Development Platforms

Big Fat Simulations develops games and simulations using Adobe Flash Technology. This is our preferred platform, as Flash is capable of producing web-based content as well as desktop applications.

All of our games have free versions that rely on the distribution power of game portals all over the web. The full versions, however, are too big to fit in the browser space, and owners of our full versions do not want their purchase to be dependent on a web connection. Hence the need for both an 'online free version' and a 'downloadable desktop version'.

Adobe Flash has always been great for being able to deliver both. However, a number of users have experienced difficulty with Adobe AIR, and so we develop 'alternate files' for our games, which work fine, but have ugly icons and don't contain our 'digital signature'.

What development alternatives do we have? Should we hire new coders that can write the C++ language, and learn a new platform like Unreal Engine? Or switch to mobile development using Apple's xCode, requiring coders who are familiar with the Objective-C language?

We could use Unity, which delivers for both, like Flash does. It requires a knowledge of C# and Javascript languages. And it has better performance. However, it's content cannot be circulated throughout the online game portals as well as Flash content can.

The time I spend thinking about all this would probably be better spent focusing on simply making fun games.

So is Flash the best platform for what we do? Considering the time and money required to port our games over to another platform, a change would have to offer very substantial improvements to make it worthwhile. Almost all of our user complaints involve missing game features or bugs, but very few involve performance.

"But everyone's playing games on mobile devices now!". There is money to be made with mobile games, but there's a lot of noise out there. To make a buck in the mobile world, you need to create a truly stellar game. As for PC and Mac game opportunities, there are more PC's and Macs being sold now than ever before.

Since 2008, mobile games have steadily grown in popularity, and many have asked us to port our games over to iOS and Android. We have done this, with the assistance of our partner company, who specializes in mobile development. Android is extremely difficult to serve, as there are so many different device resolutions and device capabilities. The app stores that are available on Android are still evolving, and not quite as good as developers would like, compared to iOS.

Airport Madness is our biggest seller, and we have more versions coming, but it definitely won't last forever. In fact, next year we will begin development of 3D games. At that time, we will likely transition to Unity technology.

Radar Chaos Hawaii Edition Now Available

The impossible is never easy, but we've managed to do it.  Radar Chaos Hawaii Edition is now available for instant download.

We were fashionably late, as usual.  I must learn to better estimate a project's size before making promises.  Initially, RCHE seemed like a simple spin-off of the original Radar Chaos.  However, we were determined to pack more features into the control panel, add life-like procedures and a real-world location.  In the end, the entire project was basically rewritten from scratch.

Our first instinct was to add "Hawaiian" music, since the location of this radar simulation is the Hawaiian Islands. However, this gave the simulation a feel which we did not like.  We hated it, actually (especially after some 50+ hours of testing the beta version, which contained such music with ukuleles and flutes).  Ukuleles and air traffic control?  They don't go together.  One is relaxed, happy and care-free.  The other is intense, and it puts you at the edge of your seat, stresses you out, and causes you to mutter, "How am I gonna handle THIS mess?" repeatedly.  So we went with that.  In fact, the music we chose for Radar Chaos Hawaii Edition is filed under the genre of "horror".  You may think that sort of music wouldn't fit inside a game,  but I actually like the fit.  It is suspenseful, dark and haunting, created by composers Roland Rudzitis and David Flavin.  Music only exists during the introductory screens of the game, not during game play.

Our coder worked hard until late last night (and early this morning) to get everything functioning exactly as it should.  We are now in 'wait and see' mode, poised at the computer with the email program open, waiting for any complaints or bug reports we can jump on.

We really hope that you enjoy Radar Chaos Hawaii Edition.  It truly is a fun game, for those who love aviation.  Airport Madness 4 is by far more popular, but it's content aims at a much broader spectrum of users.  Radar simulation is a niche market.  It's my favorite type of game, by far.  In fact the very first game we ever created was a radar simulation, originally intended to be a commercial training product.

It's not easy to write instructions for air traffic control.  Our original promise was a radar game with "no instructions required", but that quickly became an impossible promise.  We have created nearly a dozen tutorial videos for this game, as well as several pages of written instructions, which should be enough to get you going.

Enjoy!

Our Big Fat Simulations Promise to You

Big Fat Simulations is a small company. We read all our e-mails, we love our customers, and if you are sad, we are sad. We're literally a Mom & Pop company, and we believe in the personal touch. So here are our three promises to you ...

