A big thanks to Jared, who has generously taken time to write the most indepth Burst-a-Balloon guide there is! Thanks Jared! ^_^

Hello, and welcome to the Kirby's Burst-A-Balloon Minigame Guide! I'm your guest host, Jared B. McComb. It is a pleasure to be able to work on this guide for Kirby's Rainbow Resort, especially since this is one of my most favoritest minigames ever! I might even go so far as to justify the purchase of Tilt 'n Tumble just for this game, especially if you find it in a bargain bin! Anyways, I'd like to thank Kindarspirit for letting me work on this guide for her site, even though she doesn't know me from a Waddle Dee! Thanks a bunch, Kindar! (KS: You're welcome, Jared!) Now, as you probably already knew, Kirby's Burst-A-Balloon is a minigame in Kirby's Tilt 'n Tumble. In it, you burst balloons. Simple. You just move your cursor around by tilting your Game Boy and shoot, and you get extra points in the form of combo bonuses for not missing. That's it!

Well, okay, I lied. There's more. First of all, you have limited ammunition (six shots, to be precise), and when you run out, you must jostle your Game Boy to get more. (I know it says flip on the official help screen, but a little jiggle usually does it.) Second of all, every tenth normal balloon you shoot becomes all blinky 'n stuff and bounces around, and if you shoot it a lot, you get loads of points, but it's hard to hit. Third, you have a timer to compete with. If you run out of time, it's Game Over for you! Fortunately you can hit balloons with King DeDeDe motifs to get an extra half a minute added to the timer. Unfortunately, they zigzag back and forth, and are pretty fast. Fourth, when you have a combo going, your cursor pulsates to distract you. Finally, there are two colors of normal balloons: blue and red. Red ones are faster but are worth 20 points, and blue ones, which are 10 points, are slower.

There, that's all the basic stuff, and it's all you really need to know if you want to play it. Well, okay, you have to find a blue star in the actual game to play it, until you unlock the bonus star to play in by beating the regular game. But that's all the basic info the game requires. However, if you're looking for advanced expert super high-scoring tips, read on! Before you do, though, this guide assumes you're playing this game on real hardware. If you're emulating it somehow, you'll probably find no need for this guide at all, since much of the skill of this game lies in having a tremendously huge stamina and a good light source. On an emulator, you don't have to keep your precision tilting up at all, nor do you have to contend with possible screen glare, reducing the difficulty by way too much.

Anyways, enough ranting, on to the tips!

First of all, there is an enormous difference between playing this game in the first run-through of the main game and playing it again after you get all 32 red stars. And that difference is this: In the first version, you start with much less time. so much less, in fact, that it doesn't make any sense to play it if you want to get a competitive high score. An absolute demigod-type high score in that game would be around 50,000 points, and that's assuming you know some terribly advanced tricks that even I can't pull off! My high score on the first run is somewhere around 10,000 points, and I know there are probably people out there who are better at it than I am. (Of course, I got bored with it, too, so I didn't play it much compared to the red-star-run version.)

Anyway, in the first game, you start with 50 seconds and have a single opportunity to get more time. Also, there are enough less balloons that it makes the game seem awfully sparse. Believe me, this is not the real game! Once you get the first set of red stars, then you can access the fun one. The red-star-run version (henceforth known as the RSRV) lets you start with 100 seconds, gives you a virtually unlimited supply of DeDeDe balloons, and flings loads more balloons up the screen at faster paces. The combination of these three things makes me wonder why they didn't just go the extra mile and make it a complete game by itself. They could have added a plot, too! Oh, well... Anyways, in summary, my first major high-scoring tip is to play the RSRV, and none of my other major high-scoring tips apply unless you follow this one.

Tip number two: Bounce. Yes, bounce. Bounce those blinky bonus balloons! You get so many points from doing continuous bounces that it is definitely worth your while. In fact, until you get really really good, when you get a bouncy balloon, DROP EVERYTHING and bounce it! Once you get really good (read: better than me), you can even continue popping normal balloons while you do this. I'm not sure, 'cos I'm not that good, but it may be possible to get two blinkers onscreen at one time! Just don't forget to reload in the middle of a bouncing session. Finally, for this technique, it helps to count normal balloons so you know which one is the tenth one, so you can be prepared to bounce and so you can time the bouncing session so it happens right after you hit a DeDeDe balloon (so you don't get distracted by them, which is very easy)! This last timing thing is vital to making the most out of your bouncing sessions.

