The (demo) was sitting in my backlog for a while now. Last time I tried I was not able to really start but most of the menu navigation issues with joysticks are fixed now. In fact it accepted any joystick I threw at it.

Bindings menu listing a lot of connected input devices and offers remapping and calibration for each

It also supports ultra wide screen, runs smooth af and just works™ with Proton. There is really not much else I can ask of a space pew pew [indie]game in 2025. Well mayhap OpenTrack UDP support but let’s not nitpick 😀

Display menu with various ingame features like resolution, FPS lock and counter

Can’t say much about the story, since the demo doesn’t feature much of any. I got to see some neat features, like landing on a carrier, which required approaching through a virtual corridor until the carrier snagged me in. There’s also a path to follow during a jump adding a mini game to this procedure as well.

Some sort of fast travel, which is very colourful, requiring the pilot to stay within a specific path.

It also offers the genre typical shield and energy management, boosting and drifting, targeting of subsystems or missiles and counter measures so or players should feel right at home. This goes to my wishlist 🤓

Played (closed) Alpha with my inspired . I’m simply in awe that I can replay missions from (or ) with more modern graphics and modern interface devices again. I spent _so many_ hours playing these games as a kid.

This is the heavily cut VOD of the live stream over at @bekopharm@live.famkos.net (pick your poison):

https://makertube.net/w/r1LRrqDWnhw4wRk92uNfzo /
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T2jxqT_5sU

This time I play with the native Linux version and my X52 Pro joystick (which means I actually have a chance of hitting stuff too). The following missions were played:

Historical Mission 2 / Wingmen Are Important
Historical Mission 3 / Sattelites Near Coruscant
Historical Mission 4 / Beating The Odds
OP 1: Destroy Imperial Convoy (Uncut)
OP 2: Reconnaissance Mission (Uncut)
OP 3: Fly Point During Evacuation (Uncut)
OP 4: Protect Medical Frigate (Uncut)

XWVM is not an official product from Lucasfilm Ltd. or Disney. It is not endorsed or authorized by either. It is a fan recreation of the game engine used to play X-Wing and TIE Fighter for the sake of accessibility and requires the original game assets to work.

Kudos to the XWVM team, they are doing a stellar job here.

The dedicated project website for the Macross inspired SimPit is https://simpit.dev

Played (closed) Alpha with my ViperPit and with glasses. I’m simply in awe that I can replay missions from (or ) with more modern graphics and modern interface devices again. I spent _so many_ hours playing this as a kid.

This is the heavily cut VOD of the live stream over at https://live.famkos.net (pick your poison):

https://makertube.net/w/hW6cJeqBY42YoryJL1gRg5 /
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8at4P5rf-gE

I go over the input settings and show it’s capabilities to connected various joystick devices, demo the Proofing Grounds and showcase mission 1+2. In the end I go over various settings for the XWVM engine and how the machine hardly sweats displaying the gorgeous cockpit.

XWVM is not an official product from Lucasfilm Ltd. or Disney. It is not endorsed or authorized by either. It is a fan recreation of the game engine used to play X-Wing and TIE Fighter for the sake of accessibility and requires the original game assets to work.

The game was played with Pro XR running in Side-By-Side mode thanks to ReShade on a Linux PC.

Kudos to the XWVM team, they are doing a stellar job here.