Props, small jet engines and quirky fuselages! Those are just a few of the components that summarize the golden age of flying, a time when traveling was just as glamorous as the leg room and gourmet meals served onboard. While the golden age of flight primarily lasted between the 1950s and 1960s, the Airport CEO Vintage DLC contains a total of seven different aircraft models typically flown between the 1930s and 1980s.
Downloading this DLC will add the vintage aircraft to new, vintage versions, of the Maple, Nordic, Tulip, OK Air and Swiftly airlines.
We've had quite the bit of a break since the 1.0 launch of Airport CEO but today we're back once more with a quick look back at the time that has passed since but more specifically... some exciting news! You can either head on over to Dev Blog 161: The way of the future, or alternatively, just head straight to the Airport CEO: Vintage Steam store page!
Enjoy!
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apoapsis Studios
Airport CEO 1.0-22 released
Hey hey hey, airport CEO!
As you may of may not know, since the launch of Airport CEO 1.0, we've been continuously updating the game on its experimental branch (although at a much slower pace than before the final release) and today it's time for another one of those updates but this time on the default branch! Today we're bringing you Airport CEO 1.0-22 which primarily solves a round of fringe case bugs, balances some minor aspect of the game such as the cost ratio between different parking lot types but also a new and highly requested feature involving the ability to toggle the landing and take-off direction of a runway (when not active)!
Here is the full list of changes for 1.0-22:
Release notes - 1.0-22
Bug
ACEO-43964 Person cars arriving to a GA airport can in certain instance park despite no passenger traffic being active
ACEO-43945 Rezoning an airline lounge bathroom can in rare instances cause it to become available for non-business passengers
ACEO-43934 Rare null reference exception when fetching transit structure entry exit point can cause world tunnel entrance updating to stop
ACEO-43930 Fixed rare missing localization key issue for service vehicle
ACEO-43927 Small hangar can be built beneath terminal
ACEO-43813 Flood lights can be placed on top of world entrance
ACEO-43810 Minor type in police vehicle description
ACEO-43806 Check-in desk description text in certain instances exposed
ACEO-43800 Road node vehicle type setting for Jet A1 and Avgas fuel truck incorrectly swapped which can cause pathfinding issues in specific instances
ACEO-43740 Road checkpoint can in rare instances incorrectly state not being connected to a world entrance tunnel
ACEO-43739 Conveyor belts can in certain instances change direction when connecting to a tilt tray
ACEO-43738 Vehicles parked beneath upper terminal foundation can for some items cause rendering issues
ACEO-43735 Long term parking starting fee not balanced
ACEO-43710 Upgrading a single stand will not invoke any cost
ACEO-43506 Tress planted through copy paste do not always update season coloring
ACEO-43476 Vehicles can in rare instances become visible on underground floors
ACEO-43474 Vehicles can in rare instances not turn on to stand immediately when approaching it
Improvement
ACEO-43809 Runways can now change landing and take-off direction when toggled off
But... that's not all! Parallel to the back-burner development of Airport CEO and prototyping new ideas we've also been working on a something little else... we'll have some news to share come this Thursday, which will also be the day of the next dev blog. See you then!
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apoapsis Studios
Airport CEO 1.0-19 released
Hello airport CEO!
It is time for another small update, 1.0-19, which focuses on solving the recent bug reporting issue, introduces some balancing and minor new features, fixes to some minor issues and a few important anti-stutter performance improvements.
Connection bug for bug reporting system (meta!)
The previous two week's issue with reporting balancing issues and fringe case bugs has now been resolved. The error was caused by an overhaul of our bug reporting platform configuration, as a result of the general dwindling down in project management, which resulted in new issues created being refused by the server. This has now with this version been fixed and issues are again possible to be reported just as per usual.
Release notes - 1.0-19
Bug
ACEO-43516 Business generation logic can cause notable lag spikes due to excessive string comparison
ACEO-43515 Null reference exception can in very rare instances be thrown when conveyor belts verify connection
ACEO-43512 Bug reporting tool setting change caused bug reporting tool to not correctly submit bug reports (meta!)
