Balloon Popping mini-game on Pokemon Global Link

Solution 1:

By analysing the code from the Balloon Popping-minigame I can confirm there is no way you can influence the final score by playing the game, it's al based on random numbers. To keep the post short I've posted my analysis here.

To summarise my findings about score and rank calculation:

• The code to calculate scores gets called only when the Results-screen is initialised. Gameplay cannot affect this code whatsoever.
• A random number between 0 and 999 determines your rank.
• The random number is matched against a certain percentage for each rank:
  • Rank E: 15%
  • Rank D: 27%
  • Rank C: 45%
  • Rank B: 10%
  • Rank A: 3%
• The final score is a random number appropriate for the chosen rank.
• Individual scores are populated with a number of random numbers until the final score is reached.

This means it's not possible to get a better score by playing the game faster, targeting specific balloons or playing the game differently in any way.

The prize you receive at the end is generated on their side of the connection so we can't tell for sure if the prize is also random or not, but at this point that doesn't even matter. You can at least choose the available prizes depending on the level you play.

Solution 2:

No, I've played many times (I don't think I reached 200 times though =P) but I didn't find any correlation between the balloons you pick to pop and the scores, or the scores to the prizes. It has been very random to me, even if one 'strategy' twice seemed to work, it never worked the same again.

Shooting a glance at other communities who played that minigame, it seems they came to the same conclusion: Balloon Popping is random.

Solution 3:

There appears to be no rhyme or reason to two aspects of the game: [A] the scores each balloon gets, [B] which letter grade results in what prize.

I can confirm score is not related to balloon size, type, speed, or # of balloons of the same type you pop in a row. It's basically a slot machine...