"When pigs fly." –lasting proof that people really are racist

While I'm not sure why, out of the whole animal kingdom, my kind got singled out for the aforementioned aphorism (I mean, pigs can jump, at least; you want something unlikely to leave the ground, try an earthworm) I do know that Simple Planes gives anyone the freedom to design and fly aircraft with very little effort, while – at the same time – offering enough versatility for the construction of models so complex, they wouldn't look out of place in a proper flight sim.

Made by an indie team of 11, the game is proof that a great idea will always triumph over high production values. Running plain graphics with a few shaders, Simple Planes won't win you over with its visuals and its sparse world map and few gameplay elements won't keep you engaged for long (unless you can't win a race because you keep slamming into a pyramid; that might just keep you coming back for more). But the aircraft editor at the core of the game, which gives you the freedom to design any working aircraft, helicopter, tilt-rotor, car, tank, warship — fully functioning Transformer — or what-have-you is so robust and so much fun that anyone with a halfway-active imagination will find it hard to resist.

The premise of Simple Planes is, well, simple: it is an aircraft editor with some gameplay elements tacked on. The most extensive part of the game (and the component with which you will spend the most time) is the editor itself. It gives you a slew of preset (but modifiable) parts you can combine any way you want to build an aircraft.

But though the editor is straightforward, it does conform to physics. So while you might be able to cobble together anything you can conceive of, that's no guarantee that it will actually fly (although, from first-trotter experience, I can attest that the whole "if it looks good, it'll fly good" thing is a bunch of hokum; I've built things that looked dreamy but couldn't even take off and things that looked ridiculous, but performed great).

To meet that particular benchmark, you will have to be mindful of your aircraft's Center of Mass (red), Center of Thrust (yellow) and Center of Lift (blue), which the editor will helpfully keep track of for you.

Unless you ape real-world designs (or happen to be an aircraft engineer), your first attempts may be a bit hit-and-miss (put your mass too far ahead of the lift and the nose will keep dipping; put all three centers too close together and the thing'll handle like a rabid weasel), with enough working designs under your belt you will eventually get the hang of what makes for an airworthy design.

The editor offers enough components (like engines, fuselage blocks and lift surfaces, sure, but also gyroscopes, magnets, weapons and myriad other Gizmos) for a truly liberating experience. While I've mostly stuck to making traditional aircraft (and two tilt-rotors), people have built tanks, hovercraft, ships, drones and (for whatever reason) scale replicas of real-life turbofan engines.

If building your own aircraft isn't your thing, though, the game also links to an extensive online repository of models built by other players, which you can simply download and fly.

Where flying is concerned, Simple Planes doesn't have much to offer. There's a five-part tutorial, which will walk you through the game's elements; 20 races (the locations of which you first have to discover by flying around the world map); nine combat missions (like dogfighting or destroying a bridge); seven challenges, which pit you against a particular scenario like dodging x-amount of missiles or constructing a car that can exceed a land speed record; and Just Flying Around.

It doesn't make for an extensive experience, but – given that the main draw of the game is building things and seeing if they'll work – is, in my opinion, sufficient. Having objectives is all fine and well, but there's nothing better than coming up with a wacky idea and seeing how much of it you can keep intact while ensuring it will actually fly.

If you like building things, solving problems, aircraft, or flight sims, Simple Planes delivers a lot in a small package (only 825 Mb!) that's not resource intensive and will keep you engaged for as long as your imagination lasts.

As for that old idiom — when do pigs fly?

Nowadays? It's whenever we feel like it.

Pig Recommends:

• -even if (like me) you prefer your own designs to somebody else's, do check out SP's Download Planes option at least once: there's a lot of talented folks out there who build aircraft models far beyond what you'd think little-old Simple Planes would be capable of; fancy trying a Flying Flapjack? that one Dornier Drury W. Wood flew backwards? a SNCASO SO.8000 Narval, perhaps? odds are good somebody already put one together;