flightty

A physics-based FPV drone simulator that runs in the terminal. Written in Rust.

Features

• Physics simulation: quaternion-based orientation, Betaflight-style rate curves, quadratic air drag
• Two render modes: HalfBlock (unicode characters, works everywhere) and Kitty Graphics Protocol (real pixels, double-buffered)
• Auto-detection: automatically selects Kitty graphics when running in a supported terminal (Kitty, WezTerm, Ghostty)
• Radio controller support: plug in a RadioMaster TX16S/TX15 or any USB gamepad (PS5, Xbox) via gilrs
• Per-controller axis profiles: axis mappings saved per controller name, auto-loaded on connect
• Keyboard controls: smoothed analog-style input from binary keys
• Procedural courses: randomly generated each time you play, with gates, pillars, walls, ramps, and obstacle clusters
• Collision detection: AABB-based obstacle collision with bounce/crash (gates are fly-through)
• Bitmap HUD: throttle, altitude, speed, flight timer, and render mode rendered as pixels into the framebuffer
• Sky gradient and fog: horizon-to-zenith sky gradient with distance-based fog
• Music: embedded MP3 soundtrack with mute toggle
• Near-plane clipping: Sutherland-Hodgman triangle clipping for close-up rendering
• Frustum culling: bounding sphere culling skips off-screen meshes
• Menu system: play, music toggle, axis mapping, and quit

Controls

Keyboard

Key	Action
W / S	Throttle up / down
A / D	Yaw left / right
I / K	Pitch forward / back
J / L	Roll left / right
R	Reset after crash
Tab	Toggle render mode
Esc	Back to menu

Radio Controller / Gamepad

Plug in via USB. Default Mode 2 mapping:

• Left stick Y = throttle, X = yaw
• Right stick Y = pitch, X = roll

Axes can be remapped and inverted via the Axis Mapping screen in the menu. Mappings are saved per controller.

Build & Run

cargo run --release

Render Modes

HalfBlock uses ▀ characters with foreground/background colors. Works in any terminal with truecolor support.

Kitty Graphics Protocol sends real pixel data to the terminal. Double-buffered for flicker-free rendering. Auto-selected when running in Kitty, WezTerm, or Ghostty. Reduce your terminal font size for higher resolution.

Music

Music crafted specifically for this game.

Dependencies

• ratatui + crossterm for terminal UI
• nalgebra for linear algebra, quaternions, projections
• gilrs for gamepad/joystick input
• rodio for audio playback
• base64 for Kitty graphics protocol encoding
• rand for procedural course generation