Flight by Krin Juangbhanich (creator of Sonny) is a launch game with a sweet but simple premise. You control a paper airplane bound for Santa Claus and the North Pole, containing precious cargo indeed; a letter from a little girl whose only Christmas wish is to see her mother again. But before you can say D'AWWWW, her letter winds up passing through the hands of different people all over the world who have their own interpretation of her Christmas wish.
Click and hold on the paper plane at the start of each level, and "toss" it with the mouse, releasing the left mouse button to let it fly. Once you've bought the rudder upgrade, you can use the [arrow] keys or [A] and [D] to turn the plane and help direct its flight as long as you have fuel left. Picking up stars grants you cash you can use to upgrade your plane, while catching paper cranes gives you a temporary multiplier to your funds. The farther you manage to fling your little paper missile, the farther the plane actually travels, passing through different locations on its way to the North Pole. You'll learn to make use of shooting stars for boosts, how to avoid perilous wind conditions, and more in order to get to your destination.
Analysis: I've never been good at paper planes; ask me to make one and you're going to wind up with some horribly misshapen paper monstrosity that flies half a foot and then executes a perfect nose dive. Despite that long history of bitterness, I took to Flight almost immediately. It's a relatively simple game, but offers a lot of charm and polish that makes it worth the play. There's just something breezily enjoyable about Flight, from the clean graphics to the fast-paced gameplay, even if there's not much variety to it.
Each part of the world you travel through has its own design, although you're admittedly going to spend a lot of time cruising at higher altitudes where everything tends to look the same, so you might wind up wishing there were more things to encounter in the mostly empty sky. Sky whales? Sky pirates?... what? Birds? You're boring. If you fight your way high up, you'll find space stars, which are worth more than the regular stars you encounter, but fighting your way up often isn't worth the fuel. The farther you go, the better you'll probably be at flying your little paper craft (or at least the more kitted out it'll be with awesome upgrades), so you'll probably find that the game moves a lot quicker in the latter half than it does in the beginning.
For me personally, the biggest flaw in the game actually feels like the story behind it, which unfolds in brief cutscenes between stages. Not only is the ending unsatisfying considering the bittersweet beginning, but there's also a cutscene in Egypt that just makes little sense at all, and just feels bizarre and out of place. (And is actually what earned this game a Y rating to be on the safe side rather than a family-friendly G, so check it out before you let your tots play if you're concerned.) Regardless, Flight is still an extremely polished little launch game that will definitely appeal to fans of amateur aviation, and keep you upgrading your stalwart paper craft for a while. It just goes to show that if you really want Santa to know what you want for Christmas, a good old fashioned stamp and some baked bribery is the right way to go.
I've played the story all the way through and I agree with Dora's sentiments. I'd also like to add:
I was a little disappointed that the Egyptian man's "THE END IS NEAR" message was never opened and read by anyone. I would've liked to see someone react to that.
Easter Egg: If you buy the last upgrade, the one for $3000, upon hitting the ground your plane will transform into character from other launch games: a hedgehog, a penguin, and a turtle :)
hmmm...It keeps locking up my browser when I try to launch sometimes. I end up having to wait for a minute before I can close the browser normally. Cool game, but that bug is very, very annoying.
Had a really weird glitch a couple times, but kind of convenient
my plane would tilt and bounce but stay right at the left edge of the screen, and it would only go up. Usually it would fix itself after I clicked a few times.
oh, forgot to add, using the latest firefox on an intel i7 64-bit system.
I'm having trouble with my browser freezing too. (I'm using the latest version of Camino.) It seems like a cute game, but I don't feel like I have as much control over the plane as I do the flying....whatever in similar games. That and the freeze up issues mean I'm gonna pass on this game.
Felt it was a bit padded with the length (though I suppose not as much as some launch games) and flying the plane can get tiring quick. Also, a lot of the upgrades didn't FEEL like they did anything. The best strategy I found was to
hover less than 1 meter and keep getting the windmills
after I got some jets and a decent amount of fuel. I was able to finish the last lap with 1 flight (5k+ m).
I've had to reset two times when it didn't add any cash at the upgrade screen (continuing afterwards just results in a crash). But as it autosaved, it wasn't too bad.