ACEO-43487 Minor stutter can be frequently experienced due to improper list sorting for certain item type fetching
ACEO-43482 Minor spelling mistake in incident report e-mail
ACEO-43464 Mass-upgrading multiple stands does not charge the correct cash sum amount
ACEO-43459 Deleting wall can in extremely rare instances not reset underlying area properly
ACEO-43458 Building windows doesn't always separate underlying zone area properly
ACEO-43440 Persons serailized when transitioning on a walkaltor can be displaced on load causing them to get unintendedly stuck in sealed off areas
ACEO-43381 Different runway sizes can incorrectly be multi selected together enabling players to change unapplicable settings for certain runways
ACEO-43278 Area of Hawaii categorized as temperate and not tropical
ACEO-42252 Resolution setting not always consistent and working as expected
Improvement
ACEO-43383 Runways can now intersect
ACEO-32236 Jira manager credentials updated
We wrote a small post release text on the studio's Instagram account with the purpose of giving a small status update. We're currently working on additional content for Airport CEO and will be back with a proper dev blog once we're nearing completion!
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apoapsis Studios
Airport CEO 1.0-15 released
Hello there airport CEO!
We hope that you've had a relaxing weekend, perhaps celebrating some spring related feast! We've celebrated by preparing the next quality of life update of Airport CEO, 1.0-15. This update mainly focuses on mitigation of various minor annoyances and also balancing of a few different systems including, for example, passenger shopping demand in departure areas, staff applicant spawn rates, animal spawn rates and some R&D project balancing. We're also addressing some issues with inconsistencies in the numbers reported through the daily economy report, as well as a heap of other minor issues and fringe bugs.
In this update we're also introducing two new variables for modded airlines which can be used to alter the spawn rate of certain liveries and aircraft. You can read more about what these changes mean in this forum topic.
Below is the full list of changes for this update...
Release notes - 1.0-15
Improvement
[ACEO-42796] - Vehicle depot can now be built underground
[ACEO-42884] - Increased spawn rate of available applicants
[ACEO-42998] - Staff happiness now exposed in staff tab of management panel
[ACEO-43222] - Special livery tag added for mods to support rare liveries not spawning as often as standard
[ACEO-43223] - Fleet count added for modded airlines to support specifying the number of aircraft types for a given airline
Bug
[ACEO-42232] - Chinese font asset not always correctly generated
[ACEO-42299] - Refreshed staff not prioritized when dispatching new job tasks
[ACEO-42614] - If a project has more admins assigned than actually arrived at the airport (and working) the project will not progress at all
[ACEO-42621] - Objects can in very specific instance become immovable after move panel has initially been displayed
[ACEO-42668] - Animals can in rare instances spawn on top of fence
[ACEO-42672] - Incorrect step calculation can in rare instances cause GA bird strike emergencies to always fail at 75% despite being fully completed
[ACEO-42695] - Flights do not always distribute among available check-in desks
[ACEO-42701] - The game can in rare instances appear as crashed due to a log print lag freezing the application when an elevator floor
[ACEO-42712] - Generic key "clear" not translated correctly
[ACEO-42719] - Planned check-in desks refunds more if de-planned than if destroyed
[ACEO-42764] - International zone created by passport checkpoint doesn't reset if object is removed
[ACEO-42770] - Notification for missing vehicle type of specific emergency can in certain instances only be attempted to spawn once at game start causing the notification not to appear
[ACEO-42833] - Save error dialog panel doesn't instruct if save fail reason was due to lacking disk space
[ACEO-42922] - Total expenses math error in economy report when calculating daily income and expenses
[ACEO-42923] - Average employee productivity incorrectly stated in daily operations report
[ACEO-42946] - Concorde aircraft can in some instances not correctly start the deboarding process
[ACEO-42977] - Save process may in extremely rare and specific situations not be correctly executed
[ACEO-43016] - Passenger interest in shopping too low after passing security
[ACEO-43055] - When deicing is active aircraft doesn't always distribute over available runways
[ACEO-43058] - Total expenses does not always sum up correctly in daily economy report due to mixing various total variable sums
[ACEO-43080] - Some service vehicles can in certain instances pass a stand and turn around instead of immediately turn on to the stand
[ACEO-43106] - White on yellow text in road options causes them to be difficult to read
[ACEO-43117] - Security checkpoints can be built in a specific situation where the initial queue point can overlap other objects
[ACEO-43172] - Animal spawning is due to previous spawn change extremely frequent
[ACEO-43182] - Airline livery input field in development panel sends movement input when typed in
[ACEO-43221] - Runway repair world notification can in rare instances remain despite being repaired
We'll be back in another few weeks with another quality of life update with continued balancing, improvements and fringe bug fixes in response to the issues you keep reporting to us.
