Balloon Flight Review - Less Than Buoyant

thegamer.com:

As I plummeted into the abyss below me, populated by clouds and an endless blue sky, the cheerful music that had serenaded my shaky flight seemed to mock me. The square platform I’d been piloting soared upwards without my weight and disappeared. When Balloon Flight finally admitted I was a goner, the end screen popped up to display my so-called “Best Stats.”

This will be a recurring experience for anyone who spends much time playing Balloon Flight. No matter how well you master the mechanics, your runs will often end with a zooming view of the blue skies below you as you fall to your doom.

Balloon Flight is an indie first-person physics game where you use a gun that both creates and pops balloons to hurl yourself through the air. Your goal is to travel as far as possible while passing through rings in the air that increase your available time. As you get further from the starting island, the more complicated (and difficult to traverse) the islands you pass are.

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Some games thrive without a tutorial. The player just explores the world around them and uses trial and error to learn what to do and what not to do - like a baby touching a hot burner on a stove. After all, aren’t gamers just overgrown babies? One easy example is the early Mario games; no one told you to jump on the Goomba’s head, you just learned that they disappeared when you did, and they could kill you if you didn’t. Other games take a light approach, sneakily teaching you the mechanics without leaving you feeling bored and led-by-the-hand. Breath of the Wild may guide you through a starting area, but it still gives you free rein over an open place and doesn’t shove every mechanic down your throat at