Christmas Game: Santa's Landing

As an aside from our air traffic control games, here are some interesting Christmas Eve stats for our game Santa's Landing.  Santa's Landing has never been one of our strong performers, but it was certainly fun to make, and I feel proud of it at Christmas.  I find it very interesting how each Christmas Eve this game rises from obscurity and comes to life.  You may have read my earlier blog about this game.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone, from us at Big Fat Simulations!

Tornado Destroys Airport

Here is a clip of an emergency that occurs in Airport Madness 3. A tornado destroys a runway, a terminal building, and three jetliners.  Airport Madness 3 can be purchased here.

Music in Air Traffic Control Games

I've received a number of emails from air traffic control game fans who really enjoy the musical piece from Airport Madness 3.  I myself love this piece, although after testing and playing the game nearly one thousand times, I've begun using the game's mute feature.  In fact, muting is something that many game players do.  Some prefer to listen to music of their own, while others want no distraction during game play.

When you develop a game, there are several ways to obtain music.  If you are on a budget, there is royalty-free music everywhere, made by musicians trying to make a name for themselves.  Some ask that their name be mentioned in the game credits.  Others simply give it away.  In my experience however, you get what you pay for.  The truly decent music costs money, typically between $10 and $100 for a decent 45-second music loop.

Last April I went in search of music for Airport Madness 3 and immediately stumbled upon a piece from the air traffic control movie, "Pushing Tin".  Although the movie left something to be desired, the opening intro scene was fantastic.  Anne Dudley's "He Pushes Tin" sounds absolutely incredible when played with the sounds of jet aircraft arriving and departing.  I would have used this song for AM3 if it were not for the excessive cost.  I instead had a piece created specifically for AM3, with similar energy, that compliments the game nicely.

As we plan our future projects, music will likely exist only during the game intro, with perhaps only a quiet musical background beat during game play.

Airport Madness Challenge Now FREE for iPhone/iPad

Those of you with an iPhone or iPad can now try Airport Madness Challenge for free.  Although the full version still cost $4.99 for six levels of action, a 'lite' version is now available from the App Store which offers two free levels.  Additional levels can be purchased within the app for just $.99 each. 


The high resolution of this app looks stunning on the iPad, although it plays well with iPhone and iPod Touch as well.  Perhaps the greatest leap this app makes beyond Airport Madness Mobile is the multi-player function.   Using Bluetooth you can play against any friend with an iPad, iPhone or iPod in either of two multiplayer modes: Tycoon Mode or Survival Mode. In Survival Mode it is a showdown to see who can last the longest without a midair collision. In Tycoon Mode your goal is to drive the opponent into bankruptcy.




Get it here!

Automating Air Traffic Control

As I type code for our upcoming air traffic control games, a question repeatedly comes to my mind.  Can a computer manage real air traffic?   Could we remove the human factor from radar screens everywhere, and let a computer make these decisions?

A computer is able to observe altitudes, speeds and headings, as well as flight plans. A computer is most certainly capable of broadcasting comprehendable air traffic control instructions to pilots. The coded algorithms required to make such decisions is not rocket science, either. In fact, many of our air traffic control games require some degree of 'intelligence' to detect and resolve traffic conflicts.  In Airport Madness 3, airplanes see each other and make decisions regarding who should stop and who should go.  In our radar game Air Traffic Controller, the system recognizes vertical and lateral losses of separation.

This technology already exists in parts of the world, although it's focus is high-level enroute situations.  How hard is it to change a pilot's flight level, or give the occasional mach assignment? Passing traffic information would be very easy for a computer. Coordination with other sectors, even human ones, would be spot on.  However, I am reminded of a drive I made recently through a remote area of Ontario, Canada. I encountered a complete road closure necessitating a backtrack and a complete reroute to my destination. My GPS (I don't carry roadmaps) insisted that I get back on the highway in spite of the closure. I had absolutely no way of determining what other routes were available to me and finally had to pull over to get some human advice on how I would reach my destination.

