Hot Air Jr

Hot Air Jr. is an adventure game released on June 28, 2012. It was first hinted in a .gif of an enemy from the new sequel on the Nitrome blog on March 3, 2012. Gameplay from Hot Air is retained, with the player using a fan to control Hot Air Jr around the stage while avoiding enemies and hazards. Hot Air Jr. is also the second Nitrome game to have a demo.

Official Description
"Help Hot Air Jr find his lost dog while avoiding the dangerous obstacles ahead!"

Controls
Mouse - Move/blow fan

Demo

 * Main article: Hot Air Jr. Demo

Levels
Hot Air Jr. consists of 17 levels, 12 which can be accessed once the previous level is completed, 4 secret levels that have to be unlocked via the collection of all stars in levels, and a level accessed by going into Squeak's dog house. Level are divided into 4 rooms, and for the first time in the hot Air Series, the player has to traverse a house where the levels are doors, the house acting as the HUB of the game.

Basement (level 1-7)
This is the first room the player gains access to at the start of the game. When the player starts, a locket gate is blocking the right exit of the room. A Key is necessary to open it, which is obtained by following the level doors all the way to the seventh level.

The bottom level of the house is safe, while the upper hallway is lined with spikes on most of the ceiling and floor. Where level 7 is is where the key can be found, and once brought to the door, allows the player to access outside. Even once the player has opened the gate, even when they leave reload the game (such as when the click their browser's back button or close their browser, then go back to the Hot Air Jr game) they will start back in the bottom room, and may (but not all the time) have to go retrieve the key.

On the far left of the room are stairs, which lead to the changing room.

Level 1
Enemy: Boot

Rooms: 1

The player has to wait for the Boot to jump high up, off the screen, then they can pass underneath it.

Level 2
Enemy: Large fan

Rooms: 2

This level has two rooms, both which have large spinning fans. The player has to go up, horizontally left, then down to get to the entrance of the second room. Located on the top left is the first fan. The second room contains a restart pad. To get to the finish pad in this room, the player has to travel horizontally right until they reach the diagonal patch of spikes.

When there, they have to travel upwards until they get to to the ceiling, then horizontally left to the end of the middle spiky segment extending out of the wall. The portion where the player has to move upwards is where the second large fan in the level is found. This enemy can be avoided by going around it.

Level 3
Enemy: Swords

Rooms: 1

This long level involves having to go past swords found in the floor and ceiling of parts of the level. The first section can be easily traversed if the player holds the fan to Hot Air Jr's head and goes past the spikes without stopping, until coming to the mini swords.

As these enemies move automatically, the player should only move through after the first sword goes down then retracts enough the player can enter. As with the first set of swords, the player should use the Fan-to-head Hot Air Jr. technique. The third set of swords are not like the first, these ones move faster down.

For traversing these ones, the player should wait until each pair of swords retract out, then while retracting back in, go through the gap that appears. This should be repeated for each sword in set 3 until the player reaches the end.

Level 4
In this level, Hot Air Jr. is faced with a spike maze. There is also a pink spike block that follows Hot Air Jr. around the level, and homes in on him every few seconds.

When the player starts, go up for a bonus star, then go under the homing enemy. Go all the way to the left and go up. Continue and turn right for the two stars. Follow the maze of Spikes when they gather around Jr, soon, Jr. will find himself at the finish platform.

Outside (levels 8-12)
Outside is unlocked once the player retrieves the key from the right of level 7's door. Outside, a few spike blocks are found, and a roaming purple bat. This room has a semi-secret level, the dog house. At first nothing pops up to indicate it is a level, but when landing on the base of the house, the level is entered. Levels 10-12 are on individual platforms that are placed high up. The top left of the room leads to the upper room. Getting to the upper levels means avoiding the spikes and purple bat

Dog House
Dog house is not given a numerical level number, only referred to as "Dog house". At first, in the room the level is accessed, nothing pops up to indicate it is a level. Only when the player lands on the base of the dog house it is entered.

