There is something nicely… Earthian, perhaps, about Pocket Planes, about having to think about how all the different places in the world are spatially connected. If you are at the airport in Alice Springs, you don’t want to load up passengers for both Perth and Melbourne – you will probably spend more money on fuel than you will make. Every time you choose to load up a plane with cargo and passengers, you have to think about where those destinations are in relation to each other. I played it for hours upon hours, and I justified it with, “Well, I never spent any money,” as though that discredited the game’s hold on me.īut there is also a lot more to simply do in Pocket Planes than in Tiny Tower. I gave the game a positive score when I reviewed it for Paste even while being honestly blunt about the game’s almost unethical hold on me. But, in a weird way, I enjoyed the waiting, and I enjoyed the maintenance. I knew how it wanted me to pay money so that I wouldn’t have to wait until I could press the button again. NimbleBit’s Pocket Planes shares many of the same problematic designs as did Tiny Tower, which I had a weird relationship with. Maybe stepping back 40,000 feet gives you some perspective on the planet. There’s just something about the notion that everywhere in the world is existing simultaneously that really hits home. The maps that show you moving around the world and flying through “Last Night” for a second time or making “Today” thirty hours long as your surf the dawn west like a wave. I particularly enjoy the headrest displays that show you where it is day and where it is night. But now you are actually there, right above it. I like looking out the window (when I am lucky enough to get a window seat) or at the display in the headrest in front of me and realizing I am smack-bang in the middle of that ocean which, when you look at a map back at your home, is just a blue void you never really think about between you and some land you never really consider being real beyond television and photographs. This might be why I actually, strangely, kind of enjoy long, intercontinental flights. Going and sitting on a beach is fun for a time, but I would much rather spend my leisure time and money going somewhere, not being somewhere. For me, vacations are all about the journey.
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