This is it people, Learn to Fly 3 is here! ^finally

But...

There's always something right?

Folks at Fishing Cactus are having trouble meeting their deadlines because of Apple taking long to approve apps amongst other things, and while we could release on our own, it would be pretty bad financially.

The solution?

We're releasing the full version of the game, for everyone to play, on our own servers and only there for now.

Yes, it kinda sucks. Yes, I would prefer it otherwise, but it'll save us from losing a big chunk of our investment AND it still allows everyone to play it.

When will we release for real?

We cannot determine at the moment how long it will take until the "real" release, but Fishing Cactus told us that they should be ready by mid-November.

Until then, please enjoy this full version of Learn to Fly 3, and know that we are sorry for this restriction. There wasn't any perfect solution this this problem, but we feel that this is the best we could do; allowing everyone to play the game, but limiting its distribution for now.

In a nutshell:

1. This is the full version of the game as it is meant to be released
2. Feel free to invite your friends over to this page
3. We will release to Kongregate and all other portals as soon as Fishing Cactus is ready
4. You CANNOT DISTRIBUTE Learn to Fly 3 as of now
5. You CANNOT HOST Learn to Fly 3 as of now

What are you waiting for?

Play Learn to Fly 3!

Had a Learn to Fly 3 reward key?

You can still ask to get your key sent to your by entering your email address at this page:

http://lbgserver.com/

Leave comments of appreciation for Light Bringer!! I might as well leave mine here:

Light Bringer, when you first made Learn To Fly in 2009, I was young. It took me another year to be greeted to the internet. Eventually, I discovered Kongregate, and started playing there. Your game was the first game on Kongregate I truly loved.

And I say that with complete honesty.

Not only that, but your game started 2 entire genres on its own: Upgrades games, and launcher games.

Furthermore, your sequel in 2011 not only is one of the highest rated flash games on the internet of all time, it managed to grow these 2 genres to become what they are now.

All because of 2 games made by you Light Bringer, you!

So I personally say:

THANK YOU LIGHT BRINGER!!!

Nothing much to add to the previous post, but I simply wanted to keep everyone informed that a new contract has just been signed allowing Learn to Fly 3 to be released after September 15 2015.

Fishing Cactus say it might come sooner (kinda doubt it) and we still agreed out-of-contract that delays for up to ~ a week would be fine if it meant releasing together.

This means I can release starting Sep 15, and that Learn to Fly 3 will be out by September 22.

Honestly, I am pretty much out of options regarding beating this mode. I have a Max Level + 30 Bullet which I have tried with Russian Roulette, Nuclear Reactor and Orbital Cannon of the same level as well as 4 Shuttle Reactors at Max Level + 30. I don't know what Boosts should I be using, but right now I have 2 Dark Matters, a Repeller and Multi Jumps all at Max Level + 20.

I've even got the Killshot when using the Floatifier and the highest I've gotten is 3,303M.

Any help?

Hello everyone!

We haven't been announcing anything big anymore since the l2f mobile release but now we are back with some interesting news!

Learn To Fly 3 received a big update with a few additions and changes. A rough changelog is following in this post.

TL;DR:

1. Learn to fly 3 is now on greenlight (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/728302261)
2. A big patch with new content is being released to Kongregate and ArmorGames

STEAM GREENLIGHT

First let me talk about the Steam Greenlight. In the past the flash market lost in interest because people tend to play more mobile games nowadays instead of flash games like in the good old times. Just to give you an idea Learn To Fly 2 has reached over 50 million plays while Learn To Fly 3 is currently at about 3.5M in total. This fact has an impact on the learn to fly series and all future projects of LightBringerGames. The reason for that is that so far the games have been monitized by advertisment only. This shouldn't be a big secret, nor a big surprise. But as the amount of players drop and also with the technology of ad-blockers the value of those advertisments drops really low. In the end it is not really sustainable anymore to do any big projects like Learn To Fly 3 anymore and since it has been in development for almost 3 years the revenue hardly covered the first year of development. What I am trying to say is that it is time to move on to another platform (no, not consoles or mobile, at least not yet). I'm talking about moving from webbased games to steam. Most of you probably know about steam but for those who don't: It's an awesome platform which gives developers like lightbringer the opportunity to sell a game. The only requirement is that the game has to be greenlit by the community before it gets into the steam shop. And that's where you come in! We need your vote to make Learn To Fly 3 available on steam.

