Starting out
I’ve had this idea knocking about in my head for what seems like years. Recently it’s started to firm up and turn into a game I’d play. As a tool for myself, and for anybody going through the same thing, I’d thought I’d document it.
Game like it’s 1999
I grew up playing games like RollerCoaster Tycoon. I read a quote from Chris Sawyer, the creator, a few years ago where he said it was effectively just pretty enough to make you realise you weren’t just entering numbers into a spreadsheet. I think games that obscure the fact they’re just a spreadsheet underneath is probably my favourite genre of game.
Being very much into simulators, airplanes, and management, airport-type games have always appealed to me. But really there hasn’t been much in that area until recently. Now remarkably there are at least three that I know of Airport CEO, SimAirport, and Sky Haven.
Initially the idea that I had fitted into pretty much what these games are doing. Both Airport CEO and SimAirport seem to be riding on a wave that came from Prison Architect, where I think people realised that if a game can be great without it being 3D. Or even isometric!
Mobile games get a bit of stick sometimes for being too casual, and while there are plenty of those available now, one of my favourite mobile games was Flight Control, which is now so old you can almost only find it referenced on Wikipedia as it came off the iOS App Store in 2015. A perfectly simple interface, but rather than worrying too much about the business side of airlines, it was just about managing air traffic coming into an airport, but purely abstracted away from being an actual air traffic controller.
But even more ‘simple’ than that, games can actually just be an interface. One of my favourite games to come out in recent years is Papers, Please. It’s beautifully made and proves that games are really about story and skill, rather than anything more fancy than that.
Keep it simple
I’ve had other ideas for games of course, but they always get too complicated. Or I make them out to that way in my head. I needed to bring myself back around to something I could build myself. Then learn from it, and move onto another game. Maybe eventually might even make something other people want to play.
It didn’t occur to me to make a game with a simple interface until I was playing an early beta of Airport CEO. At this point in development, you were not easily forgiven for not having enough check-in desks and staff. Eager to keep costs down, I’d only have two check-in desks with just enough staff to manage them, plus just enough staff to manage the turnaround of the flights. Then I’d stagger my flights in such a way that I wouldn’t need to have to build extra desks, extra security, hire extra staff.
A lot of people didn’t understand the rules and got a little confused. It was a very early beta and it was a little hard to understand, so it’s now been simplified a little bit. And an automated flight manager just spaces the flights out without too much worry for your staffing levels. But I found myself wanting to keep the rules. It was kind of fun trying to keep things as efficient as possible. This could actually be its own game! And so now, probably a year later from that thought, I’m writing this.