I used to play this computer game for hours on my Commodore 64 back in the 80s when there were not too many flight simulator games around for computers back then. Sure, the graphics are way primitive and the game play a little bit simple and rudimentary, but it brings back lots of good memories of my early game playing days in the spare room. I had this one and a few of the Zork Infocom text only games. Those kept me engaged for hours on end.
The basis of this game is to fly a single engine plane around the country and deliver bags of mail as your payload. There are a couple different modes in this game, a training part and a game playing part. Once you train and get some skills at flying the plane you can try to take on your mission to deliver the mail. There are different states to fly into; Kansas is fairly simple and easy with lots of flat areas for the airports. Colorado is a little tougher because of the mountains and varying altitude of the air fields in the state.
When you fly the plane to bring mail to different airports you have to be aware of your fuel, the
ever changing weather conditions, and your navigation. The time it takes for you to fly from airport to airport is highly compresses so as not to be too boring while your plane is droning through the skies on your missions. Once you reach your destination, the mail is quickly dropped off and your gas tank gets filled, then you take off for another flight to a different airport. I remember that there is a time limit as well. You have to deliver your mail in an expeditious manner in order to be successful at playing this Solo Flight game.
Flight simulators have obviously become incredibly more complex and sophisticated, but Solo Flight was one of, if not The first flight simulators that incorporated an actual game play strategy, and that is one of the reasons that I found it to be so engaging and fun back in the early days of computer gaming. Micro Prose had a few other popular games for different platforms at the time, and I found all the ones that I tried out to be quite a lot of fun. Solo Flight may seem a bit lame nowadays, but in 1984 or 85 it was truly a fun and entertaining way to spend an afternoon gaming!
