MUTAN, is a developer who has released four short score challenge arcade games into early access all at once. They are from Terada Tera and spin-offs from the Goonya series. You don’t need to have played any Goonya games to understand anything – they are all standalone experiences. They all also lean into the Japanese arcade chaos of the late 90s and early 2000s too.
Octo’s Balloon Challenge is a silly one tricky pony game. Souls are falling from the sky and your goal is to catch them in a soul catcher and ascend them as far up into the heavens as possible. You do this by firing balloons to get stuck underneath the soul catcher but in doing so, the balance and lift of the catcher changes. Each balloon you send up can be puffed up by pressing and holding a button and then sent by letting go and the catcher itself is designed to hold some balloons in nooks for a while too. The problem is that as the balloons deflate, the weight shift tilts again and so you are constantly blowing up and releasing balloons to keep the momentum going and not tipping the souls out. New balloons are timed so you can’t just spam new ones either. There are tactics to holding back balloons and using well pumped single balloons to balance things properly where possible.
Souls also have weight too and if you drop seven souls off the catcher its game over. To help you, every 10 souls touching together turns into a single but heavy box, reducing their space. Three boxes of 10 souls can be merged together too for a score bonus before they vanish. However as you continue to ascend, the balloon power required to keep you floating upwards as well as the general weight of everything makes it very tricky to keep going. A special balloon rush move can also be used to fire lots of tiny balloons too which blasts you up into the sky for more points. The game is over when you lose seven souls and your soul score and total height score are added together and your place on the online leaderboard is given.
For a couple of quid, this is a mindless and silly arcade score chaser which is over in a few minutes per go (if you are good at it) and requires skill and precision to excel. It gives me early PS2 Japanese quirky arcade title vibes from the visuals to the ska band soundtrack to the simple gameplay that is quite addictive. The early access is more for balancing and UI optimisation rather than adding additional gameplay elements so the main gameplay experience is in place and works well. If you like quickfire arcade leaderboard games, Octo’s Balloon Challenge is a good entry into the genre. It’ll be great for pass and play game nights too. Gaming is meant to be fun and this brings back the silliness in a style I like. Yay for silly gaming.
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