Support the dev
Headwinds is free, there is nothing to buy to play it properly, and that is not going to change. If you want to put something back toward the servers, this is where.
♥ Support on Ko-fiWhere it goes
Headwinds and its single-player original, Tailwinds, are built and paid for by one person. The costs are the boring kind: the API and worker that run the worlds, the database holding every airline in them, domains, and the map tiles under the route map.
The unusual part of this game is the expensive part. A Headwinds world advances a simulated week every hour or two, around the clock, for about seven real months — recomputing demand, fares and market share for every route flown by every airline in it, whether or not a single player is logged in. That clock is the whole point of the game and it is also the bill.
There are ads, and they cover a slice of it. Chipping in covers more.
What you get
A ♥ SUPPORTER badge
It sits next to your airline name everywhere it appears — standings, the rivals list, the news feed, direct messages, your player profile — in every world you fly, permanently. It works the same way as the ✈ OG veteran badge: it lives on your account rather than in your airline's name, so it survives renames and restarts, and nobody can fake one by typing it (airline names containing bracketed look-alikes are rejected).
Nothing else — on purpose
No starting cash, no cheaper aircraft, no gate priority, no extra restarts, no faster weeks, no extra worlds. The ads do not come off either — they stay on for everyone, supporters included, because they are part of what pays for this. Every rival in Headwinds is a real person, and a league table where position can be bought is not worth climbing. The badge is the entire list, and the flag behind it is not readable by the simulation at all.
How the badge reaches you
It is granted by hand, which means it is not instant. Ko-fi emails each donation through with whatever name and message you left, so put your Headwinds username in the Ko-fi message — that is the only reliable way to match a donation to an account, since the email on your Ko-fi is usually not the one behind your sign-in. It normally goes on within a day or so. If a couple of days pass and nothing has appeared, nudge me in Discord or on the contact form and I will sort it out.
Other ways to help, all free
- Bring someone into a world. Headwinds is more fun the fuller it is, and word of mouth is how nearly everyone arrives.
- Report bugs with enough detail to reproduce them, in Discord or on the contact form.
- Argue with the balance. A lot of what is in the game started as a player saying a number felt wrong.
- Play fair and report the players who do not — see the fair play rules. Moderation time is the other scarce resource here.
- Leave the ads on. That is a real contribution and it costs nothing.
The small print
Ko-fi handles the payment; it takes cards and PayPal, and you can give once or monthly and cancel a monthly tip yourself at any time. A tip is a tip, not a subscription to a service — the game is not gated behind it and nothing you can do today stops working if you never give. The badge is a thank-you rather than a product, and it can be removed if a donation is reversed. No refunds are promised, but if something goes wrong, say so and it will get sorted out.
♥ Support on Ko-fi