(This is the first Dev Blog entry that was posted on our Discord server. Come and join!)
I was working on another project in January 2022 (that project was "secret_vr_project"). I had already created a helicopter flight model which was relatively easy and I wanted to add a fixed wing flight model. "How hard could that be?" - I wondered. As it turns out: really, really, REALLY hard!
I was using an F18 as my placeholder jet and, as I was setting it up, I was reminded of the reason I first wanted an Amiga. Picture the scene - it's 1987 or 1988, I am in the back of my parents car, driving home from Wales. I am flicking through a computer magazine when I stumble upon screenshots for an upcoming game "F/A-18 Interceptor" by Bob Dinnerman:
As someone who had played Commodore 64 games for 4 years (Microprose's F19 Stealth Fighter and Gunship for example), these images were mind-blowing. I had to have this game. So began a relentless plan to convince my parents that I must have a Commodore Amiga 500. By Christmas 1989, my strategy of annoying my parents paid off and, like many others, I received the Commodore Amiga 500 Batman pack. Guess what game happens to be included in that pack?
What can I say? Christmas '89 was the best Christmas ever! (Seriously - it has never been topped.) Like so many others, I flew an F18 around the San Francisco Bay Area, under the Golden Gate Bridge, around the weird shaped thing (which I now know was Sutro Tower - a radio tower) and completed a set of missions, fighting back an unknown enemy. ( I say "unknown"...but this was during the Cold War so we all knew who the enemy was meant to be).
Back to January 2022, I thought to myself: "I wonder if I could re-create the feeling of F/A-18 Interceptor"? ...and here we are!
Join me! it's gonna be a lot of fun!