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The CurryKitten FPV Sim is a game/simulation for flying FPV racing-style quadcopters and planes. It's completely free and is designed to run well on as many systems as possible, including lower spec machines - so everybody gets to try out FPV flying.
This Sim runs on Windows, MacOS & Linux. Mac is 64-bit only. There are 32 & 64 bit versions for Windows and Linux
FPV is First Person View. In real life, this involves wearing a pair of video goggles which shows live video from the camera on your quadcopter. In the simulator, your monitor becomes your goggles, and your joystick (or RC radio) your transmitter.
The MacOS application consists of a single .app file that you can simply run (although if you are running MacOS Catalina there are extra steps - see note below) There's no install process, simply remove the .app file to remove the game from your computer.
Apple seems to be attempting to turn a desktop PC into an iPhone with Catalina and actively stops any app dead that it doesn't come from it's own app store. To run on Catalina there are a few hoops to jump through, but can be sorted out quite quickly. Doru Muntean kindly made a video for me that shows the process, you can view it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvFqKVIsHO4
The Windows distribution (on both 32bit and 64bit) will run on Windows 7, 8 or 10 (to be fair, I've not tried it on anything else) and consists of a zipped directory. If you extract the contents of the zip file into a new directory, you can start the sim by double clicking the Quad Sim.exe file. There's no installation process, and the directory can simply be removed if you no longer want the sim on your computer.
The distribution consists of a zip file containing a directory and an executable file called QuadSim-Linux-043a.x86_64 (or .x86 in the case of 32bit Linux) Once the zip is extracted, you should be able to run the executable file to start the sim - although you may need to make the file executable first with the chmod command.
After a brief opening sequence, the game, by default starts in the main (Pause) menu. From here you can setup your radio or change the configuration of the sim, but if you are ready to fly - just hit escape, or click on "Start Sim"
We're now in the main sim screen, there aren't many details to see. You'll just see the version of the sim in the top left corner. You start the sim in a quad, but can swap to flying a plane, or driving a car via the Scenarios menu
If you hit RETURN you'll see some details about how the quad is setup to fly. By default, the quad is setup to make things easier for beginners. Its controls are set to be quite docile, and its power rating is setup to approximate using a 3S lipo battery. There are a few details to note about these values.
In versions prior to 0.53b in the upper-right corner you'd also see values for your RC Rate, RC Expo, SuperRate. A change in 0.53b was to have individual rates for pitch/roll/yaw and as such the screen would get too busy showing these. These values are instead accessed (and changed) via the Flight Assist Menu The Gravity multiplier and Throttle multiplier values can still be manipulated via keyboard commands. See the Keys and Instructions for the key commands on how to change these
The camera angle is an important setting when flying an FPV quad. In order to fly forwards, a quad also tilts forward which will result in the camera pointing more towards the ground, so pilots tend to tilt their cameras up (generally between 20 and 40 degrees -depending on the type of flying they are doing) If you are flying for the first time, then build up gently. Start out between 0 and 10 degrees until you get the hang of flying.
Going hand in hand with the camera angle is the camera field of view (FOV) it's basically how wide or narrow your camera lens is. The Sim models (since 0.48b) the most popular FPV lens types and you can press V to cycle through them. They are: 2.8mm, 2.1mm, 1.8mm & 1.66mm
In the top left corner of the screen, you can see the gravity and throttle multiplier values. These are not values that you would have to alter very often - especially in the case of gravity, but it is available to set should the quad feel too heavy, or floaty. In the above picture, the quad has the "low power" preset applied (suitable for a beginner) which at 0.30 will hover at just below 50% throttle. The gravity has gone through many changes over the versions - one issue that in FPV it felt like things were too floaty, and in LOS that same gravity felt too heavy. The solution in 0.46b was to separate out LOS and FPV gravity. FPV gravity now defaults to 2.0 - users are encouraged to experiment to find what feels right to them (if they already fly in real life) New pilots can be confident that 2.0 in the sim feels accurate. In the meantime, flying LOS sets gravity to 1.0 and cannot be adjusted.
Since 0.45a the gravity of the quad works independently to everything else, so users should feel free to change the gravity to their liking and nothing else will be adversely affected.
Finally, in the top middle, the current mode is shown, you can toggle this between Acro (the default) and Angle mode by pressing the M key. Angle mode has been implemented for beginners to try out LOS flying easier. It will only allow the quad to pitch or roll to a maximum of 20 degrees, and self-level if the sticks are released. It's not recommended for FPV flying, instead use the beginner & low power presets.
Some pilots are extremely attached to having a crosshair in the middle of the screen to help line things up. Others are vehemently against the idea. Since 0.48b you have the option of toggling it on/off by pressing 'N'. If you are having trouble lining things up, then give it a try (personally I'm one of the ones that really hates the idea of it being onscreen)
If you want to see what your sticks are doing on-screen. Particularly useful if you want to make a tutorial video where you show what to do with the sticks, use the D key to toggle the stick overlay on/off.
You can toggle between FPV and LOS flying by pressing the L key. LOS mode will place your virtual self just behind the landing mat the quad will normally take off from.
The quad controls function normally and you can change the preset rates, change between Acro/Angle etc as per normal. In the top right of the screen is a zoomed in view that has been added as an aid if you lose orientation of the quad. Should the quad go too far away to see, or you want some help in getting your bearings, the zoomed in view will easily let you bring you quad back when it's barely a spec in the sky.
Following some feedback about the gates being too difficult to fly through, there's now the option to cycle through 3 sizes of gates using the G key. The default is the regular sized gate.
Large should allow most people to make it through, and giant is.... well, they are really big.
You access the flight assist page by pressed A on the main screen which will bring up this screen where you can modify the individual pitch/roll/yaw rates which will dramatically alter the way your quad handles. Alternatively, your can select from pre-configured rates and power settings. More details about this page are Here
You access the Scenarios page by pressing the SPACE key from the main screen, the two scenarios that have been implemented so far are cars, or a plane to chase. You can also swap between flying a quad or a plane. As an experimental feature in 0.52b, you can also drive as a car. Find details about this page by Clicking here
You can pause the game at any point by hitting the Escape key. From here, use the mouse to select one of the options - including quitting out of the game. You can also resume the game by hitting Escape from this menu
You can find more details about each of these options by looking at the page for each of the screens