Update 1.2.4

Free Flight Mode

Somebody recommended free flight mode in the Community Hub a few weeks back. It felt like the game could greatly benefit from that, especially for new players, so I added it (also it was a chill feature to work on post-holidays)

To play in free flight mode, go to the new game screen and enable the corresponding checkbox. Starting the game in such way grants the following benefits:

• There\'s no fuel consumption.

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• Repairs are free.

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• Upgrades are free.

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• All skins are unlocked.

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As with difficulty, free flight mode is bound to the given game and can\'t be changed via settings.

Steam achievements are also disabled for this mode.

Other improvements

• Landing outside of checkpoint range without any fuel left is treated as a crash.

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• Fixed direction and velocity inconsistencies when respawning after a repair.

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• Fixed a bug where fuel wasn\'t restored to 25% after repair.

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• Tweaked fuel efficiency for starter aircraft outside of hard difficulty.

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Roadmap for 2026

As always, my core focus will be on fixing bugs and making tweaks based on the feedback I get from the Steam Community Hub or the comments on itch. Bush 1022 will not be my main project in 2026 and I won\'t be adhering to a strict schedule for big features. That being said, I expect to finish with the following things by the end of the year:

• Overhaul the crash system, because crashing is actually a big part of the game and it should feel more fair, and maybe even fun.

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• Add more depth to the world.

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• Buildings and towns.

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• Maybe some runways.

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• Random events like auroras or falling stars.

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• Who knows what else lurks within this world (I\'m reading a lot of Lovecraft right now...)

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I was considering this game to be finished when I released it, but the feedback I get in the Community Hub really inspires me to grow it further. I\'m considering everyone\'s ideas, so even if I don\'t add what you suggest right now, it will likely appear in the future.

Improving crash mechanics

Having to quit or load a save after crashing was disrupting the flow of the game, naturally leading to clanky abuse of the save system, and potentially annoying loss of progress.

It\'s now possible to repair your aircraft after a crash, for a cost:

• Free on relaxing difficulty.

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• 5% of the player\'s cash on easy.

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• 10% of the player\'s cash on medium.

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• 20% of the player\'s cash on hard.

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• On all difficulties repair costs are capped at a max of $4000.

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After doing a repair, the aircraft is respawned:

• 250m above the crash location at a speed of 45 m/s.

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• If the fuel is below 25%, it will be set to 25%.

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A remaining issue is that some crashes still feel unfair. I\'m planning on doing further improvements that will unfold in upcoming updates.

Other improvements

• The brakes are now softer and it\'s much harder to flip the aircraft.

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• Fixed a bug where save times were shown in UTC rather than the local time zone of the user.

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Happy holidays!

While working on UX improvements, I felt like the game was getting sluggish after some progress, so I decided to add an incremental delivery bonus. Basically every completed delivery adds a 5% reward bonus to every future delivery. As you complete more deliveries, you get extra bonus.

Additional things covered in 1.2.2:

• The delivery selection buttons now cover the whole width of the checkpoint menu. There\'s no longer a weird jump straight to performance upgrades when going up with a controller.

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• Added a controller navigation warp to the settings menu and the main menu.

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• Fixed some buttons staying in focused mode after being pressed with a mouse.

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• Fixed a bug where starting a game in an ice wastelands biome doesn\'t give the discovery goal.

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If this is a feature you\'d use, please share in the community hub.

Why no cloud saves?

I was actually able to very quickly set up cloud saves to work, but they were segregated by platform. Basically, I didn\'t have my Windows saves match my Linux ones.

In order to have cross-platform cloud saves, I\'d have to rework the save system. If I do that I\'d want to test it very well and make sure it works perfectly. With 2 days left to release, I can\'t do that.

I\'ve had my progress wiped in a game due to bad cloud integration in the past. I don\'t want my game to cause such pain.

Going forward

For the upcoming 1.2 version I\'ll focus on improving the controller menu navigation and doing some game progression balancing.

Current progress

In the next few minor versions I plan to focus on some quality of life improvements, starting with Steam achievements. I\'ll add them gradually:

• Version 1.1.0 - 2 pilot achievements to test the Steam API integration.

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• Version 1.1.1 - As of writing, this is the latest deployed version. It has 8 early game achievements.

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• Version 1.1.2 - Mid-game related achievements.

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• Version 1.1.3 - Late-game related achievements.

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I should be ready with all of these within the next few hours.

Short-term roadmap

Cloud saves - 1.2

After I\'m done with the achievements, I want to add cloud saves, so I can have a consistent game progress across my devices. This is one of those features that will either take 5 minutes or a whole day.

Controller UX improvements - 1.3

Controller menu navigation is pretty janky right now. There are some pretty unintuitive button jumps that I want to fix.

Version 1.0.1 - Update notes

• Finished up all goal icons in the travel list.

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• Added degree notation on the minimap. It\'s now much easier to keep track of heading.

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• Added deadzone to the camera shake, the aircraft no longer jitters at low wind speeds.

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• Improved crash mechanics. They\'re no longer based on impact velocity, but rather impact acceleration. I can\'t help but think of Jeremy Clarkson\'s words \"Speed has never killed anyone, suddenly becoming stationary, that\'s what gets you.\"

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• Added boot and splash screen graphics.

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• Added scene switch fade.

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• Disabled debug controls.

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• Fixed some minor bugs.

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