Computers are great, but when the situation is anything but normal a human brain is needed. In air traffic control things are seldom ever normal, except perhaps in the high flight levels where aircraft cruise steadily and predictably. Where things can fall apart are the unusual circumstances, which happen so often in ATC that they become almost expected.  Thunderstorm activity, icing, turbulence, emergencies, loss of radar, re-routes, flow control, and airborne holds to name just a few.

Another big reality is the lack of radar information that exists in the world.  There is very little coverage out there.  If you were to look at a map of the world that depicted areas of radar coverage, most of you would be surprised at how little there is.  Granted, they are doing amazing and wonderful things with GPS these days, but at the moment there is very little radar, especially at lower altitudes and away from busy terminal areas.  There is almost no radar information over the oceans.  Computers make guesses, augmented by position reports from the pilots.

As a programmer, I can't imagine the amount of code that would be required to detect and handle all of the possible situations that can unfold in the world of air traffic control.  In risk of sounding naive, I think this technology is still quite a ways off.

Air Traffic Control Comedy with Bob Newhart

An old classic.  Bob Newhart doesn't need profanity to make things funny. For those of you not familiar with Bob Newhart, he is a terrific comedian who had a major hit comedy show in the 70's.

Internet Security

So I've installed the latest version of Internet Explorer, IE 9 Beta. While I think it is a very decent browser, I was disappointed to see that I was unable to download our air traffic control games without receiving a security warning.  Some customers have complained of this issue too, and lately we have had to to point more and more customers to our alternate download files, which use the Adobe AIR installer. For some reason, Internet Explorer seems to trust the AIR format over the .exe format. Many malicious software developers choose the .exe format, so I don't blame Microsoft for filtering ours.

We've also received complaints from customers who receive warnings upon downloading, such as "This publisher has not been verified. Are you sure you want to install this file?".  This has prompted us to purchase a digital certificate, which does nothing more than reassure customers that the software they are installing is legitimate.

Digital certificates are not cheap, nor are they easy to obtain.  A company that wants to obtain a digital certificate to assure customers of their legitimacy must first convince a company such as Verisign or Thawte that they are, in fact, legitimate software developers.

Airport Madness 3, as well as all future developments of Big Fat Simulations, will be digitally signed for customer reassurance.

Airport Madness 4

As we start the initial design of Airport Madness 4, I realize that we face exactly the same challenges as we did with the three previous versions of the the Airport Madness series.  Airport Madness 1, 2 and 3 all had something in common:  they were 2D, top-down games.  Airport Madness 4 however, will have 3D rendering.  That doesn't mean you will need to wear the big ugly glasses, nor does it mean that the airplanes will jump out of the screen at you.  3D rendering means that you are no longer sitting up there in space, staring down at the airport.  You now have a seat in the control tower, watching airplanes scream by.

It's not much, but this is technically the first official screenshot of Airport Madness 4.  Please be gentle with your feedback...we are still in the very early prototype stages of development. I promise to remove the green earth color that I stole from the 1992 version of Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Our challenge here is to avoid creating a realistic simulation.  Huh?  In my opinion, realistic ATC simulations are only fun to the hardcore ATC simmers.  To appeal to the rest of the world you need to keep things simple, fast, and entertaining, with no instructions required.  That's not an easy task with something as difficult and complex as air traffic control.  We should have another update for this project in January 2011.

Seasonal Games

Today one of my offspring asked me how come I haven't made a Halloween game, since it's October 31st and all. The truth is, I have some decent ideas for a Halloween game, but it would be at the expense of delaying a few larger projects that are on my horizon. Airport Madness 4 for example, which will happen sometime in mid-2011.

