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Full Steam announcements and update articles for this title.
This update improves wind consistency throughout the game and should give a considerable boost for low spec machines.
There are now shadow settings. Make sure to set the Shadow Mode to Performance for better FPS.
Ground textures have been tweaked and will look different.
A bunch of small internal tweaks that shouldn't make the game different.
The turbulence algorithm has been changed and it now feels a little different.
The wind sock model has been updated.
The wind sock now also reacts to turbulence.
The wind sock now correctly works on aircraft carriers.
Wind Direction on the world map now reflects the direction the wind is coming from.
Added the location and seed to the world map.
The game may sometimes very briefly freeze when turning on landing lights. This is an old problem that I still can't consistently reproduce.
What's the weirdest landing you can do in this game (or the demo)?
Share pictures, videos, stories, doesn't matter.
Some players on low-spec machines mentioned a performance drop after the last update. I have already done some tweaks that should significantly improve FPS, but the version is not ready for a full release yet.
I have opened a new "pre-release" branch that currently has a lower spec version of the game for those who need it. To play it:
Right click Bush 1022 in your library
Select Properties
Go to Game Versions and Betas
Pick pre-release
Thank you!
I've started working on the next major version of Bush 1022. I want to add multiple features that won't be backwards compatible in terms of save files, therefore the development time will be longer and there will be more additions at once than in my regular updates.
I'll be making frequent devlogs with my progress.
Back in February, user ViceForce posted a model of an aircraft they made, asking "Can we get this bad boy in the air?"
Well, it's not in the air yet, but it's almost there. I'm currently working on making a system to easily mod the game and add whatever bush planes you like.
Besides the deliveries and the corona challenges, there will be a new mission system for more abstract and random things to do.
Grindy goals, like doing 40 deliveries, will be removed from the Travel List and Steam Achievements, in favor of goals focused on gameplay variety.
The base game will come with some aircraft that can be unlocked by progressing through the Travel List.
Aircraft from the Steam Workshop likely won't have that feature and will be purchasable at airfields.
Of course, all will be unlocked in free flight mode.
The current upgrade system with buying performance levels will be completely scrapped in favor of one where you collect items that impact your performance and gameplay in different ways.
The save system will be reworked to allow cross-platform cloud saves.
I will provide some settings to prevent ghosting. HOTAS support may be back on the table, depending on how it goes.
After the 2026 Summer Sale, the base price of the game will increase by 25%
A larger increase will follow after the Workshop update.
This is a small update that adds some requested features from the community.
The ground now has textures when you get close enough. This should hep with spatial awareness.
The gas giants are now consistently brighter and will illuminate the terrain more.
The chase camera's distance can be changed. There's also a new setting for FOV, it affects both cameras.
Added a flaps indicator to the HUD
There's an attempt to fix a glitch where the top row of pixels would flicker.
This update focuses on some quality of life improvements. I summarize my plans for overhauling the progression system towards the end of this post.
There are now 3 distance markers in the heading line. Each marker is for 1km.
Airfields now have a line showing the direction of the runway.
There are now grid lines with related map axes and distances.
The circle around the aircraft now reflects the scale of the one on the minimap.
There are now distance markers on the line of heading. Each 5km there's a marker. The final marker is at 20km.
The chase camera now starts pointing down when flying slow and low. This should help with spatial awareness when landing, especially on water platforms.
The rudder is now stronger.
The sky now changes after waiting.
Fixed some shadow glitches.
Updated the demo to version 1.4.0
I've started working on ambient music parts that seamlessly fit together and will play different tracks based on which biome you're in. This will replace the current silence between tracks.
This video is a short montage of some raw parts from recording (+ I really wanted to visualize the reverse guitar).
The current upgrade system will be completely scrapped soon. The new one will focus on items rather than level tiers. I'll share more in the next devlogs.
A big challenge is to figure out how this system will work with mods, maybe Steam Workshop integration will come first.
A mission system is also on the way. An additional XP / Reputation currency will be added to replace the current Travel List progression. This will also work towards integrating skins from the workshop.
