Target User Audience

Considering that Air: Force is a combat flight simulator, I obviously don't want kids who are a little too young and impressionable to be playing it. I also want it to be popular with the type of person who would play such a game, and is on ROBLOX. In this post I'll briefly analyse what needs to be considered to make the game popular with the right audience.

As for those too young/impressionable to play, ROBLOX has a 13+ system that allows you to check if a player is over the age of 13. They use this so that kids can't buy gear guns on the site. This also means I can check to see if they're old enough to play. This limits the amount of people who can play the game, but it means that the game is more appropriate and I can do more with it on an age-basis. Of course, it's easy to lie to a computer about being born in a different year (just take a look at all the 10 year olds on facebook) but not everyone will do it. I hope.

ROBLOX also lets you detect the account age of a player. This is the age (in days) of the account. Therefore I can discriminate against accounts that have only been active for a very short period of time, so that only users who have gotten to know how ROBLOX works and can fully appreciate the game (or have the attention span of someone mature enough for the game) can play it.

Now, in order to make the game popular with other combat flight simulator enthusiasts one must consider their interests whilst staying true to the game's form. More than one aircraft would, of course, be paramount. Customisation is also fairly sought-after (just take a look at the emblem creator on Black Ops 2), as it allows the user more creative control over their game. For that reason, i will probably create my own Squadron Logo customisation widget within the game.

A user of combat flight simulators is probably between the ages of 15 and 25, so references to appropriate things would probably be a good thing. A more high-tech stylization of UI would probably also be called for. Broad functionality, with limitations or explanations so that the user isn't overwhelmed by the freedom of the game is also a good idea.

One must also consider that something too complicated would put some players off. Therefore, the amount of buttons you need to press to achieve core aspects of gameplay (i.e, firing missiles, speeding up, etc) should be limited to a single key press for faster and more intense gameplay whilst cutting out confusing controls. A controls customisation screen would therefore be a good idea too, so that players can set up their own preferred keys for actions. A default setting in-case of accidental changes should also be present and available for use.

Conclusively, the game should be aimed at 15-25 year-olds with experience on ROBLOX and include features to block people who are too young and captivate those who aren't.