We’ve added Zurich, Switzerland to Airport Madness: World Edition. We now offer 12 different airports to play from! Owners of the PC/Mac version will be prompted to install the update from the in-game menu page. iOS, Android and Steam versions to follow next week!

If you have not yet purchased, here is the product page:
https://bigfatsimulations.com/game/airportmadnessworldedition

I’ve recently made my development process a bit more efficient.  In the past, I would release updates for each and every platform, only to feel overwhelmed when the inevitable bug reports land in my inbox.  When this happens, I then have to republish to each platform.  Because Steam, PC, Mac, iOS, Android, and Mac App Store versions all require special handling, it requires a full day of my time, just to fix something as simple as an incorrectly numbered runway.

This morning I released the Zurich update for Airport Madness: World Edition, but only to those who own the PC/Mac version.  Once I resolve the bug reports, then I’ll release this update across the other platforms.  Unfortunately, Apple usually requires a week to review such an update, so iOS will be the last to receive the update.

What does everyone think of our proposed splash image for Airport Madness 3D ?

We’ve finalized the Settings page for our upcoming game,  Airport Madness 3D.  As you can see, the new 3D environment has created some interesting game options. 

 
A player can view the airport in 360 degrees by dragging their mouse (or swiping their finger on a mobile).  Swipe Direction is an option that I’m sure a few of you will like.  When you swipe left, which direction the world moves is up to you. 

Tower height control is such an easy feature to add, it would be a shame not to.  I’ve chosen what I feel is the ideal height, about 100 feet above ground.  This can be reduced to as low as 20 feet, or as high as 200.

I’ll post more screenshots shortly.  Still aiming for a March 2016 release!

I’ve added an interesting little feature to our upcoming Airport Madness 3D, which I expect at least 30% of you will like.  It’s an in-game Twitter-like feed of comments from pilots, passengers and local news stations to let you know how you’re doing as an air traffic controller.

Originally, my plan was to insert “thought bubbles” above airplanes, giving the player a sense of whether or not they were doing a good job of controlling airplanes.  However, in a game such as this one, visibility is extremely important.   Thought bubbles would likely hide other airplanes, and make the game difficult to play.  I came up with something I call “MadTweets”, a continuous feed of tweets posted by pilots, passengers, and local news.  It’s tidy, non-intrusive, and easy to turn off in Settings.

Enjoy!

I’m keeping extremely busy with the upcoming release of Airport Madness 3D.  As you can see in the above image, the airport details are beginning to take shape.  What you cannot see are the spinning propellers and animated fuel trucks, baggage carts, tugs, and moving passenger jetways.  The closer I get to finishing this project, the more excited I get about it.  I hope to show you a teaser video very soon.

Working with Unity3D, our development software, is an absolute dream.  I’m constantly amazed by how easy it is to implement my ideas.  Adding radar screens was a very simple task.  Just yesterday I got an email from somebody asking if it would be possible to add “instant replay”.  After a brief search of the Unity website, I determined that this is a relatively straightforward feature to add.

One thing I’m not sure about at this point are the aircraft I’ve chosen.  These are purchased 3D models (I’m not a 3D modeler), and they were the first thing I found that a) looked good and b) were low poly which means they will play nicely on a slower mobile device.  I’ve created some of my own liveries (can’t use real airlines, unfortunately).  I purchased these vessels nearly a year ago, but I’ve since found better stuff out there.  So at this point, I’m looking for feedback on how the aircraft look.

As for a release date?  I’m always late in delivering, so I’m trying to be somewhat vague.  I suspect this game will be complete by the end of February 2016, so check the product page regularly!

Here’s a little-known fact:   The very first version of Airport Madness was prototyped as a 3D game.  It was 2008, back before there were smartphone apps, back when Flash games were still very much alive.  I was new to programming and had no idea how I was going to build the thing.  Flash presented some very serious performance challenges for the 3D game developer.  I eventually gave up and decided to make the thing a simple 2D game.

  
In hindsight, 2D was the right move. It would’ve failed miserably as a 3D game in 2008.  But now with faster mobile devices out there, and development platforms such as Unity3D, the world is ready for a 3D version of Airport Madness.  

I finally began development of a 3D version of Airport Madness about a year ago, but until this week, I had doubts about whether the 3D version could ever be as fun as its 2D predecessor.  I was worried about how small the airplanes would look when viewed in a 3D space.  Who’s going to spot a Cessna on final approach from two miles away, while playing on an iPhone 5?  And what about performance?  Anyone can build a game by purchasing a bunch of pre-built game objects such as airplanes, runways and hangars.  However, there can be very serious performance consequences by doing so.  When a 3D artist creates an object such as a hangar, they give it as much detail as they can.  They want the thing to look perfect, because game developers may use it in their first-person shooter games, where the building will be viewed up close.   Such incredible detail puts a heavy workload on mobile devices, and can cause the app to crash frequently.

