Pixel Multimedia

  The following note was posted on our USAF forum recently by Aviv of Pixel Multimedia...

First of all I would like to thank all of you who spent their time downloading and playing Jane's USAF demo. Special thanks are for those of you who took the time to comment or criticize the demo. We monitor your comments and take notes for future products / patches we will have in the future.

There is a very good debate on the news groups and forums about the "light" sim characteristics of the game and whether "hard core" flight sim fans should have this game or not. In this post I will specify why do we think USAF is a game with a lot of appeal to "hard core" flight sim fans and explain some of the design concepts we had to consider.

1. My job in Pixel is being the game's lead designer. That is the gameplay design not the art. I came into designing simulation games straight from the Air Force. I am still an active fighter pilot with thousands of flight hour on many jets (mainly F15).

2. I love flight simulator games and played them since I has a kid and played most of them over the years before going into the simulation game business so yes you may consider me as "hard core" simmer just like you.

3. The flight simulator games have two traditional categories, that Paul Grace used to call "Study" sim and "Survey" sim. A study sim is a one-plane sim where the developers try to simulate every possible switch and knob in the airplane just as a military trainer. (Jane's F 15, Longbow, Falcon 4.0 are great examples). The heart of this game is the airplane.

A survey sim is a sim where several planes are simulated, therefor compromises are made in order to unify the interface and cockpit between the planes so players will not face 8 different radar systems and HUD symbologies. Try playing 4 different study sims on the same day and you will understand why.

This does not mean that survey sims are easier to play; we have one-plane study sims that are very easy to master, and it is possible to create a very difficult and complex survey game. USAF belongs to this "Survey" flight sim category, letting the players taste and experience being part of the most powerful modern Air Force in the world.

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Demo Opening

4. The idea behind the gameplay design of USAF was to make this game playable for a wide verity of players. Yes we wanted the game to be fun and playable for the casual player or the first timers. The flight simmers community is currently rather small since a lot of people think that the games are complicated and frustrating so we have created an arcade view where you can fly the plane and fight from an outside 3Rd party view.

The Opposition

We have created great interactive training missions and added all the help systems we could think of: tool tips, cockpit system help, a step by step informative manual, smart installation that customizes the game for the player skills and player's system etc. We know that the serious guys are the opinion leaders and that a successful game with a big strong community built around it is dependent on the serious flight sim fans. My job was to represent all serious flight sim fans in the USAF design group.

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