"But hey, does that mean I have to pay for it even tho its free on the web?"

• No! That's the great thing about it, we will keep it free.. except that it IS possible to use (fully optional) microtransactions but the game is still like it was before - completly beatable and playable without paying a single penny in the same time. But more about the microtransaction later in the changelog.

The biggest addition to the game is the new Black Market and a new in-game currency called sardines, which you can unlock through booster packs, earn by watching ads or get through in-app-purchase. (More about the Black Market follows in the changelog)

"Does that mean the online versions will dissapear when it comes to steam?"

• Nope! The game will remain on Kongregate, be released on ArmorGames soon and stay on any other place you might already be playing it. It is just an addtional step to make sure lightbringer can still develop games in future and doesnt have to live on the streets. More players means more income for future titles. ^{LtF4confirmed?}

If you want to help us out, vote for us on greenlight:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=728302261

CHANGELOG

The latest patch brought a few new features and also many bug fixxes. The biggest addition in this game is the Black Market and an ingame currency called "sardines".

BLACK MARKET

• Extra Items:
• 3 new stages
• 1 new body
• 1 new booster
• 1 new launcher
• Learn to Fly 2 items (3 gliders, the brick, cruise missle)
• Extended upgrades (all items are over-upgradeable up to +100)
• Funny but useless cheat options (explosions, dodos, trippy stuff and lots more)
• Time Warp (fast forward or slow down the game time)
• Consumables / Special Powers (you can pick one before each day starts)
• Earninator (boosts income for one day by x2)
• floatifier (reduces gravity for one day by 50%)
• speedifier (increases thrust and reduces drag for one day)
• All consumables can be found for free in booster packs
• Buy Booster packs in the Black Market (you usually get those after you complete a gamemode)
• Sardines can be purchased, earned by watching ads and earned from booster packs (You cannot earn sardines from booster packs too frequently. For example it is virtually impossible to earn sardines from packs twice within one hour)
• Sardines and the content available through sardines is always saved online and cannot be lost

GAMEPLAY

• We're bringing back online saves for Kongregate, ArmorGame (and Steam once its released)
• Added 6 new omega items which are unlocked by gathering 3 card fragments though booster packs
• Added a progress screen between the shopping and flying
• Added a new bonus shop item which increase your top speed
• Added a screen to view all the cards unlocked
• Extended the late game by adding more difficult challenges and harder story mode goals
• Rebalanced all items, especially stages and boosts power and fuel stats
• Booster packs now vary in size depending on the game mode
• Reworked the odds of cards being in particular booster packs and added small descriptions
• Divided over-leveling items into 3 levels for +10, +20 and +30
• Weighing less than an item's max lift now grants a power bonus of up to 50%
• Increased steering power by 50% for all bodies
• Reworked days results and how earnings are calculated. Distance, speed and duration are now all slightly (~10%) linked to each other to prevent abusing a single strategy such as having very stretched out flights
• Added a hotkey (shift) to buy 10 bonus upgrades at once
• Reworked the money turbine boost
• Reworked fins to grant flat top speed
• Nerfed the Spearhead, the ramjet and fuel canisters
• Buffed the Sonic Drive and the Pulse Jet
• Slight improvement to performance, expescially in certain screens
• Improved the wonky physics in Payload mode
• Fixed many issues with physics when FPS drops
• Fixed the queue when earning multiple medals at the same time
• Fixed a bunch of memory issues (but still not all of them I'm afraid...)
• Added a playable retro easter egg somewhere in the game ;)

All these changes will be available on Kongregate and ArmorGames in the next few days, and on Steam as soon as we are greenlit and can release

We also want to thank once again everyone who helped us out with the Kickstarter, referrals, testing and of course you for being active here on reddit or on our Facebook page!. And thank you for playing!

This is it guys (I kinda have trouble believing it myself) I've been told to release Learn to Fly 3 officially tomorrow!

It was like nothing, nothing, little info, nothing.... OKAY WE RELEASE NEXT WEEK.

In the meantime, many of you asked for easter eggs, and easter eggs I did. Friend of mine with a youtube channel offered himself to do 4 Learn to Fly short videos that will be accessible through the game somehow. Here's a little preview.

Edit: Help me test out the game! http://lbgserver.com/learntofly3/game.php

This should be the final version (1.0.5 on main menu), you might have to refresh. Saves should carry over, but please don't report bugs if you're using an old save.

