Devlog #1: Playtest Results, Numbers, and What's Next ✈️🌾

Monthly devlog time. This one is a big one, so grab a snack ✈️🌾

Quick note before we start. We're going to post these devlogs once a month. No corporate fluff, no sugarcoating. Just real progress updates from a team of four. We'll share what's going well, what's not, and what we're doing about it. Think of it as the real story behind making this game.

Now let's get into it.

Playtest numbers

First of all, thank you. The amount of feedback we got was honestly more than we expected, and we're really grateful.

Here are the numbers:

• 14,962 players got access

• 6,732 unique players launched the game

• 1,554 filled out the feedback form (that's a lot of data)

• Median playtime: 27 minutes (okay for a first playtest, but we're aiming for 45 min+ for the demo)

• Average playtime: 1 hour 5 minutes

• Overall enjoyment: 3.78 / 5 (66% gave 4 or 5)

• Recommendation score: 6.97 / 10

• Visual style: 4.26 / 5 (our highest score, and honestly that felt really good to see)

• Flight: 3.21 / 5 (lowest score, we know)

What we learned

Now let's talk about what all that data actually tells us.

The concept works. Visuals, ground gameplay, spraying, and mixing all scored between 3.89 and 4.26. Word of mouth grew 10x between waves. People want this game.

The weak spot is flight. 29% rated it 1 or 2, and it directly affects overall enjoyment. Main complaint: the plane feels too light, no weight, no inertia. We also found that 50% of testers never completed a single contract, most bounced during the tutorial. So a big chunk of players never even got to the actual game loop.

The good news: we know exactly what to fix. Our focus is to make flying feel like a reward, not a challenge. We want everyone to enjoy it regardless of skill level or experience with flight sims.

We're planning to split the flight physics into two parallel systems. One is arcade with mouse control for casual players. The other is mid/hardcore with adjustable difficulty, all the way to custom settings in the flight settings menu. This will be added gradually, but the direction is clear.

We're also updating the flight tutorial to better match the flight physics, and adding an option to skip it. It shouldn't be a blocker.

What we did in May

With all the data in hand, we spent the month processing every response, categorizing issues, and planning the work ahead. Also made solid progress on co-op. Today we played as four and it was genuinely fun 😎 More details on that soon.

June priorities

So here's what's coming next:

🛩️ Co-op polishing ✈️ Flight physics overhaul (splitting into arcade and mid/hardcore modes) 🔧 Prototyping upgrades for ground equipment and the plane 🐛 Bug fixes 🎨 Cockpit modeling for the Ag Cat

2 to 3 more playtests planned before the open demo.

Thanks for playing and sharing your feedback, it shapes everything we do next 💛