Make It Fly!

Genre: Puzzle / Simulation

Players: 1

.

Review:

Make It Fly! is a game with Puzzle and Simulation elements released on mobile devices in 2021 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2024. This game has players piecing together parts to custom-built their own airplane or car, with the goal of getting that vehicle to a goal at the end of a path.

The presentation in this game is not very elaborate, using simple 3D visuals with decent enough sound and no music. Clearly, this is a game that’s counting on its concept and gameplay to carry it.

Before each level, you’ll have to build your vehicle using the parts that you’ve unlocked. You’re not allowed to just stick anything anywhere, each part has a specific spot it’s intended to be used in, meaning your creativity here is extremely limited. What’s more, it’s not clear when you get different parts of the same type if those parts actually work differently or if their only difference is cosmetic.

When it’s time to actually play the level, you start by pulling back on a slingshot, which lets you launch your vehicle on its path. At that point, it’s out of your hands, and you can only watch to see how well your preparations and aim with the slingshot have worked out. If you don’t make it, you earn coins to spend toward upgrading your vehicle’s engine, the slingshot, or the coin bonus you get for attempting a level.

While this seems like it would give Make It Fly! a stronger feeling of progression, this element is directly in conflict with the creation elements of the game – when you fail to reach a goal, you can’t really know for sure if it’s because you made the wrong choices when building your vehicle, if you aimed the slingshot wrong, or if your only way to succeed is to grind to improve your slingshot and engine. And on this last point, you will be doing a lot of grinding in this game, sending your vehicle out on a hopeless test-launch just to grind for coins.

Another issue is that this game’s physics are inconsistent and artificial – deliberately aim your vehicle off the side of the road and the game will steer it back… but only at first. Paradoxically, aiming your vehicle just a bit over to one side can cause it to careen off, and then fly off the other side of the path. Sometimes you feel like you’re just going through a lot of trial and error here, just trying to see what you can do to find success.

Between the grinding, the unreliable physics, and the way it’s frequently unclear what (if anything) you’re doing wrong, I feel like Make It Fly! just does not live up to its great premise. As a result, I can’t really recommend it.

tl;dr – Make It Fly! is a game with Puzzle and Simulation elements that has players piecing together parts to custom-built their own airplane or car, with the goal of getting that vehicle to a goal at the end of a path. Unfortunately, this game does a poor job conveying information to the player, the physics are inconsistent and unreliable, and even if you’re doing everything right you’ll still likely have to fail at levels countless times just to grind. With all of this being the case, you’re better off skipping this game.

Grade: D

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