exncsurfer
Pattern Altitude
I am looking for fun ways to add aviation knowledge to a kid's flying game.
Wall of text warning, tldr at the bottom(and in the title).
I made this game mostly for myself, initially, to dust off my dormant 'computer science' skills by learning some light scripting. It turns out that kid's are really enjoying it. I have had over 3 million plays. The age is pretty young, mostly 6 - 12 year olds, but some teen and up. On a typical day, around 1200 new players manage to achieve the 6 minute flight time badge. That is 120 hours of flight time! 56,000 players have earned this badge in just over a month, that is 5600 hours of flight time! My daily top flight time leaders are consistently flying 1-2 hours per player. I am shocked by these numbers!
The main function of the game is just flying a physics based biplane around a simple map. The players are forced to learn stick and rudder(not so much rudder, no wind in my game) skills by trial and error and they do amazingly well. At first they don't understand why they fall and crash when turning but if they stick around long enough, they figure out that they need nose up when turning. Learning aerodynamics by trial and error I suppose.
I think there is huge potential to teach more about aviation to this young audience, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Kids want to have fun and play, not learn! Right? So a wall of text probably isn't the way to go.
What I've done so far that I think encourages some aviation learning:
I'd like to add some info on various aerobatic maneuvers that they can do. All I can think of is maybe just adding the figure diagrams as posters on the wall of loop, Cuban 8, split S, etc. ?
One of the challenges I have now is that players aren't finding the things I have added, but I don't want to hit them with a wall of text explaining too much either.
The consensus from the player inquiries I get 'in game' is that I should add pirate ships, yachts, sharks, airliners, helicopters, and tanks! All fine ideas, but....
TLDR:
If anyone has any ideas for how to sneak in some aviation knowledge into a video game in a fun way, please respond.
Thanks.
Wall of text warning, tldr at the bottom(and in the title).
I made this game mostly for myself, initially, to dust off my dormant 'computer science' skills by learning some light scripting. It turns out that kid's are really enjoying it. I have had over 3 million plays. The age is pretty young, mostly 6 - 12 year olds, but some teen and up. On a typical day, around 1200 new players manage to achieve the 6 minute flight time badge. That is 120 hours of flight time! 56,000 players have earned this badge in just over a month, that is 5600 hours of flight time! My daily top flight time leaders are consistently flying 1-2 hours per player. I am shocked by these numbers!
The main function of the game is just flying a physics based biplane around a simple map. The players are forced to learn stick and rudder(not so much rudder, no wind in my game) skills by trial and error and they do amazingly well. At first they don't understand why they fall and crash when turning but if they stick around long enough, they figure out that they need nose up when turning. Learning aerodynamics by trial and error I suppose.
I think there is huge potential to teach more about aviation to this young audience, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Kids want to have fun and play, not learn! Right? So a wall of text probably isn't the way to go.
What I've done so far that I think encourages some aviation learning:
- Compass: I added a compass so they can do some basic navigation. I added several destinations and 'direct to' type auto updating course. Runways are all properly numbered to match compass directions(in case they notice). Blind flying at night with zero visibility they get to somewhat experience spatial D and learn to stare at the altitude and heading.
- Phonetic alphabet chart on the wall of my 'FBO' and auto generated tail numbers in case they want to use these to roleplay ATC in the game chat(some do).
- A walk-through maze with compass hint cheats. The players can opt to use their compass along with popup numerical 'headings' along the path to cheat their way through the maze. I thought this might encourage learning how the compass numerical directions work.
- First Flight airport, I made a super basic replica of First Flight airport with the monument and Wright brothers' camp shacks to explore. I included the distance markers from the first four flights with distances and dates.
- Short landing contest. Players' landing distances are measured and marked on the runway. May encourage experimenting with various approach angles and speeds and how they affect the roll distance. AKA energy management practice.
- Stall/AOA warning, the airspeed number turns red when approaching stall AOA. Players can practice slow flight and notice instability and sluggish response.
- skydiving, players can jump from planes or launch from cannons and either freefall or pop out a glider and float down slowly.
- dogfights and static targets, players can try to shoot each other down
- the flight model, aerobatic loops and rolls are possible and fun (the plane power is exaggerated so loops are very easy), works on pc/phones/tablets. (I enhanced this flight model script extensively, I did not create the original)
- leaderboards for daily and cumulative flight time, points for targets hit.
I'd like to add some info on various aerobatic maneuvers that they can do. All I can think of is maybe just adding the figure diagrams as posters on the wall of loop, Cuban 8, split S, etc. ?
One of the challenges I have now is that players aren't finding the things I have added, but I don't want to hit them with a wall of text explaining too much either.
The consensus from the player inquiries I get 'in game' is that I should add pirate ships, yachts, sharks, airliners, helicopters, and tanks! All fine ideas, but....
TLDR:
If anyone has any ideas for how to sneak in some aviation knowledge into a video game in a fun way, please respond.
Thanks.
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