AM6 Ideas

The creative juices are definitely flowing for Airport Madness 6.  It will be called, Airport Madness: World Edition.  Is it too soon to talk about?  You aren’t going to see it until May 2014.  You may be wondering if we ever plan to stop making new versions of Airport Madness.  The answer?  Never…. mwahahaha!

am6

Don’t study this too long – it’s not a real-world airfield. AM6 will likely have simpler, more contrasty graphics.

In AM5, we decided to simplify, pulling out stuff that we felt would not be missed, in exchange for more levels – which was a great deal of work. In AM6, we will be adding in lots of bells and whistles.  Yes, AM6 will have “more cowbell”, as they say.  Did I mention that it’s going to be based on real-world airports? 🙂

Radar will go back in.  In fact, there will be an option to play the entire game from the radar interface.  Perhaps you tire of the landscape, and want to think purely about the aircraft themselves.  Or perhaps you feel that having a large range of scope will give you an edge.  We intend to borrow some of the code from Radar Chaos to drive the interface.

Voices – there will be at least 6 different voices.  AM3 and AM4 lacked variety in this department.

Let there be night – we do intend to offer “night” versions for each of the six fields we offer.  However, the bad weather feature is still up for debate.  In AM4, I heard a lot of “this looks terrible”, and “frame rates are really bad during bad weather”, and “I can’t see the planes during bad weather”, and “Hey, how do I turn off that annoying weather feature?”.

Oh, and my favorite:  “Can I have your game for free?”.  Oh, brother.  Just grab it off Pirate Bay already!  Having said that, I sincerely appreciate everyone who has ever sent us their hard-earned money.  It is YOU that keeps me doing what I do – banging away at my keyboard until a new game pops out.

The cool thing that AM6 will bring to the series is (finally) the ability to assign departure runways.  Yes, it’s going to be a free-for-all.  Go right ahead and create unresolvable nose-to-nose conflicts on the taxiways.  I promise to add a “Return To Start Point” button.

Challenges – I think rather than playing one airfield for eternity, we will instead add two items to the top of the page.  One is a stopwatch and the other is an airplane counter.  Move 100 planes as fast as you can.  The faster you move them, the faster they come.  We will probably toss in some Facebook functionality, so you can show off to your friends.

With Radar Chaos: Hawaii Edition, we did a great deal of research into real-world procedures and routes.  AM6 won’t do that.  In San Francisco, there will be simultaneous runway ops like they do in real life, but not necessarily using the preferred runways and routes.  So you can go right ahead and drive your Airbus 380s over downtown.  It’s your airport.

What does everyone think of Las Vegas for an airfield?  I’m considering the following list of fields:

  • Heathrow
  • San Francisco
  • Las Vegas
  • Los Angeles
  • JFK
  • O’Hare

The cement is still very wet, so now is the time to get your thoughts in.  Believe it or not, I really do read all of my emails from you.  Sometimes, I’m not good at responding.  There are only so many hours in the day and, well, it cuts into my TV time.

14 thoughts on “AM6 Ideas

  1. Buck

    I purchased the Airport Madness Tine Machine but can not get it to run on my MAC system (OS X 10.5.8). I have run Airport Madness 3 & 4 on this system without any problems and have really enjoyed those simulations. I can’t figure out what to do … any help would be appreciated.

    Reply
  2. Satya

    Saved games, please. I sent you an email a while back outlining copy-pasted “save games”.

    Like the idea of making it more like Radar Chaos.

    Really like runway assignments!

    Would personally like to see Mumbai airport, which isn’t in the US, but hey. Doubt anyone else is interested.

    Going to expand RCHE? I really like it but just playing the 6 Hawaii sectors is starting to get tedious. Well, not tedious, but. Something. User-contributed sectors possible? How about for AM7?