1. No Obnoxious DRM! Pirates exist. Sad, but true. But we won't let hatred of people who rip off our games drive us to annoy our paying customers. When you order from us, you immediately get a download link to your game, requiring no keys or passwords. That's it. No online authentication. No need to keep a disk in the drive.

• If your computer dies and you need a new registration key? We're sorry to hear that, and your replacement is free.
• Register on the Mac and switch to Windows? A new key is free.
• Your child wants to play the game on his or her own machine? That's awesome, and an additional key is free.

2. Money-Back Guarantee! If you don't like our game, we don't want your money. We have a no-questions-asked One Year Money-back Guarantee. Game stops working? You wake up one morning and realize that it sucks? You decide that you hate us personally, and our adorable children too? Money back within one year. You might think, "Hmmm. I wonder if people ever buy the game, play it through, and demand a refund." The answer is: No. This has never happened. You know why? Because our customers are awesome people.

3. Free Demos! That means that you get a chance to play and make sure that 1. It works, 2. You are having fun, and 3. The retro graphics don't enrage you. If the demo works for you and is fun, you can buy the full game and be confident that it will still work and still be fun. And if it doesn't? Have we mentioned our Money-Back Guarantee? We love that almost all of our customers played a demo first. It means we're earning our pay honestly. Because, again, If you don't like our game, we don't want your money.

100 Million Airplanes Moved in AM4!

Wow, great work everyone! Holy smack. That's a lot of airplanes moved in Airport Madness 4 within just seven months. That's 200 times as much traffic as Chicago O'Hare moves for the same time period. I'd better hurry up and get the next edition of Airport Madness 4 out. You folks are going to LOVE this one!

New Teaser Video of Radar Chaos Hawaii

Enjoy!  Radar Chaos: Hawaii Edition will be releasing soon, hopefully by the last day of July.  If it's not available by July 31, just wait longer :)

Download the HD version here!


Radar Chaos Hawaii: Honolulu TRACON from Big Fat Simulations on Vimeo.

Production Mode

If it seems quiet around the website, our Facebook page, our blog and Twitter feed lately, it's because we are focused on the completion of Radar Chaos Hawaii Edition.  Our original goal was June 1 (thankfully we kept that one a secret from you, because we missed it).  In May, I mentioned on Facebook that RCHE would be available July 1, but later deleted the comment.  We have since been keeping the date vague, but promising 'some time in July'.   We are aiming for the last day in July.

Our sincere apologies for not being quick with the email responses these days.  Of course, we always respond to emails involving issues or complaints immediately.  However, it's those daily emails that we get from users who have an idea for a game that we should make:  "Hey, you should totally make a game that involves trains.  People love trains!  Can you make that next?".  I always try to respond to these idea people, since this is where all of our great ideas come from.  However, while we are in production mode, sprinting for the finish line, our email efforts are minimized to that of keeping existing customers happy.

Our dream is to take August off.  However, it will likely be dedicated to resolving bugs, assisting customers with their downloads, and adding critical game features that players feel are missing from Radar Chaos Hawaii Edition.   Not to mention, a new version of Airport Madness in time for Christmas (you will love this one!).  There is no rest for game developers.

Look for news of Radar Chaos Hawaii Edition's release right here in about two weeks!

New Screenshots of Radar Chaos Hawaii

Radar Chaos Hawaii is coming along, folks!  We hope for a release in about two weeks.  Check out the new screenshots of Oahu and Hawaii here.  We will be adding a second video shortly, including screenshots of Kauai and Maui. 

Radar Chaos Hawaii Edition Progress

Our newest radar simulation is approaching completion, and should be available for purchase by the end of July 2012.  We have decided to offer six different levels, instead of four as originally intended.  Radar Chaos Hawaii Edition consists of two 'enroute' levels and four 'TRACON-style' levels.

You have seen airport environments in our earlier radar games, Radar Chaos, Air Traffic Controller, and The Simulator.  In these levels, aircraft land and depart from busy airports.  Hawaii Edition's two enroute levels offer something a bit different.  These sectors have no airport.  They are designed to collect arrivals and stream them to the 'approach' controller for a specific airport.  They also disseminate departures to their correct flight routes.  There are many conflict points, and an understanding of the airspace shape is required.  In some areas, you are in charge of only the airspace that lies above 16000 feet. In some ways these levels are far more complicated than the approach TRACON's.



We've fallen behind.  The original promise was for July 1.  However, we've expanded the project, by adding levels and features.  We've run into challenges that eat up time.  And, the Well of Inspiration does occasionally dry up.  Some days this project feels like a concentration camp of the mind.  We love it, though.  And like the rest of our games, we poured our hearts into this one as if we were building it for ourselves to play and enjoy.   RCHE will definitely 'bring it' on release day.

