Tinker Pilot

[h1]Experienced on the Meta Quest 3[/h1] You can view my gameplay & early impressions here: https://youtu.be/sLJjUmonx4Y I really love this game. Unfortunately, I can only rate it a 6/10 and give a tepid recommendation for VR enthusiasts only. Why? Well, you may have guessed it already, but it is because of the lack of content. This is one of the best feeling space pilot / flight simulation experiences in VR, especially when using motion controllers. It's just fun to fly the spaceship around. Controls are tight. You can also customize the cockpit to your liking. I actually thought the default one for motion controllers was perfect. You can also use a HOTAS flight controller if you so desire and customize the cockpit to make it look seamless. Unfortunately, that's about the extent of my praise. The game looks fine. Visuals are good, but not great. Performance is good, but not great. The lack of content though is disappointing. There is no single player campaign. There's only missions. One where you shoot falling boxes. The next one you shoot another space ship. If you beat the times indicated for some of those missions, you open another mission type (I didn't get to play it). That one may be cool. Game is in Early Access. I'm not sure I'm a big fan of the roadmap. I want a full single-player campaign with all the production values. Give me VOs, music, death-defying missions in space. Give me a reason to be piloting. Definitely needs more maps. The Steam workshop idea sounds good. [b]Rate 6/10.[/b] [quote]I bought this game! If you enjoyed my review, please consider joining my Steam Curator group [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Oculus_WMR]Oculus Rift Reviews.[/url][/quote]

While definitely lacking content right now, Tinker Pilot proves its concepts and being a fan of the genre, I dont know of any other game that provides the same level of freedom and customisation in controls. Physical controls (HOTAS) in the real world and interactive virtual controls with hand tracking is superb and I honestly dont know why more Devs do not take advantage of this. @Fdev, I hope you are paying attention! Flight model feels snappy and the ship does not feel heavy, would definitely like to see more options in terms of ship customisation , weapons, parts etc plus some more environments and enemies but I'm sure they're all coming. Will be keeping an eye on this one, MP dogfights could be fun!

Tinker Pilot is a fantastic foundation for a dedicated VR Space Sim, but lacks much of the content and modern implementations you'd expect at it's price. [Review as of Game Version 0.24. Will change when substantial updates arrive.] I'll start with what I enjoy before going into things I think could use improvements. (sometimes a mix of both o.o) Performs great. The visuals are maybe a bit bland, but I feel like the intention is realism. Also I'm giving this a bit of a pass with how early in development the game is. Anything I feel it's missing is more due to my preference for cinematic and color filtered looks rather than a lack of baseline lighting tweaks. Fully customizable cockpit layout with motion controller support via virtual interface and HoTaS inputs. If nothing else this is the best feature of the game at the moment. Gone are the days of an overly clunky setup or being forced to reach or contort in weird ways to access your interfaces. Being able to place them in optimal lazy max positions is game changing for longer play session comfort. I'd imagine for people with full on sim rigs this is magical. For me as a motion control/virtual input enjoyer it solves many of my issues with VR flight sims in general. Ship handling felt solid from what I've experienced. There's a bit of a learning curve. Which I personally see as a good thing. If I ever want an easy flight model, No Man's Sky is always there as the ultimate cozy game. Tinker Pilot demands a bit more pilot attention which I really appreciate. Not VTOL levels of pain. Just enough though to make me feel like I'm the one in control. Audio is good. Maybe more of a neutral point, but nothing that offended my ears or felt too low quality. Navigation between objectives is quite seamless and I never felt like I was in a loading screen even if I was secretly in a loading screen. The only time I can remember cutting to a blank screen for a moment was entering the station to repair my ship (I found out that turning off linear stabilization in an asteroid field was a bad idea). There's not exploration so to speak, but I do really enjoy this system and hope it expands. The last mission was a genuine "this is where the fun begins" moment for me. Though I figure this would be a good time to pivot to what I see as the negatives with the current version of the game since that mission is where the content abruptly ends. Mission variety is sorely lacking. The tasks that are available feel like training for more substantial content that's not available yet. The finally recovery mission was fun, just, not fun enough. Especially with it being the only objective with any bit of substance. I will say the developer seems aware of this criticism so I'm not too worried about it moving forward. Definitely something to keep in mind for early adopters though. No real color or ship customizations at the moment which is a bit of a bummer. Given the cockpit is the big selling point I expected maybe a bit more. Simple RGB Hue/Saturation options for the Virtual UI plus unlockable decor or internal paintjobs for doing missions would go a long way to add a bit of replay value. I hope to see aspects like this added. On top of that you don't have a body so there's no sort of pilot or spacesuit customizations. Again. Would love to see the dev look into implementing immersive and more personal aspects like this in the future. Even something as simple as a pair of customizable gloves/arms and an option to hide the motion control models for more immersion. My biggest negative though is honestly the price. For what's on offer I feel it's very steep compared to other VR early access titles. Unless they plan to implement some massive update in the near future, I'd recommend wish listing this game. On the off chance a sale brings it down to the 15 USD mark I would consider it worth while for a space game nerd who dabbles in flight sim. I personally am okay with letting time pass and updates eventually making their way into the game, but I know for many if it doesn't provide at least a few hours of fun it's not as enticing. I definitely believe this could become something truly amazing. At the moment it admittedly feels more like a tech demo. One that I love by the way do not get me wrong! :D A tech demo none the less though. I'm 100% looking forward to this games future and don't want to downplay the amazing work that's been done. For as barebones as things are the quality of what's here is quite good.

I just had set it up with HOTAS and having fun, controls work flawlessly with my Thurstmaster Airbus HOTAS (I know not the best for shooting and stuff). Def recommend as not many experiences in VR. If dev will maintain a game, I suggest to simplify HOTAS setup and show axis position to configure it more precisely. Otherwise please go ahead a but, I'm into even more fun.

The potential is huge, time will tell where this goes