Fun to play, I like it puts a close by airport on the high-score board.
TechSquidTV•Jul 20, 2026
Both me and my friend have been racing eachother to create airport simulators. Wildly on-topic for me.
leetrout•Jul 20, 2026
How do you plan to release them? Free? Mobile? And are you using AI to help deliver?
pir8life4me•Jul 20, 2026
Fun. But the ATC has a different UI I think?
cebert•Jul 20, 2026
When I was growing up, there were two airport simulator games that were pretty fun to play. One of them I remember playing on my Sega Genesis.
mathgeek•Jul 20, 2026
Aerobiz? I had forgotten about that one, such an awesome game. Rented it from Blockbuster many times.
cebert•Jul 20, 2026
Yes! That’s it. I forgot the name, but it was fun.
tantalor•Jul 20, 2026
Nice homage to Flight Control (2009)
heresalexandria•Jul 20, 2026
This is super fun! Could be neat to add keyboard controls for auto routing (i.e. select plane number n and auto route it to strip x or have it fly a go-around to wait). Would also be sick if you added models of real world airports to play.
That said I love this as is and will definitely be playing & sharing it.
bakies•Jul 20, 2026
Think it needs just a little zoom out on my phone but had a fun time. Both my games ended off screen
rustyhancock•Jul 20, 2026
Android makes this a chore with all its gestures too!
But I'm not sure it could (or that I'd want) it to supress gestures like back and close application
sarreph•Jul 20, 2026
I was only thinking about Flight Control[0] the other day and how I wish there were more modern takes on it! There was Mini Metro[1], but that was released over a decade ago.
Heathrow ATC (for the ZX Spectrum) was one that I played extensively back in the day: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/10530 I wonder if there are earlier examples of popular ATC games? They're simpler than flight simulators so you'd think there would be more of them.
There's also the simpler 'atc' from BSD games. Text interface only.
jclardy•Jul 20, 2026
Flight Control was one of my favorite iOS games of all time. Simple, polished, quick to play. Sucks that there is no way to play it on iOS again, seems it is still available for purchase on Steam, but it was really well suited to the phone format, not really something I'd sit down to play at a desktop.
Flight Control HD was one of the first iPad games I had. I under-appreciated how much easier this game was with a finger than a trackball.
mnw21cam•Jul 20, 2026
On Android there is Endless ATC. It also appears to be on Steam.
Vedor•Jul 21, 2026
I'm quite surprised it's available on Android, this specific take on air traffic control games doesn't really strike me as mobile-friendly game. Good to know - I played it a lot on Steam back in the days.
Nzen•Jul 20, 2026
In 2022 [0], Jan David Nose (jdno) released a game / programming challenge called _Auto Traffic Control_ [1]. Rather than controlling airplanes with UI interactions, the simulation is a GRPC server that expects the player to construct a game client that issues flight paths.
I tried to make a game client for jdno's ATC [2]. My client was deficient, as I tried to treat the movement as a fixed interval, by only submitting flight plans that moved in cartesian directions. Only by cheating, modifying the simulator, could my greedy algorithm land any planes [3]. I suspect I was supposed to continuously model and poll the future positions of airplanes when developing a flight plan.
I suspect that I won't have much competition on the leaderboard, despite the asterisk, as jdno eventually archived the project [4]. Originally, the project was self-publication while looking for work. The Rust Foundation hired him a little while afterward.
Imagine how cool it would be if something like this was based on the actual FF-ICE / FIXM flight plan format.
jdno•Jul 20, 2026
I have to admit that I have exactly zero knowledge about actual flight plans or anything else related to air traffic control. Just loved playing Flight Control and used it as inspiration for this game.
Having said that, I think there are tons of interesting ways to build on the idea. :)
jdno•Jul 20, 2026
I think about this game quite often and would love to eventually pick it up as a project again. I was only able to scratch the surface of what I had in mind, and I’m sure there’s so much to learn from players about what makes a good programming game.
bnc319•Jul 20, 2026
Flight Control was very closely remade as "Planes Control" [1] and gets regular updates with new levels, etc. Not sure if the developer acquired the assets of the original, but it's very close to what I remember playing as a kid
I love both of those and actually only started playing Mini Metro this month. Such synchronicity(!), although mediated by whatever is probably happening on the Play Store, this is less surprising then it would have been 50 years ago.
selectodude•Jul 20, 2026
I missed Flight Control so bad that I sent Claude on a wild goose chase to decompile the IPA in ghidra and rewrite it in Swift 6. Still working through it, obviously will never get released, but it's been cool to watch.