My third tip is to practice hitting DeDeDe balloons. I said earlier that on the RSRV, you get virtually unlimited DeDeDe balloons. What I meant was, if you never miss one, you will be able to go on forever, but if you ever miss one, your timer is doomed to run out. The time balloons appear slightly farther apart as the game progresses, and it is difficult to judge when one will appear based on the timer, unless you get to the point where they start appearing when there are around 15 seconds left, after which they will always appear when the timer hits 15. also, they speed up dramatically after the first two, making them harder to intercept. But don't miss any. If you have to, treat them like blinky balloons and DROP EVERYTHING when you see one! It is vital to getting high scores that you get loads and loads of time, so don't ever miss one on purpose!

Final tip: Don't Panic! Ever! The reason: It will get easier if you survive. Really. Just look at these three screenshots:

During the daytime, blue balloons, especially faster ones, are more difficult to see once they get past the hills, and blinky balloons can be a little difficult to see, especially when they're moving a lot, which they do. In the evening time, it is easy to see blue balloons, but a little difficult to track red ones, and it can be harder to hit DeDeDe balloons. The balloons also get a little faster in the first evening of each game. Fortunately, compared to the rest of the day, the evening is rather short. Finally, at night, it is easiest to see all the balloons because of the large amount of contrast. Also, the night time is the longest part of a single day/night cycle. The balloons reach their fastest rising speed during the first night, but there are also loads more of them, so there are more to hit in shorter spaces of time from then on. The only time it gets really difficult is when the night suddenly goes away to reveal the next morning; the sudden shift from dark to light and high to low contrast has screwed me up many times.

Now that the major tips are over, here's a handy point value chart!

Blue Balloon: 10 pts. Red Balloon: 20 pts. Combo Bonus: 10 pts. for 1 20 pts. for 2 40 pts. for 3 80 pts. for 4 100 pts. for 5 200 pts. for 6+ DeDeDe Balloon*: 800 pts. Blinky Balloon*: 100 pts. for first hit 200 pts. for second hit 400 pts. for third hit 800 pts. for fourth hit 1,000 pts. for fifth hit 2,000 pts. for sixth hit and beyond *DeDeDe and blinky balloons do not count towards your combo bonus.

As you can see, it is rather profitable to bounce blinkers at 2,000 a hit, and even more profitable to keep a combo going at the same time! It may also seem profitable at first to just go after DeDeDe balloons, and in fact it does drain your stamina much less, but it's boring as heck and isn't any fun, not to mention you have to go for ages just to get over ten thousand. Sure, you could go for 200,000 points using this method, but that would take 250 DeDeDe balloons, which would take over two hours! No thanks.

Now, you may be wondering, why the heck did Kindarspirit let some random dude write this guide for her site?

(KS: Yeah, come to think of it, why did I?)

Oh, come on, don't you remember? I volunteered!

(KS: Oh, that's right. You were pretty qualified for the job, too, as I remember.)

Yep! In fact, these are my current high scores:

1st: 191,440 pts.
2nd: 160,400 pts.
3rd: 156,400 pts.

And I usually get around 120,000 pts. on an average game. I bought this game around the time it came out, mind you. It takes loads of practice to even nail 80,000 points in a single run. My brother has trouble breaking 35,000. But just to help you guys out, here are some miscellaneous tips:

Don't play directly under a bright light. You will get awful glare.
Don't play more than about 15 minutes maximum at a time. Your hands will get really shaky.
Play this game on a Game Boy Color if possible. If using a GBA, utilize the panoramic view option (hit L).
Practice, practice, practice!
Don't try to follow DeDeDe balloons; try to predict where they will be, and lie in wait. Same with blinkies.
Speaking of blinkies, the direction they bounce (left or right) is influenced by which side you hit them on. Don't hit them off the sides of the screen! Also, if one goes off the top of the screen, it will fall back down, so be ready!
Don't get mad at the game. Feel free to get mad at anything else in the vicinity, but don't get mad at the game. Doing so may run the risk of damaging the game, your Game Boy, or worse, yourself. Remember, it's only a game!
Don't ever run out of arrows! Reload whenever you get a chance, even if you still have 4 or 5 available. You don't want to get caught off guard.
Don't play with dying batteries in your Game Boy. If you can, get an AC adapter of some sort.

That's it! Now go score high and make me proud!