Project Birch is now Thruster Buster

Hello and Happy Holidays from our tiny team!

We have some exciting developments to talk about for our latest game which we're now officially calling 'Thruster Buster'!

You'll find a new page on our site that will soon be populated with information about the game and its upcoming release. At this time we'll use that page for grouping up content related to the project like this very update post!

Up until recently, our game has not allowed players to complete a full gameplay loop of what we've defined for our initial mode. A large amount of our development time recently has been spent on shaping up our Alpha build of the project. The Alpha needed to include all of our core gameplay systems so that we could begin testing our ideas with friends and family during internal tests and gathering feedback that will help us iterate on our game designs. We've already received some excellent input from our group of testers and have delivered several updates that have made an impact on the feel of Thruster Buster.

I'd like to take a moment to describe what our hero, R-NT will be doing when players have a chance to play.

Stage One

R-NT is ejected into space from a beautiful rotating home planet. Following this entrance, the thrusters on R-NT will start igniting automatically in a repeating pattern. This will thrust the ship in whatever direction R-NT faces. Players can control the rotation to move in their desired heading and they can also flip the magnetic polarity of our hero. Magnetism plays a big role in this world and R-NT can use his magnetic charge to push and pull other magnetized objects floating around in the galaxy. This brings us to the main objective of Stage One: find some big ole thrusters!

Players will spawn near a much larger ship that we call BSTR. This massive vessel has a few very important components that will help R-NT boldly go into the depths of space.

First, there's a Helm Node. This currently sits on the nose of BSTR and has a magnetic charge. Players can use this magnetic charge to attach to the massive ship and assume control of BSTR. Attaching to the Helm Node right away doesn't do our hero much good; BSTR doesn't have a single thruster to speak of initially!

This is where our second Node comes into play. Various attachment points are part of BSTR and players can use these to attach their own equipment.

The 'other equipment' that you seek can be found floating around in space. Large magnetized thrusters are currently implemented in the Alpha and can be attached to by R-NT. Attaching to the larger thrusters allows the player to move them into position near BSTR before flipping polarity again to connect the thrusters to BSTR.

Attaching one thruster can certainly give BSTR enough acceleration to get moving, but be careful with your placement of the attached thrusters. This big ship can be unwieldy to control without balanced force being applied.

Players can attach equipment to every open attachment point, but connecting the first thruster will call attention to R-NT and players can expect some opposition when they enter...

Stage Two

Bullies are as persistent in space as they are on Earth. The environment will now be littered with enemies with bad intentions who will immediately lob magnetically charged projectiles at R-NT if they get close enough. R-NT's hull integrity can't take much damage, so players will need to avoid these turrets while searching for attachments. The combat systems are not mature in the Alpha build, but it is currently possible to use your magnetic charge to reflect approaching projectiles back at the jerks who fired them.

Once you're prepared for departure, attach back to the Helm Node on the larger escape ship and smash that 'LAUNCH' button to transition into...

Stage Three

Stage three ignites as BSTR accelerates into the depths of the cosmos! The massive escape ship will eventually reach an orbiting field of space debris that serves as the final barrier between R-NT and the great beyond. Look for gaps within the rings for the greatest chance of survival as taking too many hits from the space trash will destroy BSTR and end the game.

What's Next?

Testing! Now that our foundation is in place we're going to spend some time exploring feedback provided by our amazing testers and expand these systems as we march towards a broader Beta test. There's a lot of room for exploration here and we've been having a great time adding original music and designing unique challenges for R-NT to face.

We have big plans for this little ship and your feedback can help us tremendously as we continue development of Thruster Buster! If you think you'd be interested in participating in our upcoming Beta tests, please keep an eye on our website and social media accounts to stay up-to-date about the game. Our Discord server is a great place to interact with our team and talk about games.

Thank you so much for stopping by. Please stay safe and have a wonderful remainder of 2021!