Warplanes: WWI Fighters is an immersive WWI aerial combat app that allows you to experience what it would be like to be a pilot during the Great War. The fully-customizable VR experience initially launched on App Lab, and starting today, will now be available on the
Oculus Quest Platform.
Prior to launching on the Oculus Store, Home Net Games participated in
Oculus Start, a program created for developers who have either launched or are close to releasing a VR application. Oculus Start provides qualifying developers with access to hardware, developer support, a community of like-minded VR developers as well as software-related savings so you can focus on what's really important—creating inspired VR applications.
We spoke with developer Łukasz Malik, of
Home Net Games, about his studio and the development of
Warplanes: WWI Fighters.
Could you tell us about the inspiration for your title and what inspired you to create Warplanes: WWI Fighters?
We have some flight games for mobile devices in our portfolio. Instantly after discovering Quest 2, our lead designer Mirek thought how cool it would be to bring our WW1 game into VR. The setting is perfect – you are flying in those peculiar wooden boxes covered with canvas, just slightly a decade after the Wright brothers introduced the first working planes.
With Warplanes: WW1 Fighters, our goal wasn’t to create a hardcore simulator, but rather something really fun, though not too twisted and unrealistic. Utilizing all the features of VR, especially the precise motion controllers, was our top priority.

Were there any important themes or messages you wanted to get across in your game?
We are a group of old school gamers. We follow one principle: our titles are supposed to bring joy and relaxation after a hard day at school or work.
The First World War is a huge conflict on an unprecedented scale, we don’t want to trivialize it, but we also didn’t want to make a dark game that replaces the history books. It's a game about being a pilot, being a pioneer in aviation and capturing the essence of just that.
Could you tell us a bit about the core gameplay?
We built the core gameplay on airplanes designed in that time period and we decided to play with it. Thanks to the open cockpit, we were able to implement a lot of interesting ideas. You can shoot down another plane by using the flare gun in your cockpit. You drop bombs by taking them into your hand and throwing them. You can hit the rifle with your fist to reload it faster. Not all of these solutions are realistic, but in this aspect we wanted pure entertainment.
At some point in the early access version, we introduced different modes that affect flight physics and provided different experiences – you can fly casually and utilize auto-aim in Leisure mode, or be concerned about any hit that could affect the handling of the plane in Simulation mode. We are proud of this gameplay variety, and it wouldn’t have been introduced if not for the requests of our great community during the early access phase.

What was your Oculus Start experience like and how has your involvement made an impact on your studio?
Creating a full blown VR game was on our mind for a long time, though we were waiting for proper hardware and install base. Mirek, our lead game designer, purchased an Oculus Quest 2 around Christmas and he was instantly blown away. Just a few days later he created a Warplanes prototype, we knew this was the device we’ve been waiting for.
At the time we didn’t know much about Oculus’ policy regarding entering the store, and our pitch wasn’t the best to be honest. We were not accepted into the store initially. Alternatively, we were invited to the Oculus Start program. We decided to seize this opportunity because we believed in our game. Being accepted into the program was another step for us, we knew we were heading in a good direction. Instead of hitting a wall, we were offered another way in.
Did you run into any major technical challenges? If so, how did you overcome those challenges?
We have been working on mobile games for quite a few years. Some of our programmers and graphic designers have over 20 years of experience – this helped us a lot. We attach great importance to the optimization of models and textures. We created low-level shaders ourselves, we have our own system for generating terrain, etc.
Many novice developers take shortcuts by creating PBR textures according to the standard pipeline for PC and stationary consoles. In the case of standalone devices like Quest, we have to anticipate limited computing power. A skilled graphic artist is able to achieve wonders with a simple color map and a bump map. We only utilized the more sophisticated PBR textures in a few places, and we wrote our own efficient shaders for each of them as well.
Creating our own shaders gives us more control over GPU computation. The essence of any shader is to keep a minimum number of instructions while maximizing visual effects. Thanks to our method of packing textures into one and utilizing its separate channels to store information from multiple textures saves a lot of resources and reduces sampling time. An additional solution is to use vertex colors as an alternative shading, which is sufficient for background objects.
We take care to limit redundant information, thus limiting excessive readings from memory.
Another issue is the preparation of optimal data, although a simple example is noteworthy – replace division with multiplication. Of course it is not always feasible. One of our examples is the fog calculation – there is a global parameter for visibility in meters. The shader takes this parameter and divides the current distance by the visibility. This process has been micro-optimized, so the global parameter has become the inverse of visibility, so the shader could already do the multiplication. If we sometimes find many such cases, we can save a few GPU cycles, thanks to which we gain valuable time for the needs of higher resolution.

What was the main inspiration for the art direction in Warplanes: WWI Fighters?
We knew from the very beginning that the realistic setting would increase the immersion and the gameplay experience. It will make us feel more like a pilot from that period in history.
We didn’t use any film as a reference at all, we didn't want to involuntarily copy the art style. It seemed natural to utilize the grim, low saturation filter that we often see in movies, showing the dreadfulness of this conflict, but we wanted to avoid that.
The action of our game takes place in the skies, in various parts of the world, at different times of the year and day. The world from the above was multicolored then, as it is now – the forests were green, the farmers were growing crops and the snow was white, we wanted to avoid the shortcuts that filmmakers often use.

What was the most important learning(s) or most interesting take-aways from players who playtested the game?
Warplanes: WW1 Fighters would not have its present state without our great community. We would like to remind you that at the time of the debut of the early access version, the Oculus App Lab was not yet available, so we owe everything to the SideQuest community – to whom we would like to thank warmly. When App Lab came out and Warplanes debuted there, players kept coming up with new ideas.
I think the biggest feature we’ve introduced thanks to the players is the diversified flight models and realistic physics. At the time of the game’s debut, we only planned an arcade flight model, but the players wanted more.
We consulted the pilot, then we started implementing the forces acting on the plane. The knowledge of physics by our designer was invaluable here.
Also, without our great community, we wouldn't have multiplayer and many other great features.
Did you plan a marketing and promotions strategy for your app before, during or only when you were close to publishing? What advice would you give other developers regarding brand awareness and app promotion?
We believe in organic growth and word-of-mouth marketing. Community is crucial for building brand awareness – so we have tried to do just that since the initial release of the early access version in January, 2021. Of course, the community must have a forum and a place to express themselves from the very beginning. For us it was SideQuest, now it’s mostly Discord. Of course, also YouTubers who specialize in VR have also contributed to making our game more popular.
What advice would you give to a developer looking to start building for VR?
If you want to invest time and money in VR, the only right way is standalone VR. Of course, with the Oculus Air Link, we can provide high quality without a cable, as having a powerful rig is often an insurmountable barrier for most consumers. You can achieve great graphics for devices like Oculus Quest, just focus on optimization.... And don't make another zombie game [Laugh].
Don’t surrender if your pitch gets rejected. A good game will always find a way to reach the surface.
What lessons did you learn while porting your game to Quest? Any best practices you can share with other developers?
This is very general advice, not just about working on Quest. Try to get out of the prototype phase as soon as possible, do not work on white boxes. When you have a vertical slice, you will believe that you are working on something tangible, you will also see where the performance issues are. Raw prototype gameplay doesn’t give you the full experience of what the game has to offer.
We know this can be difficult to handle in large companies, but App Lab gives you an amazing opportunity to interact with players and collect feedback from them. If possible, release an early version on App Lab, and then listen to the community. You are making games for them, not yourself.