The Pymetrics Balloon Game — Strategy and Guide [2024]

The Pymetrics Balloon Game is the most famous game in the set of 12 Pymetrics games. It assesses your risk-taking and learning abilities through a series of 39 rounds that go as follows:

• You begin with a deflated balloon in one of 3 colors.
• You pump the balloon as many times as you wish. Each pump earns you $0.05.
• At each point, you may bank the sum you’ve earned and move on to the next balloon.
• However, if you have pumped too much and the balloon pops – you lose all that round’s money.

The game has no time limit, and you must complete all 39 rounds to finish it.

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As mentioned, the Pymetrics Balloon game measures two traits – risk-taking and learning.

This trait is pretty clear – how much risk will you take before banking.

A candidate who manages to collect all the balloons but earns very low sums will be classified as cautious, whereas a candidate who tends to pop plenty of balloons but gains higher sums will be considered adventurous.

Unlike risk-taking, it is not as intuitive to understand how the Pymetrics Balloon Game assesses learning.

However, when you look at the backstage of this game, this becomes apparent:

The balloons’ explosion patterns are not random. Well, at least not entirely.

What does this mean?

If you remember, I previously mentioned that balloons come in one of 3 colors. Each balloon color has a different explosion pattern (or probability). For instance, blue balloons have a chance of 1:10 to explode, and yellow ones have a chance of 1:25 to explode (these are not the real numbers, BTW).

While playing the game, if you put close attention and apply a methodical approach, you will begin to make sense of these patterns, and change your behavior accordingly.

The preferred strategy for the Pymetrics Balloon Game depends on the desired profile for your position – cautious or adventurous.

If you don’t know what the position requires, look at the role ad, description, and core values of your potential employers to understand what they value in their employees.

After you have determined the required profile, I’d recommend following one of two paths accordingly – Max Money vs. Max Balloons.

If you are required to demonstrate an adventurous personality, you should opt to maximize your profits, even if it costs you at losing more rounds and collecting fewer balloons.

To do so, it is recommended to use the following strategy:

• Go all-in in the several first attempts to try and estimate each balloon color’s explosion probability.
• In the following rounds, pump a bit more each round than you normally would, and note the high range of the number of pumps required to cause an explosion.
• You should aim to collect fewer balloons than average – around 18-19 balloons.
• You should aim to collect more money than average – around $20-$23.

On the other hand, if you are required to demonstrate a cautious personality, you should opt to maximize your balloon collection, even if it means losing possible gains.

To do so, it is recommended to use the following strategy:

• Collect the first balloons quickly to create a “low threshold” for their explosion probability.
• In the following rounds, steadily and slowly increase your pumps to find the balance between gaining money and preventing explosions.
• You should aim to collect more balloons than average – around 30-31 balloons.
• You should aim to collect the average sum of money – around $17-$18.

Pymetrics does not provide any accurate information for this question, partly because the answer varies between positions (more on that later).

However, from the research of over 500 test-takers we have recently conducted, we can give you some important insights:

• The average test-taker collects 24-25 balloons of 39.
• The average test-taker banks around $18.
• The average time to complete the test is around 4 minutes.

But a good score is not only how much money or balloons you have collected - it is how well these results fit with your desired position candidate profile.

And all that requires a good strategy to accomplish.

Despite its innocent appearance, the Pymetrics Balloon Game is a highly sophisticated measurement tool for assessing risk-taking and learning.

With the appropriate strategy and focused practice, you can highly increase your learning ability, money gains, and balloon collection. 

Each of the 12 Pymetrics Games holds different challenges and assesses different cognitive and personality traits.
Make sure you are ready for them all. Start practicing the Balloons Game and 11 Other Pymetrics Games.

Start practicing Now with our Free Pymetrics Test Practice! 

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In 2022 Harver – the talent acquisition and talent management company – purchased the Pymetrics games. They added these gamified tests to their platform with data-driven recruitment solutions to enhance their innovative Harver Assessments.