Balloon World

Balloon World is a minigame that appears in an update for Super Mario Odyssey released on February 21, 2018. The minigame can be played by completing the main story and finding Luigi near the Odyssey in any of the kingdoms besides the Cloud Kingdom, Ruined Kingdom, Dark Side and Darker Side, and talking to him.

This minigame features two different modes: "Hide It" mode and "Find It" mode. In "Hide It" mode, the player has thirty seconds to hide a balloon somewhere in the kingdom. The player can choose to place the balloon before the time runs out or they can restart to try and find a different hiding spot. However, players cannot place a balloon high in midair or above pits and instead the balloon will be placed as close as possible to where the player tried to hide it. In "Find It" mode, the player has a set amount of time to find a balloon hidden in a kingdom. To help the player, there is an arrow pointing to the direction of where the balloon is located as well as a meter counter that will decrease or increase depending on how close or far the player is from the balloon. Collecting three Coins while either hiding or finding balloons will increase the timer by one second. The player cannot enter into different areas that require warping in either modes and will return to the main area with Cappy saying they can't because they're in the middle of a game.

Balloon World also features a ranking system, which shows the statistics of the player, such as how many Coins they received and how many balloons they found in a row. The player's rank is represented by stars, which are awarded for each objective that is completed. Each time the player ranks up, they receive a sum of Coins; the higher rank they become, the more Coins are awarded. For every 10 stars collected, Luigi, will gain new balloons for his case. At first, he only has a red balloon, but at 10 stars, he gains a blue balloon. At 20, he gains a yellow balloon, at 30, he gains a green balloon, and at 40, he gains a purple balloon.

The balloons used in this minigame have images of the player's Nintendo Switch profile icons. Additionally, the time of day and weather in some kingdoms change when playing this minigame, such as the Cascade Kingdom taking place at night and the Metro Kingdom taking place during a rainstorm.