Host Recommendation

In this dogfighting simulator we pilot a jet equipped with an arsenal of rockets and machine guns. Throughout our clashes in the sky we face comparable opponents who we must outmaneuver and outwit to defeat. The game is exciting, fast-paced, and challenging, and requires skill to earn silver, purchase upgrades, and stay alive.

The sound design is bold and present, with bullets energetically ricocheting off its planes, and satisfying explosions when they reach their demise. Even if we’ve heard them all before, the sound selection is deliberate and convincingly woven together. Plus we get a pumping soundtrack.

From an accessibility perspective the game does a lot right. It’s one of the only submissions that came with a readme full of instructions and keybindings. It lets us interrogate our status and surroundings, which are announced to us through text-to-speech. And I love how it hooked into my NVDA to give me finer control of its speed and pitch.

Occasionally I ran into some bugs in the hour I spent with it. Eventually after dying the game would hang instead of sending me back to the main menu without pressing enter. From there its shortcut keys, like pressing S to access the Start Game option, stopped working. But these are just minor issues you could correct in a future build.

Finally, I would have liked to have a few more options. At times the speech was too quiet against the sounds of destruction, so it was difficult to assess the situation until it was too late. The ability to adjust the sound effects volume would help address this. It might also be helpful to have a mode that pauses the game while text is being read aloud, so folks like me with processing or reflex issues won’t die while we check our health or position.

Thanks for your submission. Good work!