    Reply
  3. Justin

    I like heathrow for it’s heavy traffic flow with only 2 runways. LAX seems kind of easy with it’s 4 parallel runways. JFK will be more of a challenge with 4 runways crossing one another, same with SFO. ORD will be a good, tough level due to just how confusing it looks. I would also like to recommend using more foreign airports as it looks as though the game will be a world addition.
    Thanks for your time, and dedication to the franchise!

    Reply
    1. John

      I agree with Justin, if its going to be World Edition it needs a global airport set, 5/6 of the selected airports are US based, not very global at all, why not Charles De Gaulle or Frankfurt Main.

      Reply
      1. Joecrow

        Yes the game needs more world airports. Maybe a singal runway airport such as Gatwick.
        Dubai might be a good one to include or Haneda.

        Reply
    2. Niels

      Maybe Amsterdam?
      Large airport with, I believe, 6 runways whereof 1 is only used for private aircrafts.
      Would be fun to have more than 1 airport of Europe, since we had so much of the USA already.

      Reply
  4. Vince

    I like your new ideas for AMWE. I was thinking about it with runway assignments coming from the player. I had 2 ideas, one idea is that most real airports have 2 taxiways usually running parellel with the runways. When they are using one specific runway both taxiways are for outbound traffic and vice versa for the active in bound runway and taxiways. With some of the bigger airports you could make it so that the planes take set of “inbound” taxiways from the runway to the gate and then use a set few outbound taxiways to the assigned runways.

    Also I thought of how many airlines have their own terminals at major airports. In the game you have a few named airlines, I was thinking that you could build a few terminals and have a specific airlines planes head to “their” terminal. Then from there the player can assign a runway depending on whats closest or whats less crowded. Just a few thoughts

    Reply
  5. Matt

    I agree with other comments that there are too many US airports, but I still like it if Las Vegas was kept so that the Janet Planes could possibly be an addition to the game 🙂

    Reply
  6. Jack Visser

    try putting AMS in your AM6 too, it has 6 runways… might be fun to control that one…

    (AMS is Amsterdam Airport by the way…)

    Enjoying AMTM to the full, I ran all the levels already (people say: “get a life…)

    Greets, Jack

    Reply
  7. Ross Hawkins

    I think that the airport variety is rather limited. Some of the airport’s layouts currently suggested are also rather easy.

    Heathrow is a set of 2 parallel runways, however the high traffic flow as suggested by a previous user could still be a reason to keep it in the game.

    San Francisco is good with the 4 crossing runways. Earthquakes could probably be used to simulate terminal and runway damage.

    Las Vegas is yet again a good one, similar-ish to SFO with similar-ish runway layout, but you can have sandstorms and maybe the odd UFO flying around.

    Los Angeles is a bit too easy being as all the runways are parallel. So this could be replaced with a different airport like Zurich. It has runways that all cross, and form a slightly deformed A shape.

    I like the idea of O’Hare with the large amount of runways and their crossings, but again, it’s in America and we need more variety. I like the idea of Amsterdam Schipol, having multiple runways also in close proximity to each other.

    JFK is a reasonable idea. But again, we need more variety. D: So I am thinking Tokyo Haneda. I know that Haneda usually has domestic flights in real life, but it’s begun to re-introduce international carriers again so that shouldn’t be an issue. The runways are also in close proximity to each other. The nearby city could probably be used to make the landing/departure paths more difficult.

    So to conclude: I hope you take my ideas into consideration as I think they will spruce up the game a little more. I am a devout fan of the Airport Madness series and I just want the game to be as good as it can be, with my help as well.

    Best Regards,
    Ross H.

    P.S: Sorry if I sounded like a know it all, I get a bit carried away. :L

    Reply
  8. Ryan

    For a unique switch (and probably pretty difficult), you could add the airport in Gibraltar. They have a highway that runs across the runway (yep, ACROSS). You could add a command option to halt and re-start automobile traffic when an aircraft lands or takes off. If not for AM6, maybe for AM7? 🙂

    Reply

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