The last seasonal game that I developed was Santa's Landing, in which you attempt to land Santa's sleigh on people's rooftops while avoiding starvation by eating falling candy canes. Candy canes seemed like the most appropriate reindeer food for a Christmas game. After all, how much fun would a Christmas game be if the reindeer were stuck eating lichens and vascular plants? Santa's Landing was cute, but not exactly the viral success I had hoped it to be. It was played a few thousand times on Christmas Eve of last year, then it petered out to a steady trickle of 100 or so plays per day. Who knows, maybe it will get a second wind in December.

Every project that I undertake must be justified by a reasonable expectation of success. If a game such as Airport Madness 3 does really well, then it makes sense to spend time and energy porting it to mobile devices, as well as build a decent sequel. The rest of my ideas simply get added to "the list". The list gets longer and longer each day. It started out as a small piece of paper from a 3M notepad in 2006. It has outgrown paper, and now exists as a series of spreadsheets littered across my desktop. I have friends, family and business partners that constantly feed me with their big ideas. "Hey, you should totally make a Halloween game and put zombies and stuff in it". I always thank everyone, then add their ideas to my list :)

Airport Madness 3 Update

When Airport Madness 3 was developed, we had envisioned a fantastic system of automatic updates which involved using the Adobe AIR installation platform. Unfortunately, a number of users experienced difficulty with installation due to their particular system, and we immediately realised that an alternate .exe file was required for those instances. "Can't install our game? Here, try our alternate file...".

Another shortcoming that we experienced with the AIR platform was the inability to incorporate a decent high score board, like the one you see in the free flash version of AM3.

For these reasons, we have abandoned our AIR-based format of AM3 and switched to a simple .exe format. This new format also appears to offer slightly improved framerate performance, as an unexpected bonus.

Unfortunately, this means no automatic updates. Users will have to visit this website occasionally to check for available updates. Updates are always free.

In summary, the changes in this update are:

• Improved high score board
• Slightly improved performance
• Removal of Adobe AIR installation platform

We are planning a future update to Airport Madness 3 that should remove some memory leak issues, as well as add some keyboard shortcuts. Look for this update in about a month.

Where We're Headed

There has been great change in the casual game industry over the past couple of years. More and more users are looking for games that can be played socially on facebook, or on their mobile devices. Our most successful game, Airport Madness 3 for PC/Mac, fits neither. It is simply a downloadable application. While it is our intention to release an Airport Madness 4 in 2011 in a similar fashion to its' predecessors, we can't overlook the shift in the gaming industry.

Lately we have been developing quite a number of iPhone/iPad applications, such as Airport Madness Challenge, Airport Madness Mobile and Will It Fly. We are not overlooking Android, which happens to be next on our list. It is our intention to build out many of our existing PC/Mac games for both iOS and Android. At the same time, we are working on a social game for facebook, of the airport variety.

We also have a few entirely new game ideas that break free from our air traffic control theme. These will initially be introduced as flash games and later ported to Android and iOS. 2011 should be a very busy and exciting year for us, so please stay tuned.

Airport Madness 3 at Ludicrous Speed!

Witness the awesome air traffic controlling abilities of this player as he flawlessly manages traffic in Airport Madness 3. This is how the professionals do it!

New iOS App: Airport Madness Challenge

We are pleased to announce the launch of our newest iPhone/iPad/iPod game, Airport Madness Challenge! AMC is similar to the original Airport Madness Mobile app, however with 6 different airports plus multiplayer functionality. It has a brilliant large resolution, ideal on the iPad. AMC also supports Apple Game Center.


This application was originally designed for the iPad. It was felt that the iPhone version of Airport Madness Mobile did not show enough landscape to offer players a view of arriving and departing airplanes. However, with the new Retina display of the iPhone 4, we were also able to publish this app for iPhone and iPod Touch. The iPad version of this application offers more landscape view than the iPhone version.

We sincerely hope you enjoy this app. Please give it your honest feedback rating after playing. As always, my email box is always open to you for your feedback and comments. creator@bigfatsimulations.com

Will It Fly? Now available for iPhone/iPod

As a bush pilot of a small aircraft you must take off with as much cargo and as many passengers as you safely can, while avoiding terrain and obstacles. Earn points by pushing your aircraft to it's limit. The more you carry, the worse your aircraft will perform!