Computer0•Jul 20, 2026
You should release it though.
vunderba•Jul 20, 2026
After trying this one, I'd agree it seems mechanically identical to Flight Control but with a sort of stylistic low-res pixellated 3d look.
Did planes take off in Flight Control? I don’t remember.
That was one of my most played games of all time. SO PERFECT for the iPhone and on the go play.
vunderba•Jul 21, 2026
I... don't think so but it's probably been over a decade since I last played it. Completely agree that game was tailor-made for touchscreen interfaces.
Telemakhos•Jul 21, 2026
United Airlines offers the game for entertainment while you're flying.
Oh, it's from an ATC point of view. I was expecting simulations of actual airports, for example to simulate Heathrow you wander around a construction site, to simulate LAX you stand in an endless queue that never moves, and to simulate Munich you get something like the backrooms but with more glass and less pits.
Aardwolf•Jul 20, 2026
4 successful landings before disaster struck, not a bad first day as ATC
exDM69•Jul 20, 2026
Absolutely delightful, just played a few rounds.
I really love ATC games and the "draw it by hand" aspect makes this kinda funny. Maybe I need to try with a real mouse, kinda slow on a trackpad. For a more serious entrant in this genre (with speeds, altitudes and radio navigation), check out Endless ATC on Steam.
I landed some 40 flights and made it near the top of the leaderboard.
The scoreboard is taking too much screen space and occluding the planes, would be better to have scores at the top or bottom.
apunen•Jul 20, 2026
added a button to hide the scoreboard on desktop!
wjdp•Jul 20, 2026
Took me far too long to work how to get a plane to land, was drawing lines along the runway rather than dropping them on the coloured spot at the end and they were overflying. Was thinking the paths weren't straight enough, once I figured it out was quite funny to find the planes can do 180° turns mid air to land.
paxys•Jul 20, 2026
Yeah to be more realistic they should be able to land from either end of the runway. Mayve depending on wind.
skeater15•Jul 20, 2026
Landing either way is not realistic. Even with no wind airports have a designated runway open. For example a straight North and South "runway" has runway 0 and runway 18, and only one will be open at any given time regardless of windspeed.
einhard•Jul 20, 2026
If an airport is uncontrolled, planes can land in either direction. Whether the pilots choose to do so is a different matter.
At airports with towers, the controllers can allow landings in either direction. That they usually don't is more of a function of existing traffic.
sdh9•Jul 21, 2026
Runway 36
jsabess24•Jul 20, 2026
Sweet
thanzex•Jul 20, 2026
This was really fun to play with, I have a few suggestions:
- As the airspace gets more congested, it becomes difficult to click the airplanes as you can also grab an existing path, messing everything up.
- The big stats table on the top left completely obscures a good portion of the map, making it harder than necessary. A togglable or semi-transparent option would be nice.
-The possibility of zooming or moving around could be nice
ctrl-shift-<minus> until the stats table is as small as you like
apunen•Jul 20, 2026
added a button to hide the scoreboard on desktop! was originally only available on mobile viewports
close04•Jul 20, 2026
On phones the cramped view is particularly pronounced. The “pointing device” is fat and the edges of the screen are usually reserved for swiping the tab or back/fwd. This leaves even less of the screen available for acting on a plane.
I played a few runs and every crash happened on the edge of the screen where I couldn’t route the planes or I was dragging the tab as I dragged the flight path (iOS, Safari). That’s the only time the view moves and I can see outside the initial border.
