Bloons

Bloons is a physics puzzle in which the player fires a limited number of darts from a fixed position at a pile of colorful balloons stacked into a tower, aiming to pop them all with as few shots as possible. Control is by mouse alone - setting the angle and power of the shot and judging how a dart will bounce off a balloon or continue through it on impact - so the game relies on a simple but convincing physics simulation rather than reflexes. Each level is essentially a compact puzzle where you need to find the order and angle that pops as many balloons as possible at once, ideally with a single well-aimed shot.

Released in 2007 by Ninja Kiwi, it marked the very first step of a series that later grew into a much more famous tower defense spin-off and a range of other games featuring the same balloon characters. At the time of release, it was a typical example of Newgrounds aesthetics - simple drawn graphics, no story, just pure game mechanics built on physics and patient experimentation. The balloons became such a visual trademark of the studio that they later turned into the icon of the entire Bloons series.

The game is short and not time-consuming, making it better suited as a quick diversion than a title for long evenings. As a Flash production, it now requires an archival player or a website preserving old games, since regular browsers no longer support Flash.

Why play it: For players who enjoy short physics puzzles and want to see where the foundation of the later popular Bloons Tower Defense series came from.