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apoapsis Studios
Airport CEO 1.0-10 released
Happy(?) Monday, important business person!
Just like most airport CEOs, we're back to work after a relaxing weekend. Well, perhaps not too relaxing as we just like most CEOs have a difficulty of not taking work home with us during the per society ordained week breaks. As a result, we're launching the next post 1.0 stabilization update, Airport CEO 1.0-10, which takes care of some rare issues, some extremely rare issues and some much needed balancing to a few different economy related systems.
This update balances a few aspects of the economy that makes GA airfields a bit more profitable in the later stage of an airport's development, balances the franchise rent fee exploit and also adjusts the exacerbated profits possible from jewelry shops while also making passengers a bit more interested in shopping once they've passed into the secure zone area. We're also solving a wide range of very rarely occurring bugs but also a more widespread issue of queues for security checkpoints in some instances not being correctly buildable until the second time its attempted. Below is the full log of changes for this update...
Release notes - 1.0-10
Improvement
[ACEO-42666] - Departing passengers in secure zone shopping need deterioration rate balanced
[ACEO-42836] - GA parking cost increased to make GA airfield aspect more profitable
Bug
[ACEO-42311] - Aircraft can in very rare instances stall when attempting to fetch an available runway
[ACEO-42364] - Job task dispatching for remote boarding flights can in some instances for medium on large stands not always work correctly
[ACEO-42570] - Concorde droop-snoot too far drooped when parked at stand
[ACEO-42571] - Supersonic DLC: Aircraft spawn ratio too high
[ACEO-42580] - Missing tooltip on follow with camera on flight information panel
[ACEO-42590] - Economy report incorrect when calculating balance including construction cost
[ACEO-42596] - First queue point can in certain instances not be built until second attempt for specific desks
[ACEO-42605] - Medium check-in desk is not unlocked with baggage unlocking R&D project
[ACEO-42636] - Service trucks can in extremely rare instances not appear after exiting vehicle depot
[ACEO-42639] - Bags can in extremely rare instances be assigned incorrect status on transition causing them to fly across world
[ACEO-42644] - Planned objects count towards net worth
[ACEO-42645] - "Delivery trucks only" setting for road nodes does not include fuel truck deliveries
[ACEO-42652] - When toggling planning mode the context menu label does not always update
[ACEO-42680] - Persons can in extremely rare build configurations adjust prematurely to certain desks causing them to become offset when deboaring airside shuttle buses
[ACEO-42682] - Animals can in certain build configurations pass through fences on a diagonal path
[ACEO-42683] - Main menu flip row sound slightly too loud
[ACEO-42699] - Closed baggage bay does not spawn world notification immediately on load causing baggage operation to stop
[ACEO-42708] - Switching desk access person type whilst persons are interacting with desk does not always cancel their interaction
[ACEO-42709] - Pusback truck outside of airport service road area can be assigned a job task causing a behavioral deadlock
[ACEO-42760] - Localized date string can clip out of view
[ACEO-42798] - Certain e-mails can in rare instance lack subject line
[ACEO-42831] - Pushback truck can park on top of stair truck for some specific aircraft types
[ACEO-42837] - Franchise rent too high as it can be misused as passive income
[ACEO-42838] - Ramp agent job task can in certain instances get created twice causing double the amount of ramp agents on an active stand
As per usual we'll continue to monitor the reported bugs and apply weekly fixes on the experimental branch. Also as per usual we ask that for any critical issues you still may stumble upon, send an e-mail to support@airportceo.com and we'll expedite your issue.
Thanks and enjoy!
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apoapsis Studios
Airport CEO 1.0-7 released
Good evening, airport CEO!
It's time for another small stabilization patch fixing a range of fringe issues as well as some much needed systems balancing on various parts. In this update we're pushing balancing fixes to the terminal quality collection system as well other achievement checks not always being correctly invoked for the AOTY award. We're also adding a counter to the baggage bay display showing what the number of allowed connections still possible.
