Info about SimplePlanes: Official game description: BUILD AIRPLANES --------------- You have the tools you need to bring any airplane to life. Snap parts together to build your airplane's body. Place engines to add thrust. Design and attach wings and then strap yourself into the cockpit and see how it flies. DOWNLOAD AIRPLANES ------------------ Over 100,000 airplanes are available to download for free from Find anything from old WW2 bombers to next generation fighters to sci-fi spacecrafts. You can upload your own airplanes and rise through the ranks from a bronze builder to a gold level builder. LOOKING FOR VR? --------------- Are you looking for the new SimplePlanes VR? After you get to the bottom of this page, you can check out the list showing a quick comparison between SimplePlanes and SimplePlanes VR. DYNAMIC FLIGHT MODEL -------------------- Flight simulation at its finest. Every little decision you make while designing will impact how you fly it. Weight distribution, thrust, lift, and drag are all calculated continuously while flying. Parts can break off in a spectacular fashion while you're flying due to over-stress or by impacting something. The fun won't stop there though. You can keep on flying even with a missing wing if you've got the skills. CHALLENGES ---------- Climb in to the cockpit of one of your craft and see how you fare piloting it in the challenges. The challenges will keep you entertained for hours. Land on aircraft carriers, escort bombers, dodge surface-to-air missiles, race through courses, and so much more. SANDBOX ------- Use all available parts to build airplanes with no restrictions. The sky is the limit. Literally. MODDING ------- Modding is fully supported so you can build your own parts and environments. Download our Unity package which includes specially designed tools to aid in designing and building mods which you can then share with your friends and the community. Still have a question about SimplePlanes vs. SimplePlanes VR? Let's see if this helps... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Both games have access to the same crafts\* * SimplePlanes includes an aircraft builder, SimplePlanes VR does not. * Except for those which require building; all challenges, islands, locations, aircraft, etc. are available in both games. * Buying both of them on Steam will automatically enable VR in SimplePlanes. After VR is enabled in SimplePlanes you can do everything there, without switching games. \*See SimplePlanes VR's store page for information related to downloading crafts in VR. Release date: Dec 17, 2015 Categories: Sandbox Creation, Physics Simulation, Vehicle Customization, Mod Support, Custom Asset Support, Flight Simulation Feature scans: - Steam Deck: score 40; verdict: Tinkering Required; summary: The main technical barrier is the need to manually configure controller settings. There is a minor mention of a launcher issue, but no reports of crashes, unreadable UI, or anti-cheat errors. The game remains playable after initial tinkering. - Hardware Profile: - Summary: Players with less than 8GB VRAM on Windows report good performance, with smooth FPS even on low-tier hardware. - Sample size: 26 (4% coverage) - Audience skew: Review sample is mostly Windows-based. - Windows <8GB VRAM (positive, 21 reports): The game runs well on low-tier PCs, achieving 70-110 FPS and smooth performance. - Caveats: 26 of 623 reviews expose hardware metadata.; Review sample is mostly Windows-based. Feature extractions: - Community Price: - Community fair range: $4.99 - $9.99 - Reasoning: The reviews consistently indicate that the current base price of $12.99 is too high given the limited content and that the game is only considered a good value when purchased at a significant discount. One review specifies 'less than $10' as a worthwhile sale price, while another suggests $5 is a good deal. These statements establish that the community perceives a fair base-game price below the current $12.99, likely in the $5–$10 range. - Playtime Metrics: - Game completion: N/A - Story completion: N/A - Session length: 2.0h - Endgame: N/A - Reasoning: The evidence provides multiple direct references to typical single-session durations: one review mentions sessions of over ten hours, another expects 1–2 hours of initial play, and two describe 1-hour increments for building/tweaking. No evidence supports game completion, story/campaign completion, or endgame hours because SimplePlanes is an open-ended sandbox without a defined ending or campaign. Session length is the only metric with consistent, quantifiable claims. - Time-to-fun: - Summary: SimplePlanes has a rough learning curve that blocks early fun, but once players build their first working plane and grasp flight physics, the game becomes highly addictive and rewarding. - Stance: Clicks after - Anchor: Building and flying the first working plane - Time to anchor: N/A - Friction: Steep learning curve for building and flight physics; Unhelpful or incomplete tutorial; Tedious building process using only cylinders; Lack of official multiplayer support - Unlock drivers: External tutorials and YouTube videos explaining center of mass/lift; Experimenting with wing positions and physics; Building a few successful planes to learn the system - Conditions: Interest in creative aircraft design and engineering; Willingness to invest time in learning the mechanics; Access to community designs and workshop for inspiration - Player Archetypes: - Creative Builder (buy) - Motivation: Creative expression and engineering challenge through building and testing custom vehicles. - Playstyle: Spends hours in the designer, iterating on aircraft and other vehicles, sharing creations with the community, and enjoys trial-and-error physics. - Experience: mixed - Purchase stance: buy - Labels: engineer; designer; creator; sandbox fan - Reference games: Minecraft; Kerbal Space Program - Aviation Enthusiast (buy) - Motivation: Interest in aviation, realistic flight physics, and the freedom to recreate or imagine flying machines. - Playstyle: Focuses on flying and testing aircraft, replicating real-world planes, learning aerodynamics, and enjoying the simulation aspects. - Experience: mixed - Purchase stance: buy - Labels: aviation enthusiast; flight sim fan; beginner pilot; military aircraft fan - Reference games: War Thunder - Social Pilot (sale) - Motivation: Playing cooperatively or competitively with friends; social engagement through dogfighting, racing, or shared building. - Playstyle: Seeks multiplayer modes, engages with community mods as a workaround, but ultimately wants official PvP/co-op support. - Experience: familiar - Purchase stance: sale - Labels: multiplayer gamer; friend group player; competitive flyer - Reference games: N/A Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category. Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews. What players like: - Flying and aerodynamics praised (weight 0.4): Multiple players highlight the flying mechanics and aerodynamic systems as positive aspects. The game accurately represents concepts like airfoils, dihedral effects, and center of mass versus center of lift. - Unlimited potential despite controls (weight 0.16): The game has unlimited creative potential if players can tolerate clunky controls. This indicates high replay value but with a usability caveat. Common complaints: - Building system is frustrating (weight 0.89): Many players find the building controls inconvenient, clunky, and difficult to use, making the building process feel like a fight against the system rather than a creative tool. - Game feels old and unpolished (weight 0.77): The game has aged poorly, lacks polish, and is outclassed by modern competitors, making it not worth the current price. - Complex building is very hard (weight 0.52): Creating complex planes and cockpits is described as awful and tedious, with many steps and a steep learning curve that discourages average players. - Controls are difficult and unintuitive (weight 0.51): Players report that controls are hard to use, making basic actions like turning the plane a struggle, and the overall feel is confusing and punishing. - Builder UX has quality-of-life issues (weight 0.51): The builder UX suffers from problems like parts sticking to wrong places, inability to select multiple parts, and the ESC key exiting the interface instead of clearing a part. - Persistent bugs remain unfixed (weight 0.5): Many bugs, including a weapon placement bug and issues reported ten years ago, have not been fixed, suggesting developers do not care about resolving them. - Mission design is poorly balanced (weight 0.4): With only about 10 missions, they are either too easy or impossibly hard, and some training levels are unwinnable due to random target placement and strict time limits. - Tutorials are incomplete and outdated (weight 0.3): The tutorial does not cover newer blocks, the modeling system, cockpit building, or flight physics issues, leaving players without guidance on key features. - Repetitive and unrewarding gameplay (weight 0.29): Gameplay involves repetitive tasks like downloading planes and doing the same thing over and over, with a poor labor-to-reward ratio. - Lack of multiplayer and mods (weight 0.28): The game lacks multiplayer by default and has few mods in the workshop, limiting its replayability and community content. - AI crashes into player's plane (weight 0.17): AI aircraft deliberately crash into the player's plane, causing destruction after long flights, which is a frustrating and unfair behavior. - Risk of virus from official downloads (weight 0.16): One player reported a risk of virus from unchecked downloads on the official site, raising security concerns. - No Chinese localization (weight 0.15): The game lacks Chinese localization, which may hinder accessibility for Chinese-speaking players. Gameplay feedback: - Sandbox simulator feedback (weight 0.14): A single review describes the game as a sandbox simulator, suggesting it allows open-ended play. - Vehicle creation feature (weight 0.14): One piece of feedback highlights vehicle creation as a key aspect, indicating interest in customization. - Air combat encounters (weight 0.14): A lone comment mentions air combat, likely referring to aerial combat mechanics. Performance notes: - FPS drops and micro-stuttering (weight 0.16): Players report random FPS drops and micro-stuttering even on modern laptops with integrated GPUs and 512MB VRAM, indicating potential optimization issues. - Long loading times with mods (weight 0.16): Loading times become significantly longer when mods are installed, suggesting the game lacks efficient mod loading or caching mechanisms. - Missing GeForce NOW support (weight 0.14): The game is not available on GeForce NOW, frustrating players who prefer cloud gaming due to hardware limitations. Recommendations: - Hard controls and bugs (weight 0.41): Reviews cite difficult controls, lack of mods, and unresolved bugs including a weapon placement bug, making the game unenjoyable for many players. - Poor labor to reward ratio (weight 0.17): The game is criticized for requiring extensive effort with clunky controls while providing insufficient reward, which discourages casual players. - Virus risk from official site (weight 0.15): There is a specific concern about potential virus risks when downloading from the official site, which adds to the negative recommendation. - Recommend pirating over buying (weight 0.14): One review suggests that the game is not worth the full price and considers pirating as a better option, reflecting dissatisfaction with value. Other player notes: No miscpoints Emotions: - Frustration (weight 0.43): Players are frustrated by AI aircraft deliberately crashing into them after long flights, wasting progress. The complex building system, poor controls, and steep learning curve make basic tasks like building a jet impossible for newcomers. Performance issues, bugs persisting for years, and unwinnable missions further compound the negative experience. - Disappointment (weight 0.19): Players feel let down because they enjoyed the flying and aerodynamics but were repelled by the unwinnable bomb level and overly complex building system. The game is considered outdated, overpriced, and unsupported on modern platforms like GeForce NOW, with no Chinese language support despite many years. - Anger (weight 0.1): Anger stems from the infuriating building system and the developers' consistent failure to fix long-standing bugs, leaving players feeling neglected. - Boredom (weight 0.05): Boredom arises from repetitive gameplay where the only activity is downloading planes and performing the same tasks repeatedly without meaningful variation. - Confusion (weight 0.05): Confusion is caused by the game being extremely difficult to understand, likely due to poor onboarding and complex mechanics. - Worry (weight 0.05): Worry is triggered by the perceived virus risk when downloading the game from its official site, raising security concerns. - Bad vibe (weight 0.05): Bad vibe results from an overall negative impression of the game, suggesting a generally unpleasant experience. - Ambivalence (weight 0.05): Ambivalence reflects the game's unlimited potential and unique features, which are overshadowed by its clunkiness and poor user experience. - Mixed (weight 0.05): Mixed feelings come from acknowledging the game was good at release but now lacks the polish and updates needed to remain competitive. - Appreciation (weight 0.05): Appreciation is driven by the accurate modeling of aerodynamics principles such as airfoils, dihedral effects, and center of mass versus center of lift, which appeals to simulation enthusiasts.}