Get it here!

How many passengers and how much cargo can you successfully take off with, and still outclimb obstacles and terrain? This game applies the real-world laws of aviation to a variety of challenging scenarios. Earn points by daring yourself to carry as much as you safely can.

As in the real world of flying, a headwind can be your ally. Wind reduces the speed at which you travel over ground, but it does not affect climb speed, so a strong headwind can provide pilots with a steep climb angle.

Hot, High, and Heavy. Any combination of these can produce disasterous results. Hot or high atmospheric conditions indicate thin air, which reduces aircraft performance by lengthening the takeoff roll and reducing your climb angle. Too much weight will have the same effect on aircraft performance.

Airport Madness 3 Update 1.01

We have published a minor update to Airport Madness 3. The changes are:

• A different supervisor image;
• Click anywhere to close command panels;
• Maximizeable screen;
• Reduced "continuous play" traffic levels .

There are many more changes coming, but these are the ones that we felt needed to be done right away. Plus, it gives us an opportunity to test the game's auto-update feature. Updates are free, by the way. Those who purchased Airport Madness 3 Build 1.0 should see the message, "An update is available" appear at the bottom of the game screen.

Airport Madness 3 Post-Release

During its' first few days of release, our latest air traffic control game "Airport Madness 3" has received generally positive feedback. Unlike AM2, which we launched early to meet a deadline, Airport Madness 3 was thoroughly tested by a team of six from the very beginning of its' construction. We intend to release a new update in approximately one week, that adds a few improvements and fixes some minor issues:

• Keyboard Shortcuts;
• Click anywhere to close panels;
• Resizeable screen; and,
• Landing lights for night aircraft.

If you would like to add anything to this list for build 1.1 (full version), please contact us. Updates are free to those who have purchased. The application automatically checks for updates each time you play.

Airport Madness 3 Now Available

After more than eight months in the making, Airport Madness 3 is now available for purchase. Like it's predecessors, AM3 also includes a free 'lite' version, which limits players to one level and just one mishap. The lite version also has a much smaller screen size. The full version is a substantial step upwards from the lite version, and I certainly hope that you enjoy playing it.

>

US $9.99

I would like to thank the following volunteers for their extraordinary efforts in assisting with the beta testing. Without their assistance, this project would not have been possible.

• Dunk Cummins - Macclesfield, England
• K. Bromham
• Rich Newpol
• Richard D
• Sebastian G. - Munich, Germany
• Thomas Boon - Chelmsford, UK

Airport Madness 3 Delayed

Due to a number of minor bugs within the beta version of Airport Madness 3, release will have to be delayed a few days. I shall try to keep my promise of "June", and will resist the temptation to delete all prior blog posts containing promises of release dates :)

I've received some great last-minute ideas that I decided to implement, including several emergencies. The tornado was not my idea, but that of my young son. He was insistent that it would be a crowd-pleaser, and even sketched out his vision of an air traffic control supervisor who warns of approaching doom.

Airport Madness 3 Release Date

Here is a brief update on the progress of our latest air traffic control game, Airport Madness 3. We are putting on the final finishings to this product, as well as final testing for problems. We are aiming for a release date of Friday, June 25, 2010. Airport Madness 3 will have a sticker price of US$9.99. There will be a free version available in early July.

Unlike the full version, which offers a one-hour 'level-based' exercise as well as 'continuous-play' mode and 'challenge mode', the free game will offer a sudden-death 'How much traffic can you handle?" challenge that gradually builds in intensity and complexity. The free version will exist on Facebook as well as a variety of game portals on the internet.

Airport Madness 3 Coming June 2010

My apologies for not posting more progress updates for our latest air traffic control game, Airport Madness 3. I've been a bad blogger (Sigh...). Progress on Airport Madness 3 is actually moving along very well. We estimate a release in mid-June.