Release notes - Version 1.0-7
Improvement
[ACEO-42425] - Remaining stand connections available for baggage bay now exposed in baggage bay panel
Bug
[ACEO-42132] - Vehicles depsawning as not operated can lock various vehicle status functions
[ACEO-42158] - Passengers always perform purchases regardless of business class and content at store
[ACEO-42175] - Planning mode overlay for rooms does not disappear after construction
[ACEO-42224] - Roads can now be instantly built if user has mistakenly destroyed both contractor and delivery site
[ACEO-42235] - Catering truck exits on left side of road after servicing the Boeing 787 aircraft
[ACEO-42307] - Terminal quality rating almost always impossible to increase above 50%
[ACEO-42329] - Placing terminal on top of unbuilt fence can cause terminal foundation rendering issues
[ACEO-42360] - Large aircraft are not always using the correct runway entrance
[ACEO-42395] - Baggage claim requirements text incorrect
[ACEO-42400] - Flight information displays cannot be moved
[ACEO-42403] - Patrol step in tutorial has flipped control instructions
[ACEO-42416] - Incorrect research description for Ford trailer trucks
[ACEO-42430] - Missing null reference check for person node availability in job task serialization can in extremely rare instance disallow airport from saving
[ACEO-42431] - Large fast runway ramps not always upgraded correctly
[ACEO-42437] - Incorrect number of assumed services can cause turnaround services offered rating to not reach 100%
[ACEO-42440] - Typo in runway fetch setting in operations tab
[ACEO-42443] - When removing elevator entrance on an intersecting middle floor the client can in extremely rare instances crash
[ACEO-42457] - 1900D aircraft has reversed fuel truck access paths which can cause fuel trucks to not reach job task start location
[ACEO-42460] - Service vehicle road connection is not checked if a hangar is deactivated
[ACEO-42463] - Baggage bay can in extremelt rare instances be set as not reachable by connected stands
[ACEO-42465] - Passengers can in extremely rare instance ignore walking with path when deboarding airside shuttle bus
[ACEO-42470] - Airport of the Year status and achievement not always properly invoked
[ACEO-42473] - Dummy spawned ramp agents accounted for in salary charge
[ACEO-42475] - Balanced terminal quality rating value collection for smaller airport terminals
[ACEO-42480] - Shops not updating their child desks parent room status can cause new franchise establishment not to open despite staff being present at desk
We'll most likely be back again next week with another round of minor fixes as bug reports are made.
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apoapsis Studios
Airport CEO 1.0-4 released
Good afternoon, airport CEO!
First of all, thank you for all of the kind and heartfelt messages we've received and read throughout the various Airport CEO communities in relation to the 1.0-0 release. It seems as if most of you, including some new CEOs who've joined us over the past few days, are very much still enjoying Airport CEO without its early access label.
While you've been busy running airports, we've been busy watching the backlog for any issues that are still being reported. We're happy to see that there are no critical issues still remaining in the game and that the reports that we now receive mainly pertain to either very specific cases that now have been found because the game is simply being played by a lot more players, minor bugs we did not fully catch during the last steps of the beta period or user errors (also known as lack of game design intuition).
That said, if you're still experiencing extended issues with a crashing application or notable other critical issues, we ask that you send us a support e-mail directly to support@airportceo.com so that we can help you out and debug your case. Any instance of critical issues we've found as of the 1.0 release have been isolated to the user's device which is why we need to assist you on a case to case basis.
Today we're back with the first post 1.0 patch solving some of those minor bugs that have been reported during the weekend, including a final fix for the dreaded Apple M1 no text labels rendering issue.
Re-implemented support for devices running the Apple M1 ARM processor
If you're a user of a device running the new Apple M1 ARM processors, you've probably noticed the apparent lack of text labels rendered in the game. With this update we're finally solving that issue once and for all and you no longer need to stay away or apply the GL Core override fix, Apple M1 devices are now fully supported.
