jdno

I think about this game quite often and would love to eventually pick it up as a project again. I was only able to scratch the surface of what I had in mind, and I’m sure there’s so much to learn from players about what makes a good programming game.

I have to admit that I have exactly zero knowledge about actual flight plans or anything else related to air traffic control. Just loved playing Flight Control and used it as inspiration for this game.

Having said that, I think there are tons of interesting ways to build on the idea. :)

Ha! Seems like I could've thought more about the branding of the game. :D

Since players interact with the game through a gRPC API, I didn't want to put a specific programming language in the title. In fact, my assumption is that more players want use JavaScript, TypeScript or Python than Rust. Which is why the tutorial on the website has examples in TypeScript and not Rust. I want players to consider the implementation of the game a black box, and instead focus their attention on the sandbox that it provides.

The routing grid is an attempt to reduce the initial difficulty for players by essentially converting the map to a set of discrete tiles. I hope that this will make it easier for players to get started. Eventually, I want to add obstacles such as impassable mountains or towns that have restricted airspace to the map. With the routing grid, I can simply mark a tile as blocked. Without it, players would need to compare the shape of the obstacle with the route of the plan and search for intersections. This simplified data model also seems to work well with pre-existing path finding libraries on NPM or crates.io, further reducing the barrier to entry.

Thanks, that's great feedback!

I honestly didn't know gRPC had server reflection, will check it out tomorrow. A quick search makes me optimistic that it'll be easy to add. Same for the universal build. Might as well start signing the package while I'm at it.

"Flight Control" was one of the first games I ever played on iOS, and one of the inspirations for Auto Traffic Control. I like how engaging the game was, considering it had only a single input and a very simple set of rules.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Control_(video_game)

The other game that influenced the design of ATC is "Sector 33". In this game, players had to do a little bit of math using the speeds and distances of planes to coordinate their approach to an airport.

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/Sector33/iOS/index.html

Ideally, I'd like to combine the colorful art style and casual randomness of Flight Control with the simple arithmetic of Sector 33. I want to make it interesting for players to watch their creation play the game, and give them a sense of accomplishment when multiple aircraft land in perfect intervals one after the other.

Here is a little bit more background about the inspiration for the game in case you want to know more: https://www.jdno.dev/auto-traffic-control/