Hijong Park's Defender Patrol
A downloadable game for Windows
This is my first Helicopter combat flight sim, created to accomplish my small dream of piloting MD-530 Defender in the low poly world.
This game aims to be something in between arcade shooter and realistic flight sim, usually called Sim-lite.
The premise is very simple, you pilot MD-530 and manage wingmen to destroy russian vehicles in a small procedurally generated island.
It features clickable cockpit that was added as a place holder for VR support in the distant future and TrackIR. Due to my lack of experience, VR support had been post phoned.
I'm now spending tons of time learning non-helicopter related parts, so that I can implement infantries, animating pilot body, more realistic missiles, better graphics, hand crafted worlds, more detailed missions, and VR mode later.
And when I'm ready, I'll expand this prototype into a feature complete game featuring 3 flyable helicopters.
Please read the user manual included in the game file before playing the game, otherwise you'll have hard time understanding the game.
https://discord.gg/QsdApapVZR
Visit my discord server !
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Renamed verson number due to false virus flagging10 days ago
- 1.7.5 patch - urgent bug fixes11 days ago
- 1.7 patch - UI and system overhaul18 days ago
- 1.6 patch - graphic improvements81 days ago
- 1.5 patch - projectile improvementsJul 22, 2024
- 1.4 patch - Pilot modelsJul 01, 2024
- 1.35 patch - gameplay rebalancingJun 26, 2024
- 1.3 - Humanity updateJun 23, 2024
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Hello great game. I cant download the latest version as microsoft says it is a virus.
I noticed that too, really weird !
After bunch of rebuilding, I found that naming the project name to 1.7 instead of 1.7.5 eliminates false flagging my game as a virus. I can confirm windows no longer detect it as virus as I can now download my game on itch.io and play it normally.
So I renamed the project name to 1.7 despite the actual contents being 1.7.5 I hope it works for you too !
thank you
Further Update, I know how to start up the engine, but I can't actually fly, like control the throttle, go forwards/higher, etc.
you can fly by controlling collective and cyclic simultaneously.
If you want to fly up, you need to increase collective while adjusting cyclic to maintain 0 pitch and roll degree.
To fly forward, you need to control cyclic to find and maintain the pitch angle (usually between 15~20 degree pitch down) where the helicopter flies straight forward, watching vertical speed indicator. then you can slightly move the pitch around in case you want to fly up or down while flying forward
I think Cyclic is actually mouse.
It can be either keyboard, joystick, mouse based on your configuration.
And Collective is W/S, right? Also, I find myself overcompensating for some bits, like if the heli is leaning to much to one side.
if you did not turn on arcade flight model, the helicopter will constantly pitch up and roll to right due to dissymmetry of lift and gyroscopic precession.
Anybody else experiencing performance issues? is there LOD? weird.
I hadn't worked much on optimizations yet because the game had been running fine in my laptop.
I think it's about time to work on optimization, can you tell me which mission and Unit amount option have you experienced the performance issue ?
I tried specifically for the least amount to get myself used to the controls, it ran at about 2 FPS.
I'd recommend looking into analyzation tools to find the root.
Thanks. I start investigating it !
hey, can I ask your computer's spec, like cpu, ram, and gpu ? That would be helpful to monitor my game's performance.
This is awesome! Reminds me of old games like Gunship 2000. I love following your work as I also make my own way through indie game development, thank you for the inspiration.
Looks amazing and plays great! Well done and hope to see updates soon!
hey - that’s quite a step up from your pico8 days.
Excellent work👌
Looks promising!
I'll definitely will be monitoring your progress with interest! Hope you get to where you want to take this flight sim :-)
Awesome! Fingers crossed for further development!
FINALLY, AFTER 5 YEARS, NIGHT OF THE LITTLE BIRDS 2
So far all I've done is fly around a bit and after getting my controls configured this is really fun to fly around in! I love the VTOL VR simplified cockpit systems and startup, and the physics feel like a fantastic "just realistic enough to be interesting and require skill, but not so realistic that it's unflyable without a ton of practice."
It took me a couple flights to realize how easy it is to overload the helicopter. Flying with much less than full fuel made a huge difference. Maybe the default fuel could be lower, or maybe a warning to let players using the "default" flight model know they're going to have a hard time could be nice.
I haven't done any combat, just flown around a bit, but the only thing I think it needs with regards to the flight model is more trim options. Some way to apply rudder trim, since I don't have pedals, would be fantastic. I think my ideal trim setup mirrors DCS' with the push button force trim (that also applies to pedals) and then a return to center before you get authority again.
The foundation here for the flight model is rock solid though, and just throwing the little helicopter around is a blast.
I wonder if the other Hijong Park heli games count as practice. Also, YEEEEEEEESSS!!!!
Thanks for feedback WHY485. I'm currently working on adding more trim options !
update tiny combat
can u pls make a game like this but for planes
There are already bunch of plane games in the similar style. Tiny combat, sky on fire, Linux air combat etc.
I'm making this game due to serious lack of helicopter sim-lite games to play.
i know but there are no plane games that have interactive cocpit
have you tried VTOL VR ?
i dont have vr and i dont like it