The Balloon Game

Some years ago, on the homepage of the german lottery NKL (http://www.nkl.de), there was an online game where you could fly a balloon around a little landscape. Unfortunately, after some time, the game was taken off the server - but I had a offline copy of it, of course *ggg*

Decent as I am, I friendly asked the NKL if they would allow me to publish the game on my homepage. They told me that the rights of the game were owned by an agency and that they had forwarded my e-mail there. Well, that agency never contacted me, obviously they just don't care.
So do I.
The Balloon Game

So here it is! If you prefer to find out everything by yourself, you can go right to the game. For all the manual readers among you we here have:

Important Notes

Firstly: To play the Balloon Game, 'Shockwave' has to be installed on your computer, otherwise you'll only see a grey rectangle instead of the game screen. You can download Shockwave for free on http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/.

Secondly: The game can also be played offline - that's cheaper in the long run ;-)
You can download it on our download page.

Thirdly: While the game was on the official NKL page, one had the possibility to enter his name into a highscore table. That, of course, doesn't work now any more.

Game Rules

The goal of the game is to fly the balloon over the stadium, drop the tickets and then land the balloon as close to the target circle as possible. The score results from the flight time plus a possible penalty of 20 seconds for each meter the balloon misses the target.
The only way the balloon can be steered is by using advantageous winds. You can choose between panorama view and map view by clicking on the map symbol in the cockpit.

You start the game by clicking on the burner button. When you operate the burner, the balloon rises, if you don't operate the burner for some time, the balloon will go down. You manoeuvre by using the different winds and wind corridors in different regions and altitudes. The basis wind is determined randomly for every new game. The direction of this wind is indicated by a little compass rose in the upper right corner of the panorama view. The basis wind will always take effect, unless the ballon flies in a wind corridor or in an altitude of 290 to 320 meters. As long as the balloon is located inside a wind corridor, it moves with the corresponding wind. In the range from 290 to 320 meters, the 'helping winds' will lead you to the center of the map.

The corridor winds are twice as fast as the basis wind.

Determinant for the navigation of the balloon is the center point of the balloon.

Das Cockpit

The instruments - from left to right:

The wind rose indicates the effecting wind in the current altitude.

The altimeter shows the height in which you fly.

The variometer indicates the rising or sinking of the balloon. 0 means that you are keeping your altitude, 1 or -1 means slow rising or sinking, 3 or -3 indicates quick rising or sinking.

The burner is operated by clicking. It heats up the air inside the envelope and the balloon rises.

By clicking on Abwurf Lose you can drop a ticket. This only works in panorama view mode.
Caution: To avoid a collision with the stadium, the balloon has to fly higher than 40 meters. You have four tickets available, of which only two can be in the air at a time. If a ticket has touched down in the stadium, a little message will appear.
At the right side of the basket, you can see how many tickets you have dropped. Tickets that have missed the stadium are crossed.

The tank scale shows how much gas you have left to operate the burner. If the gas tank is empty, you can't operate the burner any more, and the balloon will go down.

By clicking on the map you can switch between panorama view and map view.


So these are the game rules! Maybe you're a bit puzzled right now, but it's not as complicated as it looks. Just check it out, it's fun!

... to the game !