Release notes -Version 1.0-4
Improvement
[ACEO-42346] - Runway queue count in UI panel now include departing aircraft
Bug
[ACEO-42088] - Two separate variable accessing for pax when boarding a flight can cause those pax to stall if flight is dismissed during boarding process
[ACEO-42094] - Text elements can in rare instances for devices running the M1 Apple chip still clip out of view
[ACEO-42095] - When adding stickers, already placed stickers can sometimes change when adding more to the sticker folder
[ACEO-42099] - Switching between a GA and commercial stand can in rare cases cause all flights on that stand to be cancelled
[ACEO-42164] - Flight planner refresh icon does not clear the new flight notice icon
[ACEO-42167] - Flight info displays cannot be moved
[ACEO-42173] - Converting a stand to remote does not remove pax transit signs
[ACEO-42180] - World notification for flights that are cancelled are in rare instances not correctly removed
[ACEO-42187] - Construction material delivered to drop off sites after vehicle checkpoints not always correctly executed
[ACEO-42198] - Vehicles can in extremely rare road configuration instances not completely park on point causing a park-to-unpark behavior loop deadlock
[ACEO-42200] - Extremely rare missing null reference exception check in emergency flight removal can cause emergency to remain active until reload
[ACEO-42214] - Missing instruction on how to acquire a medium check-in desk in the medium check-in desk build system
[ACEO-42222] - Elevator can deactivate available paths when changing elevator floor settings
[ACEO-42229] - Floor tiles can be rotated despite always spawned at default rotation
[ACEO-42233] - Vehicles not parking in roof covered parking structures can become offset
[ACEO-42239] - Objects placed on the outmost perimiter cannot always be destroyed
[ACEO-42254] - Wings on Boeing 737 aircraft renders above fuselage
[ACEO-42269] - Contractors do not recognize available seats in staff rooms
[ACEO-42272] - Planned structures delete built fences
[ACEO-42281] - Under certain circumstances diagonal guides on taxiway won't disappear
[ACEO-42284] - Spawned dummy ramp agents can appear in the hired employee panel list
[ACEO-42286] - Incorrect rendering setting can cause volcano ash to severely degrade performance
[ACEO-42295] - Franchise contract details not consistent
[ACEO-42301] - Vehicle statistics button displays unlocalized text
[ACEO-42302] - Various world notification containers can in extremely rare instance remain in world despite originating issue being solved
[ACEO-42314] - Pop out setting for tutorial not always working correctly
[ACEO-42339] - One-way arrow setting can in extremely rare instances cause certain vehicle types to not be allowed on that node
Thank you once more for these past days, it's been wonderful watching all of your airports come to life from the Malmö control tower and we're not going anywhere soon. We'll be continuing the life support of Airport CEO as issues are reported and discussed throughout the communities.
See you out there and as Scott Manley keeps saying... fly safe!
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apoapsis Studios
Airport CEO 1.0 released
Hey hey hey, airport CEO! Airport CEO has now graduated from its early access state to a full blown 1.0 released game. We are not really sure how to go about summarizing the journey we have been on together with the community since that September Thursday back in 2017, especially since humans are specifically poor in appreciating the concept of time over an extended period, but just as Fredrik said when he opened Unity for the first time, "How hard can it be?", we will give it a shot.
Release notes - 1.0-0
New feature
[ACEO-42115] - Aircraft pack DLC support: Airport CEO Supersonic
[ACEO-41821] - All contractors are not correctly accounted for in extremely rare instances and thus cannot always be fully be dismissed
[ACEO-42007] - Percent signs are for some system cultures shown as squares
[ACEO-42011] - Opened flight planner does not refresh offered flights
[ACEO-42043] - Boarding card is not always hidden for visiting persons
[ACEO-42067] - Toggle overlay buttons invert functionality if object is already selected
[ACEO-42070] - Quick firing employee can cause duplicate person removal and objects to render strangely
[ACEO-42079] - Passengers can in certain transit structure setups arrive very late causing other passengers to arrive late and a check-in fail loop
[ACEO-42082] - Queues that end toward an unwalkable position cause agents to fail finding the queue entry point
[ACEO-42085] - ATC connections not refreshed when game is paused causing them to appear as not connected
[ACEO-42092] - Extremely rare displacement of passport checkpoints can cause deserailization to stall
[ACEO-42093] - Fire trucks can in extremely rare instances after extinguishing a GA aircraft not clear the runway
[ACEO-42104] - Security checkpoints can in rare instances show faulty stand connections (visual only)
[ACEO-42112] - Pushbacks can in extremely rare instances not be invoked due to vehicle job task execution failure
[ACEO-42114] - Faulty pax despawn fetch check can cause very few passengers to spawn for each transportation vehicle
[ACEO-42123] - If passengers begin check-in via a self check-in desk they cannot prefer regular check-in desks when attempting to switch, causing a significant self check-in bias
[ACEO-42127] - Very rare index out of bounds exception when demolishing ATC related objects during threaded connection test can cause update system to stall
[ACEO-42131] - Improved error message when not enough runway ramps are attached to a runway
[ACEO-42138] - Airports can be created without airport name input field content
The Airport CEO early access flight
Airport CEO 1.0 was released today, Thursday March 4th 2021 at 19:00 CET (10 AM PT), and consequently transitioned out of its early access period. The idea was formed in the summer of 2015 and development started in the beginning of autumn that same year. The first year of development however can hardly be accounted to any actual progress of the finished product, especially not in its current form, as that year was all about learning how Unity works and how to write code for a game. In the second year, development slowly started picking up and we were able to put together something that was actually working, including the various core systems such as building, ATC and passenger AI. On September 28th in 2017, Airport CEO released as an early access title to a small but very eager group of people who had been following the Airport CEO progression since the founding of the Airport CEO twitter account back in October of 2015. Around 8000 people bought the game in its first early access released hour which resulted in an immediate placement on the Steam global top selling list which in turn had a cascading effect on sales as a placement on that list is hands down the best type of advertisement any game can get. That weekend was probably one of the best and worst of our lives as the success we had, while putting in exhausting 16 hour shifts every day deploying several updates per day fixing critical issues that arose due to the highly unexpected number of new players, enabled us to quit or jobs the next week and start Apoapsis Studios. The release weekend gave us the means to realize our vision for Airport CEO but it also showed us that this vision was far away and that we were about to embark on an early access marathon.
