OWL FLY II | DOS games in browser

OWL FLY II is a multiplayer combat flight simulator written in pure 8086 assembly: 105 KB of code and about 30,000 commented lines. It runs right in your browser in DOSBox via js-dos, and multiplayer works over IPX tunneled through WebSocket.

Before you fly: click the game screen first so it grabs the keyboard, and keep the window visible. A hidden tab freezes your jet.

What is this

Two squadrons fight a war of attrition over a procedural island built from a two-byte seed. Joining a sky is instant: every sky advertises its seed, and your machine builds the same island, city and clouds.

You fly an F-15 with a real instrument panel, a radar that has to transmit to see, flak that shoots at what you tell it to, and an aeroplane that does not refill itself. You have 4 missiles, 250 rounds and 11 minutes of fuel. The sortie ends when one of them does.

Getting into the fight

There is no menu and only one sky. The game listens to the network for a couple of seconds and joins the sky it hears. If it hears nothing, it creates a new sky itself.

You arrive as a spectator with an orbit camera on somebody else's jet:

Space - next jet (switches automatically after 15 seconds)
Arrows - swing the camera, Z / X - zoom
Enter - take a jet. You start stopped on your own runway, so the first thing you do is take off.

Takeoff

Every sortie (and every life after a death) starts on your own concrete: fuelled, flaps set, gear down, engine running, brakes on.

B - release the brakes
W (or Shift+W) - throttle up
A - light the afterburner. You will not get airborne without it.
Hold the stick back (Down arrow) and the jet rotates and flies. Steer on the ground with the arrows.
Once climbing, clean up with L (gear) and F (flaps).

Controls

Left / Right - bank, full 360 degree roll (numpad 4 / 6)
Up / Down - nose down / nose up (numpad 8 / 2)
1 / 3 - rudder, flat turn for runway lineup and gun runs (numpad 7 / 9)
W / S - throttle up / down (numpad + / -)
Shift+W / Shift+S - slam throttle to full military / idle
A - afterburner: 4x thrust, 8x fuel, about 80 seconds if left lit
F / L / B - flaps / landing gear / airbrake
Enter - lock the target inside the aiming ring (on empty sky drops the lock)
Space (hold) - cannon, real tracers with time of flight, lead your target
Backspace - missile, homes on the lock or flies straight without one
Z / X - radar zoom (also camera distance in F4 view)
M - centre screen page: MAP, SIT, TGT
G / U - broadcast your lock to ground / air net
I - IFF transponder
R - radar emissions on / off
F2 - cockpit on / off, F3 - chase view, F4 - orbit locked target, F5 - missile camera
F6 / F7 or Ctrl+Left / Right - look left / right
N - day / night
V - sound: everything, effects only, silence
Space after GAME OVER - fresh jet
Alt+Q - quit to DOS (ESC does nothing on purpose)

Hands off the stick and the jet levels itself.

On a phone

Turn the phone sideways. The stick is bottom left, and nine buttons on the right: THR+, ENTER, BURN, THR-, MSL, SPACE, RUD<, RUD>. SPACE is the cannon and ENTER is the lock. One-press functions (gear, flaps, airbrake, radios, transponder, cameras) are on the keyboard button in the side menu: GEAR, FLAP, IFF, CPIT.

The cockpit

Radar (left screen) - heading-up scope. Green is ours, red is theirs, white pip with a letter is a real pilot. A tick above or below a blip means higher or lower.
Centre screen (M) - MAP of the island, SIT close-in scope, TGT locked target with callsign, type, range and altitude.
Stores - GUN rounds, MSL rails, DAM damage, FUEL minutes. Nothing reloads in the air.
Warnings - STALL, FUEL, TERR, FIRE and LOCK (somebody has you locked).
Gauges - SPD speed, ALT altitude, NAV heading, climb rate.

How to fight

Find him on the radar. Look for him with F6 / F7.
Point at him: put him in the aiming ring and press Enter.
Kill him: short bursts, aim ahead. Missiles need a lock and the target in front of you. A jet takes 5 hits, and so do you.
Do not get killed: watch the LOCK lamp. There is no chaff or flares yet, so unload, nose down and put a hill between you and the threat.
The ground fights too: two radar stations and twenty flak vehicles. With the ground net (G) up, your flak shoots what you locked. With the transponder (I) down, your own flak shoots you.
Stealth costs your eyes: R stops your radar. You vanish from enemy scopes, but your screen goes to snow. Destroying the enemy radar station does the same to them.

Aerodromes and the war

There are four airstrips, two for each side, with hangars and a control tower. Landing on your own field gives back fuel and missiles. The enemy field gives nothing, but you can land and work the place over.

Buildings fall and stay ruins. A jet coming apart over the city takes part of the city with it. Ramming works. Once.