King & Balloon is a fixed shooter arcade video game released by Namco in 1980 and licensed to Game Plan for U.S. manufacture and distribution. It runs upon the Namco Galaxian hardware, based on the Z80 microprocessor, with an extra Zilog Z80 microprocessor to drive a DAC for speech; it was one of the first games to have speech synthesis. An MSX port was released in Japan in 1984.
King & Balloon (Sega Master System)
The player controls two green men with an orange cannon, stationed on the parapet of a castle, that fires at a fleet of hot air balloons. Below the cannon, the King moves slowly back and forth as the balloons return fire and dive toward him. If a balloon reaches the ground, it will sit there until the King walks into it, at which time it lifts off with him. The player must then shoot the balloon to free the King, who will parachute safely to the ground. At times, two or more diving balloons can combine to form a single larger one, which awards extra points and splits apart when hit.
The cannon is destroyed by collision with balloons or their shots, but is replaced after a brief delay with no effect on the number of remaining lives. One life is lost when a balloon carries the King off the top of the screen; the game ends when all lives are lost.
As in Galaxian, the round number stops increasing at round 48.
The King speaks when he is captured ('HELP!'), when he is rescued ('THANK YOU'), and when he is carried away ('BYE BYE!'). The balloons make the same droning sound as the aliens from Galaxian, released in the previous year, and the cannon's shots also make the same sound as those of the player's ship (the 'Galaxip') from the same game.
In the original Japanese version of the game, the King speaks English with a heavy Japanese accent, saying 'herupu' ('help!'), 'sankyū' ('thank you'), and 'baibai' ('bye bye!'). The U.S. version of the game features a different voice for the King without the Japanese accent.
King & Balloon was later featured in Namco Museum Encore for the PlayStation, as an exclusive release for Japan. It made its North American console debut on Namco Museum Battle Collection for the PSP, in which the player could choose the King's voice (original Japanese or later U.S. version) after unlocking the manic settings. It also appeared in Namco Museum Virtual Arcade for the Xbox 360, as well as Namco Museum Megamix for the Wii.
More details about this game can be found on Wikipedia.org.
This version of King & Balloon was designed for the Sega Master System (SMS), which was an 8-bit video game console manufactured by Sega in the years 1985 - 1992. It was a direct competitor to the much more successful NES console and the predecessor of the much beter console Sega Genesis. The unit price of Master System was approximately $ 200 and worldwide only 13 million units of this console were sold. More information about Sega Master System can be found here.
Recommended Game Controllers:
You can control this game easily by using the keyboard of your PC (see the table next to the game). However, for maximum gaming enjoyment, we strongly recommend using a USB gamepad that you simply plug into the USB port of your computer. If you do not have a gamepad, buy a suitable USB controller on Amazon or AliExpress or in some of your favorite online stores.
Available online emulators:
4 different online emulators are available for King & Balloon. These emulators differ not only in the technology they use to emulate old games, but also in of various game controllers, multiplayer mode, mobile phone touchscreen, emulation speed, absence or presence of embedded ads and in many other parameters. For maximum gaming enjoyment, it's important to choose the right emulator, because on each PC and in different Internet browsers, the individual emulators behave differently. The basic features of each emulator available for this game King & Balloon are summarized in the following table:
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This version of King & Balloon was designed for the Sega Master System (SMS), which was an 8-bit video game console manufactured by Sega in the years 1985 - 1992. It was a direct competitor to the much more successful NES console and the predecessor of the much beter console Sega Genesis. The unit price of Master System was approximately $ 200 and worldwide only 13 million units of this console were sold. More information about Sega Master System can be found 