  
Development of Airport Madness 3D is going tremendously well. I’ve created airplanes, runways, water, grass, hangars, towers, fuel depots, gates, airport signage and vehicles that not only look good, but offer stability on mobile devices.  I’ve found beautiful music and sound effects.  I’ve chosen some fun airports. And I’ve kept the control instructions the same as that which you see in Airport Madness: World Edition.

Most important: I’ve obeyed the rules of Airport Madness.  I’ve avoided the urge to go “realistic”, and kept the focus squarely on the word “fun”.  Planes move quickly.  Conflicts are frequent.  Crashes are exaggerated.  Airport choices are based purely on how fun I’ve determined their layout to be.  It would be a mistake to say, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to add Van Nuys Airport?“, because I believe Airport Madness is more fun with crossing runways.   Having said that, I think the game needs at least one beginner airport, and that’s why I’ve chosen Kingston, Jamaica with its’ single runway operation.

I’ve avoided certain things like flight information displays.  I had considered adding computer screens that would display information about each aircraft, such as destination, altitude, route, number of passengers and so on,  but I just don’t think it adds any fun value.  Airport Madness is fun because it is an incredibly fast-paced game.  Crashes are abundant.  Not terribly realistic, but seldom boring.

I’ve avoided investing time into design of a tower control room.  I’ve seen other apps attempt this, and and while I must admit they look pretty, the novelty wears off and you’ll find yourself looking for an option to hide this distracting detail very quickly.  A small screen presents so much limitation, when trying to create an air traffic control environment.  There’s no room for unnecessary detail.  What you want is the largest viewing space possible, so you can spot those planes and avoid collisions.  To be honest, however, I find myself intentionally allowing collisions in AM3D 🙂 

I’ve said this before:  If things seem rather quiet around here, it’s because I’m working.  This week I intend to get some screenshots and a video teaser out to you for our upcoming Airport Madness 3D.

Ouch.

I’m very excited about this new game development software called Unity 3D.  It’s far more powerful than I need it to be, but definitely an ideal development environment for Airport Madness.  As much as I want to make things look as good as possible, I’m mindful of the mobile users out there, who don’t want this game to crash on their outdated Samsung Galaxy Tab 3.  So when I added realistic moving water to Airport Madness 3D, and the software asked me what type of reflection and effects I’d like, I decided to skip those and stick with something very basic.

The explosion above was a very complex endeavor.  I’m using  very lightweight mobile-friendly aircraft models, which must break into realistic pieces during a collision.  The pieces need to be highly animated, and that’s where the Unity game engine shines.   Unity calculates precisely how each piece should tumble down the runway, occasionally bounce off of one another, then come to rest.  The fire and smoke was my idea.  After all, this is Airport Madness!  It needs to be crash-errific, but hopefully not offensive to anyone.

I’m really not sure when this will be ready.  It’s looking like February 2016 now… fashionably late as always.  I promise to deliver.  I always do.

Airport Madness: World Edition is doing well on all platforms, so we must make its’ bimonthly updates a priority.  Even after the Release of AM3D, we intend to keep the AMWE updates coming.  The next update, by the way, is December 1, 2015 and we will be adding Amsterdam, Schiphol.

Dear excellent customers,

Airport Madness: World Edition is now live in the Steam store! While we continue to sell all of our games through our existing website, we will gradually port them to the Steam game platform. Steam is incontestably the best-known channel for buying, updating and sharing PC, Mac and Linux games. With a user base of 75 million, Steam is the largest collection of registered PC gamers in the world.

More Reliable Game Delivery
Automatic Updates
Community
Achievements, Game Stats, Trading Cards

Over the past seven years, we’ve battled many issues with our game delivery system, such as Adobe Air problems, download security issues, and damaged files. On Steam, games just work. We’d like nothing more than to bring you ALL of our games on Steam today. However, the Steam Community must first accept our games through their Greenlight voting system. Help us by voting!

A huge thank you to those who gave Airport Madness: World Edition their vote on Steam! Our game has been ‘greenlit’ and will be available for sale on Steam this Thursday.  To celebrate it’s release, we’re throwing a one-week 15% off sale.

It’s been a challenging two-month effort to get our bestselling game accepted by Steam. They have over 75 million users, and many, many thousands of game developers, all pitching games to them.  Steam has grown.  It’s become far too much work to review each and every game idea, so two years ago they developed a site called “Greenlight”, in which the users get to vote potential games up or down.

Greenlight has approximately 2000 games in the cue at any given time, and they seem to be accepting about 100 of these games per month.  Every time somebody gives a game their vote, that game moves up in rank.  For some, the process of getting greenlit takes only a couple of days.   But for many, a game will sit on Greenlight forever.   For us, the process took about 40 days.

If anyone here owns Airport Madness: World Edition already, and wishes to own it on Steam instead, go ahead and buy it.  I’ll give you a refund on the purchase you’ve made through our site.  Contact me at support@bigfatsimulations.com.