After releasing the game on September 4th, I received an overwhelming amount of encouragement as well as suggestions to make this game even better. I also learned of this little game made back in the 90's called Aerobiz. You might be asking--how in the world did I spend 9 months developing an airline simulator yet never hear of Aerobiz? Well, I guess I didn't do my market research. Also, Aerobiz was released years before I was born. Sorry, I know I just made a few of you feel old.
So based off the feedback I received, I embarked on a journey to make this game even better. Here's a few of the things I tried to address in this massive update:
1. Some players thought the game lacked competition. You can now play against AI competitors. You can sabotage them, you can codeshare with them, you can undercut them, and you can even buy them out. I'm sure there's many ways to expand these features in the future, so I'm hoping for some good feedback from y'all.
2. Some players felt lke the game wasn't in-depth enough. A lot of the negative reviews I received said that they felt this game was just about drawing lines between airports. They're not wrong, and to address that I tried adding some depth to airports and passengers in this update. You will find a completely re-worked building system at airports, along with a new concourse system for more detailed throughput management at airports. Passengers will now have a preferred airline based on the market share of airlines at their home airport. That is, if you fully control Los Angeles then all passengers that spawn there will be loyal to your airline and prefer flying on it for any layovers.
3. Some players didn't like being railroaded by quarter goals. I originally envisioned this game to be more casual and simplistic, so I thought that the Quarter Goals mechanic would be a perfect fit to give it that Mini Metro/Mini Airways-like feel. However, this mechanic is one of the most common criticisms of the game and so I decided to take the opportunity to rework the reward-punishment system in the new AI update. Now, you will have optional Contracts that will be the new primary way of getting Puffin Tokens. In Hardcore mode, if you don't regularly complete contracts then your CEO Rating can drop to an F, at which point you will be fired. I hope that the contracts system will be more appealing to those who treat this game as a sandbox, while still maintaining the original spirit of the game.
4. Some players wish they had more statistics available to them. This is very fair. This game has some aspects of a 4X/management game but lacks this one crucial feature in many places. I tried to address that with the new finances GUI, and am hoping that helps a little bit. Obviously there are many places that I can keep working on this in the future.
5. Some players didn't like inflation. The gameplay loop that I envisioned for this game was that inflation would make things progressively more and more expensive until you eventually could not complete your quarter goals anymore, at which point you would fail. Yes, that's right, it's a feature! This is a proven gameplay loop that works for other games like Mini Metro, but it seems people treat my game more seriously and want a more standard management-simulation game loop. So by adding AI competitors and a new win condition (buy them all out), we no longer need crushing inflation to give the player a sense of difficulty.
6. Some players wish there were more achievements. I'm just kidding. But no, really, there are some new achievements.
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Thank you to everybody for the support. There is still much that I wish I could have fit into this update, but I think it is better to get it out now and iterate, rather than keeping it stuck in Preview forever. Development will slow down for a month or two as I start a modded Minecraft server with my friends and then go on vacation, however I hope to come back energized next year and see through my vision for this game.
- the developer