Demo 0.3 is out for Meta Quest. It is a small one, so most of this post is about my workbench: a tutorial with a copilot who talks you through your first flight, passengers who board the airliner, and 20 training maneuvers flown in the small plane.
New in demo 0.3 (Quest)
- A loading screen in the headset. A player on itch.io wrote that the Quest version played sound but showed nothing. The game was building the valley behind a black screen: about 15 seconds on a Quest 2, almost 30 on a Quest 3. Now a panel shows up within a few seconds, the sound waits for the picture and then fades in. Loading itself still takes a while; making it faster is a job of its own. Thank you, dobsy: from the next build on, you are in the credits as a playtester.
- The right version number. The menu on Quest now says "Demo 0.3".
Mac and Windows stay on demo 0.2 for now. The demo is on this site and on itch.io, where it also runs in your browser.
On the workbench
None of this is in the demo yet. It lives in my dev build, and the full game is not out yet.
- A copilot who teaches. The demo gets a tutorial. You start cold on the runway and work through the checklist one step at a time. The copilot in the right seat says each step, in English or Dutch, and points at the switch or knob it is about. The goal panel shows the same step and ticks it off as soon as the plane is in the right state. On the start board you choose Tutorial or Free flight. It goes into the next demo build.
- Boarding the airliner. The attendant at the front opens the door and greets everyone who comes in. Passengers board in groups, find their row, lift their bags into the overhead bins and sit down. When everyone is seated she walks aft, shuts the bins, closes the door and takes her jumpseat. Some need a hand: a passenger in an aisle chair with a helper, a mother with a baby, a child in a seat of their own.
- A cabin that lives. Seated passengers buckle their lap belts and get busy. They chat with a neighbour, look out of the window, read, check a phone, listen to music or eat a sandwich. They blink, glance around, laugh, cough and sneeze, with voices to match.
- An experiment: cabin crew. I am trying a mode where the airliner circles over the valley and you walk the aisle as crew. Now and then a passenger calls you: "Excuse me, can I ask you something?" They want a pillow, food or water, something for a headache, a free toilet, or someone to stay close for a while. Galleys, the cabin phone, the jumpseat and the lavatories are being built right now. This is a try, not a promise.
- The airliner cockpit, panel by panel. Glareshield, main panel, overhead, centre pedestal and side consoles are now rebuilt one to one against reference photos: every plate, knob and colour in its place.
- How the airliner sounds. In flight the hull muffles the engines, and they get louder the further aft of the wing you sit. On the take-off roll the wheels bump over the runway, the nose wanders a little from side to side, the trim rattles and the tyres growl.
- The test hangar. You can grab the plane anywhere now, no more handles. Drag the nose or the tail sideways and the wheels hold while the hull bends. A new view mode (V) shows the airliner in side, front and top section and as a 3D cutaway. A display case holds both planes: click a model to load it.
- 20 training maneuvers. I flew 20 maneuvers from flight training in the small plane and checked each one against its handbook. Twelve fly the way the book says: stalls with power off, power on, full flaps and in a turn, steep turns at 45 and 60 degrees, a chandelle, a wingover, a slip, a zero-g parabola, a dive and a full pull in a 60 degree bank. The barrel roll, the aileron roll and the glide work in part. Loops, the hammerhead, inverted flight and the spin do not work yet. A player asked for rolls and loops, so I am looking at that now. The flight model is the same as in the demo, so you can try the first twelve today.
- On the stream. Type !demo in the chat of the 24/7 Twitch stream and you get the download link. The stream also says thank you on screen and shows a card with the links every few minutes.
No dates: when something is ready, it ships.
Feedback welcome
- On Quest: how long until you see the loading panel, and until you can fly? Tell me if it is a Quest 2 or a Quest 3.
- Which maneuver should work next?
Come say hi on Discord. The game also streams live on Twitch.