The projects here are 100% a labor of love – and sometimes you can get side tracked if you’re easily seduced by new technology. These little intermezzo’s can have interesting fall out though and in this case I managed to implement the main board game piece from the jet fighter game into MS Flight 2020 – almost fully functional – it’s lacking a few things in the cockpit, but exterior wise it’s pretty cool – even comes with thrust vectoring and multi rudder controls 😀
You can check out my exterior test here, as long as you forgive me for being a super bad pilot when I’m steering the plane from that angle 😀
Thrust vectoring and multi rudder controls!
Here’s an older flight test from Skrydstrup to Copenhagen
Nap of earth ( NOE ) – cockpit has progressed a lot since..
There’s several “young” prototypes on that site and some have stagnated a bit, but we kept the ball rolling on the jet fighter board game, but how to test a paper prototype when we couldn’t meet face to face?!?
Enter TTS, a cheap and easy to use simulator that has yielded fairly interesting results when it comes to our paper prototype. Turns out the most entertaining way to play currently is in solo mode! – although the other modes still hold merit, the solo play allows for an easy introduction to the rudimentary rules and then 2 person coop, 1v1 and 2v2 gradually increase the complexity. You can try the game for yourself via the Steam Workshop here
Next phase is a better physical prototype with 3d printed board pieces, but that’s not really what this blog post is about.
3D printed F/A-20’s … Wine Cork for scale 😉
Tabletop simulator allowed us to quickly visualise our board game concepts and play test them with friends on Steam. The format is easy to alter and even allows for virtual reality immersion. Although holding a hand of cards is a little wonky.. We recommend TTS for rapid prototyping and will definitely be using the software again next time we’re prototyping a board game. The next phase however includes Augmented Reality so we need to test on a physical version of the game and we really wanna give folks a game that allows for some serious DIY customization, particularly in the models, by painting, modeling, 3d printing etc.
JJFBG CAS Single Player mode
The game is about the tactical application of the F/A-20 Hammerhead fighter, piloted by our antropomorphic characters in an exercise called “Black Flag” that takes place in the Sahara dessert. We didn’t want the game to be about politics or have a violent undertone, so the “combat” in the board game is supposed to be simulated and deliver an entertaining experience while the game also introduces the player to many real world aspects from the jet jockey community.
Ced Maximus, the russian pilot competes in Black Flag along with Americans, Germans, English and French pilots. The theme isn’t political, just competitive 🙂Defeat SAM’s by using Anti radiation missiles, dodge enemy AA and get a JDAM on the opposing sides’ airfield 😀Watch out for opposing ground forces, if they’re not stopped, they will win by occupying your airfield!In BFM ( Basic Fighter Maneuvering ) you have to dogfight against your mates!7 Different skins and nationalities are in the current test version of the game, for the paper version we plan to include a lot more 🙂 even characters and skins for the ground units and helicopters 😀 and custom jet shapes 😉
We’re still in development and some units like artillery need design, testing and modeling, check back later or give us some feedback on the current prototypes if you feel like it 🙂
WordPress wont embed sketchfab code, so you’re gonna have to mosy on over to their site if you wanna see some of the models in the game, like:
These are low poly models, since TTS is a little allergic to polycount, they work fine as board game pieces though 🙂 – if you wanna see the preliminary high poly design study of the fighter, you’re welcome to take a gander here
Or just go ahead and try out the prototypes for yourself 🙂
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