Nice and fun, but I'd like that the fame enforces a minimal turning radius.
paxys•Jul 20, 2026
Not enough of you played Flight Control in 2008 and it shows.
istoleabread•Jul 20, 2026
I was 3 years old
totallymike•Jul 20, 2026
I’m gonna need you to explain yourself. What a strange choice
moffkalast•Jul 20, 2026
They did it to dodge taxes.
bigbuppo•Jul 20, 2026
Babby.
tallanvor•Jul 20, 2026
Just a green background and some text on Firefox.
brettermeier•Jul 20, 2026
Not with mine. Are you blocking your JS?
AlfredBarnes•Jul 20, 2026
Fun how quickly i developed my own rules.
Yellow planes always get rerouted this way.
Put red in this circle to stay out of the way.
Thank you for sharing and thank you maker for makign!
opentestudox•Jul 20, 2026
Is this based on WebAssembly?
apunen•Jul 20, 2026
sveltekit and pocketbase!
kbcool•Jul 20, 2026
I'm kind of disappointed that this isn't a simulator for managing what happens inside the airport rather than ATC.
I'm also unsure why I feel that way as it sounds like a nightmare
yangosoft•Jul 20, 2026
Add some color blind option, please.
I cannot distinguish the two reds/browns/greens or whatever hehe.
vlovich123•Jul 20, 2026
The touch controls, at least on iOS, leave a lot to be desired.
pjmlp•Jul 20, 2026
Even if simple, it is quite appealing and fun, spend quite a while playing it.
mannycalavera•Jul 20, 2026
this is awesome, thank you for making this. Such a neat little package - I love that there are no instructions. And the graphics are so simple and neat
koko443•Jul 20, 2026
The appeal of ATC-style games is that the entire difficulty curve comes from one mechanic: you're never doing anything hard, you're just doing too many easy things at once. Flight Control nailed that on touch screens. Curious how this one handles the difficulty ramp — more planes, faster planes, or tighter airspace?
apunen•Jul 20, 2026
thanks for playing! yes, over the first 5min the spawn rate ramps up from ~5s to ~1.5s and the aircraft cap goes from 3 to 12. also wanted to make things more interesting with the takeoff mechanic to add some predictable congestion
pardon_me•Jul 20, 2026
Fantastic game! I miss the old iOS version. My suggestions:
The predictable congestion gets a bit tedious and makes the game impossibly difficult quite quickly. It guarantees needing to keep readjusting almost every plane, otherwise a crash happens while trying to select the correct plane to move. It's a great mechanic earlier on and as a tutorial, because collisions happen rarely, but knowing that so many planes spawning or taking off on a calculated crash path when it's already chaotic seems to actually take skill out of the game as it progresses.
Planes that land should turn gray as it's confusing vs. planes taking off (especially consecutive takeoffs).
Volume slider rather than just on/off.
Drawing paths to the landing area should be more forgiving. If there's a short section of weird path at the end, it messes up timing for the planes landing and causes crashes.
fransje26•Jul 20, 2026
Great little game! Thanks for sharing!
Just two little niggles:
- I feel like I should be able to fly over a runway without crashing in a landing/taking-off airplane. The vertical separation would allow for that.
- It would be nice to have an (optional?) zoom-out level, to have a bit more space for routing.
But a lovely little game, thanks again.
JKCalhoun•Jul 20, 2026
Cool. But, yeah, no, too stressful.
Give me a relaxing game. (I'm getting old.)
yunnpp•Jul 21, 2026
Have you tried getting younger?
dssagar93•Jul 20, 2026
This is addictive. Enjoyed it thoroughly
mrkpdl•Jul 20, 2026
I still miss flight control, seems wrong that such an important early iPhone OS game is just… gone.
jmkni•Jul 20, 2026
Fun little game
However I notice people have realized they can set their own score with an HTTP request (I mean, it's Hacker News), maybe put in some sort of mitigation?
naet•Jul 21, 2026
In my experience there is little you can do to "mitigate" that kind of thing outside of running the game completely server-side, which usually makes a tiny project into a much larger undertaking.
pardon_me•Jul 21, 2026
Recording the game start and end time server-side to perform a plausibility check of submitted score vs. time played would help, but this would require tracking individual users games, and still doesn't solve the problem entirely.
Erenay09•Jul 20, 2026
the graphics reminded me OpenTTD
mrcwinn•Jul 20, 2026
Nice work!
