Caramel Skies: Venus Patrol
I took at look at indie plane game Venus Patrol during IGF judging, and meant to duly nudge the good ship RPS its way. Alas, I was distracted by the dread onset of Winter, huddling away from the terrors of cold and darkness and entirely forgetting that I had played a beautiful, minimalist flight sim made only of pastel colours and mouse control. Such sunlit tones and airy freedom seemed so long ago.
With the game now reaching release status, creator Neil Thapen (creator of Stalker/Tetris mashup STACKER and one of the chaps on the receiving end of Quinns' biscuit quest) sent us a timely reminder of its existence.
'Tis a remarkable hybrid of simplicity and complexity, a challenging and technical plane game hidden behind accessible controls and dreamy visuals. I believe you'll take to it.
We have a certain preconception of what flight sims are and involve, but Venus Patrol does a remarkable job of simultaneously breaking from tradition and endorsing it. Abstracted both visually and in terms of control norms, it's nonetheless fat with the unforgiving technical/guy instinct complexity we'd see in any traditional flight sim.
Showing you the dreamlike, honeyed aesthetics is vital, I suspect. So I shall:
Give it a go for no-pennies from here. Let us know how you get on. I was mesmerised by it yet terrible at it, as I am at all flight sims except Crimson Skies. This is something I hope to address in an impending RPS feature...
Oh yes - if you want to tweak the resolution, you'll need to delve into settings.txt and set it manually. PC gaming!