As with the original Radar Chaos, we ran into this issue of 'what's going to be fun' versus, 'what's going to be real'. We could make it more realistic but it would become too complicated for most, and the instructions would be lengthy.  At the end of the day, a simulation that is dead real isn't going to interest the majority of our customers.

If we really wanted, we could add multiple SIDS, assignable STARs, VFR climb restrictions, non-radar separation, and flow control. I've done this stuff in real life, and trust me, it gets boring.  The fun stuff is the vectoring, the sequencing, the handling of six aircraft that are all tangled together somewhere.  An arriving Cessna that's getting overtaken by a B757, that's fun.  A departing 737 that is stuck beneath a slow-climbing prop, that's fun.  These are situations where you get to put your ATC cap on and do some air traffic controlling.  It's crazy scenarios like these that make the work interesting.  Nobody enjoys relaying IFR clearances, coordinating time estimates to  adjacent sectors, or talking on the phone with the flight planning. So we are building something that will ultimately be a whole lot of fun, in risk of offending a few real-world air traffic controllers who will immediately recognize that this is not an exact replica of real-world ATC in Hawaii.

We should hopefully have another video up shortly.  If you haven't watched the first one you can find it in our blog below.

Sky Madness 2

Shortly after we finish Radar Chaos Hawaii Edition next month, we will be pushing out a new version of Sky Madness as well. Better graphics, improved game play, and way more levels!

Radar Chaos: Hawaii Edition Teaser!

This video isn't the best quality, but it gives you an idea of what we are working on.
Radar Chaos Hawai Edition: Part 1 from Big Fat Simulations on Vimeo.

Airport Madness 4 Update

We've released yet another update to Airport Madness 4 which you can grab here, free to existing owners of this product.  New challenges have been added, my favorite being "Fast Forward", which speeds up the game play to 2X speed.  I actually found it to be more fun than the core game itself, which suggests something.

With the first version of Airport Madness, there were complaints that players were not being given enough time to react. It's a real-world problem as well, but nevertheless, I changed future versions of the game to be more 'zoomed out' with smaller airplanes, offering plenty of time to react.   But I think the game lost something when I did that.  The next version of Airport Madness has a bizarre theme which I'm very excited about, but it will require that I 'zoom back in'.  Airport Madness was never a simulation, but all game.  I'm striving to keep it there, in risk of disappointing those who want 'more features'.

I received a great email from someone the other day who feels that Airport Madness has become a big tangled ball of yarn.   In Airport Madness 4 there are different user profiles to choose from.  And you must pick a name.  And there are challenges and different levels.  But the levels must be unlocked.  And what's the trophy case all about?  With each version, we experiment with new stuff.  The stuff that works gets added to future versions.  Everything else gets cut.

The next version of Airport Madness deserves a better name than 'number 5'.  I think we can do better than that.  After all, it's going to have an entirely different feel to it.  It practically deserves a new name altogether.  We will have to see.  I don't think anyone's going to by 'Airport Madness 17' if they already own the first 16 versions.  Realistically there are at least four variations on the Airport Madness theme that I would like to try.

Needless to say, we will be keeping ourselves very busy for the foreseeable future, not just with Airport Madness, but the Radar Chaos series, which will likely have several future versions of it's own.  Sky Madness will also be getting an overhaul this summer.   If it makes a decent comeback, there could be future versions of that as well.

I hope to soon find time to try something entirely different.   I think there are untapped ideas in flight simulation, which seems to have kind of disappeared over the last few years.   You can read about it all here first.  I will do what I can to keep everyone posted!

Big Fat Simulations, Inc.

Big Fat Simulations proudly announces that we have recently become incorporated.  This does not change anything on the surface.  We are still maintaining our fairly aggressive product timeline, in an effort to bring you more of what you like.

Repeat visitors to our website may have noticed a few changes lately, as we have been busy tidying up.  Most of our product pages have been given a fresh look.  Google Ads have been entirely removed from our website (let me know if you see any that I've missed).  The main website banner is also new.

A huge thank you to all of our existing and future customers, for supporting our efforts and enabling us to create fun games!

Radar Chaos Visual Fix-up!

 We have given Radar Chaos a visual makeover, free to those who have purchased this game already.  You now have a female supervisor as well.  In addition to the visual changes, we've made some major changes behind the scenes.  

Users had reported unfair "separation losses" occurring immediately after new aircraft were generated.  The traffic generation engine has been entirely rewritten, with enough AI to prevent such conflicts from happening. 

