We’ve been trying to come up with better ways of keeping customers up-to-speed on our progress with new games.  Our Facebook page and this blog are great tools and we intend to keep using them.  However, the addition of Twitter will give followers the opportunity to hear what’s going on with us on a day-to-day basis.

Airport Madness 4 is progressing smoothly, and we are still hoping for a December release.  Check out our first official screenshots here on the product page.  At this point, Airport Madness 4 is mostly functional.  We have added radar, an achievement system, multiple aircraft types as well as emergencies.  The game graphics are almost complete.  For the most part, the game requires only polish.

There is still artwork to be completed, as well as sound implementation for voices, music and game sounds.  On the back end, there are a few game levels that still need coding to be completed.

This may sound more like a “rant” than a progress update, but ranting is an important part of the whole process.  I’ve received a great deal of pressure from other game developers who insist that the game be Facebook-friendly and social.  “Add virtual currency.  Add micro-transactions so that players can build up their airport.  Add a feature that allows friends to challenge each other, or even work together.”  Believe me, I think all of this stuff is neat, but it’s an incredible amount of work.  I’ve seen developers get so busy adding the back-end magic, they forget that they are supposed to be building a great game.  And that’s what Airport Madness 4 is trying to be.

Airport Madness 4 is coming! We are hoping for a release in December. A huge thank you to all of you for your fantastic ideas and suggestions. Keep them coming!

Since there were no volunteers, I was tasked with creating this video on my own, with a very minimal understanding of video software and YouTube.  Please excuse the crudity of this presentation, as it merely fulfills a promise that I made to you last month.

I have discovered that it is impossible to have a conversation while playing Airport Madness, so this video was created in two parts.  First, I recorded myself playing the game.  Then I recorded an audio narration and tied the two tracks together.  I don’t expect to win an Academy Award for this creation, but at the very least, it gets the job done!

In 1980, an exciting new video game was released, called “Pac Man”.  Buyers had two choices:  Buy the full console for $5,000.00, or stick 25 cents into an arcade slot and play only once (until you were eaten by ghosts).  I was 8 years old, and my weekly allowance was enough for only 8 rounds.  Video games were not free in the 80’s and 90’s.

Video games started becoming free online somewhere around the year 1998.  Flash technology enabled users to play a virtually unlimited number of games within their browsers, without the need to install anything, and without the need for a credit card.  Over the last 10 years, Google Ads has given basement game developers a way to earn an income by creating free games.  The internet became packed full of just about every kind of game you could ever imagine, all for free.  And the developers earned from it!  How cool is that?

Recently the casual game industry has begun to revert back to what it was back in the 80’s.  Developers are now demanding money for their hard work.  This is done in a variety of ways.  “Micro-transactions” have become insanely popular in places such as Facebook and mobile devices, while many developers prefer to tease the player with a free “lite” version and a paid “full” version.  Others make their stuff free, supported by ads and incentivized videos.

We would like your feedback on pricing for our upcoming game, Airport Madness 4.  What should it cost?  Please send us your thoughts by email.  Before you shout “Free!”, please bear in mind that these games do not build themselves.  It is immensely time-consuming and costly.  Web servers, digital certificates, artwork, web design, software, coding and training all add up.  Version 5 only comes if version 4 was a worthwhile endeavor.

-BFS Team

We are making good progress on our upcoming air traffic control game Airport Madness 4, still aiming for a release date of December 1, 2011.  When the blog is quiet, that means we are hard at work!  I’ve promised a screenshot so here is a snippet.

Airport Madness 4 is a dramatic improvement over it’s predecessor, most notably by the number of airports that it offers.  There will be a total of 6 different airports to choose from, each unique with their own special challenges.  Helicopters, float planes and space shuttles will be just a few of the new and interesting aircraft you will see.  The Concorde may also make an appearance (depends on whether I’m still in a good mood after all this coding :))  In addition, there will be new control features, including the option to vector.

Vectoring by itself is a huge addition to Airport Madness.  It adds a whole new feel to the game.  In Airport Madness 3 we had 360’s, which some felt were rather pointless when things got busy. Many have asked for holds, and that will be added as well, although I suspect it won’t offer the supreme power of steering planes with vectors.

We are still working on the logistics of offering “any runway to any aircraft”.  Although Airport Madness 4 will definitely offer many more runway choices, it is difficult to offer this complex option without destroying the simplicity that Airport Madness is based on.  It has been very clearly requested that we offer players the option to pick and choose specific gates, taxiways and runways, despite the consequences of aircraft becoming irreversibly stuck nose-to-nose on a taxiway somewhere.  It’s our intention to offer this, but it will likely only exist on one or two airports.