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.
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.
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thanzex
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
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rob74
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.
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wjdp
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.
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V__
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.
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paxys
Not enough of you played Flight Control in 2008 and it shows.
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bronco21016
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.
keito
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.
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bakies
Think it needs just a little zoom out on my phone but had a fun time. Both my games ended off screen
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rsendv
Strange. Can’t write “e” in the top scorer input box. Anyone else have this problem?
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micah_chatt
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
2143
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.
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…
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.
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ivraatiems
Play this for a few minutes and you start to realize why sequencing and published flight paths are so important!
Really fun, thank you!
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lucb1e
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!
koko443
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?
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hexator
I love this emerging "3D pixel art" trend. Stylized graphics always age better than realistic. And it definitely has more charm
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.
przemub
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!
jmkni
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?
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exDM69
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.
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omeysalvi
First line of action was to crash two planes into each other. Mission successful
Rotundo
Looks like Kennedy Approach from mumble years ago!
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.
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Archit3ch
I expected a backrooms-style game where you are lost at an infinite airport...
mrkpdl
I still miss flight control, seems wrong that such an important early iPhone OS game is just… gone.
heresalexandria
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.
socalgal2
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.
_zendar_
Just playing right now inside airport waiting for a delayed flight, such an irony
orangeberrytea
First thing I did was crash 2 planes, I should be in ISIS.
Fire emoji - nice touch
SamBam
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.
tantalor
Nice homage to Flight Control (2009)
bigbuppo
every single one of those pilots is getting a number to copy.
tantalor
Losing because some collision off screen seems a bit unfair.
axelb152
I think the landing box could be a bit easier to hit
mattimatti
Fun to play, I like it puts a close by airport on the high-score board.
gfalcao
Addictive
WhyComboNadir
It's surprisingly fun! You've inspired me to finish something aviation related I'm working on and post it soon. Cheers.
verelo
pretty nice, the click targets are a bit awkward but otherwise really fun!
Avio223
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
consumer451
Very fun. My only gripe is that you should be able to overfly taxiing aircraft, without crashing.
AlfredBarnes
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!
tallanvor
Just a green background and some text on Firefox.
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mscissors
Can I ask what programming language you uesd? Good game
schnebbau
This is cool. What is it built with?
pir8life4me
Fun. But the ATC has a different UI I think?
danfunk
Perfect kind of intuitive. It was a joy to figure it out, and just "learn by doing".
dariush624
Super fun! Gets very complicated with congestion, good work!!
westcoast49
I got a slight flashback to Blue Max, just because of the graphics.
TechSquidTV
Both me and my friend have been racing eachother to create airport simulators. Wildly on-topic for me.
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pjmlp
Even if simple, it is quite appealing and fun, spend quite a while playing it.
gus_massa
Nice and fun, but I'd like that the fame enforces a minimal turning radius.
harvie
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.
mscissors
Very fun game. Helps my mind relax
Aardwolf
4 successful landings before disaster struck, not a bad first day as ATC
murzynalbinos
This is nice. And yeah, I've crashed after 33 sec ;)
tonic_note
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
vlovich123
The touch controls, at least on iOS, leave a lot to be desired.
mannycalavera
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
Khira_Moss
The real simulator feature is discovering how quickly one delayed plane becomes everyone’s problem.
yangosoft
Add some color blind option, please.
I cannot distinguish the two reds/browns/greens or whatever hehe.
dssagar93
This is addictive. Enjoyed it thoroughly
grwthckrmstr
Brought back fun memories! Thank you
opentestudox
Is this based on WebAssembly?
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arsenkk
very sticky game, love it! my record is 18 landings
ignaciovdk
Very cool!
Erenay09
the graphics reminded me OpenTTD
kbcool
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
mrcwinn
Nice work!
cmenge
Addictive! Made it to #16 but now got some serious PTSD about flying lol
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.
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.
--
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Control
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_Metro_(video_game)
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Not enough of you played Flight Control in 2008 and it shows.
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.
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.
Think it needs just a little zoom out on my phone but had a fun time. Both my games ended off screen
Strange. Can’t write “e” in the top scorer input box. Anyone else have this problem?
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
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_Mania:_First_Flight
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…
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiXcLURL7yo
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.
Play this for a few minutes and you start to realize why sequencing and published flight paths are so important!
Really fun, thank you!
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!
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?
I love this emerging "3D pixel art" trend. Stylized graphics always age better than realistic. And it definitely has more charm
High Score: 81 Succesful Landings in 6:53!
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.
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.
If you like this I highly recommend the Air Traffic Controller series
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...
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.
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!
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?
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.
First line of action was to crash two planes into each other. Mission successful
Looks like Kennedy Approach from mumble years ago!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgi2fuSL9tk&t=28s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_Approach
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.
I expected a backrooms-style game where you are lost at an infinite airport...
I still miss flight control, seems wrong that such an important early iPhone OS game is just… gone.
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.
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.
Just playing right now inside airport waiting for a delayed flight, such an irony
First thing I did was crash 2 planes, I should be in ISIS.
Fire emoji - nice touch
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.
Nice homage to Flight Control (2009)
every single one of those pilots is getting a number to copy.
Losing because some collision off screen seems a bit unfair.
I think the landing box could be a bit easier to hit
Fun to play, I like it puts a close by airport on the high-score board.
Addictive
It's surprisingly fun! You've inspired me to finish something aviation related I'm working on and post it soon. Cheers.
pretty nice, the click targets are a bit awkward but otherwise really fun!
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
Very fun. My only gripe is that you should be able to overfly taxiing aircraft, without crashing.
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!
Just a green background and some text on Firefox.
Can I ask what programming language you uesd? Good game
This is cool. What is it built with?
Fun. But the ATC has a different UI I think?
Perfect kind of intuitive. It was a joy to figure it out, and just "learn by doing".
Super fun! Gets very complicated with congestion, good work!!
I got a slight flashback to Blue Max, just because of the graphics.
Both me and my friend have been racing eachother to create airport simulators. Wildly on-topic for me.
Even if simple, it is quite appealing and fun, spend quite a while playing it.
Nice and fun, but I'd like that the fame enforces a minimal turning radius.
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.
Very fun game. Helps my mind relax
4 successful landings before disaster struck, not a bad first day as ATC
This is nice. And yeah, I've crashed after 33 sec ;)
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
The touch controls, at least on iOS, leave a lot to be desired.
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
The real simulator feature is discovering how quickly one delayed plane becomes everyone’s problem.
Add some color blind option, please.
I cannot distinguish the two reds/browns/greens or whatever hehe.
This is addictive. Enjoyed it thoroughly
Brought back fun memories! Thank you
Is this based on WebAssembly?
very sticky game, love it! my record is 18 landings
Very cool!
the graphics reminded me OpenTTD
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
Nice work!
Addictive! Made it to #16 but now got some serious PTSD about flying lol
Open up https://www.liveatc.net/ in another tab and you have a complete experience. Really fun!
Now I see why ATC is such a stressful job!
Sweet
Cool. But, yeah, no, too stressful.
Give me a relaxing game. (I'm getting old.)
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.