Balloon World

Mario participating in Balloon World

“Get this, Bro. I came up with a new game. I call it Balloon World. Balloon World is a game where you search for balloons hidden by people all over the world!”

—Luigi, Super Mario Odyssey

Balloon World, also known as Luigi's Balloon World, is an online minigame that appears as part of an update for Super Mario Odyssey, released on February 21, 2018. The minigame can be played by completing the main story and finding Luigi near the Odyssey in any of the kingdoms besides the Cloud Kingdom, Ruined Kingdom, Dark Side and Darker Side, and talking to him. Unlike certain online features in other Nintendo Switch games, a Nintendo Switch Online membership is not required to play Balloon World.

This minigame features two different modes: "Hide It" mode and "Find It" mode. In "Hide It" mode, the player has thirty seconds to hide a balloon somewhere in the kingdom. The player can choose to place the balloon before the time runs out or they can restart to try and find a different hiding spot. However, players cannot place a balloon high in midair or above pits and instead the balloon will be placed at the last location they set foot on. In "Find It" mode, the player has a set amount of time (3-40 seconds) to find a balloon hidden in a kingdom by another player in the world. To help the player, there is an arrow pointing to the direction of where the balloon is located as well as a meter counter that will decrease or increase depending on how close or far the player is from the balloon. However, the arrow will disappear after a few seconds, only reappearing if the the player stands still and disappearing when they move again. Collecting three Coins while either hiding or finding balloons will increase the timer by one second. The player cannot enter into different areas that require warping in either mode and will return to the main area. Similarly, the player cannot enter 8-bit pipes. Cappy says they cannot enter those places because they are in the middle of a game.

Artwork of Luigi for Balloon World.

Balloon World also features a ranking system, which shows the statistics of the player, such as how many Coins they received and how many balloons they found in a row. The player's rank is represented by stars, which are awarded for each objective that is completed. Each time the player ranks up, they receive a large sum of Coins; the higher rank they become, the more Coins are awarded, and the harder it will be for the player to find balloons, as more difficult balloons are more likely to appear for higher ranked players. For every 10 stars collected, Luigi will gain new balloons for his case. At first, he only has a red balloon, but at 10 stars, he gains a blue balloon. At 20, he gains a yellow balloon; at 30, he gains a green balloon; and at 40, he gains a purple balloon. If all 50 stars are earned, Luigi's balloons become golden and begin to sparkle, similar to how the Odyssey's sail turns gold and shiny after collecting all 880 Power Moons.

The player earns stars in five sections. In Find It, there is a section for the number of coins collected, the number of balloons popped, and balloons popped in a row. In Hide It, there is a section for coins collected and the number of tries other players take to find the player's balloons.

If online, a notification appears if other players try to find the player's balloons (green border), if one of the player's balloons is popped (red border), or when more coins can be earned than usual in a certain kingdom (black border). These notifications can be switched off in the Options menu. If an attempt is made while online and not in Balloon World, the player will automatically receive their coin reward, along with a notification displaying the user who made the attempt, and whether the balloon was popped or not.

The balloons used in this minigame have images of the player's Nintendo Switch profile icons, which can include Mii and various other popular Nintendo characters. Additionally, the time of day and weather in some kingdoms change when playing this minigame, such as the Cascade Kingdom taking place at night and the Metro Kingdom taking place during a rainstorm.

Locations

Kingdom	Starting point	Setting
Cap Kingdom	On top of Top-Hat Tower	(No change)
Cascade Kingdom	At the top of Fossil Falls	Nighttime
Sand Kingdom	At the top of the tower of Tostarena Ruins	Sunset
Lake Kingdom	Inside the Water Plaza in front of the Crazy Cap store	Nighttime
Wooded Kingdom	On top of the Observation Deck	Nighttime
Lost Kingdom	On the east side of the Rocky Mountain Summit's base	Daytime
Metro Kingdom	At the New Donk City Hall Plaza	Rainstorm
Snow Kingdom	On the islet northeast of the kingdom	Blizzard
Seaside Kingdom	At the base of the Glass Tower	Daytime
Luncheon Kingdom	At the entrance to Peronza Plaza	Clear sky
Bowser's Kingdom	At the Inner Wall	Cloudy
Moon Kingdom	At Ringing-Bells Plateau	(No change)
Mushroom Kingdom	In front of the entrance to Peach's Castle	Midday

Stats

Star	Find It			Hide It
	Coins Earned	Number Found	Number Found in a Row	Coins Earned	Others' Tries
1	200	3	2	100	1
2	600	10	3	300	10
3	1,200	30	5	600	25
4	2,400	60	7	1,200	50
5	5,000	100	9	2,500	80
6	9,000	180	11	4,500	120
7	14000	300	12	7,000	200
8	20,000	450	13	10,000	350
9	30,000	620	14	15,000	550
10	50,000	800	15	25,000	800

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning	Notes
Japanese	バルーンファインド Barūn Faindo	Balloon Find
Chinese (simplified)	发现气球[?] Fāxiàn Qìqiú	Find the Balloon
Chinese (traditional)	發現氣球[?] Fāxiàn Qìqiú	Find the Balloon
Dutch	Ballonnenjacht[?]	Balloon Hunt
French	Chasse aux ballons	Balloon Hunt
German	Ballonjagd[?]	Balloon Hunt
Italian	Caccia ai palloncino[?]	Balloon Hunt
Korean	풍선 월드[?] Pungseon Weoldeu	Balloon World
Russian	Мир Шариков[?] Mir Sharikov	Balloon World
Spanish	Mundoglobo	Balloon World