POCKET PLANES STRATEGY HOW TO

Players get the sense that they could decide to start an airport on the other side of the world and takeoff immediately for it. By eliminating the tracks and letting people travel in any direction, the game feels a lot more exploratory. Pretty soon after we got the game to a playable state though, we were finding that having the trains trapped on a track with limited options at each city as to where you could travel next was not matching our vision for how we wanted the game to feel. We even drew up a bunch of train engines and cars, and created a world map with tracks connecting all the cities. Yes, originally the game was going to be based around trains instead of aircraft. Why the decision to switch? And would you ever try and go back and do Pocket Trains again if there was fan support for the title? I think I read in an article recently that Pocket Planes was almost Pocket Trains. By using real geography and concepts like travel which everyone has a deep understanding of, you can really work around the concept of managing tasks that take different amounts of time but have it actually make sense. Part of the inspiration was to make a game that was designed around time, but didn’t feel like it was as contrived as “this action will take 10 minutes!” and “this same action named something different will take 30 minutes!”.

POCKET PLANES STRATEGY HOW TO

We actually don’t have a lot of experience in transportation or strategy games, so part of what appealed to us was the newness of learning how to develop something we haven’t done before. What made airplane simulation something interesting to you guys as game developers? Was there something that really appealed to you about this kind of a strategy game? Having a lot of character and charm in the game also helps players imagine that they are operating pieces in a tiny functioning world. Like Tiny Tower, Pocket Planes is a simulation game that makes something fun out of something that you would think… well… would be a little boring! (I guess I never thought managing airplanes could be fun.) How do you guys pull that off?Įven the most mundane of tasks can be made fun when you give the player power to wield! I think the most enjoyable part of the game is planning where to expand your airline, and growing your business by operating more and better aircraft. You direct and manage a growing fleet of airplanes to operate all over the world. Pocket Planes is an airline management and simulation game. I recently had an email Q&A with David Marsh from NimbleBit about the game.įor those that haven’t had a chance to play yet, how would you describe your latest game, Pocket Planes? The fact that the game keeps working in the background makes the pressure to play less intense, and the annoyance of waiting is virtually eliminated. You can play it for less than a one minute, put it away, and pick it up later to find your planes have landed and are ready for another destination. But I could see how quickly people would become obsessed with this game. Then again, aside from SimCity, I’ve never been a huge simulation fan. I didn’t find myself turning to the game regularly as I have with other iOS games. If you haven’t tried it yet, Pocket Planes is an airline management and simulation game where you direct and manage a fleet of airplanes all over the world. And … I didn’t love it as much as everyone else online seemed to.

Pocket planes strategy