Radar Chaos gets a new brother on July 1, 2012 - Radar Chaos: Hawaii Edition.  You can read about it in our earlier blog.  Be sure to grab both of these!

Radar Chaos "Hawaii" Progress

We are busy developing our next version of Radar Chaos, and hope to release it by July 1, 2012.  

The original Radar Chaos, although fairly realistic, was based on fictitious locations.  We dreamed up what we felt would be "really cool" airports, adding in conflict points where we felt they were necessary.  The aircraft behavior in this game was highly realistic.  However, the control interface was extremely simple, basically offering up-down-left-right actions plus a few other features.  We were catering to Joe Gamer, who probably knew nothing about things like mach transitions and such.

When we asked ourselves where the Radar Chaos series would go next, we decided upon two things. The control interface should offer more realistic control options, and the simulation should be based on a real-world location, with adherence to real-world procedures.

An improved control interface which allows holding patterns, direct waypoint assignments, mach assignments, and "mach transition" assignments will be a welcome addition. The panel has an entirely new feel.  Rather than ask users at the very beginning of the game to choose their flavor, basic or advanced, we give the freedom to choose this during play.  Initially, the control panel is simple, offering speed, heading and altitude control.  But tap the "advanced" icon, and it expands to offer heaps of additional features, such as conflict management tools and the ability to give handoffs and frequency assignments.

As for real-world locations, we have chosen Hawaii.  One thing we noticed right away during initial testing is that sometimes "real" isn't much fun.  So with that in mind, we have tailored the procedures and airspace delegations slightly.  For example, the real-world high-level sectors of Hawaii contain some degree of non-radar air traffic control, which requires a great deal of coordination work, but offers limited screen action.  When we discovered that an aircraft required 45 minutes to travel from the left side of the screen to the right, we knew that we would again have to make a decision between "keeping it real" or making something that is going to be addictive and fun.

I fully expect to receive emails from Oakland and Hawaii air traffic controllers (both real-world and vatsim) telling me, "That's not right.  Oceanic traffic has much more than just 10 miles of lateral spacing!".  Or even, "Hey, the Molokai Four Departure isn't shaped like that.".  I will thank them for their input, but politely explain that "real" isn't something people are going to enjoy on their computer.  Nobody wants to stare at a an airplane for two hours as it crawls across the screen at glacier speed.  After all, this is supposed to be Radar Chaos!

So that's where we are at.  We want to have our cake, and eat it too.  We want real, but we want to have fun also.  So how do we put chaos into radar?  By loosely basing everything on real world airports, terrain, sectors and procedures, but making the sector sizes smaller for faster screen motion and limited room to manoevre traffic.

Real Enough?

We are in the early planning stages of a new Radar Chaos game, based on the Hawaiian Islands.  While the current version is designed to assist beginners by offering a collection of newbie mazes, the Hawaii edition will be more a simulation than a game.

There are many, many things that must exist in a radar game before it can be regarded as a simulation.  The list has no end.  And no matter what you add, there will always be emails from users who want more.  If you add enough realism, the game becomes unplayable for many, due to complexity.  Finding this balance has been our primary struggle since creating our first simulation four years ago. 

There are many features that we could add to Radar Chaos.  Many have asked for hand offs, frequency assignments and visual approaches.  While some of these features make it feel a little more 'real', they don't build on the core challenge and fun aspect of the game.  For example, in order to properly give a 'hand off', one must simply remember to do it.  In order to properly give a frequency assignment, one must memorize frequencies.  Giving a visual approach does not add to a game's challenge either, as it is designed to relieve controller workload and reduce flying miles.

Is it even possible to develop a  realistic air traffic control simulation for the home computer?  Can you fit the most complex job in the world onto one screen?  There are a couple of organizations that have taken radar realism farther than all others.  However, the instructions are quite daunting for most people and, like the real world of air traffic control, it gets really boring at times.  Our goal is to make games that capture what is truly stressful about the job, without a lot of instructions.  In Airport Madness for example, players of all ages can manage a complex traffic situation just by a few mouse clicks.  Is it like the real thing?  Well, not exactly, but probably more fun!

This week Microsoft will launch their newest flight simulation, called 'Flight'.  While they have removed the word 'simulator' from the name, they insist that it is more than just a game.   They have realized that their market could be larger by making the concept a little more 'mainstream'.  They don't just want the aviation junkies anymore.  They want everybody.  While their software has always included worldwide scenery and 30 different aircraft types, Microsoft has figured out that most users aren't interested in flying a Boeing 777 from Mumbai to London.  The majority of players only fly the Cessna, never venturing too far from their home airport.  Like us, they have figured out who their target audience must be.  Let the hardcore flight simulation enthusiasts go and buy X-Plane.  Most flight enthusiasts will likely use Microsoft Flight because of it's simplicity.

