Allow me to apologize for not responding quickly to some people’s posts.  It’s been a bit crazy around here lately, as it always is after a new game release.   And it’s just me here.  Indie Game Developer Extraordinaire.  I have customer support on one screen, and raw game code on the other.

Airport Madness: Time Machine has received plenty of feedback.  I’ve heard the good and the bad.  All of it via email, telephone, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Kongregate.  The people have spoken. The game is an experience.  A journey.  It’s worth the ten bucks.  But it’s not quite Airport Madness 4.   It’s my goal to get this game where it needs to be.

Using Kongregate’s feedback ratings as a measuring stick, here are the scores given to all of our games thus far.  Kongregate says a 3.0 is “fair”, a 3.5 rating is “good”, and a 4.0 rating is “great”:

• Airport Madness 1 – 3.57
• Airport Madness 2 – 3.59
• Airport Madness 3 – 3.31
• Airport Madness 4 – 3.68
• Airport Madness 5 – 3.45
• Radar Chaos – 2.66
• Radar Chaos Hawaii – 2.66
• Sky Madness – 2.78
• Will It Fly? – 2.57

Some find the process of working through 60 years long and painful.  Some say that certain levels are painfully hard.  Others painfully easy.  I suspect that the levels are too long.  They need to be shortened, from their current 4-minute duration, to about 2.5.  The levels also need to be unlocked, so that users can jump to any year, any time they feel like it. These types of tweaks are easy for me.  I just need to be pointed to where the game is boring, or where it feels impossible.  Game duration and intensity are easy.

With some minor changes, I can get this game above the ‘good’ mark.  So please, shout out the feedback to me if you have it!

We’ve created a free version of our latest game, Airport Madness: Time Machine.  Please rate the game.  You can Play it here!

It is always difficult to decide how much to give away for free.  Give away too much, and you will have angry customers, who paid big money for the premium version.  Give away too little, and you irritate a would-be customer.

The free version gives customers an honest taste of the game.  The years 1925 through 1935 are unlocked.  So 11 free levels.  Fifteen clams gets you the other 46 years.

After more than one year in production, Big Fat Simulations proudly presents Airport Madness: Time Machine, the latest from the Airport Madness Series.  We pushed hard last night to meet our May 31 deadline, and version 1.00 only shipped with a few major bugs (now resolved in version 1.01

We appreciate your feedback and support with this project, as with all of our games.  We hope to deliver many more of such games in the years to come.

Here’s the final version of our splash page for Airport Madness: Time Machine, due to release May 31:

A few of the aircraft were swapped out, plus some minor changes to the lettering.   As much as we wanted to incorporate machines from ‘the future’, we felt that this collection of aircraft would be most indicative of time progression.  You probably recognize the 747, DC3, and B-17.  The one at the top left is from the ’1802 fantasy’ era

I sincerely hope that we are not teasing you too much with news of our upcoming Airport Madness: Time Machine.  I figure it’s best to keep our followers in the picture as much as possible, especially this close to our intended release date.  Here is a ‘draft version’ of the game’s splash page.  The final result will be slightly different, but this demonstrates the overall concept.

We have finished the game, and are now in the testing phase.  Believe me, the testers are finding plenty for us to do.  In fact, I shouldn’t even be typing this blog post.  I should be busy fixing bugs!  Aside from the fix list, our 25 testers seem to like the game.  We are thrilled!

Right this moment, we are arguing over what music to use for background sound, and what should play during the splash image at the very beginning.  Should it be loud?  Or quiet, so that the airplanes can be heard?  Music feedback has always been a mixed bag.  Some say, “Don’t add any”.  When we tried this with Radar Chaos: Hawaii Edition, some asked, “How come there is no music?”.

I will try to post again early next week to keep you all up-to-speed on our progress!

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Here is another screenshot teaser of Airport Madness: Time Machine.  The above shot is ‘the future’, 2172 to be exact.  It doesn’t look like much without the aircraft, which have a very futuristic look and behavior.  Basically, we feel that in the future, planes will be bigger and faster.  Airports will be designed more efficiently.  And yes, there will still be runways.

The official release date is “May”, with quotation marks around it.  That means May 31, at midnight.  Honolulu time, if you get my drift.  Airport Madness: Time Machine is progressing nicely, but taking forever.  Most of the artwork is done, now it’s on to fixing bugs, adding sound effects, music and polish.  Oh, and testing, almost forgot that one. I’m always amazed by how much the to-do list grows at the last minute.  Fore a while there, I actually thought we’d be launching on May 1.

I’ve got a month still, so I’m not panicking yet.  You will know when we are panicking, because you won’t hear a peep from us.  Not an email, nor a tweet.  Not a blog, facebook update, newsletter, or YouTube video.  This game will be a good one!

Airport Madness: Time Machine is progressing nicely.  If things seem quiet around the website lately, it’s because we are hard at work on our current project. I’ve promised you all that this game will be ready by May.  Wow, I sure am good at setting challenging goals for myself, aren’t I?  May should be do-able.  I’m sticking with May.

So far I’ve bragged about all of the stuff I am ripping out of Airport Madness in this version, such as radar and pilot voices, but I haven’t elaborated much on what’s getting added.  The coolest part of AMTM definitely has to be the story, which is based on the history of aviation with a few twists.    Each level begins with a popup, introducing the current year, what’s new, as well as a newspaper that describes the real-life aviation events that took place in that year.  As much as I love this newspaper feature, it’s taken a bite out of my time and pushed back the launch date by more than a week.  This is the story of my game development career.  I come up with an idea that a few folks will look at and say, “Hey, neat”, then I spend an inappropriate amount of time creating it.  My new motto should be, “If it’s not adding fun, don’t do it”.  Oh, well.  I will learn for next time.  What number are we at now, Airport Madness 5?

The heaviest workload has been endured mainly by our artist, who has had the task of managing the growth of an airport against aviation history’s timeline.  You see, we add new detail to the airport in 6-month increments.  So from 1925 to 1970, the airport evolves with nearly 100 small expansions.  In 1930, for example, we build a beautiful passenger terminal, only to bulldoze it seven years later for a bigger one.   And in 1933, our beautiful farm with it’s red barn gets bulldozed to make way for airport expansion.  A new terminal gets built, which takes nearly three years to complete.  After construction is complete, WWII breaks out and this area becomes a military base.

Another challenge is real estate.  What starts out as a small piece of farmland becomes a busy airfield.  As this field expands, we begin to run out of screen space.  When this happens, we do a zoom-out, which enables us to show you more detail. 1934 is when we first start to run out of room, so we shrink the details to fit.  The next zoom-out happens in 1955.  As the background detail gets shrunken to fit the screen, so must the airplanes shrink, to fit the smaller appearance of runways, taxiways and parking spots.

As usual, I’m running fashionably late with my latest game.  Look for it here next month, and if you haven’t already signed up for our newsletter, be sure to do so, and stay informed of Airport Madness: Time Machine’s release.