BALON POP
I learned about this game at a Pippin's math conference which I blogged about here. It's sad that that was almost a year ago and I'm just now using it. You can use a regular review worksheet or my personal favorite, a Powerpoint of review problems.
Preparation:
Students are in teams. You create a sheet with balloons on it and a place to write a team name. Or you can steal mine. Print this on paper and stick it in side of a page protector. Students write their name on it with dry erase marker.
Process:
Show a problem. Each team works it, which means every person works it. They agree on a team answer. Now reveal the correct answer. Whichever team(s) gets the correct answer gets to pop another team's balloon by using the dry erase marker to draw an X on it. If a team's balloons all get popped, then they can erase a popped balloon instead of popping someone else's balloon. But that's only an option after all of their balloons have been popped. Whichever team has the most unpopped balloons left at then end, wins.
Reflection:
My students loved this. The fun thing is to watch different teams try to form alliances and get other teams out. My students said it was like playing survivor because you never knew which teams were working together. Students were surprised by how fast time went by and thought it was fun. They actually asked to do it again.
Resources:
Here is my balloon pop Powerpoint for solving systems of equations by substitution. I put the answers at the bottom of each slide and covered it with a white rectangle. Then I used the animations to make the box disappear and show the answer.
Preparation:
Students are in teams. You create a sheet with balloons on it and a place to write a team name. Or you can steal mine. Print this on paper and stick it in side of a page protector. Students write their name on it with dry erase marker.
Process:
Show a problem. Each team works it, which means every person works it. They agree on a team answer. Now reveal the correct answer. Whichever team(s) gets the correct answer gets to pop another team's balloon by using the dry erase marker to draw an X on it. If a team's balloons all get popped, then they can erase a popped balloon instead of popping someone else's balloon. But that's only an option after all of their balloons have been popped. Whichever team has the most unpopped balloons left at then end, wins.
Reflection:
My students loved this. The fun thing is to watch different teams try to form alliances and get other teams out. My students said it was like playing survivor because you never knew which teams were working together. Students were surprised by how fast time went by and thought it was fun. They actually asked to do it again.
Resources:
Here is my balloon pop Powerpoint for solving systems of equations by substitution. I put the answers at the bottom of each slide and covered it with a white rectangle. Then I used the animations to make the box disappear and show the answer.
My very first game of Balloon Pop lasted for 128 levels, at which point I stopped playing and let myself lose. Then the credits started rolling, as I had apparently beaten the game. On my very first play through. Such is Balloon Pop: a puzzle game that rips off many previous titles but forgot to borrow some challenge.
The Balloon Bandit has abducted the Earth's seasons and enclosed them in his diabolic balloons. It is up to you, a dancing mushroom, to release them and restore life on our planet.
That's all well and good, as puzzle games have never required a coherent explanation as to why we are matching gems or dropping blocks. Balloon Pop is a match-three game where chains of same-colored balloons can be connected vertically or horizontally. Once a group has been made time will stop, allowing you a few seconds to add to it or create new ones. Once the grace period is over the chains will pop and new balloons will fall into place.
You play as a dancing mushroom who must release the trapped seasons from evil balloons. Make sense?
Where the game stumbles is in its difficulty. It's not so much a difficulty curve as it is a straight line that starts at "easy" and ends at "easy." The playing field does slowly expand as you work your way through Story Mode, adding new colors and more columns to work with. But the speed never increases, so you'll find yourself coasting through level after level after level, wondering if the madness will ever end.
There is also a Puzzle Mode with over 200 stages to be cleared, but you have to work your way into the upper echelons of levels to find a decent challenge. Head-to-head multiplayer is available either against a friend or the computer, but it's nothing more than your typical versus puzzle mode where you send objects to your opponent's screen by creating combos.
Along with the lack of difficulty, the game's controls provide another obstacle to fun. You can play with the controller either held like a remote or in the horizontal position, but both are awkward. The pointer is used to target balloons and you flick your wrist in the direction you'd like to move them. But it's hard to make selections in a speedy manner this way. When the controller is held horizontally you hold the 2 button to select a balloon, then press the D-pad in the direction to want to go, then release the 2 button while holding down the D-pad. Fluid controls are very important for puzzle games so we can quickly maneuver across the playing field and set up combos. Playing Balloon Pop is like fumbling with an actual balloon, trying to tie off the end.