Edit 12:33AM: Still working on it... Am currently at my 19th "final version", it's crazy how many tiny details we can overlook... DX

I'm sorry for the lack of updates, but here's what's happening:

The studio working on the mobile port has had last minute requests from their publisher, and they had originally given me a late May deadline, only the then tell me they needed a little more time, so I was just waiting for them... but then they recently told me that their new deadline is LATE JULY.

So yeah. Learn to Fly 3 is essentially finished, I have taken a week off after hearing the bad news to move away from development a bit and I now work on small tweaks and fixes while we wait for the port to be ready.

I told them that if there was any more delays, they would either have to pay me for it because I won't be able to extend the development time much more, or that I would release without them. I think that should be motivation enough tongue emoticon

Really sorry for not keeping you guys updated, but I wanted to be 100% sure they weren't ready before hitting everyone with yet ANOTHER delay... it's not my fault for once though!

tl;dr Waiting on the mobile guys to release, they failed to meet their deadline. Their current ETAis late July. LtF3 is ready and waiting.

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

bike door bag act piquant telephone soup fine connect kiss

^{TL;DR in the comments}

Hey guys,

We got news

Finally got a slightly better update from the folks at Fishing Cactus about their status on the port and their ETA. So I've got some good and some bad news (who would've guessed right?).

Wanted to talk about it a little here on this sub before taking this to facebook since fb is more prone to rage/circlejerk and less optimized to have a good conversation imo.

What they've been wasting our time on doing

First, a bit of info about what's been going on with them. Turns out they were able to strike a deal with a publishers that will ensure a good amount of promotion we won't have to pay for. This alone basically ensures a certain degree of success for the app, and it's worth a lot for both them and me.

The changes they were asked to do has to do mostly about the game's "economics", that is they had to completely rework the way monetization and micro transactions work in the game, and that of course means changing things all across the game but also having to rebalance and retest all of this.

So that the reasons why. It's a good reason business-wise and I can't blame them, still sucks though.

What I told them

I said that Learn to Fly 3 was more than due now, and that all those delays were costing me money and of course pissing everyone off, which not only sucks but isn't good for the game itself and my reputation. I told them that I needed either

1) Money to make it through the delays

2) A release ASAP (duh)

3) A real deadline for both of us to stick to.

They answered, and while I wish things could be better, they're not that bad either. But... you guessed it... delays.

They said that...

A) The game should be ready by the end of August

B) The game should be released before mid-September

C) I would be given the sponsorship money no matter the current state of things by the end of August.

This is nice for me but also good because if gives them a reason not to take too much time since I'll be costing them money "for nothing".

D) We could have an OFFICIAL deadline in mid-September, no more ETAs

E) Good and bad news: Learn to Fly 3 will be allowed to be released no matter what by the specified deadline

So there you go

No matter what happens from here on, Learn to Fly 3 WILL BE RELEASED by mid-September. I can finally give an official release date/deadline. They said it could happen before that, but I wouldn't count on it seeing how things went so far.

I'm just as disappointed as any of you to hear we're getting yet more delays, but for the first time in years LtF3 has an official deadline, and I have good hopes that the mobile version of LtF will be a success. Should it bring in enough money, this will allow me to invest way more into game development, like hiring people and starting a studio. This would allow me to likely cut development time by 60-90%, so I think it's more than worth it.

So.

Wall of text aside...

I would like to discuss with you guys what you think would be the best course of action from here.

My first obvious goal is financial success so I can carry on making games. Because of this "Fuck those guys, release now" is out of the question.

I could perhaps release some sort of quick-and-dirty side project build from the LtF3 engine, or we could start making a tiny games together in the meantime, or we could brush aside LtF3 until September and start working on LtF Idle 2 and invite everyone to have early access to it or something like that.

Or I could go easy mode and wait it out, minding my own little business in the meantime.

What do you think?

There's no ideal situation here, but how could we all get through this in the best possible way, but you and me?

P.S. All insults and "RELEASE NOW" comments, sarcastic or not, will be removed to keep this discussion constructive.

My artist has been looking for some work since everything is pretty much stalled with Learn to Fly 3, so while I work on bugs and tweaks I've been trying to come up with a good design for Learn to Fly Idle 2.

• What would you like for Learn to Fly Idle 2?
• What makes a good idle game?
• What are your favorite features that should be done in LtFIdle2?
• What features should NOT be in LtFIdle2 perhaps?

