Hot Air

Hot Air!, also written as Hot Air, is Nitrome's first Flash browser game on Nitrome's site. Released in 2005, it was one of the only few games available on Nitrome 1.0, and up until June 28th 2013, it was available to be played on the Nintendo Wii using Miniclip.

The goal of the game is to guide a hot air balloon to the finish pad by using a cyan fan to blow it. Many fans consider Hot Air to be one of Nitrome's hardest games, alongside Nanobots.

In 2007, a sequel for the game (which also coincidentally Nitrome's first sequel), was released two years later, titled Hot Air 2. After another record breaking five years break, the latest installment, Hot Air Jr, was released in 2012.

Controls
Move the mouse - Move fan

Mouse click - Activate fan

The cyan fan is what propels Hot Air (the balloon) throughout the levels of the game. While in game, the fan will replace the player's mouse cursor, allowing it to be controlled fairly easily. The player must click the left mouse button in order to activate the fan, which will immediately starting blowing Hot Air away from it.

Levels
For video walkthroughs of this game, please see Hot Air

Each level of Hot Air starts with Hot Air on a green pad. The goal of each level is to blow Hot Air all the way to the red pad, whilst avoiding enemies and obstacles. Any new enemies introduced are usually exclusive to their level. Any subsequent reappearances of enemies in the series would involve a new, novel way of integrating it into the level design.

Level progression
Initially only the first level is unlocked. The remaining nineteen regular levels can be unlocked by completing the level preceding it. Collecting all the stars in a level rewards the player with one star token. The accumulation of star tokens unlocks the remaining five bonus levels.

The level sections below details the design and demands of each level.

Level 1
Stars: five Hazards: none

The first level is a simple introduction. The player has to guide Hot Air through a course lined with spiked walls, in the shape of a backwards C. There are a few easy-to-reach stars to be collected at the corners.

Level 2
Stars: five Locked gates: two Hazard: axe

A degree of difficulty is introduced in this level, with space constraints and a need for timing to avoid the obstacles. The player has to guide Hot Air to two keys on the sides of the screen, then to the pad, while avoiding an oscillating axe. The stars, as well as the keys, involve timing to reach. To stars are placed beside the anchor of the axe, a perilous location.

Level 3
Stars: six Locked gates: one (optional, access one star) Hazards: none

This level tests the control of the player. Hot Air has to go through a fairly narrow oval-shaped path. Five stars are located conveniently along this path. However, the sixth star is in a locked compartment in the middle of this oval, blocked by a locked gate. The locked gate has to be unlocked by landing on the orange pad with a key at the top of the oval.

Level 4
Stars: five Hazards: balls on chains

This level tests the player's fan control in a changing neighborhood (the immediate surroundings of Hot Air). Hot Air has to travel pass one double balls on chains, and another quadruple balls on chains, housed in two circular spaces. stars are placed at the circumference of these circular spaces.

Level 5
[{Incomplete}} Stars: four Hazards: Lava

This level tests the player's timing. The lava level in this level rises and falls, and three wall pockets above the lava provide a safe respite from the lava. A star is located in the middle pocket, while the green pad and the red pad occupy the remainder. The lava rapidly switches between 'high tide and low tide', and three stars can be be found within the tidal range.

Level 6
Stars: four Hazards: mouth monster

This level is a test of the player's agility and perception of position.

The player has to go through a six toothed monster, and avoid the crushing teeth.

Level 7
Stars: three Hazards: three spinning spike paths

The player has to go through three spinning spike paths to get to the finish. This level has been reputed to be a challenging test of the player's control of the cyan fan. Most players have difficulty progressing beyond this level.[citation pending]

Level 8
Stars: four Hazards: volcanoes, lava droplets

The player has to get to the right side of the volcano while avoiding roaming fire shot from it.

Level 9
Stars: four Hazards: Parallel moving spiked platforms

The player has to get to the finish pad as fast as possible before the walls crush the player, while making tight squeezes between spike balls.

Level 10
Stars: 10 Locked gates: five Aggressive enemy: Green bug

Hot Air has to unlock six locked gates while being stalked by a green bug to land on the red pad.

Level 11
Stars: nine Hazards: beam with teeth

Hot Air has to race through an S-shaped curve while a spiked wall catches up from behind.

Level 12
Stars: two Hazards: small mouths

Hot Air has to go through three small mouths.

Level 13
Stars: six Hazards: crusher blocks

Hot Air has to weave through four crusher blocks with alternate oscillations to reach the finishing pad.

Level 14
Stars: 10 Hazards: fans

Hot Air has to survive headwinds generated by large fans along the walls along a long passageway.

Level 15
Stars: four Hazards: bullets

Hot Air has to go through two horizontal rows of slow moving bullets, with the top row bullets moving left to right and the bottom row vice versa.