Like Radar Chaos, Microsoft Flight will also be based on the Hawaiian Islands.  This is a great idea.  Why not specialize one one particular area and do it well, instead of giving users a thousand choices?   Our Radar Chaos pipeline will likely bring a new location, such as San Francisco, in 2013.  Each edition will evolve and improve upon the previous.

Website Gets New Look

Since its inception four years ago, Big Fat Simulations has maintained the same website graphics, which consisted of a banking Boeing 737 against an orange sunset.  In 2008 we were busy creating our first game, The Simulator.  The website needed to be created quickly.  We found a beautiful image on istockphoto.com, sliced it up and uploaded it to the server.  Presto!  A website in just 5 minutes.

An overhaul has been long overdue.  This week we gave the website a new look, which summarizes the spirit of our games.  We've got the serious-looking control tower on the left, and the Boeing 747 clumsily taxiing through the web page at the top.  A huge thank you to our artist, Sarah Radford, for her creativity and skill.

In addition to this new background image, we will be gradually overhauling the entire site, including a reorganization of our product line.  In our early days, a simple table on the home page containing all of our games was sufficient.  By the end of 2012 we will have enough products to demand categorization.  The likely categories will be Airport Madness Series, Radar Chaos Series, and More Games.

Upcoming Games

We have just released update 1.14 for Airport Madness 4.  Those who have purchased this game can update directly from the main game page.  We have also published a free version of Airport Madness 4 on facebook as well as our website (the facebook version is a bit smaller, due to the space constraints of facebook, but the site version is a full 1024x768.  Airport Madness 4 has moved over 15 million airplanes to date, and we plan to unlock content in the free version as we achieve certain milestones.

Okay, here is an exhaustive list of everything we have in the pipeline for you this year.  Please be sure to buy each and every one of these :)  Well, at least give the free versions a try. 

We are planning an update for Airport Madness 3 in March, fixing framerate performance issues, as well as difficulties users are reporting with the ability to click on aircraft. In April we plan to add an additional 'Easter' level to Airport Madness 4 (free and full versions).  Look for similar updates at Halloween and Christmas!  In May we are planning an update to our iOS Airport Madness, adding airports and features.  In June there will be a major update to Radar Chaos, as well as an 'enroute' version of Radar Chaos.  The enroute version will be more simulation than game. 

There is a great deal of work here at Big Fat Simulations that will keep us busy indefinitely.  We are already in the planning stages of the next Airport Madness, due next Christmas, and it should be a great deal of fun.

Stay tuned!

Airport Madness 4 Pipeline

It's been an exciting two weeks since we launched Airport Madness 4.   We had initially planned to complete Airport Madness 4 in November, spend a month testing it, then release it on December 1st.  However, we came up with some great ideas late in the game, and this delayed our launch until December 24th.  Number four in the series seems to have met or exceeded most people's expectations, with the exception of a few bugs.  There are always bugs with new software, and we've worked out nearly all of them with with the latest build.  We've received some amazing ideas and solid feedback from users, and we are doing everything we can to process it all.

When we created our first game five years ago, we were so focused on building the 'fun' aspects of our game that we neglected to put any music in, and this was the primary user complaint.  However most of the emails we've received for Airport Madness 4 sound something like, "Could you add a music volume knob so that we can, you know, turn the music down?".  Another complaint has been with regard to the voices.  When we launched, Airport Madness 4 came with just one voice, altered to three different pitch levels, for variety.  This was not well received, and we are happy to report that the voices have been improved for the latest build, 1.12.  We have not added a volume knob, but have lowered the music volume to match that of the other sounds.

Our game plan over the next few years is to launch a new version of Airport Madness every Christmas.  We have some terrific ideas for this and have already begun laying the groundwork for the next three versions.  Having said that, we've decided that our priority must always be to focus on the current game, and how to make it better.  Airport Madness 4 will not be abandoned for the next version, as with earlier versions.  Airport Madness 4 will be improved upon, changed, added to, and hopefully one day perfected.  Updates are always free, and automatic from within the game.

We also plan to give Radar Chaos a makeover this Summer, adding fresh artwork, improving the traffic generation system, and adding features such as holding patterns.  There will also be a second version of Radar Chaos, focussing on the 'enroute' aspects of air traffic control.