Level 12
Level 12 has the only and first boss in the game. There are two outcomes in the level, both outcomes that give different endings. (please note that, although both videos are walkthroughs that show how to kill the boss, any of the walkthroughs that show how to plummet the boss to the ground and cause him to surrender can be used to complete the level)

Upper room (levels 13-15)
The upper room has 3 spike crusher blocks, and between each crusher block a door that leads to a level. Each level in this room is unlocked once the player has gained enough moustache stars (a moustache star is obtained when all the stars in a level is collected). At the edge of this room is wall, which on the opposite side has the door for level 16.

Level 13
Moustache stars needed: 2

Level 14
Moustache stars needed: 6

Level 15
Moustache stars needed: 12

Spike-ridden hallway (level 16)
This room is accessed from the room the changing room is found in. To get to it, the player has to blow the balloon through the bottom part of the wall placed on the right.

This will bring the player to a block background. Going up will being the player to a winding hallway, riddled with spikes, which at the end has the level 16 entry door. Here, the room shakes, as the spike crusher blocks cause vibrations that stretch to this room.

Access
Go left from the costume door. Although it looks although the wall is impassible, part of the wall is not solid - go through the non-solid part. Watch out for spikes while going through the hazardous area, and make sure that sixteen mustache stars have been collected before accessing level sixteen.

Level 16
This level includes hand, which tries to annoy player by grabbing fan. You can stun it for while by shaking mouse to left and right.

Moustache stars needed: 16

Enemies

 * Axes - axes swing back and forth in a 180 degrees V-shape. They have a frowning face and will kill the player on touch.
 * Mini axes - mini axes are a smaller version of axes, but have a different face.
 * Octopuses - octopuses are small, purple octopuses that float around and can be blown by the fan. They too kill Hot Air Jr on touch.
 * Boot - a giant shoe creature that jumps a few times, then does a super jump, allowing passage underneath. It kills on contact.
 * Large fan - It blows Hot Air Jr. with a great gust of air, capable of blowing him into spikes.
 * Swords- sword-like enemies that are embedded in the ceiling and floor that lunge out when Hot Air Jr passes.
 * Small crusher block - a thwomp-like enemy that follow Hot Air Jr through a maze of spikey cubes.
 * Spike Balls - a cube enemy covered in spikes that appears when you get close.
 * Floating mine spawner - creatures that are embedded in the ceiling of some areas and drop bombs when the player presses a button
 * Floating mines - bomb creatures dropped from explosive mine spawners that can be blown by the cyan fan and explode whenever they touch anything.
 * Floating pears - Pear shaped enemies that use their wings to float up then drop down. When Hot Air Jr gets under one, they might turn pink and chase him.
 * Snot and Nose - A cameo from the Snot Put series. The snot drops down out of the nose then gets sucked back up.
 * Purple bat - Ball shaped bat creature that follows Hot Air Jr in the outside section of the house.
 * Mouth monsters - skull-shaped enemies that open and close their mouths allowing passage. One has cracked teeth that can be destroyed with bombs, and one gold tooth that is indestructible.
 * Cloud - cloud-like creature that, at the beginning of level 11, goes into Hot Air Jr and causes him to continuously puff up throughout the level.
 * Blue fires - A floating blue flame that floats in a pattern.
 * Saw  - A saw that goes around in the ground and ceiling and cuts all around.
 * Flames - When blown out, new areas/platforms appears.

Hazards

 * Spikes- Spikes can kill Hot Air Jr if he touches it.

Interactive Objects

 * Changing room - Lets the player change their balloon's appearance.
 * Checkpoints - If the player dies, he/she will start from that area.