We have lots of neat new features to brag about: Emergencies, challenges, snow, runway assignment, speed control, holding patterns, change of active runway, plus a mammoth-sized resolution of 1000x725. That's about as big as we can make it without disqualifying the 15% of you who are still running 1024x768 resolution (You know who you are :)

Probably the coolest feature of Airport Madness 3 is the Adobe AIR platform, which automatically checks for product updates. The release of Airport Madness 2 in May of last year was rather painful, as there were several minor adjustments that needed to be made during its' first month after release, requiring buyers to have to visit the website for update information. Now it's all automatic. Technology is so amazing.

Here are some screen captures of Airport Madness 3. Please bear in mind, the actual resolution is much larger than the images below. These images are only meant to show off the parallel-runway operation. To view an actual-size screenshot, click here.

Video Demo of Airport Madness Mobile

Our first iPhone app is now available in the iTunes app store.

Airport Madness Mobile Now Available on the iPhone

After months of work, Airport Madness Mobile has hit the iPhone App Store! A huge thank-you to everyone who has supported my efforts with their words of encouragement and by purchasing my products. Please give this iPhone game a try and leave it an honest review.

As there are several air traffic control games with very similar names, please be cautious of which one you are buying. Our iPhone app is called "Airport Madness Mobile".

"You land a million planes safely. Then you have one little mid-air, and you never hear the end of it." - Air Traffic Controller, New York TRACON

Do you have what it takes to be an air traffic controller at a busy international airport?

As an air traffic controller it is your job is to keep aircraft from colliding, while avoiding unnecessary delays. You are paid the big bucks for your visualization skills and guts. Just like the real job of an air traffic controller, you must pay attention and keep your eyes moving. There is always something that you could be doing! You must give takeoff clearances, landing clearances and taxi clearances in a strategic effort to maintain safety and efficiency where there would otherwise be total chaos. This is not a spectator's sport! After successful completion of all 14 levels of this simulation you will become an expert at visualization and managing priorities.

This simulation contains 7 different challenging airport layouts. You will be required to work at night, and occasionally in poor weather conditions. Knowledge of air traffic control is not required to be a top-notch air traffic controller in Airport Madness Mobile, but you do require nerves of steel.

Air Traffic Control Games: Casual Vs. Serious

Airport Madness 2 was always meant to be a casual game, the kind you might play to fill the minutes of a coffee break. You might play it while eating a bag of chips, while listening to your iPod, or while bouncing a one-year-old on you knee. Airport Madness 3 however, has a more serious mood. You will need to put your chair in the upright position. Airport Madness 3 "brings it". It is for those who couldn't get enough of AM2, and have a strong interest in the world of air traffic control.

When you build a sequel you really must offer up something new, otherwise your product runs the risk of being dismissed as simply "more of the same". We wanted to brag about more than simply offering two new airport layouts. AM3 is more complex. It has a different feel. The pilot voices obey real-world ICAO phraseology. Your control options include runway assignments, 360-degree turns, downwind leg extensions, and full speed control. The resolution is massive.

AM3 runs the risk of driving away those who are merely looking for something light and simple. But if you've mastered AM2 while blindfolded with your hands tied behind your back, by all means sign up for our newsletter to be the first in line for Airport Madness 3 this June!

Airport Madness 3 Progress

Airport Madness 3 is progressing well. You may have noticed that the release date has been pushed back to June 2010. We learned from the release of Airport Madness 2 the value of thorough testing before release, and we intend to launch a solid game with hopefully no major issues.