Level 16
Stars: four Hazards: Rotating spiked platforms

This level is unique as the entire level layout rotates clockwise about the centre.

Level 17
Stars: four Hazards: fire droplets

Hot Air has to go through a passageway shaped in the form of the number 2 (or a linear Z/S), lined densely on both sides with fire droplets.

Level 18
Stars: five Hazards: drills

Hot Air has to weave through drills falling from the sky from the left to the top-right-corner.

Level 19
Stars: six Hazards: giant fan

In the centre of the map lies a large two-bladed fan rotating counter-clockwise. Around the fan lies numerous spike balls.

Level 20
Stars: three Hazards: octopi

Nine octopuses are scattered throughout the level. These octopuses are affected by the cyan fan/s blow, and bounce off the spiked wall upon contact. The initial position and velocities of the octopuses are randomized.

Bonus 1
Stars: five Hazards: dragon worms

A square shaped level with the red pad on a pole, located in the middle of the level. The red pad is circled by a small pink dragon worm, is who circled by an ever large blue coloured dragon worm. Both dragon worms are almost completely circle shaped, with an opening between the tail and head.

Passing through the opening of the blue dragon worm is easier than passing through the pink dragon worm's opening. Five stars are located in the level, two outside the blue worm at the top left and top right of the enemy (these stars easy to get), and three stars placed around the pink dragon worm - one above the worm, and two at each of its sides.

The incredibly frustrating part of this level is getting past the dragon worms, this part of the level made even more frustrating when one is trying to collect the stars.

Bonus 2
Stars: five Hazards: cage

In this level, Hot Air is trapped inside a cage - a cage lined with spiked all around the inside. The cage will move on a set course, at first moving slowly, but gradually picking up speed, to the point the player has to blow so fast that a sudden stop of the cage would kill them.

The cage will first move upwards, horizontally left, vertically upwards before moving diagonally right, horizontally right, then move in a half circle motion. This half circle motion ends via a diagonally left downwards movement, followed by a diagonally right upwards movement, which then move vertically upwards before a long horizontally right movement - the longest movement in one direction.

As one comes to the end of this long movement, the movements in a set direction become longer and more abstract. The cage will make a long diagonally left downwards movement, which is replicated again, only in reverse. A very short horizontally left movement is interrupted by an abrupt diagonal movement, a vertically downwards movement, and an even longer diagonally downwards left movement.

As the end nears, the cage makes it second curve, changing to a horizontal right movement, which drops down to a downwards vertical movement and a diagonally left movement, that curves upwards to the left and finally remains vertically downwards as the player zooms to the red pad.

Bonus 3
Stars: five Locked gates: five Hazards: fire droplets

A level with many drops down to activate a key pad, whilst blowing out fire droplets. Where the player starts, there is a pit in front of them that contains an orange pad and two fire droplets on the floor of this pad, in front of this pit being a locked gate.

After this gate is an almost exact room, but with two fire droplets on the ceiling. After this room is a very short drop, which is followed by an immense drop. At the bottom of this drop is a pit with an orange pad protected by two fire droplets - both droplets on the walls to the sides of the pits. Above the tips of the heads of the fire droplets is a star; to the right of this pit is a locked gate.

Past this locked gate is a longer pit, consisting of an orange pad at the bottom that has two stars, which has four fire droplets above it, both droplets sideways on the wall, with two droplets per wall. To the left of this gate is another locked gate, which features an even longer pit the same as the previous one but with an extra fire droplet on each wall.

Past the final gate is the longest pit in the level, having a red pad at the bottom and eight fire droplets protecting the pad - four on each wall. This level breaks from the extreme difficulty set by the previous two level, and instead tests the player reflexes in activating a pad before fire comes back.

Bonus 4
Stars: four Locked gates: one (optional, access one star)

A level involving the traversal of exceedingly small openings, testing the player's patience and concentration. The level starts off with a horizontal hallway that goes vertically up, and then another horizontal hallway.

At the end of this hallway is a small, box shaped room. This room is incredibly small and is only accessed by pressing a nearby orange pad. The smallness of this room makes it very difficult to get the star at the end, this room only attempted by those who want to collect all of the game's stars.

After this room is an upwards corridor that then takes a short horizontal move left, that is followed by a vertical drop. To the right of this drop is a small pocket containing an orange pad, that when landed on opens the only gate in the level - the one leading to one of the level's stars. Aside from this is a left horizontal hallway, a short drop, and another right horizontal hallway.

Above this is an unusual room, unusual as it has multiple directions instead of just one. This room has a small pocket at the upper left, this pocket containing a star. As with the first encountered star location, this pocket is small. Below this pocket is another room, the moves upwards, and finally ends with a right hallway with a red pad at the end.

Bonus 5
Stars: 7 Hazards: fans

The final level of the game involves fans blowing on the player as they go past tight corners and near spikes. The player is started at the top-left of the level, where they have to go downwards into a small box.