Changes
Hot Air Jr dropped several features present in Hot Air 1 & 2.
 * Stars appear larger and brighter than they did in Hot Air 1 & 2
 * The cyan fan is made larger
 * Coloured platforms that appear with diagonal lines stretching across them are not used.
 * More than one background is used throughout the entire game.
 * Green and red pads lose their colour and appearance.
 * Most platforms will not contain Spikes.
 * The locked gates appear golden-coloured and larger than in the other games of the franchise.
 * The player is more heavier than Hot Air in the previous game.
 * Stefan Ahlin does the art for the game, instead of Mat Annal
 * The player accesses levels through a HUB, this HUB being the player's home. This replaces the level select screen.
 * Some enemies are made faster than they were in the previous games, while other enemies from the past games act differently in some situations.

Demo
On May 12th, Nitrome released a demo of the game. The demo included some enemies and hazards, all organized in a large level.

March 3, 2012
Nitrome revealed a .gif of a bug-like enemy that is to appear in an upcoming sequel. Fans were directed to tell Nitrome in the comments on Facebook and Twitter what they thought the sequel was. After the release, the preview image was revealed to be a floating pear.

March 13, 2012
Nitrome revealed their "cryptic sequel" to be Hot Air Jr, and provided an screenshot. The screenshot never actually appeared in the game.

March 22, 2012
Nitrome revealed the official name of the game, Hot Air Jr. Nitrome said also that it will be easier than Hot Air and Hot Air 2. They provided another screenshot of the game which turned out to be a beta image.

May 12, 2012
Nitrome released a demo for the game on their site. This was Nitrome's second demo.

Link for the game: Hot Air Jr. Demo

Beta elements
The only known beta elements are a few of the preview images provided by nitrome. The March 13th image (2nd preview image) showed Jr. in a room with three floating pears. It is likely this image was only to show what the art would look like, and not an actual room, as the room had an unusual setup consisting of a yellow block and a breakable block.

The second and last beta image is the March 22nd preview image (3rd preview image). The image shows level 15 of Hot Air Jr., but with a different background and different coloured blocks. The section shown is the second diagonal hallway.

Glitches

 * On level nine, when all the teeth are destroyed with the floating mines, the player can die without touching the gums. This is likely due to the player colliding with the hit box, as hit boxes can only be square, and noJr_Glitch!.png go completely around an object if it is curved or irregularly angled.
 * If the player defeats giant spike ball in his fourth phase and has not yet surrendered, he will be destroyed but any of the endings will not pop out. This makes the player have to restart the level.
 * If the player defeats the giant spike ball in its fourth phase, another glitch can happen if the player goes under the ball when changing to its last phase (which is the defeated one), when falling, the ball will push Hot Air Jr into the wall. After this, the balloon will start falling slowly with no chance of getting out, thus, the player will be forced to restart.
 * Very rarely during the battle with the boss, the player may end up killed, but still able to control the head of Hot Air Jr. They can blow it around the level, but it still functions as a balloon, dying if it hits anything harmful.

Trivia

 * The Hot Air series holds the record for the longest amount of time waited until a sequel was made for a game, Hot Air Jr.. being released 5 years after Hot Air 2.
 * Hot Air Jr takes place in a later time than the previous two games, and the player is controlling the Hot Air Balloon's child.
 * If the player dies but the driver gets the key, it is still obtained upon respawning.
 * It is unknown why stairs are put in the house, because the bean people are too short, and they can just fly up in their balloon.
 * The demo actually explains or shows most of the elements used in the game like hidden passages, keys, and more.
 * Unlike the previous two games, Hot Air Jr has walls that do not pop the balloon on contact.
 * Like Hot Air 2, the player can customize the character's balloon.
 * Two of the customizable skins for the balloon are a Final Ninja head and a Snot skin. The ninja head may also be a henchman from Dirk Valentine.
 * Hot Air Jr also contains a secret level, located in front of Squeak the Dog's doghouse.
 * In order to get past level 7, the player has to obtain a key, which can be collected after passing all the previous levels.