Front-page handkerchief knot: Remember to use the delightful Glider Sim Deluxe for the next Tally-Ho Corner tour! Since I first encountered it, Joey Sipos’s fuselage-free flight sim has undergone five years of Early Access tweaking and gained a feature that makes it perfect for virtual peregrinations.
£17.50 until October 5 (£25 thereafter), GSD gets its terra from Google Earth, and its terror mojo from a selection of aerodynamically plausible flyables unusually light on cockpits and instruments. If you enjoy flying low and slow, hanker for avionic simplicity, and can cope with the quirks that come with that third-party scenery engine (see on) then prepare to be tempted.
The title is a tad misleading as none of the rides are rangy sailplanes and several boast engines.
At the leisurely end of the spectrum, you’ve got the unpowered hang glider, paraglider, and mini-wing (a smaller, more manoeuvrable paraglider). The powered options – the paramotor trike, the ultralight trike, speedwing trike – together with the nippy speedwing (think ‘wing-shaped parachute’) offer greater velocities, but rarely travel faster than sixty mph.
Of course, when you’re skimming boulders and treetops, brushing cliff-faces, or flirting with waterfalls, nothing immediately below your feet except fresh air, sixty mph feels positively breakneck.
One of GSD’s great strengths is that it produces serenity as effortlessly as exhilaration. When it’s not generating James Bond vibes, it’s often making you feel like a blissed-out raptor. Paraglide into a picture-book Swiss valley, hang glide along a wild stretch of Welsh coastline, or ride Rocky Mountains ridge lift beneath a brightly coloured mini-wing, and all but the most stubborn brain clouds blow away like wind-wafted thistle down.
While it’s possible to stall the sim’s lightweight aerodynes, and strong winds do add difficulty to certain manoeuvres and approaches, the “advanced soft-body simulation” and “real-world aerodynamic calculations” mentioned in the Steam blurb, generally don’t result in frustrating flights. Should someone with zero real-life hang glider experience, really be able to launch himself off a Swiss peak, pick a tiny islet in a lake below, then proceed to land on that islet at the first time of asking? Either old simmers like me would find hang gliding surprisingly easy, or GSD is quietly glossing over some of the sport’s subtleties and challenges.
If you could only aviate over Sun Valley, the Grand Tetons, and Walenstadt (the three handmade ‘offline’ maps) Joey’s creation would be a much harder sell. In addition to the airy simplicity of the steeds, what keeps me coming back is the prospect of exploring, from the air, both unfamiliar and familiar corners of the world.
Globetrotting is quick and easy thanks to slick Google Earth integration, and, assuming you pick one of the numerous recommended gliding sites or somewhere fairly urban, you should find polygonal buildings and trees waiting for you when you arrive.
I find GE’s framerate-friendly 3D landscapes look great at heights of around 400 feet AGL and above. Drop lower and the illusion can unravel fairly quickly. The other drawbacks of going with Google Earth include Gaudi-esque electricity pylons, occasional texture holes on steep slopes, and slightly distracting LOD transitions, but overall I reckon it was an inspired choice.
Since doing the Medway Meander in Train Sim World, I’ve done the same journey in both Flight Simulator and GSD, and the latter sim furnished the most pleasing/persuasive vistas by a Kentish mile.
Last night I spent a very pleasant hour getting to know Rio de Janeiro.
Dangling beneath a shapeable paraglider wing I shared thermals with eagles, buzzed giant redeemers, posh penthouses, and chaotic favelas, before alighting on beaches and racecourses. It was flight simulation at its most immediate, uncluttered, and relaxing. Where I’ll end up tonight, I really couldn’t predict.
London?
Prague?
Rotterdam?
Manhattan?
Wherever I go, I’ll be setting the local clock to a daylight hour (GSD doesn’t provide streetlights or lit buildings) and spending almost no time customising weather. Apart from wind direction and strength, and cloud ceiling, the sim’s rudimentary meteorology can’t be altered.
As fabric wings and rain, hail, and snow really don’t mix, the fact that fliers don’t get precipitation isn’t a huge surprise or a reason not to buy. However, there’s no excuse for the ugly clouds and total lack of mist and haze.
In his latest news post, Joey mentions that although Early Access is over, he has “plenty more updates planned”. If those updates include wingsuits and prettier, more varied sky fluff – splendid. If they don’t, so be it. I’ll still be the happy owner of a flight sim that communicates the joy and wonder of flight every bit as efficiently as its weightier peers.
Tad harsh on the clouds there, unless the trailer’s misrepresenting them? Not saying they’re great but since the focus is presumably more down than up they feel serviceable.
Level of detail at low altitude feels more worthy of attention, although I’ll admit I have no idea how to go about improving it – I’m impressed already with how it’s doing the high/medium altitude views of the ground. It does look nice.