As always, Dora's review is pretty much dead-on correct (and fun to read, to boot). I loved the cheery inspirational music, and the fact that the birds that you encounter are origami cranes. Also, though it's a silly little thing, the fact that the plane typically hovers within a reasonable height and speed for a paper airplane. (Well, OK, I got up to 15 m/s, which is 33mph, but by then I was using engines. The typical speed of 4 m/s, or 9mph, seems like about the right speed for a paper airplane. It made much more sense than launching hedgehogs at speeds faster than cars.)
I completely agree about the "story"...
Each time the plane changed hands, it basically just overwrote what had happened previously. It starts with a girl who wants to see her mother again, but even though the plane makes it to Santa, her letter doesn't. Instead it lands in the hands of a Frenchman who apparently just sees the heart and turns it into something personal and selfish, which then lands in the hands of an Egyptian who sees the fire and, yeah, that made no sense at all.
Oh, well, not every story can be perfect. It's a delightful little game, even so.
Given who created this game, I was kind of expecting that the girl's mother would come back as a zombie...
The bug seems to be limited to the second plane. As soon as I upgraded, it never happened again. Anyway, great game. A bit tedious there towards the end, but I enjoyed it overall.
Kazeite! Spoiler tags please!!!! Glad I didn't read the comments, but I might have to try again and get that upgrade earlier...
One of the best of its genre. Much fun.
Simple, let-a-stone-jump-on-water mechanics, yet strangely captivating, I had to play it through in one go. The storyline was really terrible indeed, though.
I really liked the gameplay...I generally do with these upgrade games. It was especially nice that I didn't spend forever just waiting on the thing to fly and having nothing to do. I agree that the story could be improved:
I really wanted the little girl to see her mom again! It bothered me that only the music score made it to Santa. And what in the world did the dude from Kenya write?
I tried to do this for real once, but the bottle rocket ripped right through the paper and lit it on fire. Still cool, though.
I've tried playing this on the latest Safari and Firefox (on a Mac), and I can never get past the loading screen without right-clicking then choosing "play." Then after I click new game, I can't choose a game slot and have to right-click-press-play again in order to start playing. However, NOTHING HAPPENS after the paper plane lands, and I can only view cutscenes by right-click-press-play.
The game looked like it would be interesting, though.
[Issues like this are usually related to one of two things: 1) Flash Player version, or 2) browser extension conflict. Try updating your Flash Player and disabling any browser extensions you have running. -Jay]
what would happen if by some massive stroke of luck you were able to complete the entire flight all the way to the north pole on the verry last flight in the first city?
@Neko:
Probably it'd be revealed that the entire world is all London. And the girl's mother would come back too, but that's unimportant.
I like this game a lot but am trying to get the time-limit achievements (which are badly worded in the game, it says "Clear France in 15 days or under" when it means Clear France by day 15 or sooner (etc). Anyone got any hints for how to get these achievements? It's driving me crazy. Thanks :)
It was a good game. I agree with many of the comments already posted.
* The storyline is unsatisfying. Too many loose ends especially with the girl at the start - surely everyone will want to know if she got what she wanted.
* Gameplay can get tedious.
* The game freezes up if I pick the plane up but fail to throw it properly.
@J-wad
I also didn't know how anyone could get those achievements, but a JIGuest up above has posted the solution. I managed to beat the game on day 18 of play, beating the final area in one flight. Here's how:
* After getting rudder control and later the rockets, try to hover at around 0.5 metres altitude so that you can catch the boost from windmills. It takes a little practice but you can glide the distance between windmills without using your rocket except occasionally.
* When you start to descend after each boost, pull back so that your descent is well-controlled otherwise you risk landing early.
* Concentrate on the upgrades that will give you extra boosting - Hurricane (windmill upgrade), Better Model (plane upgrade), Crane Booster, Lucky Star, Green Fuel. Get Lightweight and Aerodynamic if you have spare cash.
* You won't be needing Emergency Booster (you'll fly too low to use it) or Wind Detector. Throwing Power is also not useful later on because you'll be using boosts to keep going.
* When you get to Kenya, the risk of landing early seems to go up because of wind conditions. By then you should have a good lead and not need to rely on the windmills so much.
* Use Rainbow Stars when you are nearly out of fuel.
I found Flight to be pretty fun, but the cutscenes were boring and pointless.
i found a good way for money and distance. You need full upgrade plane fuel and green house plus restart engine thingy. You throw plane straight up and keep starting engine i usually get thousands of money and about 1000 distance each time
Update