I'm planning a lot of big changes soon. Stay tuned for the devlogs!
So, some people mentioned that the aircraft feels slower compared to what they're used to in flight sims. That's because the plane is a bit bigger than a real one, and there's some story behind that...
This is how it looks when the body is shrunk down to the scale of a Cessna 172 while keeping the same landing gear size.
When I started working on this game, I wanted to avoid the toil of flight sims and to completely focus on the fun of flying, maneuvering, landing and exploring. I approached the whole game design this way and I didn't use reference materials.
For the 3D model, I drew a sketch that I really liked and I recreated the aesthetics in Blender. For the flight mechanics, I looked at how much a light bush plane weighs on Google and tweaked its other mechanical properties until it felt fun to fly.
I didn't pay attention to the scale of the 3D model. As it turns out, the wingspan is 50% larger than a Cessna 172's. Actually, in terms of dimensions, it's closer to a two engine prop like King Air 350. Yet its mechanics are based on a light bush plane's weight....This is a big update with some core changes to the game, focused on removing grind and adding new things to do.
Old saves will no longer work, though they aren't deleted and you can still play version 1.3.4, just follow the pinned post in the Discussions section of the Community Hub.
There's also a new gameplay trailer!
A major gameplay addition are the new corona challenges. They can be started from any checkpoint, and they consist of 7 randomly spawned coronas that you have to collect in under 5 minutes.
Each unique completed corona challenge adds 10% bonus reward to all deliveries.
Corona challenge progress is lost when you crash or load a save.
A unique gas giant will be generated as part of each new world. Besides being a nice visual, it also provides ground illumination on clear nights.
Future updates will bring more clarity as to why you're flying a bush plane in the presence of advanced space-grade transport tech.
Trust me, it will make sense!
There are now buildings near checkpoints on the ground and boats in the water.
Some water platforms are also in the form of aircraft carriers.
Sky and water both look significantly better than before.
There's also no longer an ugly horizon line during sunset.
5 New musical pieces have been added, 4 have been removed.
Old music that stayed has been replaced with higher quality versions.
The engine sounds have been redone.
There are major changes to existing mechanics:
The checkpoints have been reduced from 100 to 36.
The center of the map, where you start the game is now home. You can refuel for free there!
You can buy fuel while being in debt.
Weather is no longer better towards the middle of the map.
The weather is now always perfect in the first 2 days, regardless of difficulty.
There's ground effect! You have less drag when flying very close to terrain.
The goals for 100 deliveries, 40 and 100 checkpoints have been removed from the Travel List.
I had prepared a linear story, but it doesn't fit the open-ended nature of Bush 1022 well, so I'll be working on some sort of a message / challenge / mission system instead.
The input system is also problematic when you have more than 1 controller. I'm still thinking of a good way to handle it without damaging the experience for Steam Deck players. This is also likely the key to solving the HOTAS integration as well. Anyway, an input system update will pop up at some point, I just can't give a timeline yet.
There are a lot of other things too, this is just in my head right now.
Thank you for the feedback and support!
A valuable space probe has crashed on one of Gas Giant 1022's moons. With a cheap bush plane and a little cash, you track down the pieces.
How do you feel about Bush 1022 going a little sci-fi? (not too much though, modern tech is too expensive for the task here... or at least corporate says so)I gave up on music and got rid of my instruments a few years ago. For the initial soundtrack I was writing notes down in my DAW, hence the synthy sound. I now have some equipment again, so I can make music that's closer to my vision for Bush 1022.
I didn't really like how the water looked, so I made a new shader for it.
I just started working on the new update, a bit later than I had planned.
Since 1.4.0 will be a bigger update, I'll likely post some devlogs along the way.
I'll also be posting on the game's subreddit, so feel free to comment there if it's more convenient for you.
Thank you for all the feedback!
An element of the game that felt pretty unfair was the random weather. With this new update:
the wind will no longer randomly shift direction mid-landing, slamming you into the ground (or a water platform).
there won't be random crazy fog appearing after doing a 40km delivery.
you can now plan what to do based on a weather forecast.