A screenshot overlooking an extremely early build of Airport CEO from 2017.
The old UI prior to the UI overhaul update.
A screen overlooking the old graphics in greater detail. Almost looks like a different game?
[previewyoutube="aDVVoOZ_6Cg;full"] The first pre-alpha gameplay trailer, released May 31st 2016. Same same but different?
Airport CEO has since then been fully redeveloped and essentially nothing from that first early access version still remains in the game today, apart from some extremely core and fundamental systems. We have overhauled just about everything in the game ranging from how agents are moved to the graphics, the UI, fundamental performance overhauls and… well, just about everything else. When Alexander joined the team back in January of 2019 we had just about completed the first overhaul of the game in its current early access state and we were ready to move forward with major feature implementation. Alexander’s added abilities kickstarted this phase of development and we quickly added new tooling, localization and much more but specifically new features resulting in major feature updates.
The Airport CEO 1.0 we are launching today looks nothing like the thing we launched in 2017 and it is all thanks to a somewhat established idea of what the final product would look like, in combination with an absurd amount of input from an incredibly passionate and active community.
[previewyoutube="vFQzB8WMmoM;full"] ... and how it looks today!
Flight data!
Airport CEO has during its early access period sold about 180000 copies and is at the point of its 1.0 release rated as “very positive” on Steam with an average score of 84% positive across 4145 reviews. Airport CEO has had 91 major releases (i.e., releases on the default branch) and well over 1250 minor releases pushed to the experimental branch. We have deployed over 3500(!) builds in total (including both Windows and macOS) and have averaged around three experimental releases per week across the entire early access period, but almost a new release every single working day of the week during the beta period.
On average, 25000 unique CEOs launch Airport CEO every month; currently about 2300 daily and in the past 90 days a total of 53000 CEOs took to the skies. Together they have a combined daily playtime of around 270 days(!) (or 16200 hours), which is an average of almost three hours per day per CEO. When they have been playing, they have together over these past years sent us over 42000(!!!) bug reports containing mostly qualitative issue descriptions, suggestions, or thoughts on the development of the game. Out of all those issue reports of which we have been scrolling through every single day, a total of 16213 have been manually processed meaning that either Alexander, Fredrik or Olof has given a particular issue a specific resolution such as for example “fix deployed”, “deployed to default”, “duplicate” or “cannot reproduce” – the remaining, about 26000, are in fact duplicate reports.
These numbers are staggering to look at from a developer’s perspective and nothing we could really have hoped for, being the first ever real thing we have developed not to say the first and only game we have ever built. Saying that “we are extremely grateful” for how this journey turned out is not really doing it... let’s each try and have a separate go of it:
Alexander’s take
"The time I’ve been working on Airport CEO has been the most rewarding “professional” experience of my life. To be developing a product you actually take pride in, with the absolute best customer base and community any product can wish for, working in a thriving and (more importantly) creative industry confidently surviving the worst pandemic in modern history, and with amazing coworkers, there simply isn’t much else to ask for. There are too many things I’ve learned to be listed here, but the accumulated knowledge at Apoapsis Studios gained from the development promises great times ahead. Because, with our game finally ready to be released into the wild, we are of course looking ahead. I know, however, that I will forever be looking back at our time with Airport CEO with nothing but warm memories."
