Balloon Kid

Balloon Kid
Also known as: Balloon Fight GB (JP) Developers: Pax Softnica, Nintendo R&D1 Publisher: Nintendo Platforms: Game Boy, Super Game Boy, Game Boy Color Released in JP: July 31, 2000 (Balloon Fight GB) Released in US: October 1990 Released in EU: January 31, 1991 This game has unused graphics. This game has regional differences. This game has a prerelease article

To do: Balloon Kid uses a map block system; try to locate a memory address which changes one for potential unused blocks

Balloon Kid is a sequel of sorts to the NES launch title Balloon Fight. An enhanced version would release in Japan nearly a decade later as an exclusive title for Nintendo Power kiosks as Balloon Fight GB, only this time with a lot less Hello Kitty.

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Prerelease Info

Balloon Fight GB Now in technicolor!

Unused Graphics

To do: There are a handful of other sprites which might also be unused. Confirm whether they are used or not.

Remnants of an earlier "Balloon Kids" title screen graphic.

Alongside the used graphics from the "Vs Play" score screen, there are two T-pipe tiles that go unused. It would have made sense for them to be used, since there are points where the border seems like it should connect this way. Instead, the horizontal pipes just continue and don't properly connect.

This graphic goes completely unused, and its purpose is unknown. Given the flat top, it may have been a kind of platform.

Another small unused sprite with an unknown purpose. It almost looks like a wind effect, though it also may have been meant as a tongue for the frog enemy which appears in Stage 7. In-game, it simply eats the player like the fish. However, given the fact it is named the "flicky frog" in the manual, maybe it was originally meant to flick out its tongue to catch the player?

Perhaps a paper plane, or magic carpet. It moves towards the left of the screen, and animates between two frames. It is on value 0x37 but rendering it correctly with D100 doesn't always work, so the other conditions are in need of research. A workaround is to first change Alice to value 0x36, before changing her to this one. If you wipe out a few of the addresses following the value ID with 0x00 bytes before hand, this might also solve the issue. It is also present in Balloon Fight GB as the same character, in white and blue. Modify a newly spawned character other than Alice (such as via memory address D200 assuming it renders correctly), and she can ride it as a platform from above without bumping off it, unless she hits the side of it or underneath it, but sometimes being close enough at the side to being above it also allows Alice to rise on top of it.

The Power-Up Balloon will not destroy it even if she bumps into it, and once Alice is riding it, it is even possible to move it up or down via the d-pad!

Unused Enemies

An enemy which bears a striking resemblance to the Eggplant Man from Wrecking Crew, also by Nintendo R&D1. Based on the animation and how the enemy works in Wrecking Crew, the enemy would have likely walked along the ground. The bottom half of this sprite is used for the walking flame enemies in the final game.

A menacing skull, present among the enemy graphics.

What looks like an alligator head. It's different to Chow Chow The Alligator and drawn at a different angle, so both of its eyes are visible. It appears as value 0x2D in stages which don't support Wonka the Walrus, but otherwise this will be Wonka. Use 012D00D1 to turn Alice into one at the beginning of the game, though note that its animations will glitch out/it might appear upside down or flipped, and it will make noises like Wonka. It appears in Balloon Fight GB as well, in red, and can be seen with the same hex code.

(Source: Graphics (including of sprites) found by Bluestone and other sprites found by EvieMelody (Torchickens))