Cleared to Land is a 1950s-styled air traffic game for iOS. Players guide planes, helicopters and specialty aircraft to the right landing zones, time their approaches and keep a busy pattern moving without a collision. We designed it, drew the art, built the game loop and shipped it to the App Store, with an Android version in progress.
What it is
Cleared to Land is a landing game. Planes, helicopters and specialty aircraft arrive at an airfield and each one needs to get down safely. You decide who lands when, hold the traffic that would otherwise collide, and keep your score climbing. We gave it a 1950s flight-control look, warm skies and painted airfields, with a soundtrack to match: the menus play satirical period radio ads for the game's fictional airline, and the gameplay runs on smooth jazz. A landing game does not have to look or sound like every other game on the store.
How it plays
Every airfield feeds aircraft into the airspace, and each type wants a particular landing zone. You route them in, time the approaches, hold traffic when the runway is busy, and keep the pattern moving. Land cleanly and you score; let two paths cross and the run ends. New airfields bring their own layouts and hazards, and the daily challenge hands every player the same board to chase on the same day.
How we built it
It is a native iOS build, done in-house: the game loop, the spawn logic, the scoring, the daily run that is identical for everyone on a given date, the achievements and the First Class Pass purchase. We drew the art and laid out the interface to hold the period look across the menus, airfields and aircraft, then took the whole thing through App Store review. Android is next.
Can Rangefront build something like this for me?
Yes. Cleared to Land is a native mobile build with a custom game loop: real-time input, spawn and collision logic, a scoring system, achievement tracking, a daily challenge seeded so it is identical for every player on a given date, in-app purchases through the platform store, and the build and release work to get it approved and listed. The same stack covers consumer apps and internal tools, on iOS now and Android next.
Build notes
- Drag each aircraft to the landing zone it needs, hold the ones that would collide, and keep landing planes to score. The board has to stay readable as it fills up, which is most of the design work.
- Planes, helicopters and specialty aircraft, each with different landing rules and speed, so the airspace gets harder to manage as the mix changes.
- Hand-painted airfields, each with its own layout and hazards, opened up as you play.
- A daily challenge that runs the same airfield and the same spawn order for every player on a given date, so two scores from the same day are actually comparable.
- Achievements, a personal best to beat, and an optional First Class Pass upgrade.
- An original soundtrack that carries the period: the menus play satirical 1950s radio ads for the game's fictional airline, and gameplay runs on smooth jazz.
- Designed, drawn, coded and shipped to the App Store in-house, with an Android version on the way.