I made a short video summary of the new system:
Going into the world map, there's now a weather section on the right side.
It shows the weather for today and tomorrow on the outer areas of the map.
The inner areas of the map, closer to the center, will have better visibility, less turbulence and lower wind speeds.
The intention is to always have a safe area to fly around in, avoiding parts of the game where the best option would be to wait and do nothing. If the weather is bad, you could always do some chill deliveries on the central flatlands.
There's no longer a slider for picking the time of day.
There's instead a wait button and a slider to pick number of hours to wait.
The landing difficulty column for deliveries has been replaced with a zone column, with the following correspondence:
Easy -> Flatlands
Medium -> Hills
Hard -> Mountains
As always, I'm super thankful for everyone's feedback!
I'll update the Roadmap thread in the Discussion section with what will be the next update.
Thank you!
While working on improving the crash mechanics, I noticed that some fair crashes seemed unfair, simply because the game over menu just instantly pops up and freezes the game. So, in order to get more crash information, I added a delay between the crash and the pop-up. After making the wheels fly off, it's actually a bit fun to crash now...
Besides this, the impact tolerance has been increased and there were minor calculation tweaks. There are still some unfair crashes though, the system still has a way to go and I'll keep improving it in future updates.
Turning on the landing lights should no longer cause the game to freeze for a very brief period.
Added UI and HUD scale options up to 300%
Added an option to unstuck / respawn the aircraft when landed. It works the same way as a repair does, but it doesn't require you to crash.
Fixed the possibility to softlock by continuously crashing on the world border mountain.
Fixed a small bug where particles wouldn't load in the main menu after quitting from a crash.
Added a line between the aircraft icon and the arrow on the map, so the direction of heading is more obvious.
I'll soon make a pinned post about the currently planned features and their timelines.
Thank you!
Skyward Flight Media, an online flight games magazine, reached out to me for an interview where I went in-depth about my experience developing Bush 1022 and some of my plans for the future. If you're interested in that, make sure to check it out.
They also have a large section of articles dedicated to indie flight sims. Some awesome games are covered there.
So, NoDak Express found my game and made a playthrough of it on Twitch (currently uploaded on his YouTube longplay channel). I haven't had the chance to watch someone with actual piloting experience play my game, so besides enjoying the great vibes of the community, I made a whole bunch of notes for improvements.
Honoring NoDak's wish to use N3459F as a registration for his aircraft, it's now possible to change what's written on the wing and tail to anything you like, up to a 7 character limit.
You can do this in the Checkpoint Menu. Just below the refuel button, there's new "Set Registration" button with an input box next to it. After changing the characters in the input box and pressing the "Set Registration" button, you'll have whatever registration you wrote down in the box.
I wanted landing on water platforms during the night to be hard, but without lights, it's pretty much pure luck to not clip the tail and crash.
This update introduces lights to water platform checkpoints, so you can actually judge the surrounding space when landing at night.
They're active between 18:00 and 06:00
Airstrip deliveries would not always be routed to actual airfields. That's fixed now.
Removed collision from the blue crystals in the magical forest biome, as they leave an impression of being collectibles and can cause annoying crashes.
Originally the motto for this game was "There are no runways here"... well, now there are!
Update 1.3.0 introduces them, along with a larger world map, and other tweaks and fixes requested by the community. As always, I'm super grateful about everyone's feedback and support!
Currently the airstrips only consist of a runway with the checkpoint flag pole. Each runway has a randomly generated heading, displayed on the map as 2 numbers as shown in the image above.
Each game world has 5 airstrips.
(Looking at it, I should probably also change the discovered checkpoint colors...)
Going into the pause menu, there's now a new "World Map" button that opens a map of the whole playable area. The gray dots are undiscovered checkpoints, the green ones are discovered, and the purple squares signify airstrips. Undiscovered hidden checkpoints aren't shown.
Upgrades and fuel are now 5 times more expensive on checkpoints that aren't on an airstrip.
There's also a new Checkpoint section in the Guides menu.