Fredrik’s take
"Wow! What fantastic years we have had together in the Apoapsis team and the whole community while working on this amazing project. When I started up Unity game engine for over 5 years ago, I could never in my wildest dream imagine where we are today with Airport CEO. It has been by far the most challenging thing I have ever done in my life, but at the same time the most rewarding. We are extremely proud of Airport CEO and grateful to have the opportunity to make this our living. I hope our journey can inspire others to do the same with their dreams. Finally, I just want to give a big thanks to everyone who have been part of Airport CEO and I hope that you will follow us in future projects!"
Olof’s take
"Turns out it's really, really, really difficult to develop an airport tycoon game that in at least the bigger scheme of things is trying to emulate aspects of reality as accurately as possible (while still being playable). The initial early access version was really just an attempt at that and what we're releasing now can in many ways also be interpreted as "Airport CEO 2". The engagement from the community powered by an extremely agile release pipeline, daily updates, coupled with a very accessible bug reporting system which prioritizes quantity over quality is what has made this project possible. It's been the biggest privilege of my life working on this game together with the community, Fredrik and Alexander and with this project being our first attempt at a game one can only dream of what we'll build next."
Airport CEO: Supersonic
There are a lot of great and beautiful aircraft out there, in the real world as well as in Airport CEO, taking passengers to and from their destination as quick as their engines propel them. But there is a special breed of aircraft that no longer traffics the skies in real life… but as of today, if you want to, now can traffic your airport in Airport CEO. Celebrating today’s 1.0 release of Airport CEO, we’re also releasing a free micro DLC called “Airport CEO: Supersonic”.
That’s right, the Concorde and Tu-144 can now be downloaded via the free DLC and will consequently be flying for Olympus Organization and Zoom! (Concorde) as well as Stripe Air and Crown Airlines (Tu-144).
We try to stay as accurate as possible with the aircraft in Airport CEO and most of them do still fly in real life, perhaps though not in the configuration or frequency as they do in Airport CEO. Supersonics, however, are not part of the current aviation industry, and that is why it made sense to add them as downloadable content enabling players to decide for themselves if they want them in the game or not.
Airport CEO 1.0 and beyond
In the previous dev blog we took a deep dive into the future of Airport CEO beyond its 1.0 release but we are in fact at as of this point… tracking into uncharted territory. Depending on (but also regardless of) the reception of the 1.0 release we will be keeping a close eye on the developments around the game for the coming weeks and months, responding with patch updates accordingly to the perhaps continued supply of community feedback. You can read more about the future of Airport CEO beyond the 1.0 release in Dev Blog 159: Airport CEO 1.0?
Thank you!
Last but the opposite of least, we would like to thank a few people who have been extremely important to us during these past years. To Steve, Mitchell, Lucas, Kim, Elin, Lewis, Clara, Ellen and Maria who have been helping us with the core aspects of the game in terms of aircraft design, graphics, community, audio and emotional support: Thank you. To the many community managers of the various Airport CEO platforms around Discord, Reddit and the Forum: Thank you. To Sinephony (Daniel and Anton) for a brilliant soundtrack: Thank you. To the members of the focus group on the Airport CEO forum who have been helping us test out features very early: Thank you. To those who have sent in a bug report: Thank you. To those who have participated in the various design contests: Thank you. To everyone at Game Habitat in Malmö and the Malmö game developer community: Thank you. To our friends and family: Thank you. And last but certainly not least… to YOU who have have been playing the game, following along on the flight: Thank you!!!
We will leave it there for now. Once we have had some time to reflect on the development of Airport CEO we will be back with a proper postmortem and in the meantime you will always find us around the Airport CEO communities. Fly safe!
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apoapsis Studios
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Airport CEO: Supersonic
Hurrah! In celebration with the Airport CEO 1.0 release today, we're launching the free DLC Airport CEO Supersonic, an aircraft pack consisting of the Concorde and the Tu-144 that'll elevate your airport to a supersonic standard - complete with glorious afterburners!
Downloading this free DLC will add the Concorde to the default airlines Olympus Organization and Zoom! and the Tu-144 to the default airlines Stripe Air and Crown Airlines, all part of the base game.