Balloon Pop's visuals are on par with some of the better looking free Flash games out there. The graphics are pleasant enough, but rather generic. I do like how as you play through story mode life slowly starts to return to Earth. As you pop balloons grass will grow, trees will sprout, and little creatures will join your dancing mushroom. The music is also passable -- nothing special, but lighthearted and playful.
This is my students’ favorite review game. I’m pretty sure I originally got the idea from Elissa Miller, but I’ve been working on the rules with my classes for the last couple years. I think that last year we developed the definitive version.
Teams start with four balloons. Not pictured here are the fun and usually clever names they come up with.
question is projected on the board for each team to answer. I usually give a time limit of around two minutes, but go longer or shorter depending on the question and my goals.
fter time is up, I call on a random student from each team to come and show me their answer. While the chosen students come to the front of the room, the answer is displayed for the other students.
Each team that gets the question correct must take another team’s balloon. I usually limit students to about 20 seconds to decide whose balloon to steal, otherwise they’ll spend all day making their choice. I also randomize the order that groups steal balloons to make it a little more fair and interesting. In the example, Groups 3, 7, and 10 appear to have answered incorrectly. Group 7 appears to have made some enemies. And Group 1 took a balloon from Group 3, while Group 2 took one from Group 5, etc. A student once told me that this game ends friendships. What more could you ask for?
Play continues until the period ends or we run out of questions. The winner is the team with the most balloons.
Unlike the physical version I was inspired by, this version takes place entirely in a PowerPoint (the blank template is at the end of the post). Some notes about the file:
I use Extended Desktop and project the PowerPoint to my projector, leaving the actual file open on my computer monitor. This allows me to move the balloons around without restarting the slideshow.
I always edit the file at 50% magnification, because…
There are four balloons on the sides of the score slide that you can quickly copy and paste into each group’s box. Hold down CTRL and drag while you have something selected to quickly make a copy of it.
When you’re making your questions and answers, the answer is on a text box to the right of the question. Again, editing at 50% magnification will make it easier to navigate without scrolling so much.
Click the “Score” button on a question slide to go back to the score slide.
Click the numbered buttons on the bottom of the score slide to go to each question. They turn green after you’ve clicked them once because I got tired of forgetting which question we were on.
Click anywhere on a question slide to show the answer.
Teams start with four balloons. Not pictured here are the fun and usually clever names they come up with.
question is projected on the board for each team to answer. I usually give a time limit of around two minutes, but go longer or shorter depending on the question and my goals.
fter time is up, I call on a random student from each team to come and show me their answer. While the chosen students come to the front of the room, the answer is displayed for the other students.
Each team that gets the question correct must take another team’s balloon. I usually limit students to about 20 seconds to decide whose balloon to steal, otherwise they’ll spend all day making their choice. I also randomize the order that groups steal balloons to make it a little more fair and interesting. In the example, Groups 3, 7, and 10 appear to have answered incorrectly. Group 7 appears to have made some enemies. And Group 1 took a balloon from Group 3, while Group 2 took one from Group 5, etc. A student once told me that this game ends friendships. What more could you ask for?
Play continues until the period ends or we run out of questions. The winner is the team with the most balloons.
Unlike the physical version I was inspired by, this version takes place entirely in a PowerPoint (the blank template is at the end of the post). Some notes about the file:
I use Extended Desktop and project the PowerPoint to my projector, leaving the actual file open on my computer monitor. This allows me to move the balloons around without restarting the slideshow.
I always edit the file at 50% magnification, because…
There are four balloons on the sides of the score slide that you can quickly copy and paste into each group’s box. Hold down CTRL and drag while you have something selected to quickly make a copy of it.
When you’re making your questions and answers, the answer is on a text box to the right of the question. Again, editing at 50% magnification will make it easier to navigate without scrolling so much.
Click the “Score” button on a question slide to go back to the score slide.
Click the numbered buttons on the bottom of the score slide to go to each question. They turn green after you’ve clicked them once because I got tired of forgetting which question we were on.
Click anywhere on a question slide to show the answer.
