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"Using a Zippo lighter, measuring tape, house keys, and a phone tripod holder, Lonely Orca showed how gun sound design can be done on an indie dev budget."
— 80 Level Read the full article →
LATEST INTEL
What is born to build?
BTB is a multiplayer FPS powered by our custom voxel engine, SALT, enabling complete environmental destruction, construction, and tactical jungle warfare.
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Shape the battlefield with your trusty shovel. Build defenses and pathways for your squad, or reshape the terrain to block and confuse the enemy.
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Fortify objectives on the fly. Dig in, build bunkers, and boost your team’s survival chances in the unforgiving Vietnam jungle.
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Why go over when you can go through? Tunnel toward the objective and construct complex cave systems beneath enemy lines.
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Level their bases. Destroy enemy fortifications or carve out your own hidden strongholds deep underground.
why free?
We grew up in the '90s — and we miss the golden era of online multiplayer gaming.
Back then, you just joined a server, played with friends, and had fun. No battle passes, no loot boxes—just pure gameplay.
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While we understand the appeal of modern monetization, we believe that to truly recreate that old-school experience, Born to Build must remain free to play.
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We're working with our community to find a sustainable path forward—whether through optional cosmetics like skins and helmets, and supporting development via Patreon (TBA).
our roadmap
We’ve been developing Born to Build on a one-day-a-week schedule since 2020.
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Here’s what we’ve accomplished so far — and what’s coming next:
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✅ Finish pre-production on our custom game engine
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✅ Add custom map support for open-source tools like Goxel
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✅ Model & animate 15+ unique weapons
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✅ Lay the groundwork for the player customization pipeline
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✅ Finalize raycasting for live map construction & destruction​
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✅ Physics system that includes player movement (jumping, crouching and auto-climb)
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✅ Digging and Building voxels
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🔧 Shooting - TBA
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🔧 Animation & sound support — TBA
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🔧 Basic UI — TBA
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🔧 Networking — TBA
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🧪 Closed Alpha Test — TBA
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development timeline
*This timeline is pretty condensed and MANY things have been left out, otherwise we'd be here all day - talking about compression, optimizations, bug fixes and other stuff that are just as exciting as you think they are.
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2020
Covid Happens
So we all got fired...
Whos up for some AoS?
An idea emerges
Can we develop our own game
inspired by AoS?
Should we pay Unity?
Nah. Let's make
our own game engine!
Coding & Optimisim
Surely we can do this in like 2 to 3 years, right...?
First 3D Assets
So our characters have actual hands and guns now.
2021
Getting the word out
We open a YouTube channel
and get a community going.
R&D
Need to figure out how to handle these voxels.
3D Asset Support
The engine manages to load our basic 3D assets
Custom Map Support
Our engine supports all .VXL map formats and AoS maps
2022
MonoGame Rollback
We hit a wall with MonoGame and switch to Veldrid
What about our own map?
So who made that awesome Normandie map, anyway?
2023
The Boonies
Influx is found and designs our first official map
Development Stops
Newborns + War + Fulltime Jobs = No Passion Projects
2024
So where were we?
We start to adding physics to the engine
Refactoring
For 8 Motherfucking months. Yeah -_-
Performance Check
Octree loading works and we can run 16,777,216 Voxels
Optimizations
Backface and frustum culling are added - facinating!
2025
Digging & Building
We can now build and dig all 16,777,216 Voxels
Player Movement
We can move in first person, jump, fall and crouch.
we are here -
Export Builds
Running full-blown .exe builds for internal testing
Weapon System
We've got 16 guns and a shovel - we need to use one!
Basic UI
Using ImGUI - Really anything will do for now
Audio Propergation
Need to figure how and what players can and can't hear
Networking
Can't make a multiplayer game without it!
LAN Testing
When we finally get the play the game ourselves
Public Alpha Launches
*Hopefully before we die of old age - Stay Tuned!
devlogs
We're currently developing the game on our spare time, which means mostly during Thursday evenings. (So if you want to hit us up on discord that's the time to do it).
We've got an ongoing series of devlog videos on YouTube. We talk code, animations, 3D and more behind the scenes stuff.
We try to release one episode ever quarter.
Check it out:
podcast
Some of you asked for more casual content, so we made around 5 podcast episodes (new ones are in production). So put us in the background if you want to hear indie devs complaining about being indie devs.
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It's our turn for Night Patrol, soldier. We scout the parimiter and talk about game development to pass the time.
You joining?
Intel
Our Discord community is steadily growing, enlist and join the platoon!
Talk to us, follow our progress and help us shape the game towards release.
