Taking a Closer Look During Steam Couch CO-OP Fest 2025
Back in Steam Planes, Trains and Automobiles Fest 2024 I briefly interacted with a demo for Mirage: A Biplane Adventure by Blitzwood. At the end of the section I wrote about Mirage I had mentioned that I was curious about whether or not the demo represented the full game. Admittedly, with digest style articles like those that cover multiple games in a single piece, you definitely cannot spend as much time with a game to give it a more detailed look.
Unexpectedly, we recently were contacted by the developer of Mirage to try the full game out during the ongoing Steam Couch CO-OP Fest, running between February 10th through 17th, 2025. I'd like to thank Blitzwood for reaching out and offering this opportunity to us.
World Setting
I mentioned previously that the world of Mirage: A Biplane Adventure was one that gave me the feeling I wanted to explore and understand what exactly is going on. For a genre where the focus is traditionally aircraft doing cool things under the player's control, having decent worldbuilding and/or an unusual story also exists is enticing. This is going to sound odd, but it is a very specific feeling I have had with a few other flight games. Games like Sky Odyssey, The Brew Barons, Sky Gunner and even Aviassembly come to mind.
The world of Mirage has been invaded by unknown robotic entities. They can be found in towns and around strategic locations in the form of static, land based anti-aircraft units and small, high speed blimps with turrets able to fire in any direction. The player is a first-of-its-kind biological-mechanical drone created to fight the robots at the direction of its creator.
Using an in-game compass to navigate to story driven objectives, backed by radio communication with in-game characters, players fly to new towns, crisscross the continent finding unusual landmarks. These landmarks include monuments, towns, ports, challenging terrain and portals that players fly through, transporting them to mini-game levels that are still story related, but are based on time attack or score attack game modes.
As progress is made more of the story unfolds. Overall the tone of the game is one of mystery. To be transparent, I have not completed the full story of Mirage as I chose to discuss more of the gameplay aspect of it.
Fully CO-OP
If the inclusion of this game in the Steam Couch CO-OP Fest is not enough of a give away, Mirage joins the ranks of relatively few modern flight games that are full game co-op. Fellow Skyward Flight Media staff member T.J. "Millie" Archer and I tested this functionality over the course of a Sunday afternoon, sitting side by side in true Couch Co-Op fashion.
While Player One is in game they can activate the second player, Player Two, by pressing P or Back on the keyboard. Player Two is free to fly anywhere on the map with no distance restriction from Player One. During testing T.J. and I operated separately looking for landmarks we were on opposite sides of the world map. Resources like currency, ammunition and fuel are not shared between both players. Both players will need to manage their resources independently.
Of the few things that are shared is save points/waypoints set by making progress in the game or flying through the resupply Rings. In the event player two crashes or is shot down in combat, they respawn near the last ring Player One utilized. While in mini-games based on time attack and score attack, the death of Player One can cause a restart of the mini-game for both players, whereas the death of Player Two occasionally respawns them completely outside of the play area.
In our experience the best use of having a second player was coordinating attacks against the robotic invaders in the land of Mirage. Using basic World War II era flak suppression tactics with Player One evasively flying through areas full of known hostiles, drawing their fire while Player Two flies in seconds later, destroying the distracted enemies. The level of difficulty in combat is noticeably lower when two players are active just because of this.
T.J. would argue that the most entertaining part of the co-op experience would be that friendly fire is on. Players can shoot at one another or ram into each other. The occasional random betrayal or aggressive bump in a time attack can bring out hilarious interactions between each other.
The Learning Curve
T.J. and I initially struggled to adapting to the gameplay style of Mirage. Partially because we jumped straight into it concentrating on immediately accessing the flight and action, as the developer intended. After a brief reset and taking time to adjust all controls and remap buttons to something more familiar to ourselves - a feature added to the game just back in November 2024 - we found ourselves getting better at the fast paced gameplay.
Highspeed Gameplay
Something that I can now confirm is a core part of this arcade flight game is high speed. In every moment. While the aircraft players control is capable of hovering in mid-air, even while it is hovering it consumes its Coal Fuel at quite a high rate. An entire fuel tank is expended in roughly 60 seconds.
The pressure of needing to refuel once a minute is considerable. This is somewhat offset by picking up in-game currency floating around the map at random locations. Picking up these orange glowing coins does give a slight increase in fuel capacity, but the coins do not reliably reappear at a rate that would replace the need to always know where the nearest resupply ring is and be ready to fly there within 30 to 40 seconds.
This makes even a few moments of non-combat feel as though you are wasting time by not being purely fixated on flying straight from objective to objective.
On one hand I wish the fuel consumption rate was a bit slower to allow players some more time to strategize and fly around the map, but I can respect the concept of mind high speed, skill based gameplay where so much happens in 60 seconds you are constantly mentally engaged with what is happening in the game.
An important part of this highspeed gameplay style is to accept is that the player(s) will most likely crash, run out of fuel or be destroyed frequently when they are new to the game. Very similar to rouge-like games, in a sense. While there is technically a punishment for this, it is a relatively small punishment. If you are someone that takes seeming to "lose" rather hard, I would keep in mind that the setbacks that come with it are quite small. Instead, focus on simply getting experienced with things and you'll notice that the amount of times you go down decreases quickly.
Mini-Games
It should be noted that the mandatory mini-games could be a point of contention. It certainly was for my dearest wingman T.J. As mentioned in the sections Fully CO-OP and Highspeed Gameplay, when Player One dies it causes Player Two to restart. With limited fuel and short timers, these mini-games require immense speed and precision to clear. We failed almost a dozen times each before we got it right, to be honest. With these mini-games being requirements, they are not impossible to complete but do expect to dedicate more time than expected to these.
Example of portals to story related mini-games.
Flight, Combat
The flight model is decidedly flight arcade. With Mirage not allowing for full pitch control above 80 degrees nose up or down and rudder and yaw controls coupled together, adjusting Turn Speed to its near maximum greatly enhances the players ability to survive in combat and increase their chances to complete score attack and time attack mini-games. There is very little in the way of physics halting players from zoom climbing and speeding away from danger while also being able to snap turn through tight valleys or abstractly designed tunnels running up the sides of mountains.
The aircraft is able to absorb three glancing blows or minor terrain impacts, but cannot take even a few seconds of sustained direct fire from enemy forces. Because of this high speed and high maneuverability to avoid taking damage is more important than anything. Both the player and enemy forces use types of rapid fire cannons that explode with anti-aircraft flak cannon style ammunition. This limited amount of splash damage can be utilized by players to hit small groups of enemies in a single pass.
I'd say the general rule of thumb is to focus on slashing attacks or Boom and Zoom tactics. Whether they are air targets or land targets, avoiding getting into low speed turning battles and focusing on eliminating the enemy one or two units at a time while flying at maximum speed.
Though, the player's cannon has a range that reaches farther than the hostile robots can return fire. Using patience and being willing to burn quite a bit a fuel, it is possible to fly high above land forces and hover outside of their range firing down on them, destroying them outside of their counterattack range. Time consuming, but an effective alternative.
Closing Thoughts
Even after the afternoon co-op session with T.J., I have continued playing Mirage: A Biplane Adventure between assignments for Skyward Flight Media. I genuinely am curious about what the full story of Mirage is. Now that I have adjusted to the gameplay style I am more wiling to to pursue this game to its end. I'll be sure to report back.
Connect with 'Mirage: A Biplane Adventure'
About the Writer
Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile.
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