When you create an air traffic control game or simulation, you must build a great deal of "intelligence" into the aircraft. For example, if two aircraft are taxiing towards each other on crossing paths, how do they decide who-stops-for-who? What at first seemed like a programming challenge quickly revealed itself to be a trigonometry nightmare. For example, how do two artificial aircraft decide who should stop in the image shown here? The answer is, whichever aircraft has a smaller relative angle to the other shall stop. I almost had to phone up my Grade 10 math teacher to figure that one out. Creating this simple rule added a couple of weeks to our project. We also received a great suggestion from someone to incorporate pushbacks into our game, whereby an aircraft is moved backwards out of its' gate before commencing taxi. However, the concept of backwards-moving airplanes threw a wrench into our formula above, since all of the relative angles get thrown out of whack when you reverse direction. As always, we developed a workaround to the problem. However, these things require time.

You may be asking yourself, "Doesn't air traffic control decide who taxiis and who stops?". In reality taxiways are controlled, however parking aprons are not. In the real world of air traffic control, most of the "action" is on the runways and in the air. Controlling taxiways is generally kinda dull. Like the earlier version of this game, Airport Madness 3 is about runway management including airborne conflictions. The apron/parking conflictions are left to the pilots to figure out.

Airport Madness 3 has had a few other challenges, most notably the large resolution which increases CPU demand on computers. After building out the game's foundation one month ago (a very basic no-frills single-level test platform) we noticed some performance issues as well as some unusual aircraft behavior. We decided not to move forward until these issues were resolved. I am pleased to say that these issues have been successfully eliminated and we are now moving forward with the addition of pilot voices, game options and other details. Please sign up for the newsletter above to be first in line for its' release.

Airport Madness Mobile

We are pleased to announce that Airport Madness Mobile has been submitted to the iPhone App Store and should be available by April 23, 2010. It promises to offer the iPhone community a truly addictive air traffic control game. Unfortunately we could not secure the name "Airport Madness" as it has been taken, so please be aware of which one you are buying on the App Store. There will be an announcement here, as well as in the newsletter (sign up above) as soon as this app becomes available.

The Ultimate Radar Game

When I was fourteen, I was introduced to the game of Chess. At first glance, I thought the game seemed like a waste of my time. I would never figure out the subtle differences between all of the various pieces. I would never brag about such activity to my friends at school. "Dude, I totally check-mated my brother with my rook yesterday!". However, I quickly fell in love with the game and a lot of my friends at school did, too. The game of Chess is similar to air traffic control games and simulations because of how addictive the play action is.

Managing a whole bunch of airplanes on a radar screen truly is one of the more interesting things you could ever try doing. It is such a mental rush to be responsible for thousands of lives at once, all of them hurtling through the troposphere at over 500 miles per hour, in a seemingly archaic fashion. Unlike air traffic control games or simulations, in real life the bottom line is safety. We don't "push tin" like they do in the movies. Instead, we "cautiously manage said tin in an organized manner, as though our very lives depend on it".

Air traffic control provides the world with a fantastic concept for potential new games, and this has yet to be truly explored by game developers. All of the popular classics like Risk, Monopoly, Checkers and Chess offer the same intellectual challenges as ATC does. What the casual game community lacks is an ATC game that invites everyone to the table to play. My mother tried our game Airport Madness 2 and really got into it, but she could not grasp our simulation. The world needs a radar game that starts easy and then builds, not just by intensity, but in complexity as well.

It is my vision to develop a radar-based game similar to Air Traffic Controller that maintains a reasonable degree of realism yet is simple enough for anyone ages 6 and up to jump in and start playing, without requiring 12 months' training at an ATC institute to even get started. I envision such game consisting of a variety of radar puzzle-like challenges. For example, one challenge may be to carefully vector numerous aircraft through a complex maze of terrain, and another challenge may require using only speed control to funnel enormous volumes of air traffic into an arrival stream for a busy international airport.

We may be getting rather ahead of ourselves, as we are still assembling Airport Madness 3, Airport Madness Mobile for iPhone, as well as a 3D version of Airport Madness from a tower perspective (no release date on that!). I'd like feedback on our proposal for a simple "puzzle-style" radar game. Please feel free to email us directly with your thoughts.

