This very closely mirrors what I discovered when I made Flightle[1].

I made it in anger when I played a sidescrolling flight "simulator" on my phone in which the plane didn't behave anything like a plane! I figured "how hard can it be" and started learning a lot about how planes fly. It turned out there was a level of abstraction that was just right. Too unrealistic felt static and unsatisfying. Too realistic was difficult to calibrate for fun gameplay.

[1]: https://xkqr.org/flightle/

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kqr 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Too late to edit the comment, but here's the article describing some more of what I learned: https://entropicthoughts.com/sidescrolling-flight-simulator

What's not mentioned in that article is that a couple months later I tried switching from modeling the plane as a point to modeling it as two separate wings attached by a rigid stick. It was a nightmare to get into a shape that played well, though I'm sure someone more skilled than I would be able to do it.

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cellular 5 days ago | parent [-]

Long ago i made a paper airplane simulation also in anger!

My inspiration was a fun game on 1980s intellivision!

That side view game had momentum and stalling airplane physics that aren't in any arcade game since that I've found.

Dogfights were hilarious because each player would risk stalling so they'd have more momentum to maneuver an attack.

Did you play that old game?

	▲	kqr 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		That was just before my time. I cut my teeth on a late 4 MB Atari ST. But it sounds like a great game!

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Zircom 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Fun game, have you considered allowing people to control the sliders with their scroll wheel if they're on a desktop web browser?

	▲	kqr 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Not considered that. Good idea!