Bombardier

Sometimes, a bit of creativity is all you need in order to come up with a nice idea for a video game. Even if the underlying concept is simple, it doesn’t take much to get people hooked on your idea. Minecraft started as an indie game in which you had to dig holes and build dirt huts to survive the night, but that basic concept evolved into the game we all know and love today.

Bombardier is not that ingenious, on the other hand, since it is a bit too simple right now to be anything other than an experiment. The game is an arcade flight sim at a glance, but the underlying idea is that it was created as a way to test a leap motion device. As such, you have the possibility to build and use one with the game as well, depending on how interested you are in technology.

The goal is to use a bomber airplane in order to destroy a couple of pirate ships and defend your island from attackers. There’s not much else to do, other than fly around the rather disappointing map and maybe obliterate some of the dirt as well. Although you can build your power glove using integrated circuits, it is also possible to use the mouse and a keyboard to control the plane.

In order to encourage players to experiment with gadgetry, the developers even help you with schematics and guides on how to build your own controller. The basic components only amount to around twenty bucks, so you don’t have to break the piggy bank in order to afford them. It can be a good way to learn about leap motion and sensors.

As far as the visual quality is concerned, the game uses Unreal Engine 4 to render the environments. However, don’t expect anything too fancy either, because simplicity is yet again the dominant word. Everything is built using blocks, just like in Minecraft, while the ships and the planes are very low-poly models as well. There are still some neat post-processing effects to remind you about the power of UE4, but that’s about it.

Bombardier is not much of a game per se, but it’s the perfect way to start learning about new things, especially if you are interested in the domain. Thanks to the guides posted by the developers, your project can come to fruition in a matter of hours.