Game Idea A Week: Air Balloon Squadron

Week Ten (10/12/2009)

In this game, the player is in charge of 2-10 hot air balloons that they must keep afloat and land in a specified location a few screens away. The balloons' directions are guided by the current wind conditions, but the player has control of how often to put heat into the balloon.

Platform:

PC or XBox Arcade

Genre:

Casual Game

Why it needs to be made:

Hot air balloons are very beautiful in the morning sky, especially when there are many of them of different colours against different coloured skies. Although hot air balloon mini-games exist already, this one involves navigating multiple balloons, giving it added complexity.

Description:

In the player's first level they have two hot air balloons they must control. The player needs to launch the balloons within a specified launch time frame. To launch and direct the balloons the player can only click on an individual balloon to get it's flame going. This causes the balloon to rise in the air, as happens in the real world.

The balloons will glide across the screen in the specified wind direction (which changes every launch/level). When the launch site appears, the player will need to navigate the balloons down to the launch site. Based on how close the player gets to the target, they will receive more or less points. In the first level, the player only has to control 2 balloons. As the levels progress there will be more balloons and obstacles blocking the way.

Why it will be a compelling game:

Trying to keep the balloons up at the same time and navigate them to the landing will appear easy, but will be difficult to perfect. Different wind conditions will make the game more challenging, and players will want to keep playing so they can get a better score, or get to the next level.

Other thoughts:

This idea was inspired by by the poem I wrote about hot air balloons: Read it here...