Rotundo•Jul 20, 2026
Looks like Kennedy Approach from mumble years ago!
Nice! But whatever happened to "Show HN"? I see more and more people posting their own projects here (which is completely ok!) but avoiding (or unaware of?) the "Show" option.
About the game (sorry, sim) itself: it was really fun once I realized that I have to drag the airplanes to the runway threshold matching their color. You can draw a straight line from the plane to the runway, and it will land even if it has to do an instant ~360° turn directly before touching down, which is a liiiitle bit unrealistic :) Also, while landing the planes just float with constant speed right until the end of the runway and then taxi away. A nicer animation would be if they would touch down somewhere in the middle of the runway and then decelerate gradually before taxiing away. Same in reverse for take-offs.
jmkni•Jul 20, 2026
Maybe it's by design, but Show HN posts seem to just get completely buried, whereas posting stuff directly is more successful
I've spoke to other people who've had the same experience, maybe just a coincidence but could be why people avoid it?
cure_42•Jul 20, 2026
Show hn was overrun by ai slop for a while so I and presumably many others filtered it out of our feeds. That would have resulted in show hn getting much less interaction and potentially led to people not wanting to use the feature.
tantalor•Jul 20, 2026
Losing because some collision off screen seems a bit unfair.
V__•Jul 20, 2026
When playing for the first time, a simple pop up tutorial would be nice, explaining what to do. Figuring out how to land and how to drag the planes takes a second, but it is fine. However, I still haven't figured out what to do with starting planes? I can't change their route, so how do I prevent two starting planes from crashing?
Edit: I would also add some “crash margin” around the border of the screen. A plane coming from the top right corner and crashing into a plane leaving just to the right of the top right corner is frustrating.
tenacious_tuna•Jul 20, 2026
yeah, not being able to vector departing planes is also a pain. Kinda makes sense I guess, but still annoying
grwthckrmstr•Jul 20, 2026
Brought back fun memories! Thank you
danfunk•Jul 20, 2026
Perfect kind of intuitive. It was a joy to figure it out, and just "learn by doing".
WhyComboNadir•Jul 20, 2026
It's surprisingly fun! You've inspired me to finish something aviation related I'm working on and post it soon. Cheers.
murzynalbinos•Jul 20, 2026
This is nice. And yeah, I've crashed after 33 sec ;)
haunter•Jul 20, 2026
If you like this I highly recommend the Air Traffic Controller series
Very fun. Got a few minutes in. Is there a strategy for avoiding hitting the planes driving slowly across the runway for takeoff? It seems very hard to also pay attention to them when they have so little lead time.
I'd love to watch a professional SC: Brood War player give this a try.
_zendar_•Jul 20, 2026
Just playing right now inside airport waiting for a delayed flight, such an irony
SamBam•Jul 20, 2026
Should the leader board be cleared of the folks with 10,000 landings in 1 second?
It looks like the true leader right now is 90 landings in 7:29.
robertlagrant•Jul 20, 2026
Yes, that would be good! I got to 86, and on a macbook trackpad, and those fake scores are making my RSI flare up.
apunen•Jul 20, 2026
done!
arsenkk•Jul 20, 2026
very sticky game, love it! my record is 18 landings
przemub•Jul 20, 2026
I love the airport style, bilingual interface. One of my favourite parts of flying is getting to see different combinations of languages on the signs!
tonic_note•Jul 20, 2026
the hitbox on the landing strip is kinda odd, not sure why sometimes my planes don't enter into the landing state when entering the runway
Khira_Moss•Jul 20, 2026
The real simulator feature is discovering how quickly one delayed plane becomes everyone’s problem.
axelb152•Jul 20, 2026
I think the landing box could be a bit easier to hit
Avio223•Jul 20, 2026
Very satisfying to play! I made airpordle.com a bit ago when the dle craze happened, where the goal is to guess the airport you are controlling and the ATC score you get allows you to buy hints. https://airpordle.com
WillowWithAWand•Jul 20, 2026
Now I see why ATC is such a stressful job!
outworlder•Jul 20, 2026
A bit better in real life since the world isn't 2D.
ivraatiems•Jul 20, 2026
Play this for a few minutes and you start to realize why sequencing and published flight paths are so important!
