Balloon Invasion is a shooting game developed by Game in a Bottle. It has you take the role of an anti-air defense commander tasked with shooting down hordes of battle balloons trying to invade your country.
Controls[]
- Mouse: Aim, click to shoot
- 1, 2, or 3: Call air raids
- 4-9: Place defense buildings
Gameplay[]
Balloon Invasion contains a series of levels all set across a world map; each level completed unlocks new levels that are adjacent to the one you beat on the world map. In each level, enemy balloons approach from the left side of the screen and you must shoot them down with your flak turret, lest the balloons drop bombs onto your flak as they fly above it. If your main turret gets destroyed, the level is lost. Conversely, the level is won once you destroy every balloon in each wave of the level.
Destroying balloons earns you points towards your score, which also acts as your currency; you can use the points you earn from destroyed balloons to either summon air raids to counter the balloons, or to build extra towers to help you attack the balloons more easily. Completing levels also earns you Commander Points which you can use to upgrade your main flak, air raids, and extra towers to increase their effectiveness.
Game Modes[]
Normal Modes[]
These are normal game modes that feature standard gameplay set at various difficulty levels.
- Regular: Easy mode; you start with 7 Commander Points.
- Veteran: Medium mode; you start with 5 Commander Points, and the balloons have higher health and come in greater numbers.
- Elite: Hard mode; you start with 3 Commander Points, and the balloons have much higher health and come in even greater numbers.
Bonus Modes[]
These are extra game modes that have special rules; they can only be played after beating Elite mode.
- Thunderstorm: You can only build Thunder Globes, but they assemble themselves more quickly than normal when you buy them.
- Fuel of War: You can only build Oil Rigs, but they have much higher health than normal.
Air Raids[]
These are airborne reinforcements you can call in to combat the balloons with your own aerial attacks.
- Winged Bombs: Sends in some winged bombs that crash into balloons to explode and deal heavy damage to them.
- Airstrike: Sends in a few fighter planes that shoot at the balloons, dealing damage and pushing them back.
- Support Fire: Calls for a bombardment from long-ranged flaks in the distance, briefly showering the screen with artillery shells that damage the balloons.
Buildings[]
These are the extra structures you can build to assist your main flak in attacking the balloons.
- Auxiliary Flak: A smaller flak that shoots the same type of artillery shells that your main flak shoots.
- Triple Cannon: A three-barreled gun that shoots rapid-fire bullets at balloons and is very accurate, but often stops to reload.
- Oil Rig: A support building that constantly gives you extra points so you can buy more stuff, but it has no form of defense so it's quite vulnerable to the balloons.
- Rocket Launcher: A turret that shoots homing missiles at balloons.
- Freezing Ray: A satellite dish that shoots freeze rays at balloons, holding them in place for a short while.
- Thunder Globe: A high-tech tower that strikes balloons with lightning bolts, dealing very heavy damage.
Upgrades[]
Main Flak Upgrades[]
- Accuracy: Makes the flak's shots more accurate.
- Shell Damage: Makes the flak's shells do more damage.
- Reload Speed: Makes the flak reload faster when it runs out of ammo.
- Shell Speed: Makes the flak's shots move through the air faster.
- Firing Speed: Increases the flak's fire rate.
- Ammo Capacity: Increases the flak's ammo size, letting it fire more shells before running out.
Building Upgrades[]
- Build Speed: Reduces the cooldown for buying buildings.
- Building Armor: Makes your buildings more durable.
- Auto Repair Buildings: Makes buildings regenerate their health over time.
- Build Price: Makes buildings cost less.
- Score Gain: Lets you earn more points when either your main flak or one of your extra buildings destroys a balloon.
- Start with More Score: Lets you start each level with more points so you can buy stuff more easily.
Buildings[]
- Auxiliary Flak: Unlocks the Auxiliary Flak building.
- Triple Cannon: Unlocks the Triple Cannon building.
- Oil Rig: Unlocks the Oil Rig building.
- Rocket Launcher: Unlocks the Rocket Launcher building.
- Freezing Ray: Unlocks the Freezing Ray building.
- Thunder Globe: Unlocks the Thunder Globe building.
Air Raids[]
- Winged Bombs: Unlocks the Winged Bombs air raid. Higher upgrade levels decrease the cost and delay in response time when you use this air raid.
- Airstrike: Unlocks the Airstrike air raid. Higher upgrade levels decrease the cost and delay in response time when you use this air raid.
- Support Fire: Unlocks the Support Fire air raid. Higher upgrade levels decrease the cost and delay in response time when you use this air raid.
Balloons[]
In each level, the balloons come in two main varieties: the standard hot air balloons which come in lots of different shapes and make up the majority of each level's waves, and much bigger zeppelins that appear less frequently and have very high health. Aside from this, the balloons can also appear with different colors and patterns printed on them (zeppelins are usually all gray, but their fins display the same colors that the regular balloons can sport); the color of a balloon indicates how it behaves during battle. Possible balloon colors include:
- Dark Green: The standard color; they have no special attributes and simply fly straight ahead.
- Dark Yellow: Balloons with this color move faster than dark green balloons.
- Gray Camouflage: Balloons with this color will try to move away by adjusting their altitude when something is shooting directly at them.
- Green Camouflage: Balloons with this color behave the same way as gray camouflage balloons but can also regenerate their health over time.
- Red: Balloons with this color move in a sine wave pattern instead of flying straight.
- Orange Camouflage: Balloons with this color behave the same way as green camouflage balloons but also move faster than normal.
- Red and Black: Balloons with this color will randomly enter the screen either flying straight or in a sine wave pattern. They also move faster and float upward after dropping a bomb in an attempt to evade your towers' shots.
- Blazing Orange: Balloons with this color behave the same way as dark green balloons but their bombs deal more damage to your buildings.
Bosses[]
Some levels contain an especially powerful boss balloon that appears in the last wave. These boss balloons have unique abilities that make them much more dangerous than the average balloon. Levels with a boss at the end are identified by a golden balloon icon on the world map instead of a regular dark green one.
- Shark Zeppelin: A zeppelin with a scary face and blood red stripes painted on it. It drops eight bombs on your buildings instead of one, allowing it to do far more damage to your buildings.
- Fire Zeppelin: A zeppelin with flames painted on it. It behaves the same as the Shark Zeppelin but has more health.
- Cobalt Zeppelin: A zeppelin with blue patches painted on it. It also behaves the same as the Shark Zeppelin but has even more health.
- Inferno Zeppelin: A zeppelin colored dark green instead of the usual gray, and with flames painted on its underside. It also behaves the same as the Shark Zeppelin but has the most health of all, and its bombs deal more damege.
Trivia[]
- Air raid sirens can be heard at the beginning of any level that takes place in a city-themed area.
- The game has a ranking system it uses both as a measure of how well you did in each level depending on your score, and a measure of how much health the balloons have (a higher rank means more health for any given balloon; every balloon has a randomly assigned rank). Although the ranking system isn't very concise as the game has no guide as to how exactly it's organized, the general hierarchy of the ranking system seems to include a series of symbols that increase in value with higher ranks. In order of increasing value, the symbols used include: gray chevrons, bronze stripes, and gold stars.
- Five gold stars is the highest rank in the game; one gray chevron is the lowest.