chrisg wrote:

v1d5r wrote:With that said, I’d imagine you don’t have limitless resources to put towards this, so it might make sense to release a version that focuses on getting the flying part right. Once that is there, other features could be added.

Take a look at the development process KSP followed; I think it would work well in this situation as well.

Yeah, my resources are definitely limited...especially compared to the millions of dollars the big studios spend on developing games. The flying part is pretty solid as I built it around an established flight physics engine (I made changes for things like flaps and ground handling, etc). I think it's pretty comparable to a lot other flight sims I've played in years past.

I'm somewhat familiar with KSP (Kerbal Space Program), but I've never played it. I'll do some research into their development process. At this point, I just want to get people playing it, having fun, and providing feedback. I'll probably make a free demo available in the next couple months.

From what I understand, KSP started with a really bare-bones game and slowly added features as they figured out what people wanted.

Just sharing some images from the game. Let me know what you think.






...and some short video captures...

To make the too fast short final, in the first video, accurate, the desired touchdown terrain should increase in apparent rate of closure. If the airplane decelerates properly, the rate of closure will not appear to speed up as the airplane nears the desired touchdown point.

If airspeed is stabilized, apparent rate of closure speeds up. If airspeed decelerates, apparent rate of closure continues to be the same as when further from the desired touchdown point.

Otherwise the simulation seems pretty accurate. If deceleration takes place, sink will occur. Sink mitigation will require increased power on short final. The audio effect to indicate power change is good. Decrease power to begin approach, increase power to mitigate sink on short final, continue adjusting power to nail touchdown slowly and softly on the desired touchdown point.

My son brought a virtual reality airplane wear over eyes devise that somewhat accurately simulated the increase in apparent rate of closure unless you decelerate on short final.

Good job on your simulation.

Wow! Thanks for such a detailed analysis and great feedback! Unfortunately (or fortunately), all the physics are handled by the underlying physics/game engine, so I won't likely be making any changes to that. The video may not capture it well, but it actually "feels" pretty realistic. I shouldn't have used the words "too fast" in the video title. I was actually flying really slowly, but was too high. When I dropped the nose, I got too fast and missed my intended touch down point.

I should mention that I'm not trying to make a super realistic flight simulator. I'll leave that to X-Plane and the upcoming Microsoft flight sim reboot. I want it to be somewhat realistic, but with more of a game feel that includes fun elements and events that aren't likely (or safe) in real life.

I really respect your going at this. Writing code is not for the faint of heart and this is a lot of code. I was amused with the title. I spent last weekend at a party in San Diego where one of the attendees was "Viper" from "Top Gun". Amusing character, who is beside the other guy, forget his name, is the only one to appear in both movies. We where taking of less than clever aviation stunts (he was an instructor in the real Top Gun School). My favorite comment was: "the low altitude recorded can only be equalled, never broken." The name Groundfall made me snicker.

Thanks for the sneak peek. I’m not much of a gamer, but this kinda appeals to me. What are the system requirements going to be? Will there be a iPad version for killing time on the ground waiting for weather to break?

Interesting concept. I would give it a try.

If you crash the landing, you should have to survive and until rescue arrives. Worse crash = longer survival time.

The ability to remove brush / logs to create new airstrips would be a cool feature. Force the player to do some walking until they establish new spots.

Hi all,
I've been away for a long time, so time for a quick update. I was making steady progress on the original version of the game and then got a little sidetracked by the idea of a multi-player version. This is something I've always wanted to do, but thought it was simply too difficult for me to realistically achieve in a timely manner. However, the pandemic got me thinking about it again....so I took another look. To my surprise, I was able to get a scaled-down version of the game working pretty quickly. By "scaled-down", I mean just the basics of flying, exploring, with simplified objectives like capture the flag and finding supplies and upgrades. Scaling-down has been a good thing, because it's forced me to focus on the core activities without all the distraction (and work) of a bigger scope.

Multiple players can fly their own airplanes or ride along with someone else... simply exploring, or competing against each other to see who can bag the most airstrips while collecting supplies and upgrades along the way. Keeping it simple for now.

I need to polish a few things and and try to improve the mouse controls (controlling and airplane with a mouse is not that fun), but I should be able to start beta testing with a small group soon. Come over the Discord page if you're interested in testing the game: https://discord.gg/TTM25Qk

This will go down as the best thing that happened during Covid19, very cool

I'm definitely interested, accurate physics are what would be most important to me.

CParker wrote:I'm definitely interested, accurate physics are what would be most important to me.

Well, they are "accurate" for a video game made by one guy, but it's not going to be a world-class simulator! Although it feels pretty realistic, you'll have to burn some av gas if you really want true accuracy.

I'm intentionally staying away from the "realism" that most flight sims contain...no X-country trips, no flight planning, no walk-arounds. I'm going more for an ATV with wings vibe. Fire it up and fly the thing! I just want it to be fun, so I'll be listening to player feedback when we get into testing.

chrisg wrote:

CParker wrote:I'm definitely interested, accurate physics are what would be most important to me.

Well, they are "accurate" for a video game made by one guy, but it's not going to be a world-class simulator! Although it feels pretty realistic, you'll have to burn some av gas if you really want true accuracy.

I'm intentionally staying away from the "realism" that most flight sims contain...no X-country trips, no flight planning, no walk-arounds. I'm going more for an ATV with wings vibe. Fire it up and fly the thing! I just want it to be fun, so I'll be listening to player feedback when we get into testing.

That's a good balanced approach, I should have clarified that ultra-realism isn't what important to me, it to be real enough that I'm not sitting there saying "oh come on." I've played some FPS games that have aircraft elements and they're so fake that it turns me off.

I have multi-player PC demo ready for testing on the Steam video game platform: https://store.steampowered.com/app/934260/GroundFall/. If you're already on Steam you can send me a friend request (friend ID: 1179605327). You can also get more information over at the Discord channel: https://discord.gg/SBp94uCQ

I hope some of you will help me test it out and push it to the next level.

Thanks!

Just seeing this and it looks very cool! Love the idea of being able to freely explore and hunt, I'll be checking it out in the near future for sure!

poorpilotsuperman wrote:Just seeing this and it looks very cool! Love the idea of being able to freely explore and hunt, I'll be checking it out in the near future for sure!

It's been a long time coming, so I'm really looking forward getting it in front of people.

Needs orcs & elves, maybe a dragon or two.

hotrod180 wrote:Needs orcs & elves, maybe a dragon or two.

Ok, I will add all those things for you hotrod180!

Actually, I should describe where I landed (punny) with the demo. It is a simple open-world "sandbox" environment. The basic objective is to land at as many airstrips as possible and collect the airstrip marker flags - the person with the most flags wins. Along the way you can explore cabins and other points of interest for fuel and supplies to keep yourself and your airplane alive. Other objectives and environments will be added over time.

Watch out for the cacti!



...just sharing a recent photo from the development of GroundFall. I'd love some more people to help test. Send me a DM if you're interested, or come over to the Discord page: https://discord.gg/HNHKeDE

chrisg wrote:Actually, I should describe where I landed (punny) with the demo. It is a simple open-world "sandbox" environment. The basic objective is to land at as many airstrips as possible and collect the airstrip marker flags - the person with the most flags wins. Along the way you can explore cabins and other points of interest for fuel and supplies to keep yourself and your airplane alive. Other objectives and environments will be added over time.

Nice, sounds like a pretty cool concept. A fun game mode to add would be STOL competitions / STOL drag.

This is really cool, all I’d ask that for is make it “accessible”, I’m seriously “tech challenged” heck I had to ask my son how to turn my cell phone off