You can read the original atc(6) manual, but here is a short overview.

To manually advance the game, hit Enter. To restart the game, reload the page.

INFO PANEL

You will see a list of planes on the arena here. Here's how to decode it:

• pl dt  comm
  A7 E1:

  This means: plane 'A' (capital letter = slow plane) is at altitude '7'; its destination is 'E'xit '0'.

• pl dt  comm
  f5*A0: Circle

  Plane 'f' (lowercase = fast) at altitude '5'; the '*' star means it's low on fuel; destination is 'A'irport '0'; it's been given a command to 'Circle'.

• X0 E7: Holding @ A1

  Plane 'X' (slow) at altitude '0'; destination is 'E'xit '7'; it's at 'A'irport '1' waiting for you to let it take off.

RADAR

• Numbers at the borders = exits.
• Numbers with '^', '>', 'v', or '<' next to them = airports. These symbols tell you in which direction to land the plane. To land a plane, make its altitude 0 when it's right above the airport cell.
• Letters with numbers next to them = planes (discussed in the 'Info Panel' section). Planes must be at least 2 cells and 2 altitude levels apart for them to not collide.
• Numbers with '*' next to them are beacons. Line up a plane towards a beacon, and you can delay a command to be executed upon reaching it. (Altitude changing commands are separate and cannot be delayed.)
• The '+' lines are just paths to help you line up the planes.

COMMANDS

Type '?' (help character) to show all tokens (characters) that you can currently input. After typing a token, the corresponding command name will be displayed. Hit Backspace to remove the last token.

Here are a few useful commands:

• pa9

  Set plane 'p' 'a'ltitude to '9' (if 'p' is at an airport, it will take off).

• xt<dir>

  where '<dir>' is one of the direction keys:

  q w e
  a   d
  z x c

  means: 't'urn plane 'x' in the chosen direction.

• pteab0

  Plane 'p': turn to 'e' (north-east) 'a't 'b'eacon '0' (the command is executed when/if the plane reaches the specified beacon).

• fc

  Make plane 'f' fly in a 'c'ircle. Send a 't'urn command for it to stop.

Source code: here

Font: here

Page ASCII art by Joan G. Stark (Spunk): here

One day I stumbled upon this awesome game and decided that I will rewrite it and add some colors. Then I ported it to the web to share it here, using emscripten + xterm-pty, and a custom minimal ncurses rewrite.

This is still in development, here's a list of TODOs that I have:

• 090 zoom in the game (and maybe handle resize)
• 080 add menu: level select, restart game
• 090 implement turn towards & checking if delay beacon is on flight path
• 080 logs, leaderboard
• 080 proper game quitting/interrupting