water-balloon toss

how it plays

four friends bob up and down behind a wooden fence. a llama wanders past with opinions. the birthday blob has a bucket of water balloons and forty-five seconds. you can probably guess the rest, but there is a little more skill to it than throwing hard.

1. 1aim← → or drag to line up on a bobbing friend.
2. 2chargehold Space (or the button) and watch the power bar fill.
3. 3release in the greenlet go inside the green band. splash!

the friends don't stand still, so the good throws are the ones you time: aim where a head is going to be, charge, and release in the green. a throw released outside the band falls short or sails over. hits in a row build a streak, and the streak multiplies everything after it.

scoring

• body: +5. respectable.
• head: +15. the throw everyone remembers.
• llama: +30. the llama knew the risks.
• snow bunny: +50. rare, small, extremely satisfying.
• streaks multiply all of the above.

a good round, about ten splashes with a streak or two, lands around two hundred points. a perfect round is worth about double that and caps there, so there's room to get better without the scores getting silly.

the targets are friends (they agreed to this)

by default the four partners behind the fence are the festival's regulars. once three or more friends have left cards on the site, they take those spots: their name, their blob colour, their hat and their eyes. leaving a birthday card has never carried this much personal risk. the friends are picked by a stable shuffle, so a round shows the same four people on every device and the next round can pick a different four.

controls

• laptop: ← and → to aim, hold Space to charge, release to throw.
• phone or tablet: drag to aim, hold the throw button, let go to throw.
• pause: P or Esc.

tips for a better round

• lead the target. friends bob on a rhythm. aim where the head will be when the balloon lands, not where it is now.
• watch the band, not the friend. once you're lined up, your eyes belong on the power bar.
• guard the streak. a miss resets it, so a patient throw beats a fast one.
• the llama is a gamble. thirty points is a lot, but it wanders. take the shot while it crosses the middle.

at a party

it's a perfect pass-the-laptop game. everyone gets one round, the scores go on a napkin, and the birthday person throws last. on a video call, have the birthday person share their screen and let whichever friend is being aimed at plead their case. it rarely works. the friend splashed the most wins nothing, but gets the most sympathy.

where it lives

the water-balloon toss is one of 12 booths at the festival on the birthday island, sitting on the terrace with the other fair games. walk up and press E to play on the island, or open it from the festival page. every finished round pays LOVE and can unlock stickers on the birthday person's sheet.

for a party over video, it's the easiest game to explain in one sentence ("throw balloons at us"), which is exactly why it's on our list of virtual birthday party games.