Airship (minigame)

Airship is a minigame that appears in the Nintendo DS version of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. Airship is used as the minigame for all five doors of the Ancient Olympic Games section of the Gallery, and is based around steering an Airship though various obstacles to collect Rings.

Gameplay
In this game, the player controls a Mario or Sonic themed blimp using the Control Pad to move it left and right, and can make it go up by blowing into the microphone, with the strength with which the player blows affecting the height. In the minigame, the player aims to collect Rings, which add a point to their score for each one collected. The player starts with 20 seconds on the timer, but can gain more by collecting Rings. If the player runs out of time, the minigame will end. The player also has three lives which can be lost by hitting enemies in the minigame. Losing all three lives will also cause the minigame to end. After hitting an enemy, the layer will be invulnerable for a short while afterwards. Different types of enemies appear in the game, which have different behaviours. Flappers remain stationary on the course, while Bullet Bills travel on a straight line through it, though are smaller than Flappers.

Difficulty levels

 * LV1 - Only Flappers appear as obstacles.
 * LV2 - Both Bullet Bills and Flappers appear as obstacles.
 * LV3 - Flappers appear more frequently alongside Bullet Bills.
 * LV4 - Bullet Bills appear more frequently alongside Flappers.
 * LV5 - Both Bullet Bills and Flappers appear very frequently.