Practise a pymetrics-style Balloons game: 30 balloons, $0.05 a pump, three colours with hidden pop ranges, and a review of how you played after pops.
Included in 1 Game Platform Prep (when you choose Harver), All Games Platforms Prep and Full Access. See plans
Balloons is pymetrics’ version of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, a research task from 2002. pymetrics’ patent describes it: each pump inflates the balloon and adds a little money to a temporary bank for that balloon, you can collect whenever you like, and if the balloon pops the money in it is gone. What you have already collected is always safe. Prep sites report $0.05 per pump and about 39 balloons, and say the game takes 3 to 4 minutes.
Balloons come in a few colours, and each colour tends to pop at a different size. Colours come back during the game, so part of the task is noticing how each one behaves. In the research version each colour pops at a random point inside its own range, so a pop on one balloon says nothing certain about the next.
pymetrics says there are no right or wrong answers in its games. The research task is used to describe how people approach risk and how they react after a loss, for example by pumping less after a pop. pymetrics feeds measures like these into a model that compares you with people who do well in the job, so no single pumping style is the target.
pymetrics does not publish a count. Most prep sites report 39 balloons and one reports 24. The practice uses 30, which keeps a run to about 3–4 minutes.
Prep sites agree on $0.05 per pump. The money is pretend: it only exists inside the game.
pymetrics says its games have no right or wrong answers, and it compares your play with people who do well in the job rather than with a set number. In the practice review you can see the pump count that would give the most money on average for each of our colours, as a way to understand the task, not as a target.
No. Prep sites report that colours pop at different sizes, and in the research task each colour pops at a random point within its own range. In the practice the three ranges are 1–64, 1–32 and 1–12 pumps, shuffled between colours every run.
No. It is an independent practice game built from the public research task and public descriptions, with original art and wording. It is not affiliated with pymetrics or Harver.
Independent practice by Candidate Falcon, based on pymetrics’ public patents and research and on prep-site descriptions. Not affiliated with pymetrics or Harver, and not their scoring. The game, its art and its wording are original, and practice results are not pymetrics scores. For all 12 games, timing, results and retakes, read the free pymetrics test guide.