Hot Air 2

Hot Air 2: All Blown Up, simply known as Hot Air 2, is an action-puzzle game released in 2007, and also Nitrome's first released sequel. In the game, the main character, Hot Air, has a girlfriend and is trying to rescue her after she is captured by Baron von Blimp.

The game has several new enemies, as well as some enemies from its prequel, Hot Air, that have been redone or been given new counterparts. In the sequel, players were able make balloons using the Hot Air Balloon Maker, then use them as characters. When the balloon maker was taken down due to the humongous amount of balloons made, all player-created balloons were removed from the game.

Controls
Move the mouse - Move fan

Mouse click - Activate fan

The cyan fan is what propels Hot Air throughout the levels of the game. The player must click the left mouse button in order to activate the fan, which will immediately starting blowing Hot Air away from it. Also, the player must move the mouse in order to move the fan.

Levels
There are also extra levels, but these need to be unlocked by completing a certain amount of levels with all the stars.

Introduction: The Story So Far...
Hot Air and a pink balloon fall in love. Just then, a flower drops from the sky. Hot Air goes to pick it up, but knocks it over. Just then, Baron von Blimp captures Hot Air's girlfriend and flies off with her. Hot Air gets angry.

1: Big Mouth Strikes Again
The player has to go into big mouth's mouth, and stay there until they can escape the other end and exit to the finish pad.

2: Shut Your Trap
The player has to land on the key platforms to open gates, but has to get up before the spikes for the traps come up. There are two of these.

3: So I Married an Axe Murderer
The player has to fly over and land on the orange pad, then fly to the right room and press the other orange pad, then fly past the two axes, and press the other orange pad, then fly past the axes again and on to the finish pad.

4: King of the Castle
The player has to fan a wheel many times, and keep the gate up long enough so the player can get to the finish pad.

5: Keep it Down
The player has to get out of the area they are in, and land on the key switch on the left. That key switch unlocks a gate, fly to the other key switch, and press it. That switch opens the last gate that blocked the exit. Now fly up to the exit before the green water gets to high.

6: Stamped Out
The player has to fly up, activate the key switch, and fly up to the exit while the stone block is still down.

7: Winging It
The player has to try to land on the exit that is flying around.

8: Drill Bill
The player has to navigate through crumbling rocks to the finish, and avoid getting popped by drill bill. Getting the stars here is difficult.

9: Balls of Steel
The player has to go around the room and try to get away from the Ball on the Chain, then navigate to the finish by avoiding the double ball on chains, and the small spike diamonds.

10: Octoboss (Boss 1)
The player has to land on orange pads to shoot a rocket at the Octoboss, and do this three times, then fly over to the exit.

11: Ball and Chain
The player has to fly past a giant ball and chain fast, to get to the exit.

12: Fire Escape
The player has to blow out a fire droplet with the fan, then go through the area, then up, then blow out two other fire droplets, then go through the area, then up, then blow out all the other fire droplets, then fly over to the finish.

13: Some Like It Hot
The player has to wait for the water to go down, activate the bellow switch, then fly up to the area where the star is (not the area the player started in). Now activate the other key, then go up into the second alcove with a star. Now, go through the tunnel, and into the finish when the water dies down.

14: Great Balls of Fire
The player must go up, and avoid the three volcano's that shoot fire Now, go past the volcano that shoots fire bullets up, then go up near the volcano, avoid the fire bullets shot from it, fly past it, then down, then avoid the volcano that shoots fire bullets in an oblique line, then fly down, then to the left, then onto the exit.

15: The Earth Moved
The player has to fly past some moving spike circles, then some others, then another, then up, then wait for the red pad to come down.

16: Dragon Breath
The player must navigate their way through moving dragon snakes, to the red pad.

17: Come Together
This is a hard level. The player must go up, avoiding the moving blocks, then wait for the mouth block to open, then get into the mouth block, and go as close to the right side as possible, then wait for the mouth block to move, go down, avoiding the other blocks, then go to the right, then up (avoiding the blocks), all the way over to the red pad. Joined U blocks are hard for the player to get past.

18: Biting the Bullet
The player must press four Key switches, while avoiding a giant bullet that follows them.

19: Cooking on Gas
The player must blow out two blue fires, fly past them, blow out one blue fire high up, then fly up, then fly to the left. Now, blow out two more blue fires, go into the room below, blow out the other blue fire, and try to get to the red pad.

20: Baron von Blimp (Boss 2)
The player has to blow drills with parachutes into the baron, three times, then get out of the way, then press the key on top of the blimp passenger area, then go over to the finish pad.