Update for Radar Game "Air Traffic Controller"

Version 1.23 is now available for our radar game Air Traffic Controller. The full version of this air traffic control game now has much lengthier levels. In comparison to the free version, which has a total of just 24 arriving aircraft and a game duration of approximately 30 minutes, the full version now provides players with a full 60 minutes of game play. Updates are free to those who have previously purchased this ATC game.

Although we are mainly focused on our new games such as Airport Madness 3 and Airport Madness Mobile for the iPhone, we have not abandoned our existing products but continue to tweak them and make changes whenever we have the opportunity to do so.

Airport Madness 2 iPhone Update

We are extremely excited about the release of our first air traffic control game for the iPhone. Airport Madness 2 should hit the app store by April 30, 2010. Here are some proposed screenshots of the game in action:

At first glance it seemed like porting Airport Madness 2 over to the iPhone would be relatively straightforward. Of couse, the challenges are embracing the advantages and minimizing the disadvantages of a small screen and a touch-based platform. Another challenge will be naming this iPhone application. Unfortunately the name 'Airport Madness' exists in the app store already. Naming overlaps do frequently occur on the web, but we will strive to find something unique yet familiar to fans of the Airport Madness series.

Airport Madness 3 Screenshots

Here are some screenshots from our latest air traffic control game, Airport Madness 3. Our blog platform has changed. For the latest news and release information, check out the new blog on our website.

Airport Madness 2 for iPhone

I am very excited to announce that Airport Madness 2 is being developed for the iPhone. There are already a number of decent air traffic control iPhone apps to be found, so we are working extra hard to bring something new to the table! Here are some screenshots:

The Free-For-All Airport Concept

I have a list of user requests that I am diligently working through, as I hammer out the code for Airport Madness 3. So far, many of these requests have been easy to add. You wanted to see emergencies? Easy. You wanted to give holds? No sweat. You wanted to assign runways? Hmmm...

Airport Madness 3 will offer the users a limited ability to assign different runways. As in the real world, there is always some flexibility but there are very few airports that operate in free-for-all fashion.

At any airport there are never enough taxiways. Whenever two aircraft stare each other face-to-face on the same taxiway, there is rarely enough room for them to pass, and turnarounds are difficult. It's not a dangerous situation due to the low speeds involved, but the pilots do have to stomp on their brakes, shut down and call for a tug. Many a real-world controller has inadvertently created this very scenario! And when they do, they are said to earn the "Golden Tow Bar Award".

As much as I would love to give users absolute taxiing freedom, I'm going to keep it realistic. When a 737 calls ready for taxi clearance, you will have the option of assigning a couple of different runways, but there will be a structured flow. For example, by default arrivals will come to you established on final approach for runway 06 or runway 12. You can cross them back and forth between the two runways if you like. Similarly, when a departing aircraft calls for taxi clearance you can taxi them for either runway 06 or runway 12. This maintains a natural flow of traffic.

If you get bored of the 06/12 operation, you can choose to operate the airport using runways 24 and 30 in the reverse fashion, still maintaining a natural flow. You will not be permitted to get any more creative than this, however. In real life, if you were to taxi an aircraft for runway 24 with arrivals using 06 your coworkers would hate you :)

Sign up for our Newsletter

We've received a number of requests from people asking, "Can you let me know when Airport Madness 3 is out?", or "Please email me when the next version of the air traffic control simulation becomes available.". So we have started a newsletter, something we should have done a year ago. It won't be spammy, just a friendly email letting you know anytime we have something new out, be it a new game, or bug fix for an existing application.

You can sign up at the top of this page.

Everybody Loves PayPal

Recently we have made several changes to our website. Repeat-visitors may have noticed that the graphics have been updated, but under the hood there have been even greater changes. PayPal has always been a decent eCommerce solution. They are very safe, affordable and reliable.

However, we have never liked having our customers whisked away to some far off mysterious payment page. So about a month ago we decided to change eCommerce services. With all due respect to PayPal, we didn't want our customers feeling like they were buying a pair of used ski bindings on eBay. We wanted something that appeared more professional. Something that would integrate directly into our website, and give customers that secure feeling, "Hey, this seems like a legitimate website to buy from".