Really fun, thank you!
bigbuppo•Jul 20, 2026
And traffic patterns.
harvie•Jul 20, 2026
Imagine modified version of this game having local AI voice recognition and you would have to give instructions to the air traffic over "radio" using callsigns and everything. Just like the real tower.
consumer451•Jul 20, 2026
Very fun. My only gripe is that you should be able to overfly taxiing aircraft, without crashing.
advisedwang•Jul 20, 2026
The departures kind of subtract from the "flow state" feeling you get when lining things up. Sure, that's an additional challenge, but it's not that fun.
westcoast49•Jul 20, 2026
I got a slight flashback to Blue Max, just because of the graphics.
keito•Jul 20, 2026
This is super fun! Really gets your heart rate going. I tried various tactics borrowed from actual ATC/tower techniques (drawing common approach paths; throwing in some 360 degree turns) but it never seemed to be enough as the traffic picked up :P I'm curious if anyone figured out any good strategies.
tom2948329494•Jul 20, 2026
At some point I started to send incoming planes away like no airport for you!
cure_42•Jul 20, 2026
Had a crash happen super far from the airport after I did this, found it funny do to how unlikely it seemed
2143•Jul 20, 2026
Long ago I played this game called Airport Mania.
In it you’re an ATC. There’s like 10 stages (airports), with several levels in each stage in increasing difficulty. There are different capabilities to add to the airport (such as de-icing, defogging, upgraded terminals, upgraded fuel pumps, layover spaces, additional runways etc). Different types of planes had different patience levels (for example, Concordes needed quick service) etc. Very sophisticated. It was fun.
About 5 years ago a slightly watered down version of it was available on Android. I think it’s gone now. Even as an adult I found it engaging. It may look childish in the screenshots but it’s really fun.
It’s the only game I have bought online. They sent me the CD from Portland Oregon to my home on the opposite side of the Earth.
Reminds me of C64 Kennedy Approach. Of course Kennedy Approach is 10x more stressful as you need to stack the planes at VOR towers and designate their elevation.
dariush624•Jul 20, 2026
Super fun! Gets very complicated with congestion, good work!!
verelo•Jul 20, 2026
pretty nice, the click targets are a bit awkward but otherwise really fun!
lucb1e•Jul 20, 2026
If you enjoy this, you may also enjoy the `atc` binary that is shipped alongside tetris and other classics in Debian's bsdgames package. Also exists for Ubuntu (https://packages.ubuntu.com/noble/bsdgames) and probably other Debian derivatives. I enjoy the keyboard controls there, a lot more deterministic than trying to mouse around the screen!
hexator•Jul 20, 2026
I love this emerging "3D pixel art" trend. Stylized graphics always age better than realistic. And it definitely has more charm
BigDataNinja•Jul 20, 2026
There was a game for the C64 (or VIC20.. I forget) in which your were an ATC. I remember either the packaging for the game or the credits on screen saying something to the effect of "If you like this game, call us". "Us" being a number to contact the FAA for a potential job.
cmenge•Jul 20, 2026
Addictive! Made it to #16 but now got some serious PTSD about flying lol
micah_chatt•Jul 20, 2026
Super fun game!
Minor modifications that would be fun:
* As you draw a path, at the same rate gradually bold/pulse all other planes' existing drawn paths from their current location forward so I can visually see if two future lines will not just overlap, but overlap at the same time
* A slider to control game speed
* A clearer arrow over the landing zone. It took me quite a while to realize how to land a plane
* A timer over each runway to next takeoff
DarmokJalad1701•Jul 20, 2026
The pilots in this game are complete dum-dums and not following 14 CFR § 91.113 (b):
When weather conditions permit, regardless of whether an operation is conducted under instrument flight rules or visual flight rules1, vigilance shall be maintained by each person operating an aircraft so as to see and avoid other aircraft.