Sometimes when landing, you'd get terminal damage, even though the landing seems soft.
This is an issue that's commonly mentioned by players. I can't consistently reproduce it, but I was able to apply a change that seems to have fixed it.
There are still other potential causes though, so I'll revisit it if mentioned again.
Technical details: when the wheels touch the ground, the game keeps track of the aircraft's local vertical deceleration. If it's too high, it will trigger terminal damage. Before this update, the direction of the acceleration didn't matter. This meant that the crash could be triggered by the suspension's kickback rather than the ground impact.
My other main lead: another potential cause that I didn't address in this update is turbulence downdraft slamming the aircraft down into the ground without player reaction being possible. The reason I didn't address it is that landing in turbulent winds should be dangerous, and maybe it would be better to improve visual and sound feedback instead of directly nerfing the crashes.
Visited checkpoints are now colored in the delivery selection menu.
Fixed a bug where settings weren't persisted after unpausing.
Revisited a bug where going back from the save/load menu wouldn't close the confirmation prompt.
Added a message in the new game screen explicitly stating that the "Master" goal section is only achievable on Hard difficulty.
I really want to start adding buildings around runways and checkpoints, but before that, I want to get more feedback and tackle issues mentioned by the community.
Aiming to release on Friday, 30 January, version 1.3 will be the first major feature addition after the release of Bush 1022. I'm very thankful for everyone's feedback in the Community Hub and I feel like the upcoming update will both build up on some ideas discussed there and address pain points.
As the title suggests, airstrips are coming into the game. This is the first of multiple planned features to increase variety and depth.
Airstrips will come in the form of a new checkpoint type. Every game world will have 5 of them. Compared to all other checkpoints, they will always be a safe place to land, offering a large section of even ground.
There will be a new delivery type, where the destination is always an airstrip. This can give new players some much needed easy landing scenarios where they can get used to the aircraft's handling and controls without having to battle challenging slopes.
The following is an idea I'm considering and not final. It consists of 2 main points:
Performance upgrades may only be available on airstrip checkpoints.
Each of the 5 airfields will have a maximum level of upgrades it can provide, the closest to the center of the map allowing up to level 3, and the furthest up to level 10.
After releasing 1.3.0, version 1.2.7 will stay behind as a demo that anyone can download and play freely.
Let me know what you think!
I'll also try to handle other smaller bugs and ideas mentioned in the Community Hub as part of 1.3.0. There's no specific scope on those and I'll adapt them based on time I have in between other tasks.
This update adds new settings requested by the community and addresses reported bugs.
HUD Scale can now be changed independently of the UI scale. This specifically addresses a scenario on the Steam Deck where the screen is smaller and menus need to be readable without making the flight instruments take the whole screen.
Camera Shake can now be changed. At its lowest setting, it's stopped altogether.
There are new Control Sliders for brake strength and throttle sensitivity.
The game can no longer be unpaused in the save/load menu. This addresses an issue where the save confirmation prompt can appear unexpectedly if a player unpauses while it's open and then opens the pause menu again, making accidental saving or loading very likely, either way causing bad saves and progression loss.
It's no longer possible to unpause the game after crashing the aircraft.
Checkbox settings weren't always saved. This is now fixed.
This update changes the way deliveries are generated, so if you have a save with an ongoing delivery, it will be randomized mid-flight after you move to this version. Sorry about that, consider it as a reroute for in-game lore.
Until now all checkpoints had completely random delivery tasks generated. This made progression pretty clunky, especially for Hard runs where you could get stuck with impossible to land deliveries at the start of the game.
Another issue is that you couldn't have any idea about the terrain in which you would land prior to starting a delivery. This would often lead to frustrating experience, where after a long flight, you'd have to either pay a lot of repairs, save abuse, or abandon the delivery entirely.
This update introduces 3 changes:
Landing difficulty is now a part of the delivery details.
Normal deliveries are always to a checkpoint with the same difficulty.
Bonuses based on landing difficulty.
In Bush 1022, the terrain gets more height variation as you get further away from the start. This directly correlates with landing difficulty and it's currently used as the sole factor that determines it.
