Stayed up all night again. I originally just wanted to play for ten minutes before bed, but ended up pushing through half of twenty tasks... I'm here to recommend a really amazing game to those like me who can't sleep at night and don't want to play ranked: Starship Battle.
Let's start with the name, which is really off-putting. When I downloaded it, I thought it was one of those space shooter games, but when I opened it, I found it was an Army helicopter flight simulator, with the main helicopter being a Chinook transport. The description also seemed like machine translation, saying things like 'the sky helps help soldiers in need,' which made me laugh out loud. But once I started playing, it was surprisingly suitable for late nights. There's no intense combat, at least in the first few levels I played—it's all about flying the route, going to mission points, landing, loading cargo, or transporting soldiers, and then flying again. The open-world map isn't very detailed, but at night, with the lights off and headphones on, the rotor noise buzzing actually feels like white noise.
The core gameplay is flying a helicopter to complete twenty missions. The mission points are marked on the map, and you can follow them in order or just fly around randomly. On the phone, controls are via a virtual joystick: the left side controls ascent/descent and forward/backward tilt, the right side controls direction, and the screen also shows throttle, altitude, and other gauges. At first, I always flew the helicopter like a drunken bird, flipping over as soon as I took off, until I realized you can't yank the sticks harshly. When taking off, gradually increase the throttle, gently push forward once the body is slightly off the ground, and when landing, aim for the H mark, maintain a low speed and gentle descent, and don't just slam it down. Once you get used to it, transporting goods in the middle of the night is especially relaxing.
What I like about it is that the pace is slow. There's no stamina countdown, no one urging you in the chat, and no pressure to win against anyone. If you fail, you can just start over. The graphics definitely can't compare to large-scale simulators—the textures are a bit blurry, trees and buildings look like cardboard up close, and the machine-translated text can feel off. But I actually feel that this roughness gives it a bit of an old-school single-player vibe. The downside is that the beginner guide isn't very clear; the first couple of times, I spent a while just figuring out how to land at the mission points. Also, since it's a free game, it might have ads; if you accidentally tap one late at night, your screen can suddenly get very bright, so I'd recommend turning on airplane mode or disabling auto-brightness. Also, don't play with vibration on before bed; if you fail a landing and the phone buzzes, any drowsiness goes away immediately.
Tip: Switch the view to the cockpit or a perspective close to the nose of the aircraft, it makes judging altitude much easier; before landing, circle the target area once to see the open ground and direction; if you just want to relax, you don't have to do missions, you can fly low along the coastline and wait for the day to gradually brighten. The only warning is that this game has the magic of 'just one more mission before bed.' That's exactly what I thought last night, and the next thing I knew, it was already 3:30 a.m. 🌙
In short, if you don't want to play competitive matches in the middle of the night, don't want to watch storylines, and just want to slowly fly a helicopter around at night, you can try this ridiculously named Battle of the Starships game. It's free, runs on around Android 5.0, and playing one or two levels before bed is just right—provided you can really stop at just one or two levels. I'm going to catch up on sleep now, good night, or good morning. 🐱