Balloon Pop Remix, the latest offering from developer UFO Interactive, is a stylus-based variation on the "bubble-pop" puzzle theme. You slide the stylus over two or more adjacent balloons of any colour to pop them, and as the balloons from below float up to take their place, any matching colour combination of three or more will pop as well. It's a simple concept, but it's a classic formula for a reason, and this title wraps it in a wonderfully upbeat presentation to make a thoroughly enjoyable eShop experience.
The main attraction in Balloon Pop Remix is the Story mode. Here you'll follow the plight of a jellybean-like alien who, having crash-landed on earth, must recover the far-flung components of its spaceship over twelve stages. On the surface, any balloon-popping exploits you might engage in wouldn't have much to do with this, but the puzzle action on the bottom screen is integrated nicely with our hero's journey on the top screen. The number of balloons you can pop at a time is restricted by your "Mana" gauge on the left-hand side of the bottom screen. It decreases slowly with time and refills as you pop balloons and score combos, and has three levels that affect the speed of your adorable alien up top as it makes its way to a lost spaceship part at the end of the level. With the Mana gauge at its highest, the alien runs as fast as its little legs can go; in the middle level, it ambles along, and at the lowest level, it sits and waits patiently for you to start racking up some combos. If your Mana rests on empty for too long, it's game over.
It's easy enough to plan chains of two or three pops, but it's also quite common to create truly spectacular combos by accident, as serendipitously coloured balloons rise up from the screen; it's the puzzle game equivalent of holding 'right' to pull-off a dazzling, high-speed escape in a Sonic the Hedgehog game, and it feels great. New items and gameplay elements are introduced as you progress through the story, which helps keep all the popping feeling fresh, and there's also a timed "Mission" in each stage, where you'll be tasked with popping a certain number of one balloon colour before the timer runs out. It's a fun way to change up the gameplay in the relatively lengthy levels, and the reward for successful completion is an endearing accessory for your extraterrestrial friend: hats of every kind, but also funkier items like an alien-sized potato sack to hop along in.
The main attraction in Balloon Pop Remix is the Story mode. Here you'll follow the plight of a jellybean-like alien who, having crash-landed on earth, must recover the far-flung components of its spaceship over twelve stages. On the surface, any balloon-popping exploits you might engage in wouldn't have much to do with this, but the puzzle action on the bottom screen is integrated nicely with our hero's journey on the top screen. The number of balloons you can pop at a time is restricted by your "Mana" gauge on the left-hand side of the bottom screen. It decreases slowly with time and refills as you pop balloons and score combos, and has three levels that affect the speed of your adorable alien up top as it makes its way to a lost spaceship part at the end of the level. With the Mana gauge at its highest, the alien runs as fast as its little legs can go; in the middle level, it ambles along, and at the lowest level, it sits and waits patiently for you to start racking up some combos. If your Mana rests on empty for too long, it's game over.
It's easy enough to plan chains of two or three pops, but it's also quite common to create truly spectacular combos by accident, as serendipitously coloured balloons rise up from the screen; it's the puzzle game equivalent of holding 'right' to pull-off a dazzling, high-speed escape in a Sonic the Hedgehog game, and it feels great. New items and gameplay elements are introduced as you progress through the story, which helps keep all the popping feeling fresh, and there's also a timed "Mission" in each stage, where you'll be tasked with popping a certain number of one balloon colour before the timer runs out. It's a fun way to change up the gameplay in the relatively lengthy levels, and the reward for successful completion is an endearing accessory for your extraterrestrial friend: hats of every kind, but also funkier items like an alien-sized potato sack to hop along in.
Puzzle mode, where you're given a pre-set arrangement of balloons to pop within a certain number of moves, is lots of fun and a great way to get the hang of the game and learn how to make longer combos. There are 100 puzzles to clear, which should keep you busy for a while, and they're a nice alternative to the main game when you've only got a few minutes. There's also an Endless mode, where you can choose a stage from the Story mode and play (along with any accessories earned in Story mode) until you run out of Mana, and four mini-games to unlock, though they're overly simplistic and not likely to hold your interest for long.
