SimplePlanes

How it took me the better part of a decade to find out about SimplePlanes I will never know, but a buddy of mine made an awesome looking spaceship that resembled a certain fast hunk of junk from a popular sci-fi movie, he sent me a picture of it and it blew my mind. That was my introduction to this game and I have been hooked ever since. It may be a bit on the clunky side, but if you love to build and create things in your video games, you will have a fantastic time making planes, choppers, spaceships, and even stuff like tanks and cranes too.

The Building Blocks Of Life

SimplePlanes is a creative style of game, this may sound crazy, but the best modern comparison I can think of is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, only this is way more in-depth than the vehicles you can create there. The gave gives you thousands of parts that you can use to make your own cool aircraft. What is really neat is that I did not know until I started playing that you can actually make other stuff like tanks, helicopters, and even these weird crane-like vehicles too.

Making It Look Cool, But Actually Work

As I said, SimplePlanes gives you a ton of “building blocks” to play around with. You need to snap the pieces into place, but you cannot just make what you want… well you can, but there is a physics system in place here so you have to make sure that whatever it is you make can actually fly or drive. You need to use the right size engine, put the engine in the right place, and so on. There is actually a great deal of work that goes into making something that not only looks cool but is actually functional. If you do need a bit of inspiration there are tons of planes already in the game that you can screw around with and you can download stuff that other players have made too.

Rolling Up Your Sleeves!

Pretty much the only criticism of SimplePlanes that I have come across is people talking about the controls and I will admit, the controls do take a while to get to grips with. It is hard to explain, but connecting pieces has a kind of floaty feel to it and it does take a while to get the hang of it. I was always connecting things to the wrong place because I was moving things faster than I thought I was. Eventually, it does all click and the more you play it, the more you figure it all out. However, I can see why some people may play this and get super frustrated right at the start and think the game is not for them. The point I am trying to make here is that you will need a bit of patience when you start playing this.

Time For A Little Action!

Building your contraptions in SimplePlanes is really what this game is all about, but you can also put them through their paces and see if what you have built can actually function. There are many cool missions that you can do to test your vehicles out. See if you have the precision to land on a big ass aircraft carrier, can you safely move a payload from point A to point B, can you be quick and nimble enough to dodge missiles and complete race courses? I had a blast building something then trying to put it through a challenge and then refining my design to make it even better. It is also kind of funny when you build a big monstrosity and it just does not work at all or even better, when you are screwing around with a design and it somehow by pure dumb luck actually works!

Pros:

• There are tons of parts that you can make use of
• It is not just planes, there are other things you can build as well
• There are many different fun gameplay challenges you can do with your creations
• You can download and upload stuff

Cons:

• The controls do take a while to get used to
• You do have to be into creative gaming to appreciate this

Build aircraft starting with simple models in SimplePlanes. Recreate historic World War II bombers or modern ultralight aircraft. The aerodynamics and streamlining of the aircraft affect its capabilities.

Young Designer Awakened

Gameplay:

• Choose the shape of the cockpit. It can be single-seat or two-seat.
• Assemble any hull from blocks
• Adjust the angles of the wings and where they attach to the hull. Immediately add fuel to it.

Once assembled, it's time to fly: it's either take off or crash.