'Aera' – Upcoming 2.5D Flight Simulator
posted July 7th, 2009 6:20 PM EDT by Eli Hodapp in Action, Simulation, Upcoming Games, iPhone games, iPod touch games
Ichromo recently announced their upcoming propeller-powered flight simulator, Aera. According to their web site, the gameplay is "a mix of side-scroller and flight simulator" featuring aerobatic, dog fight, race, and free flight game modes.
The developer has been fairly active posting in the thread announcing Aera's upcoming release, and has shed some light on a few things. First off, the game is controlled using the accelerometer, tilting right and left controls the pitch of your airplane and shaking the iPhone sends your plane in to a barrel roll.
Aera is set in a 3D world, but controls closer to a sidescroller as horizontal movement is controlled automatically. Also, aside from the single player campaign modes, two player WiFi multiplayer will be included in the initial release, with Bluetooth peer to peer connectivity being added later with an update.
That's all we know right now, but I encourage everyone, even if you're not normally interested in flight games to watch the trailer. It's one of the more impressive ones I've seen, and needless to say, we're going to be keeping a close eye on Aera's development.
The camera control is impressive.
Marked to wait when it appears.
looks awesome.
Wow… that actually looks good, even without horizontal control. I guess they did that so that they could create cinematic scenes without the camera screwing up.
Interested to in checking this out. I never would have thought up the idea of having an air combat game with 2.5D game mechanics. Wonder what the inspiration was…
Also, a few comments. The graphics overall look very well polished, but the explosions stick out like sore thumb to me. Instead of having just one sprite, write a simple particle simulation with additive blending sprites.
Good luck!
This looks SO BRILLIANT! Wow!
And the "Second Chance" feature reminds me of BRAID
Looking forward to play this.
Wonder what the inspiration was…
Atari 2600 Combat?
P
I have to say I wasn't interested 'til I saw the gameplay. This is a good way to get non-sim people to want to fly. Looks great!
This game looks lovely.
Wow, this looks REALLY impressive.
Interesting idea.
OMG can't wait
Ooooooo…
The game looks very cool.
But I don't really understand the controls, it almost seemed like he wasn't controlling the plane at all.
It controls like a 2D platformer. In this case, the 2D plane is rotating around a 3D environment. So you essentially control the height and speed of the aircraft, but you can't break out of its forward flight path. It does look like you can move quickly to the right and left for tricks and dodging.
I think it looks really cool. However, with this limited range of motion there better be quite a few levels/missions. It looks really polished so far.
ohhh it looks like Triplane Turmoil II on PC :O
Wow two games for the iPod in one day featuring my favourite plane the Gee Bee! This is the little plane that Cliff Secord flew in the The Rocketeer. I'll have to pick this one up and the 8bit flying game as well.
I am really looking forward to this one..
*release soon*
Looks like it will be here soon –
http://www.148apps.com/news/aera-apples-hands/