While it's not pushing any polygons, it has to be said that Balloon Pop Remix looks fantastic. The top screen in particular is a wonderful example of how to use the 3DS's stereoscopic effect to the fullest in a 2D game: shimmering, level-specific flourishes such as shooting stars, flowers, raindrops and lens-flares float and zoom across the screen at different depth levels, with celebratory confetti joining the fray for larger combos. It looks brilliant and works perfectly here; since you spend 99% of the time looking at the bottom screen, it's essentially like having a fireworks show in your peripheral vision as you play.
The music is also a treat, with cheery melodies combining synthesizers and handbells into the kind of soundtrack you might expect to hear at a theme park on the alien's home planet. The songs approach the catchy standards of classic Puzzle Bobble tunes, and will be stuck in your head long after your 3DS is tucked away. There's a nice variety of both music and visuals over the different stages, and it's all very 'kiddie', in a good way.
Balloon Pop Remix is a lovely little puzzle game, and what's here is wonderful, but there are a few omissions worth noting. First, popping these balloons is entirely a single-player experience, which is a shame simply because local multiplayer would have been so much fun. It's easy to imagine classic multiplayer puzzle game elements, like sending your opponent "junk" or countdown balloons, working well here. Second, for a puzzle game, Balloon Pop Remix does a decidedly lackluster job at keeping high-scores. The top five scores for Story mode and Endless mode are saved, but that's it — no initialing scores to claim them, and no differentiating between the various levels (with decidedly different gameplay elements) within either mode. And finally, there are no difficulty levels to choose between. While the standard mode provides a good challenge, it would've been nice for hardcore puzzle fans to crank it up a notch and, equally, for younger players to be able to play through this very kid-friendly game at a more kid-friendly difficulty.
Conclusion
Balloon Pop Remix shouldn't be overlooked. In fact, it's a shame that it has such a generic-sounding name, because the solid gameplay and utterly charming presentation make this very well done puzzler stand out more than the title would suggest. It's a bit on the pricey side at $7.99, and if multiplayer or high-score keeping are deal-breakers for you then you'll have to look elsewhere, but otherwise puzzle fans looking for a new eShop fix will have a blast.
While it's not pushing any polygons, it has to be said that Balloon Pop Remix looks fantastic. The top screen in particular is a wonderful example of how to use the 3DS's stereoscopic effect to the fullest in a 2D game: shimmering, level-specific flourishes such as shooting stars, flowers, raindrops and lens-flares float and zoom across the screen at different depth levels, with celebratory confetti joining the fray for larger combos. It looks brilliant and works perfectly here; since you spend 99% of the time looking at the bottom screen, it's essentially like having a fireworks show in your peripheral vision as you play.
The music is also a treat, with cheery melodies combining synthesizers and handbells into the kind of soundtrack you might expect to hear at a theme park on the alien's home planet. The songs approach the catchy standards of classic Puzzle Bobble tunes, and will be stuck in your head long after your 3DS is tucked away. There's a nice variety of both music and visuals over the different stages, and it's all very 'kiddie', in a good way.
Balloon Pop Remix is a lovely little puzzle game, and what's here is wonderful, but there are a few omissions worth noting. First, popping these balloons is entirely a single-player experience, which is a shame simply because local multiplayer would have been so much fun. It's easy to imagine classic multiplayer puzzle game elements, like sending your opponent "junk" or countdown balloons, working well here. Second, for a puzzle game, Balloon Pop Remix does a decidedly lackluster job at keeping high-scores. The top five scores for Story mode and Endless mode are saved, but that's it — no initialing scores to claim them, and no differentiating between the various levels (with decidedly different gameplay elements) within either mode. And finally, there are no difficulty levels to choose between. While the standard mode provides a good challenge, it would've been nice for hardcore puzzle fans to crank it up a notch and, equally, for younger players to be able to play through this very kid-friendly game at a more kid-friendly difficulty.
Conclusion
Balloon Pop Remix shouldn't be overlooked. In fact, it's a shame that it has such a generic-sounding name, because the solid gameplay and utterly charming presentation make this very well done puzzler stand out more than the title would suggest. It's a bit on the pricey side at $7.99, and if multiplayer or high-score keeping are deal-breakers for you then you'll have to look elsewhere, but otherwise puzzle fans looking for a new eShop fix will have a blast.
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