Draft:Learn to Fly (game)

Learn to Fly
The home screen
Developer(s)	Light Bringer
Release	May 16, 2009
Genre(s)	Casual

Learn to Fly is a 2009 Flash game created by Light Bringer, and is the first in the Learn to Fly series.

Plot

The game starts with a skippable cutscene, where a penguin is seen searching for an article on emperor penguins on a parody version of Wikipedia, using a computer, "somewhere in Antarctica". The penguin sees that emperor penguins are called flightless and storms out of the house, enraged.

Gameplay

The goal of the game is to get as far as you can away from a snow ramp the penguin slides on to gain speed. The first ramp you get is 5ft tall, which you can replace for taller ones if you unlock enough achievements. The game counts every attempt as a day, starting with day one. You can adjust your angle using left and right arrow keys, as explained in a guide before the game starts.

For every attempt you get a certain amount of research points (sometimes denoted with a dollar sign), based on several aspects, which are:

• Flight Distance
• Max Altitude
• Flight Duration (multiplier)

You can spend research points on either ramp height, acceleration, air resistance, or on gliders and rockets (including rocket fuel).

Excerpt from the game's guide on gliders:

"Gliding allows you to make longer and more controlled flights - Each glider has a "redzone", a speed above which your speed drops fast. Avoid gliding for long moments in the redzone to get the extra speed you need!"

Glider Upgrades

Glider notes	Cost	Max speed	Redzone
"Old beat-up glider, can it really fly?"	$50	~55mph	55mph
"Your everyday, typical hang slider"	$1000	100mph	90mph
"High tech sail plane enables incredible glide ratio"	$5000	225mph	200mph

The second glider has a light indicator which shows you when you reach "cricitcal velocity", and the third shows you your speed on a digital display (keeping the analog dash as well), your air resistance in percentages and your distance from the snow ramp.

Rocket Upgrades

Rocket notes	Cost
"Rocket propelled penguin Period."	$250
"Twice the power of your regular penguin rocket"	$2000
"Now that's just plain dangerous...."	$10000

Unlocking new snow ramps requires a specific amounts of achievements to be unlocked.

Ramp height	Achievements	Cash rewards for each achievement	Number of required completed achievements to unlock
5'	Travel 40 feet Fly up to 10 feet Reach 45 mph Glide for 5 seconds	25$	0
10'	Travel 200 feet Fly up to 25 feet Reach 70 mph Glide for 8 seconds	100$	2
20'	Travel 650 feet Fly up to 45 feet Reach 100 mph Glide for 15 seconds	500$	6
35'	Travel 1500 feet Fly up to 100 feet Reach 150 mph Glide for 25 seconds	2000$	10
50'	Travel 4000 feet Fly up to 225 feet Reach 225 mph Glide for 35 seconds Reach 6000 feet	1-4: 5000$	16

After reaching 6000 feet, a cutscene plays with the following text beforehand:

"I did it... I can fly..."

Following this text the penguin is seen crashing into a ice wall, with its glider destroyed, and a crack in the wall.

Reception

Learn to Fly garnered an average of 4.36/5.00 stars on kongregate, with over 12 million plays as of July 2024.

See also

Adobe Flash