Holding Pattern

Holding Pattern: Artist's Statement

Aviation has been a passion of mine since I was young. I will not be working in the field but I want to obtain my private pilots license and fly small aircraft. This is why I thought a control tower would be a great place to start for an arcade game.

However I thought just a control tower game was a little bland. There are many out there and it wasn't something that could represent who I am. So I related it to my co-op at ACIS Educational Tours. We send students away on tours so I wanted the game to incorporate that. Each plane in Holding Pattern represents a tour group. Such as "Lincoln HS · 32 students · Rome". You are the control tower ensuring the groups don't collide and reach their destination. Similar to my job at ACIS there are many things that go into sending students away. Some students may not know but many problems occur such as visa issues. When someone is facing visa trouble they are similar to being in a holding pattern. They can't leave and they are running out of time to leave before their trip. My job with sales is to ensure our conversion rate is as high as it can be. Which is represented by your reputation in the game. You want all the planes to make a successful landing. If they don't your reputation drops.

Some things that I believe are good choices are using keyboard commands to direct the planes. By picking out a plane and having it land or slow down you are able to mimic what the control tower does. Having the planes take away reputation from you when they collide instead of ending the game. Similar to my job one mistake won't cost you your job. But too many mistakes will cost you your job. So I thought if your reputation reaches 0 you get fired. Last was having the game be frantic.

Claude slowed down the game when I told him to make the game more playable. Which is what I wanted but it became not frantic. I told Claude I wanted the game to feel frantic and overwhelmed like it was the busiest time of the year for travel. So I believe the game is fast but not unplayably fast.

When I told Claude to slow the game down he also implemented a go around. Meaning if a plane hits the runway and another plane is there they will fly back up and circle. I think this was a good idea because it is what planes do in real life. Since I know about airplanes I knew this was a good rule to have.

Is this my game? I would say yes. I did not program this game and some rules were created by Claude. But Claude did not know if it was fun or not. I played the game and had others play and told Claude what I liked and didn't like. Claude was able to give me those options but it was my decision.

Prompts that helped create my game

"I want you to make me a game that I can play in html that is one page. It should be an arcade style game. Where you are controlling planes at an airport… Each plane should have a name of a tour group… I want the game to feel like you are frantic and overwhelmed from the amount of planes coming in."

"make the game more playable, easier, slower, and explain how to play it"

AI disclosure

I used Claude (chat) to brainstorm the concept. It suggested several directions and control schemes, and I chose the control tower with tour groups, keyboard commands, and the reputation and firing rules. I built the game in Claude Code over about 6–7 rounds of prompts. I had to correct the first version, which was too confusing and difficult. The go-around rule was Claude's suggestion, which I approved. Claude also helped draft this statement from my answers to its questions; the ideas and experiences are mine.