I'm always on the lookout for good games for my husband and I to enjoy together. I ran across this one while surfing the Board Game Geek website and noticed that it had good reviews, and sounded like something I could convince my husband to sit down and play with me.

What You Get
~45 Balloon Cards in 5 colors, each with a number from 1 to 13 on them.
~5 Balloon Cup trophy cards
~4 double-sided hop tiles
~45 wooden victory cubes
~1 draw string bag
~1 rulebook

How to Play

Set Up
Separate out the 5 trophy cards and lay them out on the playing surface up at the top in this order: gray, blue, green, yellow, and red. This will also put them in ascending numerical order.

Next, take the 4 hop tiles and line them up in a vertical line on the playing table. You'll notice that the tiles are numbered 1 through 4 and are double-sided. One side of each tile has mountains, the other has plains. Take tile #1 and flip it to the plains side, flip tile #2 to mountains, tile #3 to plains, and tile #4 to mountains. Place tile #1 at the top, then tile #2 underneath, tile #3 underneath that, and tile #4 at the bottom.

Place all of the tiny wooden colored cubes in the draw-string bag and shake up. Without looking, pull cubes out of the bag and place on the hop tiles. 1 cube for tile #1, 2 cubes for tile #2, three for #3, and 4 for #4. Although you're doing this at random, you cannot have more than 2 of the same color cube on one tile. So, if you end up by luck of the draw with this, put the extra back in the bag and draw another.

Shuffle and deal out 8 cards to both players. Players can look at their own hand.

The Goal
The ultimate goal of the game is to be the first player to earn 3 trophy cards. In order to win cards, you must collect a specified number of matching colored victory cubes. In order to win the gray trophy you have to collect 3 gray cubes. To get the blue trophy you must collect 4, and so on up to 7 red cubes required for the red trophy. The trophies are not worth more than each other, you simply need to collect 3 of them to win.

In order to collect cubes, you must play cards one at a time on either side of the hop tiles. You can only play cards that match the cubes sitting on the hop tile. Thus, if the hop tile has one gray cube and two green cubes on it, you must lay down 1 gray balloon card and 2 green balloon cards on each side of the hop tile. You may lay cards on either side, but each player owns one side of the playing surface. So, you will be trying to play cards that help you on your side and cards that hurt your opponent on the other side.

On Your Turn
Your turn consists of playing one card, then drawing another to replace it. If you can play a card you must, even if it means helping your opponent.

Collecting Cubes
A hop tile is won and its cubes are claimed as soon as all of the matching cards are played on both sides of that tile. To determine who wins the tile, determine the sum of the numbers of the cards on each side. If the tile is a mountain tile, the side with the higher sum wins. Again, it doesn't matter who has placed the tiles, it matters whose side it is on. If it is a plains tile, the side with the lowest sum wins. The winning player takes the cubes off of that tile, discards the cards on both sides, flips the tile to the other side, then draws more cubes from the bag to refill the tile.

Earning Trophies
As soon as a tile is won and cubes are collected, players look at the colored cubes and determine if there are enough of any color to collect a trophy card. When a trophy card is collected, the player trades in the appropriate number of colored cubes of the corresponding color for that trophy. Those cubes are placed in the box, removing them from play for the rest of the game.

Once one or more trophies have been won, players may look at their cubes and if they have 3 cubes in a color that corresponds to a trophy already won, they may use those 3 cubes to count as 1 cube of a color needed to collect another trophy. When they collect that trophy they turn in those cubes as well.

However, trophies can only be collected at the time that a hop tile is won. The winner of that tile gets to collect trophies - if he can - first. Then, the losing player gets to determine if he can collect a trophy.

Play then continues with the player who lost the tile going first.

When the cards from the draw pile are depleted, just shuffle the discard pile to make a new draw pile.

What We Love

Perfect for Two Players
A lot of games out there claim that they can be played with 2 players, but are really better with 3 or 4. I love to find a game that is really perfect for 2 adult players.

Theme
This is the second game I have with a hot air ballooning theme. There's something about that theme that just appeals to me. And, there aren't that many games out there with a hot air ballooning theme (I am aware of exactly 22 ever made).

Appearance
The artwork of this game is really nice. The colors are bright and vibrant. The hop tiles are very pretty and each one is different. The cards are all really pretty also. I know the game could be just as good without such attractive components, that it's really the mechanics that make the game, but I'm a sucker for pretty anyway.

Take That!
I love these kinds of card games. You spend just as much time thwarting your opponent as you do taking care of yourself. Love it. Makes for really fun and lively interaction.

Just Long Enough
This game takes about 30 minutes to play, just as advertised on the box. Our first game took us about 45 minutes, but once we figured out how to do it we sped up significantly. Personally, I enjoy long games. But, it's hard to talk my husband into playing really long games with me. This one is short enough and lively enough to hold his attention. It's perfect for when we have just enough time for a game before bed.

What's Not to Like?
I had to think really hard to come up with any sort of complaint for this really great game, but I did come up with one thing:

Too Few Cards
There are only 45 playing cards, and you will go through the deck several times during the game, which interrupts the game every time and extends playing time.

Age Range
The box says this game is for ages 10 and up. I think that's pretty accurate. I'm not going to try to teach my 7 year old to play this. I can think of a few ways to simplify it, but with the rules as is, it's really a pretty grown up game. There's quite a bit of strategy and math involved, and things keep changing.

Price
We paid $16.00 plus shipping for a brand new copy on eBay. Definitely worth what we paid for it.

Final Thoughts
This is a great 2 player game for adults or older children. It's inexpensive, attractive, and just plain fun. Buy it.





Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): $16.00
Type of Toy: Game
Age Range of Child: 9 Years or Older