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!

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 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.

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!

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.

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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.

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 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.

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 :)

Airport Madness 3

I have been busy coding my next contraption, Airport Madness 3, which is well underway. I sincerely hope to launch Airport Madness 3 by April, but I am hesitant to promise an exact release date. It then becomes a promise that I am either forced to achieve, or likely to miss.

This next version of the Airport Madness series will hopefully be a huge leap in the right direction. I have listened carefully to everyone's suggestions, and shall try to implement most of them. The big feature that AM3 brings to the table is airborne conflicts. In AM2 you had to watch the runways very carefully. Now you must also learn to watch the sky for conflicts.

When it comes to my Air Traffic Control games, I have more than one audience. Most of my customers and followers are not pilots or air traffic controllers, and do not demand anything too heavy from me. Give us more levels. Fine. Give us pilot voices. Fine. However, there is a smaller group of followers who are die-hards. I don't know who they are, or what they do for a living. Quite possibly they are real controllers, or perhaps just very smart individuals, but they really want me to hike things up a notch or two. Like, give us real-world wake turbulence separation requirements. Give us runway cross-overs. How about an ASDE surface detection display and low-visibility operations? Yikes.

Much of this is do-able. However, it must be kept fun. If I make things too realistic, I'm going to scare off those who play my games to fill their coffee break, and don't have time to complete 6 months of ATC training in order to play Airport Madness 3.

Airport Madness 3

I am making initial plans for an Airport Madness 3. I do not offer a release date, but I am thinking somewhere around January 2010 (give or take 3 months). My goal is to make Airport Madness 3 similar in concept to the first 2 games, but a vast improvement. The free version will be the usual teaser, but the full version will be a full-screen game creating much more involvement with the airborne aircraft (i.e. assigning turns, holds, different runways).

At the moment, Airport Madness 3 will contain the following improvements over AM1 and AM2:

• Pilot/Controller voice
  
• A complexity setting (beginner, normal, advanced)
• Real-world rules of runway operation
• A much larger screen for the "full version".
  
• All-new airport layout
  
• Improved graphics
• Emergencies
• Airport vehicles, cars, boats, birds.
  
• Assignable runways
• Different types and speeds
• Special operations, such as training aircraft and balloons.

If you have any suggestions please email me.