The results were a disaster. Overnight our sales dropped drastically. Was this a post-Christmas slump, or a problem with our new service? We gave it a fair trial of two weeks before making the switch back to PayPal. All is normal again.

With all of the online fraud we have to deal with today, buyers are reluctant to trust small, obscure websites. So unless you are somebody big like amazon.com, you should use an eCommerce solution that is seriously brand-name, like PayPal.

Coffee with Radar

This may be a little off-topic from my air traffic control simulations, but a comedy break is always a good thing. This is a brilliant Rick Moranis moment from the movie, "Space Balls". There is nothing like a good cup of coffee while watching radar!

Realism in Air Traffic Control Simulations

One thing that I have come to realize after building more than five air traffic control simulations: You cannot simulate the real thing on a 19" screen. There, I said it. My air traffic control simulation weighs in at an impressive 997x738 pixels, which is as large as I can make it while still serving the lowest common denominator. 20% of my customers are still running on a screen resolution of 1024x768, which makes it a tight fit. Any larger, and you wind up with the dreaded scroll bars.

It amazes me how developers of similar ATC simulations insist on giving you a 'radar scope', which in my opinion wastes valuable screen real estate. I wouldn't dare waste screen space on a pretty radar dashboard with all of the switches and dials for brightness and contrast, not to mention the old-fashioned round radar scope. I'm pretty sure that's only in the movies. I highly doubt John Cusack would be expected to push tin on a screen the size and shape of a small pizza.

A typical computer screen is simply not big enough to display an 80 mile-wide sector. With such an enormous range, you can't vector airplanes. The details are too darn small. Since I can't change your monitor into a 35-inch monstrosity, my simulation zooms you in on the action with its' relatively small sector. It is only 40 nautical miles from edge-to-edge. Things happen pretty fast in a small sector like this one, and there is very little wiggle room when you get backed into a corner.

One more brag point before I finish: This simulation obeys the laws of air density. You must understand that in the real world (and in this simulation) a pilot's airspeed under-reads at higher altitudes. So if a you assign a pilot at 10,000 feet a speed of 210 knots, you will observe a groundspeed of about 250 knots. At sea level, there is no error. It's a simple concept, but it does require some getting used to. In my opinion, it's not a realistic simulation without this principle.

Air Traffic Control Radar Simulation

I have received a number of emails lately, regarding my air traffic control radar simulation. Some of these emails are from real-world air traffic controllers who would like to see even more advanced features, such as auto-overs and amended missed approaches. Others are from buyers who are struggling just to get a handle on the simulation. One thing that I have tried to be upfront about is that this is not a game. It's a sim. There is no 'score', there is no dramatic music and there are no 'levels'. This air traffic control simulation was designed to be as real as possible, right down to the pilot voices that you hear.

I am encouraging users to first try my radar game, called Air Traffic Controller. Air Traffic Controller is basically a light version of the sim, and just about anyone should be able to grasp the concepts pretty quickly. This sim is a natural next-step, and that is why I am selling both of these apps together as a combo.

I have put together a 20-minute video demonstration of the ATC simulator in action. It was originally intended to be a tutorial video, but with all of the action and pilot voices, the video became rather busy once I laid my voice down over top of it all. So the video is simply 20 minutes of me clicking away at my keyboard, doing my best to bring heavies down safely at Orange Island International, a fictitious airport located 50 nautical miles south of Maui, Hawaii. The adjacent control sectors are appropriately named after obscure Hawaiian locations, such as Miko sector to the south, and Kapaa sector to the east.

Be sure to maximize this video for best resolution!

You may have wondered about the tiny price tag of $5.95. This application offers just one sector. We plan to offer a 'full version' of this application next year, with 4 different sectors and a variety of additional features, and should sell for about $30.