In-flight simulator
Desert Bus for streamers? Airplane Mode prepares for take-off
When we call up Hosni Auji, he’s just putting the finishing touches to a game that simulates a six-hour economy-class flight in real time. So we’re caught off guard when we ask how his debut got started, and he reveals he is – or was – an anxious flyer. “Generally, a week before I had to fly, I’d always read anything I could find online to calm myself down and reassure myself that flying is fine.” In that process, and from talking to people about their airborne experiences, he ended up with what he initially thought was “a useless bag of factoids,” albeit one that prompted a keen interest in civil aviation.
As such, when Auji was tasked with developing a thesis project for a Masters programme at the NYU
Game Center, one setting immediately sprang to mind. Initially, he conceived a turn-based card game that just happened to take place on a commercial airliner. But over time he realised the only element that inspired him was the environment. There were already plenty of games set on aeroplanes where you’re cast as the pilot, he reckoned; why not try to recreate what the experience of flight is like for most of us? “It’s like, man has always wanted to fly, right? The dream of flying is about freedom and exhilaration. But where we’re at now it’s a bit surreal. We just kind of sit, sip wine, watch movies on the back of the seat, and pretend that we’re not in the plane, that we’re somewhere else. That’s what flying is today. And I thought that would be interesting to make a project about.”
Noting that, ironically, such an idea “wouldn’t fly commercially,” Auji found the academic context of Airplane Mode’s early development freeing. When he started discussing it with faculty members, one compared it to Penn & Teller’s Desert Bus, and the rest of the pieces started falling into place. As much as anything else, he says, it’s made his game easier to talk about, because it gives people a frame of reference. Like Desert Bus, there’s no mid-game save: you’ll have to play through it in one sitting. But it has also helped him define the differences. “Flight protocol is generally the same across the board, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s going to have the same experience. I thought if we can just build a prototype of commercial airline flight, and fill it with as many of the different idiosyncrasies – or annoyances, even – [as we can] then let’s see how people react.”
There are plenty of activities with which you can fill the five hours and 45 minutes between New York and Reykjavik. In your seat pocket, you’ll find a magazine with articles you can read, and crosswords and Sudoku puzzles to complete with a pen from your carry-on bag. You can watch or listen to the in-flight entertainment, too, including black-andwhite films from the 1930s that are now in the public domain, or simply track your flight path while you tuck into a meal (which, in truth, looks rather tastier than its real-life equivalent often does).
Such a range of options – and the authenticity of their presentation – would not have been possible but for the help of AMC Games, a new offshoot of the popular cable network. Its director of games Simon Ferrari first came into contact with Airplane Mode in his role as NYU professor. While helping run the university’s games incubator, he got in touch with colleague Clayton Neuman, having identified Auji’s game as a candidate for its first release as a publisher. “We created AMC Games to help give unique voices a platform,” Neuman tells us. “And we wanted our first game to be unique, too. Usually, when you think of a comedy game it’s like an adventure game with funny dialogue or a physics-based slapstick sandbox. But Airplane Mode stood out as something different. It’s totally deadpan. It’s 90 per cent earnest and serious simulation and 10 per cent tongue in cheek, winking at the player. And we love that combination.” Neuman and Ferrari subsequently invited IFC, the network’s offbeat comedy channel, to create material for the game – ranging from the in-flight safety video to its promotional trailers.
It’s almost certain to be a cult favourite among streamers, we suggest – even if many will resort to the alternative option, a flight of less than half the length to Halifax in Nova Scotia. And Auji credits Ferrari and Neuman for helping him realise that. “I was not very aware of streamer culture, but AMC helped me to really focus on thinking about things that would be fun for streamers to enjoy with their subscribers while they’re playing.” Without straying from the mundane milieu, there will be surprises in store for anyone with the stamina to sit through the six-hour journey in its entirety. “Without giving away too much, there are random events with different degrees of severity,” Auji says, before adding enigmatically, “Some things happen more frequently than others based on real-world statistics. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“We just kind of sit, sip wine, watch movies on the back of the seat, and pretend that we’re not in the plane”