North American arcade flyer, depicting the King inside a hot air balloon with a King & Balloon arcade cabinet
King & Balloon (キング & バルーン Kingu & Barūn?) is a shoot 'em up arcade game developed and released by Namco in 1980. It was published by Namco in Japan and by Game Plan in North America.
Gameplay[]
The player's objective is to protect the King from a fleet of enemy Balloons. The player controls a cannon that is moved by two green soldiers. The cannon is situated on the roof of a castle, and the player can move the cannon left and right along the roof. The player can fire shots from the cannon to destroy attacking Balloons. This is done by pressing the fire button; however, only one shot can be on screen at a time. Below the cannon is the King. The King will wander left and right inside the castle, oblivious to what is happening outside and any intruders.
King & Balloon's gameplay is very similar to that of Galaxian, a previous Namco title. Like the Aliens from the latter, the Balloons appear at the top of the screen at the start of every round. Occasionally, the Balloons will break formation and dive-bomb the castle. The Balloons will also fire shots that home in on the cannon; however, unlike the Aliens, Balloons fire shots only while they are in formation. If the cannon crashes into a Balloon or gets hit by a bullet, it will be destroyed; however, this does not cost the player any of their lives. After a brief pause, a new cannon will appear in the old one's place.
If any of the Balloons make it past the cannon, they will enter the castle and land on the floor, waiting to capture the King. If they are still on the floor after about two second, they will fly out of the castle and return to formation. If the King instead walks into a Balloon, that Balloon will capture him, and all other Balloons will stop attacking. The King will then start shouting, "Help!", as the Balloon carries him towards the top of the screen. In order to rescue the King, the player must shoot the Balloon holding him captive. If the player does this successfully, the King will say, "Thank you," and float back down to the castle. But if the player lets the Balloon escape, the King will say, "Bye-Bye!", and the player will lose a life. It is important to note that Balloons cannot collide with the cannon while they are traveling upwards. This lets the player shoot down any Balloons that attempt to capture the King more easily.
The player earns an extra life at 10,000 points.
Enemies[]
Normal Balloons[]
Each wave of Balloons contains 8 White Balloons, 10 Yellow Balloons, 12 Orange Balloons, and 12 Red Balloons for a total of 42 Balloons. All the Balloons have the same attack pattern, which is to dive towards the castle in an erratic looping pattern, land inside, and—if they have not captured the King—return to formation. This means that, unlike Galaxian, the color of each Balloon does not indicate any special traits; instead, it tells the player how many points each Balloon is worth.
The amount of points the player receives for defeating a Balloon depends on whether it is staying in formation, diving towards the player, or kidnapping the King.
| Enemy | Convoy | Charger | Escaping |
|---|---|---|---|
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Large Balloons[]
Occasionally, three Balloons in the formation will combine to form a Large Balloon. Although they follow the same attack pattern as normal Balloons, Large Balloon must be popped three times in order to e completely defeated. In addition, if a Large Balloon makes it to the Castle, it will disintegrate into the Balloons that formed it upon entry, making it more likely for the King to be kidnapped. This makes Large Balloons are more threatening than their normal counterparts, requiring three hits to be completely destroyed; however, fully defeating Large Balloons rewards the player with bonus points. If a Large Balloon is popped, it releases a Medium Balloon, which itself releases a Normal Balloon on defeat.
| Enemy | Description | First Hit | Second Hit | Third Hit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Formed from the combination of a Red Balloon, Orange Balloon, and Yellow Balloon.
When popped, it releases a Medium Orange Balloon, which in turn releases a Yellow Balloon. |
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Formed from the combination of a Red Balloon, Orange Balloon, and White Balloon.
When popped, it releases a Medium White Balloon, which in turn releases a Red Balloon. |
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Formed from the combination of a Red Balloon, Yellow Balloon, and White Balloon.
When popped, it releases a Medium Red Balloon, which in turn releases a White Balloon. |
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Formed from the combination of an Orange Balloon, Yellow Balloon, and White Balloon.
When popped, it releases a Medium Yellow Balloon, which in turn releases an Orange Balloon. |
Trivia[]
- This is Namco's first arcade game to contain voice lines.
- This was achieved by modifying the game's Namco Galaxian hardware to include a Z80 processor.
- When the game was brought to the United States, all of the voice lines were redone with a different voice actor.
- Both the background noise and the sound effect for firing the cannon are reused from Galaxian.
- The player can prevent Balloons from combining by shooting down one of them before the combining animation ends. If this is done successfully, the other two Balloons will immediately return to formation.
- Like Galaxian, the game's level counter stops updating after Round 48.
- If the player uses the level select feature in Namco Museum Battle Collection and chooses any level after Round 48, the game will load its attract mode. Since the game thinks it has loaded a level, the attract mode will contain sound effects rather than remain silent.
Gallery[]
