Developer Update: Flight

Flight is at the heart of SOAR, in more ways than one. Obviously, from a player's perspective, it's the core way that you experience Tasneem, and the main thing that separates us from any other game that you might choose to play. But, it's special for us, too- we made SOAR because we love flight, and we wanted to see more games that centered around it.

Our flight system took about 2 years & 4 separate attempts to develop, and we're extremely proud of it. It sets us apart from every other flight-based game by being very physical and active, resisting your attempts to control it- which, as I'm typing this out, doesn't sound all that fun. But, as many of our players know, if you're able to get in-tune with it, SOAR's flight provides a marvelous sense of speed and momentum. The physicality of it, which initially breaks your immersion, transforms into a tactility that sinks you more deeply into the player character than you might have thought possible.

Unfortunately, we've known for many years that a certain subset of players (about 10-20%) just don't seem to click with this flight system. It's not for lack of interest, they come to SOAR fully aware of what it is and excited to play it, but then they find that flight just drags them out of the experience. As we've researched the problem, explored dozens of tutorialization options, and even tried in-person coaching, we've learned more and more that this just isn't solvable. Some players simply don't like how SOAR plays, and if there's a way around that, we can't see it.

That left us at a bit of an impasse. On the one hand, we didn't want to ignore a sizable chunk of our player base, but on the other, we couldn't seem to find any way to engage them. Until, that is, the Next Fest. Thanks to the feedback that you all provided, we had an epiphany: If players don't like the way SOAR flies, give them another way to fly.

As I mentioned earlier, SOAR has had 3 major iterations on flight before this one. We dug around in our archives, grabbed the last one, and brought it back to life. SOAR now has two flight modes: Physical and Simplified. Physical is our default flight mode, but Simplified is exactly what it sounds like- a flight mechanic with simplified physics. I'll spare you all the technical details, but, if you felt frustrated by the way the dragon automatically drops while you're flying, you should definitely try out Simplified flight.

While you can change your flight style at any time in the Options menu, under Controls, we understand that digging around in menus isn't most people's idea of a good time (even if it might be ours). So, as you're playing through the tutorial, you'll eventually encounter this pop-up:

Now, to be clear, Physical flight is the intended experience for SOAR, we built out the world and content with it in mind. So, we want to encourage players to stick with the default flight schema as much as possible.

This is just a first pass on this system, so, please let us know what you think- does Simplified flight suit your playstyle better? Does this integration system work well for you? What did you have for breakfast today? We want to know!