Balloon Ballast

About Balloon Ballast

Float a patched hot-air balloon through underground caverns. You can only rise and sink: a balloon has no rudder, so you steer by finding the height whose wind blows toward the daylight. Drop sandbags to climb, vent hot air to sink, and slip between stalactites, ember vents, waterfalls and falling spires.

How to play

Goal

Steer the balloon through the cavern and out of its mouth into daylight.

How it ends

A flight is won when the basket passes the cavern's mouth. It is lost when the envelope or basket touches rock, the basket dips into the river, or the flight passes three minutes; fly again at once.

Record

The fastest flight and the fewest sandbags for each cavern.

1. The balloon is moored until you press a control; the clock starts then. Drop lets fall one sandbag and the balloon rises; hold Vent to let hot air out and it sinks. A dashed float line shows the height the balloon will settle at, and it gets there in about two seconds, so set it early. On a phone, tap Drop and hold Vent; with a keyboard, Up, W or Space drops a bag and Down or S vents.
2. The winds carry you across. Gold streaks blow toward the daylight and blue streaks with arrows blow back; faster streaks blow harder. Change height to change wind. Any touch of rock with the envelope or the basket ends the flight, and so does dipping the basket in the river; R flies again at once.
3. Each cavern hands out its own number of sandbags, and venting is free but lift you vent is gone. Ember vents warm the envelope and lift it as you pass, and an orange line shows where the warm air will take the float line; waterfalls soak the envelope and it sinks; spires shake, fall in front of you and lie as a mound to climb. Every flight out counts for both tables, but a paused flight's time does not count.

Controls

Good to know

Ranked results are checked by replaying your moves. Your progress stays in this browser.

Watch how to play

Watch the tutorial 2:00