Game Classification

The landlord gave Amelia's father sixty days to pay his debts or else the bank would take everything from him, including his house. Sad to see her father in such a hart time, she decides to help him somehow. As she goes to the barn to think of a solution, she finds her father's hot air balloon, which gives her an idea of starting a delivery service. With the help of her uncle, she'll try to get the money and save her house.

Balloon Express is an action oriented casual game. It has two game modes:Story mode: in this mode the player travels around the world helping Amelia in her delivery service. At each scenario, as the screen scrolls up, the player has to click on the request icons (marked with "?") over the houses which will reveal a requested item. Then the player has to select the correct item from the inventory and click again on the house to complete the delivery. Each stage has a goal score.

"Express deliveries" can be performed If the player delivers the items quickly and a "tip balloon" will float from the houses - clicking it will givve the player extra money. When the player misses a delivery, some coins will fly away but can be retaken if clicked. When a house is going to disappear from the screen, an exclamation icon appears over it. The player can use the right mouse button to cancel deliveries or make the balloon drift faster.

With each "express delivery", the player earns an smiley icon. Smiley icons can be traded for special helpers of three kinds. The "Reveal Helper" will reveal request icons instantly, without clicking; it costs one smiley. The "Freetype Helper" turns a request icon into a star icon, allowing any kind of item to be delivered; it costs two smileys. "The Auto Helper" delivers items automatically; it costs three smileys.

Puzzle mode: in this mode the player has to match all icons in a house group switching an item from the house from the item in the inventory. Each time a match is done the player scores and the service bar increases. The bar constantly decreases as the time passes, so the player has to keep matching in order to continue playing. There are coin items around the inventory which disappear every time the player switches items without making a match.

Sometimes a small icon appears in a house group. Matching the house group icons to the small icon will give the player a star icon, which serves as a wildcard and can be used to match with two icons of the same type. Making matches from the same type consecutively will release "tip balloons". Making matches in chain will give the player a chain bonus: an arrow icon appears in a house group. When making a switch with one of those icons, all arrows will turn into the item switched.

To start playing a puzzle, the player has first to acquire a World Key by playing a previous puzzle (or the tutorial, at first) for a certain amount of time. [source:mobygames]

Distribution : Retail - Commercial
Platform(s) : PC (Windows)

Links

• http://www.mobygames.com/game/balloon-express/