One more byte: Flight Control

We had to bring you the fresh, fabulous and recently UPDATED [29th April], game from Firemint for this weeks One More Byte segment.  (See Episode 4: Social Networking)

Flight Control [Kind folks donated promo codes to us gals so we will give them out later]: This is really hot property at the moment, and those who know me, have tweeted me, or heck even stood next to me at some point over the last few weeks you’ll know I’m really into this sweet little iPhone app.  Quite unassuming in its execution, which I feel is a huge part of its charm.

The graphics are really refreshing in their tone and colour, and the music is equally sweet. (I kinda wish it would play for longer but I can understand why they cut it short.)

It requires no learning curve, you can launch it and play.  If you do look at the instructions, you’ll see that all you do is click on an aircraft and drag out the flight path with your finger.  When the plane turns white, it means there is a successful path to land. The paths are really smooth and it can be quite fun to draw out a totally crazy path too!

Pretty simple right?

Well, yes for your first 10 planes, but by the time you get to plane number 15, the jumbos start to come.  These are large and fast, and oh my – they make the game a bit more difficult!

Here is a video from Firemint of the game play.

Also adding to the fun factor, is that there seems to be a real competitive buzz around it.  I am seeing posts on twitter and hearing folks in conversation all trying to get a better score.

There are some planned developments for this game, which I think are needed, things like maybe another runway or different types of planes. My one worry is that through updates they may remove some of the charm and over complicate it.  It’s a real gem at the moment and doesn’t need much doing to it.

Great Guide here (from Neil Middleton) with tips to try to get a score a bit higher.  He has included some screen captures of game play and is useful to see techniques.

Oh- here is my current high score – correct at the time of writing… [Big enough picture?]

Further reading can be found at:

Telegraph Blog Interview with the developer

Highscore competition started here by @snedwan, and has the likes of @schofe (Philip Schofield) joining in. Twitpic of his score.

Search #flightcontrol on Twitter for the current buzz.

Review at 148Apps.com yes, it’s my review back in March, but if you have a look, scroll down at the comment by Perry, there is some great advice if you want to reach those higher scores.

FlightControlled : This site started a high scores site, meeting the demand that was out there.  I’m not sure how those scores posted on there are possible, how long it must have taken, and I would like to see a video of them playing.

The Wall Street Journal blog also has this review and more information about the game.

Apple iPhone Apps.com has a review as well of the game.

UPDATES POSTED BY FIREMINT

* Online highscores – by far the most requested feature, Flight Control will receive online leaderboards with a simple but clever design, to cater for many of the different ways people are playing. Firemint will use its cloudcell.com technology to go beyond a simple list of names and high scores and offer location based leaderboards and a skill based ranking system. Cloudcell.com has already been used in I-Play’s Fast & Furious game and will also be used in Firemint’s upcoming title Firemint Real Racing.

* Save game – if the app exits mid-game (for example, closing with the Home button or receiving a phone call) the player will be able to pick up exactly where they left off.

Firemint will follow up with future updates to add new airports and aircraft to the game. “As long as people keep buying the game and loving it, we will keep supporting it” said Robert Murray, CEO of Firemint. “We’re putting in place a framework that will allow us to add new content more quickly in the future.”

*PHEWS* and there are still more sites out there! Hope that’s enough to get you started!

Flightcontrol $0.99 Developer: Firemint

Are you crazy into FlightControl? Do you think it’s just hype with no substance? Are you tempted to buy the game? Let us know what your best tips are!

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