21: Mine All Mine
The player has to land the balloon on all key platforms scattered in the level while avoiding the spikes from mines. After all keys are collected, the exit is unlocked.

22: Octopus Garden
The player has to get to the exit, but octopi are hovering in the stage. They have to be fanned away.

23: The Worm That Turned
In two rooms the player has to land on a key platform to reach the exit while avoiding blobs which are jumping up and down from the ceiling to the floor and back again.

24: Follow The Leader
The player have to get two keys in a room, whilst being followed by a small flying enemy.

25: Number 1 Fan
The player have to make it to the exit, but to look out for the fans which are there to blow the balloon away.

26: A Tight Squeeze
The player has to fan the balloon to the exit, between blocks with enemies walking around it.

27: Caged Up
The balloon is trapped into a cage which is hanging on a cable. The cage moves by itself and the player have to move with it to finally land on the exit.

28: Dental Practice
The player has to fan the balloon through three mouths, before they close.

29: Off The Walls
The player has to fly over a wall and land on the exit, while avoiding bouncing smileys.

30: Big Daddy (Boss 3)
The player has to land three times on the finish pad which is located on top of Big Daddy's head.

Enemies

 * Big mouth - A big clockwise rotating circle with a face, and a mouth cut out.
 * Spike traps - Bear Trap enemies that will close their arms when Hot Air lands on their head
 * Axes - In Hot Air 2, there are two axes: male and female. The faces for both switches when they are near each other.
 * Portcullis - The portcullis reacts only if player blows the pinwheel
 * Sick guy - He causes the raising of green liquid in the level.
 * Crusher blocks - These enemies move upwards then drop down
 * Drill Bill - A giant, vertically-downwards moving drill placed at the top of the level
 * Ball on chains - There are two types of balls on chains:
 * Small balls on chains - Two to four small balls on a chain, both moving in a circle
 * Big ball on chain - A big ball on a chain, this hazard moving when the player moves
 * Fire - Fire can be removed by using fan to them.
 * Lava - It rises up and down
 * Volcanoes - Volcanoes are stationary and fire lava droplets.
 * Dragon worms - Dragon worms moves in square shaped path.

January
A preview image for Hot Air 2 was shown on Nitrome's old 2006/2007 website, Nitrome 1.2.

February
In February of 2007, Nitrome released an advertisement on their site that linked to a whole page about the upcoming game. The page's background was similar to the game's title screen, and it included four screenshots from the game. Beneath the game title it listed the new, upcoming features for the game, such as: "New boss fights", "Scrolling levels", "Unlock new balloons", "New map screen" and "And more".

The player could click on the screenshots to enlarge them, and then scroll through them. Beneath the screenshots were captions that had comments that Nitrome made about the game, such as "Screenshots (1/4) - Be careful around some of the new types of traps that await you in the game!"

July
A trailer was also posted on July 4, 2007, showing excerpts of the levels and some of the other features in Hot Air 2.



Unknown dates
These are the preview images released on unknown dates, presumably sometimes during 2007.

Beta elements
When Mat was reviewed by Free Games News about Hot Air 2 being released in February 2007, an image of a beta room from the game was used. The only difference in the picture is the background and coloured blocks - instead of the blocks being coloured grey, they are coloured green.

Glitches

 * When the player goes near a platform, but not on it, the balloon will float in midair with no help from the fan.
 * If player blows the balloon right after the level starts, the background music does not change. Later, if the player dies again and starts the level, the menu music will play, but it will get louder and louder.
 * However, if the player does not die again but instead turn the music off and on, the game music will play instead, and it will get louder as well.

Beta elements

 * The trailer for Hot Air 2 shows the startup with a Hot Air face background instead of a pink line background. Also, all levels were available, even though the player did not have any stars.
 * The yellow balloon in the January 2007 ad is not in Hot Air 2.

Trivia

 * Two of the Hot Air 2 levels have references to the Beatles' songs: Come Together, and Octopus Garden.
 * Hot Air 2 is the first released Nitrome game that allows players to change their character's appearance.
 * The music in the Miniclip version of Hot Air 2 was completely different than the music in the Nitrome version.
 * The music tracks played in the Miniclip version were extra themes Lee Nicklen composed for the original Hot Air.
 * Unusually, the menu music for the Miniclip version of Hot Air 2 ends abruptly and does not loop.
 * Level 3 was named after a comedy thriller film So I Married an Axe Murderer.