I had some aircraft pop in from off-screen and just run into another one that just took off.
foo4u•Jul 20, 2026
This game would also be better if I could actually decide when to clear departures.
foo4u•Jul 20, 2026
Also, altitudes matter after about 5 mins here.
jjwiseman•Jul 20, 2026
A few months ago I built a piloting harness for LLMs[1] in X-Plane. You can give the AI pilot instructions as though you are ATC, and I imagined what it might be like to scale it up and make an ATC game out of it, talking to dozens of AI pilots. The most open-ended ATC sim ever…
every single one of those pilots is getting a number to copy.
Archit3ch•Jul 20, 2026
I expected a backrooms-style game where you are lost at an infinite airport...
orangeberrytea•Jul 20, 2026
First thing I did was crash 2 planes, I should be in ISIS.
Fire emoji - nice touch
omeysalvi•Jul 21, 2026
First line of action was to crash two planes into each other. Mission successful
mscissors•Jul 21, 2026
Very fun game. Helps my mind relax
mscissors•Jul 21, 2026
Can I ask what programming language you uesd? Good game
bronco21016•Jul 21, 2026
Fun take on the ATC type genre but for some reason ATC style games have never really hooked me.
I'd love to see a modern take on Airport Tycoon where you layout runways and terminals etc.
I also fondly remember an airline management simulator while in college. I started playing with IdleFlightManager on iOS but it was just insanely easy so I lost interest quickly. The software I used while in college had you manually set fares and fare pool size in addition to buying aircraft, dealing with maintenance expenses, and choosing routes.
gfalcao•Jul 21, 2026
Addictive
rsendv•Jul 21, 2026
Strange. Can’t write “e” in the top scorer input box. Anyone else have this problem?
ssl-3•Jul 21, 2026
I just noticed that myself. It seems to wiggle the map or something instead of input the letter e.
rsendv•Jul 21, 2026
Interestingly a lot of high score names contain e. BR, rsëndv :)
80 Comments
That said I love this as is and will definitely be playing & sharing it.
But I'm not sure it could (or that I'd want) it to supress gestures like back and close application
--
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Control
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_Metro_(video_game)
Edit: playable version - https://archive.org/details/zx_Heathrow_International_Air_Tr...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_Approach
https://github.com/vattam/BSDGames/tree/master/atc
https://www.krishsuchdev.com/OptiFlight
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2289650/Mini_Airways__ATC...
https://store.steampowered.com/app/380670/Final_Approach/
[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qti2ffpu2k&t=42s
https://github.com/openscope/openscope
I tried to make a game client for jdno's ATC [2]. My client was deficient, as I tried to treat the movement as a fixed interval, by only submitting flight plans that moved in cartesian directions. Only by cheating, modifying the simulator, could my greedy algorithm land any planes [3]. I suspect I was supposed to continuously model and poll the future positions of airplanes when developing a flight plan.
I suspect that I won't have much competition on the leaderboard, despite the asterisk, as jdno eventually archived the project [4]. Originally, the project was self-publication while looking for work. The Rust Foundation hired him a little while afterward.
[0] https://jdno.dev/auto-traffic-control/
[1] https://auto-traffic-control.com/
[2] https://github.com/Nzen/hircine-anise-okkoz
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czsSjy1Uqyk 1.5 minutes
[4] https://github.com/jdno/auto-traffic-control/commit/b5972dfb...
Having said that, I think there are tons of interesting ways to build on the idea. :)
[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/planes-control/id1015114550
Gameplay from 2011:
https://youtu.be/WLHI5Fu--0I?t=48
That was one of my most played games of all time. SO PERFECT for the iPhone and on the go play.
https://liveandletsfly.com/united-airlines-air-traffic-contr...
I really love ATC games and the "draw it by hand" aspect makes this kinda funny. Maybe I need to try with a real mouse, kinda slow on a trackpad. For a more serious entrant in this genre (with speeds, altitudes and radio navigation), check out Endless ATC on Steam.
I landed some 40 flights and made it near the top of the leaderboard.
The scoreboard is taking too much screen space and occluding the planes, would be better to have scores at the top or bottom.
At airports with towers, the controllers can allow landings in either direction. That they usually don't is more of a function of existing traffic.
- The big stats table on the top left completely obscures a good portion of the map, making it harder than necessary. A togglable or semi-transparent option would be nice.