Basically, deliveries can have and easy, medium, or hard landing rating based on how far from the center of the map the destination checkpoint is. It is now shown in the Checkpoint Menu when you pick a delivery.
The water, heavy and urgent deliveries remain random as they were in the past.
The key change happens in the normal delivery type. The destinations for this type can only have the same landing difficulty as the checkpoint they're started from.
In practice, this means there are always simpler deliveries to do at the start of the game. If the player goes further out, they can remain in a difficulty area as long as they please.
Overall, there should now be a more coherent difficulty progression.
Based on the landing difficulty, there are now extra bonuses:
25% for Medium.
50% for Hard.
I feel like the most commonly mentioned issues are related to landing and braking. This update addresses these among other minor tweaks and improvements.
The center of mass used to be right above the wheels, which made tipping over extremely easy. This update moves it a bit behind the wheels, which makes the aircraft much more stable on the ground.
Having 650 hours in KSP, this is a huge facepalm moment for me, as I completely forgot to check the aircraft's center of mass in relation to the wheels earlier in development. I guess I got tunnel visioned when dealing with other physics stuff.
It's now possible to toggle the brakes. The default key binds are:
P on keyboard.
Left Bumper on controller.
When they're toggled on, a big red message will appear on the gyro: "PARKING BRAKE ACTIVE"
Turbulence now affects pitch and roll.
Fixed an error in the forces application point, which made the aircraft arbitrarily pitch up or down. It will now fly straight, unless there's turbulence.
Fixed a typo in the first tutorial message.
As always, huge thanks for everyone's feedback in the Community Hub!
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.
Repairs are free.
Upgrades are free.
All skins are unlocked.
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.
Landing outside of checkpoint range without any fuel left is treated as a crash.
Fixed direction and velocity inconsistencies when respawning after a repair.
Fixed a bug where fuel wasn't restored to 25% after repair.
Tweaked fuel efficiency for starter aircraft outside of hard difficulty.
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.
Add more depth to the world.
Buildings and towns.
Maybe some runways.
Random events like auroras or falling stars.
Who knows what else lurks within this world (I'm reading a lot of Lovecraft right now...)
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.
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.
5% of the player's cash on easy.
10% of the player's cash on medium.
20% of the player's cash on hard.
On all difficulties repair costs are capped at a max of $4000.
After doing a repair, the aircraft is respawned:
250m above the crash location at a speed of 45 m/s.
If the fuel is below 25%, it will be set to 25%.
A remaining issue is that some crashes still feel unfair. I'm planning on doing further improvements that will unfold in upcoming updates.
The brakes are now softer and it's much harder to flip the aircraft.
Fixed a bug where save times were shown in UTC rather than the local time zone of the user.
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.
Added a controller navigation warp to the settings menu and the main menu.
Fixed some buttons staying in focused mode after being pressed with a mouse.
Fixed a bug where starting a game in an ice wastelands biome doesn't give the discovery goal.
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.
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.
Version 1.1.1 - As of writing, this is the latest deployed version. It has 8 early game achievements.
Version 1.1.2 - Mid-game related achievements.
Version 1.1.3 - Late-game related achievements.
I should be ready with all of these within the next few hours.
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 menu navigation is pretty janky right now. There are some pretty unintuitive button jumps that I want to fix.
Finished up all goal icons in the travel list.
Added degree notation on the minimap. It's now much easier to keep track of heading.
Added deadzone to the camera shake, the aircraft no longer jitters at low wind speeds.
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."
Added boot and splash screen graphics.
Added scene switch fade.
Disabled debug controls.
Fixed some minor bugs.
About
This page aggregates Steam news feeds, patch notes, and developer announcements for Bush 1022, sourced from official Steam community posts.
Major updates, balance changes, and seasonal events often correlate with player-count spikes — cross-reference announcements here with the live charts on the main Bush 1022 statistics page.
Articles link back to Steam for full changelogs. SteamScope refreshes news entries as new posts are published to the game's Steam hub.