Paper Boy Flyin' High by unplugred

The measurement of a good paper airplane is at how long it lasts in the air until the inevitable fall.
In Paper Boy Flying High you play as a paper airplane trying to deliver a message to far lands.

Avoid obstacles and try to reach as far as possible.
Use the arrow keys to guide the aircraft.

James9270 - Coding
Noogai223 - Sprites
lau - Music + Trailer
Rjwest07 - Team Mascot
Melody - Modeling, Technical Art


| Link | https://dreambuster.itch.io/pbfh |
| Link | https://dreambuster.itch.io/pbfh |
| Link | https://dreambuster.itch.io/pbfh |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/paper-boy-flyin-high |
Ratings
| Overall | 471th | 3.69⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 377th | 3.667⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 442th | 3.548⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 279th | 4⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 145th | 4.381⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 271th | 3.786⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 818th | 2.735⭐ | 19🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 488th | 3.675⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 24🗳️ | 0🗨️ |
I did think the controls were pretty simple at first, then I got to the point where I considered height and speed as resources I had to manage correctly. With the axes and fences being moving obstacles, my position started to factor in a lot more as well. There were so many times on level 3 I almost beat it and got too confident and ran right into an axe!
Level 2 could be more polished, it is hard to see the overpasses above you as an obstacle, and the clotheslines did not look like hazards until I hit them. I also had some funny glitches where pressing enter to restart caused me to fly under the level, easy enough to properly restart though. Really great work on this game!
fantastic graphic and modeling. Nice
I've experienced quite a lot of bugs like the power ups didn't respawn after i retry, or if i went back to the menu and started a new game i got not to see my paper plane.
Sometimes i missed the power ups just slightly despite that i expected them to get. I think something like a 3d circle around them make it much clearer how low you need to get.
Would definitely give it another try if these things are fixed!
I found the controls to be too touchy for my taste. I think my brain wanted some kind of analog control over the airplane's pitch. I also found the speed bubble things just slightly too difficult to hit regularly, in part because it's hard to judge the height distance between you and the bubble. Maybe if the next bubble showed up on the altimeter thing on the right, it'd be easier to make sure you're at the correct altitude?
I enjoyed the varied level designs and their unique associated obstacles. Wish some polish and some touch-control implementation, I can legitimately see this being released on app store. Great job!

Another gem in this jam imo. I kind of got used to how to hit the bubbles, because the plane feels very similar to guided arrows in Assassin's Creed games (bad camera angle, no real feel of trajectory, but if you do it enough your autopilot takes over and you just know if you're gonna hit the target or not). So we'll call that a skill check :D
Lovely art style.
And you made all the music too? Wow!
Congrats you guys this was a great experience.
My main complaints would be that it was really hard to gauge the height of the plane with regards to the speed buffs and colliding or not with obstacles. It almost felt like it was the camera colliding with bridges rather than the actual plane.
The trail sprite for the plane also didn't fit the very cool and nice papery graphics of the rest of the game and felt wrong that it updated with the plane's rotation. If it was a guiding effect on where the plane was heading it would have made sense but I think it would have made more sense now to have the passed track in global space.
I also think it would have been nice if the plane hung in the air when you started until you gave a clear input to the game so one didn't have to loose height right in the beginning from not being fully prepared.
Unfortunately I never completed the last(?) / third level even though I got pretty close some times.
Unfortunately, the difficult was very uneven. Strangely, level 3 was by far the easiest for me since there were a lot of boosts. I couldn't even get half a kilometer in the first level. There were no boosts available, and I couldn't figure out how to gain momentum... until on one particular run, there happened to be an early boost, and I made it over 30 km easily. The player's success seems far more dependent on the random level generation than on the player's skill.
The perspective makes it extremely difficult to hit the boosts-- more often than not, I would fly right over them. It didn't help that many of them were so low that I would hit the ground before hitting them. I also hit a lot of bridges that were above the screen.
But when the levels generate favorably, this game is super chill and fun. I love the sudden transition to a hellish landscape after playing in relaxed environments, and the accompanying metal music.