-The possibility of zooming or moving around could be nice
Yesterday’s 50-mile line of planes coming to Oshkosh is something to behold: https://youtu.be/9IHbO0tzpMc
https://www.eaa.org/airventure
I played a few runs and every crash happened on the edge of the screen where I couldn’t route the planes or I was dragging the tab as I dragged the flight path (iOS, Safari). That’s the only time the view moves and I can see outside the initial border.
Anyway, really cool game!
Yellow planes always get rerouted this way.
Put red in this circle to stay out of the way.
Thank you for sharing and thank you maker for makign!
I'm also unsure why I feel that way as it sounds like a nightmare
I cannot distinguish the two reds/browns/greens or whatever hehe.
The predictable congestion gets a bit tedious and makes the game impossibly difficult quite quickly. It guarantees needing to keep readjusting almost every plane, otherwise a crash happens while trying to select the correct plane to move. It's a great mechanic earlier on and as a tutorial, because collisions happen rarely, but knowing that so many planes spawning or taking off on a calculated crash path when it's already chaotic seems to actually take skill out of the game as it progresses.
Planes that land should turn gray as it's confusing vs. planes taking off (especially consecutive takeoffs).
Volume slider rather than just on/off.
Drawing paths to the landing area should be more forgiving. If there's a short section of weird path at the end, it messes up timing for the planes landing and causes crashes.
Just two little niggles:
- I feel like I should be able to fly over a runway without crashing in a landing/taking-off airplane. The vertical separation would allow for that.
- It would be nice to have an (optional?) zoom-out level, to have a bit more space for routing.
But a lovely little game, thanks again.
Give me a relaxing game. (I'm getting old.)
However I notice people have realized they can set their own score with an HTTP request (I mean, it's Hacker News), maybe put in some sort of mitigation?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgi2fuSL9tk&t=28s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_Approach
About the game (sorry, sim) itself: it was really fun once I realized that I have to drag the airplanes to the runway threshold matching their color. You can draw a straight line from the plane to the runway, and it will land even if it has to do an instant ~360° turn directly before touching down, which is a liiiitle bit unrealistic :) Also, while landing the planes just float with constant speed right until the end of the runway and then taxi away. A nicer animation would be if they would touch down somewhere in the middle of the runway and then decelerate gradually before taxiing away. Same in reverse for take-offs.
I've spoke to other people who've had the same experience, maybe just a coincidence but could be why people avoid it?
Edit: I would also add some “crash margin” around the border of the screen. A plane coming from the top right corner and crashing into a plane leaving just to the right of the top right corner is frustrating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Traffic_Controller_(series...
https://www.sonicpowered.co.jp/world/nsw/rjgg/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1348390/I_am_an_Air_Traff...
Video here so you can copy my sweet strats: https://youtu.be/7f1WgnAqckk
I'd love to watch a professional SC: Brood War player give this a try.
It looks like the true leader right now is 90 landings in 7:29.
Really fun, thank you!
In it you’re an ATC. There’s like 10 stages (airports), with several levels in each stage in increasing difficulty. There are different capabilities to add to the airport (such as de-icing, defogging, upgraded terminals, upgraded fuel pumps, layover spaces, additional runways etc). Different types of planes had different patience levels (for example, Concordes needed quick service) etc. Very sophisticated. It was fun.
About 5 years ago a slightly watered down version of it was available on Android. I think it’s gone now. Even as an adult I found it engaging. It may look childish in the screenshots but it’s really fun.
It’s the only game I have bought online. They sent me the CD from Portland Oregon to my home on the opposite side of the Earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_Mania:_First_Flight
When weather conditions permit, regardless of whether an operation is conducted under instrument flight rules or visual flight rules1, vigilance shall be maintained by each person operating an aircraft so as to see and avoid other aircraft.
I had some aircraft pop in from off-screen and just run into another one that just took off.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiXcLURL7yo
Fire emoji - nice touch
I'd love to see a modern take on Airport Tycoon where you layout runways and terminals etc.
I also fondly remember an airline management simulator while in college. I started playing with IdleFlightManager on iOS but it was just insanely easy so I lost interest quickly. The software I used while in college had you manually set fares and fare pool size in addition to buying aircraft, dealing with maintenance expenses, and choosing routes.