Fly By retro biplane game
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 6 arcade games
Fun retro biplane game with scan-line visuals and enjoyable flight dynamics that recall old arcade games. Critics note the plane feels slow and its turns too tight.
Fun retro biplane game with scan-line visuals and enjoyable flight dynamics that recall old arcade games. Critics note the plane feels slow and its turns too tight.
29 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 22
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 76%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 22 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Retro scan-line visuals
“I had a lot of fun, the scan line effect looks really good and the obstacles are interesting and challenging.”
Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Fly By – retro biplane flying game” “The scan lines are a great touch. It makes it feel truly retro”
Comment from 1 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Fly By – retro biplane flying game” Fun flight dynamics
“that is a lot of commitment to the flight model. respect.”
Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Fly By – retro biplane flying game” “Love the flight dynamics, super fun game!!”
Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Fly By – retro biplane flying game” Fun and enjoyable to play
“I created this to scratch an itch of an old game I enjoyed in the past. And I enjoy playing this one.”
Comment from 7 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Fly By – retro biplane flying game” “Love the flight dynamics, super fun game!!”
Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Fly By – retro biplane flying game” “Overall great game and enjoyable.”
Comment from 5 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Fly By – retro biplane flying game” Nostalgia for old arcade games
“this made me smile as it reminded me of hours spent trying to perfect Barnstorming”
Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Fly By – retro biplane flying game” “I like it, reminds me of the old arcade games.”
Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Fly By – retro biplane flying game”
Other arcade games people recommend
The four most recommended other arcade games, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fly By retro biplane gameThis page | 22 | 7 | 76% | 4 | — | Approved |
| Sopwith | 18 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| Pac-Man | 9 | 2 | 82% | 5 | — | — |
| Atari Tempest arcade game | 8 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
| Pac-Man, but You're the Ghost | 5 | 10 | 33% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
24 of the 30 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“a cheap simple WebSockets relay hosted on Fly”
“I created this to scratch an itch of an old game I enjoyed in the past. And I enjoy playing this one.”
“Concept and visual look is great!”
“that is a lot of commitment to the flight model. respect.”
“some of the text in the UI is too small, old games just had 1 font.”
“Love the flight dynamics, super fun game!!”
“I had a lot of fun, the scan line effect looks really good and the obstacles are interesting and challenging.”
“there should be a penalty for flying upside down and backwards”
“faux-retro things with mixels, inconsistent graphics styles”
“the up/down controls felt a bit counterintuitive to me”
“I like it, reminds me of the old arcade games.”
“it seems like in this case, neither happens.”
“it just really lacks the feel of how even a mildly solid and entertaining game feels”
“this made me smile as it reminded me of hours spent trying to perfect Barnstorming”
“it autofires which still isn't fun”
“It's a fun little game; no need to be so smugly dismissive.”
“The plane is too slow and its turn radius is too tight”
“Overall great game and enjoyable.”
“AI now delivers in less than a day, ready to ship”
“The scan lines are a great touch. It makes it feel truly retro”
“I don't know any SaaS provider (except fly, of course) that supports such fine-grained tokens”
“Fly and others offer varying degrees of easier-than-AWS hosting, but nobody offers true PaaS like Heroku”
“significant unreliability and just some very strange network load balancer issues that would cause us downtime”
“the UI has essentially all the features of Fly or Render”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.