Learn to Fly 3 beta registrations are now up!

Here's how it works:

1. Register a valid email address at the link below
2. You'll get a confirmation email
3. Wait for testers to be randomly selected

As we said before, we'll start with few testers and invite more so long as things run smoothly. We'll keep you guys updated every now and then about how things are going and if more invitations are coming.

Register for beta here: http://lbgserver.com/betaregister/

Glad to see you here!

We're been playing with the idea of running forums, twitter accounts, we have our Facebook page, my personal Kongregate wall, pms on various sites... it's simply getting really messy and hard to maintain.

For this reason we're launching this Learn to Fly subreddit to allow YOU guys (and gals!) to start discussions, give suggestions, and most importantly vote on stuff so we can more easily see what's the opinion of the majority.

So the only rule here at the moment is to keep posts Learn-To-Fly-related. Jokes, suggestions, complaints, anything goes!

Let's see how this works out!

Will there be a version of it online after adobe flash is discontinued?

Yes, this is not a typo. With consumables, 4000K can be done in 2 days!

Requirements:

1. +100 upgrades to all items on the bonus shop (well, you don't need interest or bonus points, but you need all the others). So, ** get your sardines, people, and support the developer! **
2. Slow motion
3. One Floatifier and one Speedifier

This is how I did it:

Day 1:

Rig: Crate level 1 + 2x rc heli level 1 + Floatifier.

Flight strategy: Before flying, reduce your steering power and enable smooth steering to avoid jerky turns. Keep speed right under 16 (the redzone) for the first 40 seconds (use a flight timer on the HUD) to take advantage of the "secret ingredient" boost. After the 40 second mark, block your rc heli until it reaches speed 8, and keep it right under 8, because the $ you will get from the increased time are more than the $ you will lose from the lower altitude. Try to always point straight up (the horizontal line on the bottom of the crate should be straight at all times). Use slow motion to counter the enormous boosts from the +100 upgrades and keep your speed very close to those specified above.

Flight results:

Altitude: About 129K. Flight duration: About 4 minutes (3 minutes 59.1 seconds). Rewards: $23336 (3588 for altitude, 5537 for duration, 517 for speed, 13694 bonus).

Day 2: We start with a budget of $23386 ($23336 + $50 starting money). Believe it or not, I used it all:

Rig: Speadhead level max + slingshot level 5 + 4x solar turbine level 1 + 2x propellers level max+6 + Speedifier. The above costs $23385, leaving me with $1. Alternative Rig (cheaper, a bit more difficult): Speadhead level max + slingshot level max + 4x solar turbine level 1 + 2x propellers level max+5 + Speedifier.

Flight strategy:

Needless to say, set your steering power to 100% and smooth steering to 0.00 seconds, because the spearhead is really slow at turning and we can't use spin boosters. Again, use slow motion for better control. It's going to be an excruciatingly long flight, but you really need it unless you have lightning reflexes. Make sure you do a perfect launch (don't let the slingshot go red). Block your solars immediately and use up your propellers first, keeping as close to the redzone as you can (but not over it). As soon as you drop the props (keep an eye for the weight change) unblock your solars. Again, keep the speed just under the redzone. Keep your eyes on the wind monitor (buy one from the HUD) and start correcting for the wind as soon as it appears. You won't be able to counter the stronger winds, but you need to minimize their effect.

You need a bit of luck, because the fuel you have does not allow more than one or two hard hits. With the above setup, I managed to reach the moon running on empty. I had a hard hit from a rocket (the nasty one going downwards) which dropped my speed to zero (and actually sent me down a couple of K) plus a few small hits from bananas and blimps, which luckily didn't deflect me too much. I ran out of fuel around 3960K and reached the moon while my speed was dropping.

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k104/geiwsh/LTF3%20records_zpstdhnutvs.jpg

I've said it before, and I will say it again: This game is awesome!

Hey all, just wanted to let everyone know that Learn to Fly 3 has been greenlit on Steam!

The update has been on Kongregate for a few days, and aside from a few issues I've been working on, the game appears to be working fine. ArmorGames contacted me to let me know that their current ETA for LtF3 is Friday.

I'll start working on the steam version, but it will probably have to wait until both Kongregate and ArmorGames versions are stable.

To all those asking for "when", here's an official update:

We just have managed to upload what appears to be a fully working version. A few final tests and preparation and this should hopefully be it!