Overview
Players control cute cartoon characters in eight different settings on a small island. Environments include a glacier, a walled village with windmill, an underground train tunnel, a forest, a bomb factory, a desert oasis, and a small castle with its own mini-moat. The different environments are represented on the screen as various checkerboard settings for players to use as battlegrounds. Players begin their watery battle on foot, but they progress to using roller-skates, to riding on owls, turtles, octopi, or train cars, and piloting different types of flying saucers.
Power-up items include bigger and wetter water balloons, strength-building candy canes, needles that allow characters to burst an enemy balloon and escape from being trapped inside it, and many, many more. “Boss” characters pop up from time to time to increase the challenge by throwing their own balloons, stealing the players’ balloons, and causing the players to become slower or weaker. As players move through successive rounds, new strategies are required and new obstacles appear such as falling icicles that burst the player’s arsenal of balloons.
One player may compete against computer-controlled bosses or against other computer-controlled characters. Two players may simultaneously play in either cooperative or competitive mode. Each player uses a joystick and two buttons, one to attack and the second to deploy power-ups. The simple yet fun 2-D graphics show a top-down angle on each battlefield and are presented in a horizontal scrolling environment. Operators can select the number of rounds that players are required to stay in each environment and what feats must be accomplished to continue to the next level of play.
