Balloon Duel was based off the 1984 NES game Balloon Fight, though I've taken some features out and introduced new ones.

Please be aware that this game was designed to be highly customizable. You can change the appearance of your character and even specify mp3's to be played from your harddrive. To enjoy these features, all you need is patience.

I'm also aware that the game can run rather slowly. In the options menu you can change screen size and reduce background animations to speed things up if necessary. Also, before you do any dueling, I seriously recommend you go to the Practice section. I've set up a tutorial there for first time players.

In case you were wondering, Balloon Duel has a below-average file size because it holds no music of it's own - all songs are played directly from your harddrive. Also, this was made with Flash 7, so the action script may not work with earlier versions. And the quit button uses Javascript. Well, that's it! Enjoy!
EDIT: Apparently now Flash's security protocol says I can't do that. Sadly, that means no music will work.

FAQ's:
Q1) Why don't you have your own music in there?
A1) To cut down on file size, mainly. But yeah, that's a good point. Next time I'll include default tracks.

Q2) Why'd you get rid of the platforms?! They was awesome.
A2) Yeah, they were! But can you imagine programming an A.I. to plot a path around the platforms to get to you without putting itself in a bad position? It worked well in the NES 'cause they more like flew around aimlessly.

Q3) Dude, you should make this an online multiplayer game!
A3) Two problems: Having grown up with dial-up connection, my internet know-how is crippling. The other: I'm not sure how to keep the game syncronized on two computers with different speeds. How do those commercial games do it?!

If you want to play this off of harddrive, you can ah...that is, here's the URL to the .swf file:
http://uploads.ungrounde
d.net/
177000/177120_Balloon_Du
el.swf

If you're any good with the internet, you'll know how to use that.

*Version history can be found by clicking on the version in the lower right of the startup screen.