Early flight sim inspired Thunder Helix takes off into Early Access this month

David Walters has announced on Twitter that his “new helicopter game from 1992,” Thunder Helix, is launching on Steam Early Access on March 21.

I’ve been keeping an eye on Thunder Helix for a while now. It’s a helicopter combat game made in the style of early PC flight sims. The style emulates the fractal landscapes used in pre-polygonal flight games, and goes as far as using a 256 color completely with pixel stippling. Although, the store blurb says it can also run at 16-bit color.

I didn’t play very many of those flight sims. I was a bit too young. I did play Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonstrike, and a friend once brought over A-10 Tank Killer. I can’t believe I remember that game.

Thunder Helix contains all the bells and whistles: multiple helicopters, day and night gameplay, a winch. Everything you could possibly want from helicopter flying. It also supports multiple control schemes, including flight joystick. Unfortunately, I think my Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick is packed up at my parents. I haven’t bought anything more modern.

I’m pretty jazzed. I could technically install a DOS flight sim right now, but whenever I do, I usually just struggle to get the controls working for a while and get tired. Something with a modern backend sounds pretty rad right now.

Thunder Helix will be out on PC via Steam Early Access on March 21.