Two of the edges of this box contain stars; the bottom left of this box leading further into the level. The right wall of this box contains two fans, the below left wall also having a fan (this fan in front of a small opening, made small by a spiked block sticking out of the wall).

Lower down is a corridor that goes to the right, and has three fans on the floor. This corridor is unusually small, but fits the the super difficulty of the level. At the right edge of the room is a star, this star at the bottom of a long upwards corridor, which, although offering very little space, containing no fans.

The top of this corridor is a hallway similar to the previous hallway, only that there is a fan at the top right of the hallway, one on the bottom left, and three at the top right of the hallway. This hallway is harder in that it is shorter than the previous hallway, and features more fans.

The star at the top right of the hallway is near a fan, this star at the top of the level's second corridor. This corridor is wider, but has more fans: one at the top right of the corridor, two at the left middle, and one at the bottom right. The bottom right fan is at the left of the third hallway - the next room entered.

This hallway is nearly the same as the first hallway, only this hallway has a fan at the top-left. As the player goes through a small gap at the top-left ceiling of the room, the player is greeted by another fan at the top of the short gap. To the right of this is the red pad.

Interactive Objects
The interactive objects of Hot Air.
 * Stars - Found all around courses. After collecting all of them in a course, a star token will be added to the count in the menu.

Enemies
Making contact with any enemy will cause Hot Air to pop, and make the game go back to the level select menu, forcing the player to restart the level.
 * Male Axe - A giant blade will swing back and forth, and will pop the hot air balloon if hit.
 * Balls on chains - Grey balls that rotate clockwise around their chains, forcing the player to move in sync with them to get passed.
 * Mouth Monster - Huge monsters with large gaps in between their teeth. The player can only progress to the end by going through the gaps made by the opened mouth of the monster.
 * Volcano - Spews out fire.
 * Lava droplets - A small red bullet that homes in on the player when fired out of the volcano.
 * Giant fan - A large fan that constantly rotates its blades around, popping Hot Air on touch.
 * Octopi - Enemies that steadily move toward Hot Air, but can be blown away by the fan.
 * Mines - Mines act much like hazards, as they cannot move but remain in the same spot throughout the whole level. They are usually placed in inconvenient places, and will pop Hot Air on touch.
 * Drills - Capped drills that will fall from the ceiling, and continue falling off the screen.
 * Bullets - Large bullets that are fired from one side of the screen, and continue flying to the other side of the screen.
 * Dragon worms - Long, centipede-like creatures that rotate in a circle.
 * Fire droplets (Hot Air) - Stationary enemies that will pop Hot Air on contact, but can be blown out temporarily by the fan.

Hazards

 * Main article: Hazards (Hot Air series)

These dangerous objects will also pop the balloon.
 * Spikes - Come out of the ground, and are located almost in every level, except in level six.
 * Lava - Orange and red liquid that will kill Hot Air on contact.
 * Spinning spike path - A circular path of spikes that turns around. One opening/exit of the Path is usually bigger then the other. It is considered to be one of the most dangerous hazards.
 * Fans - Fans blows Hot Air to left, right, up or down, depending on their place.
 * Cage - Hot Air is inside of cage and must avoid spikes in it while trying to keep up with the cage's movement

Inspiration
When asked by FreeGamesNews where Mat Annal got his inspiration for games, Mat claimed that he got the idea for Hot Air when he was blowing Lemmings around with a fan in Lemmings2

Awards

 * Jay is Games
 * 2006
 * Best of Casual Gameplay 2005
 * Top 10 games of 2005
 * Nominated
 * }

Trivia

 * It is possible to highlight the timer in the top right corner of the level screen.
 * The Miniclip version of Hot Air is also playable on the Nintendo Wii's Internet Channel, however, due to Nintendo disabling all channels on June 28th 2013 - bar WiFi and the Wii Shop Channel - it essentially was removed on that day.
 * The smallest passage that the balloon has to squeeze through in the game (and in the series) is at the beginning of level twenty-four. The player only has a few free pixels to move around, but the area only lasts for around two balloon widths.
 * Lee Nicklen (Hot Air’s composer) made six extra tracks when he made Hot Air.
 * 1) Extra Song #1
 * 2) Extra Song #2
 * 3) Extra Song #3
 * 4) Extra Song #4
 * 5) Extra Song #5
 * 6) Extra Song #6
 * Hot Air and Nanobots, have been claimed by many Nitromians as the two most difficult Nitrome games.
 * This game is the only Nitrome game that can be played with Flash 7 Player
 * Hot Air is the only Nitrome game that does not have a mute button for music or sound in the levels, except for Pixel Pop. However, the mute options for Hot Air can be accessed by clicking "options" on the menu screen.
 * There is an easter egg in level 1, where if the player pops the balloon up against the spikes on the wall directly to their left, the Nitrome jingle will play.