seen in previous Hot Air games were meant to appear as chains, however, they were cut from the game. Small mines were also meant to appear, likely as spike heads, but were also cut from the game. Despite this, both objects still exists in the game's files.
Trivia[]
- Balloon is based of the Hot Air series. The setting, characters, objects and enemies are also based off Hot Air objects, although most of them are based off objects from Hot Air 2.
- There is a sprite for bullets in Balloon, even though no creature in Balloon segments of Mega Mash fires bullets. This is likely meant just in case bullets from another zone enter the Balloon zone.