Birds in Space
Space Flight Prototype
You are Zaalu, a bird trying to stay ahead of a black hole. Gather Space-Seeds, stop at Bird Stations for upgrades, and keep enough speed, boost, health, and oxygen to make it through the next stretch.
Ludum Dare 43 · Sacrifices Must Be Made
What It Does Well
The whole build leans on the feel of banking, diving, and steering through cluttered 3D space.
Space-Seeds become quick, readable choices between more speed, better boost, extra health, or more oxygen.
The black hole never stops pushing, so every detour has a cost.
Game Info
About
Birds in Space is a small, fast prototype built around one idea: make flying feel good before anything else. The objective is simple. Stay ahead of the black hole, find the warp gate, and pick your stops carefully.
Along the way you collect Space-Seeds and spend them at Bird Stations. That turns the run into a light route-planning problem. Do you buy a little more oxygen, lean into boost, or try to outrun the whole thing on raw speed?
The build is rough, but the motion still has a specific feel to it. That strange, readable momentum is the piece worth preserving, and it is the reason this one deserved a proper place on the studio timeline.
Jam Notes
This was the kind of jam project where the controls led the design. The team wanted the bird to feel expressive first, then built the upgrade loop and the black-hole chase around that sensation. Even the messier parts of the prototype still point back to that original goal.
It also came out of a weekend where real life was fighting for time. The end result is more scrappy than polished, but it still has a strong point of view, and that goes a long way with jam builds.
Credits
- Programming: James Tusha
- Art and Models: Anthony Tusha
- Sound and Music: Joshua Damian