TUNL Changelog

What changed in each version, newest first. The browser version at flytunl.ch/play always runs the newest build.

Changelog · updated 13 October 2026 · the current version is 19.9

19.9: Easier to Find

• TUNL has new names in the App Store and on Google Play in all 16 languages, so it turns up when you search for plane or fighter-jet games.
• Fly anywhere: the apps need no connection. Today's cave is built on your phone from the date, so a run on a plane, in a tunnel or in airplane mode is the same cave everyone flies.
• Nothing else changes. Your ships and your progress stay exactly as they are.

19.8: A Tidier Debriefing

• On smaller phones, a run that earned many rewards no longer stacks them over the buttons of the results screen: what doesn't fit moves to the free space on the right.
• Your first flight of the day no longer calls itself a daily best. There was nothing to beat yet.

19.7: The Same Cave on Every Screen

• On a screen narrower than the widest phones, the game now zooms out instead of showing a shorter stretch of the cave, so every pilot sees as far ahead and runs on the leaderboard are fair across devices. Buttons and text keep their size.

19.6: Straight Into the Cave

• In the iPhone app, Apple's question about tracking now comes after your first run instead of before the title screen, so a new pilot is in the air first.
• Bombs go off without a stutter: the echo of the blast is now prepared before the run instead of at the moment you hit one.

19.5: The HUD Explains Itself

• The first few times the star meter, your hull or a power-up gauge shows up, its name appears right beside it, then gets out of the way.
• The star meter is split into one field per coin, every scrape tells you how many hull plates are left, and the last plate glows red.
• Die with the star meter at least half full and the debrief tells you how many coins you were short.
• New panel YOUR INSTRUMENTS explains every gauge at the bottom of the screen. Open it from HOW IT WORKS, or from the debrief while you are still learning.

19.4: The Day Keeps Its Word

• The day's name on the title screen now shows in the cave: on a GOLD RUSH, MINE BELT or ZIGZAG day, sector 4 opens with that day's own stretch.
• The DARK STRETCH is darker: your ship carries a smaller pool of light, and the edge of the screen goes almost black.

19.3: The Deep Plays On

• When a short video gives you a second life in the apps, the music of the deep cave now plays on instead of falling back to the first track.

19.2: A New Shop

• The shop in the apps is rebuilt: every product shows what you get and what it costs, right on its card.
• ALL SHIPS tells you how many flight days it saves you, and what you have bought stays in the shop, marked as yours.
• New in the settings of the apps: RATE, one tap to the store's review page.

19.1: Paint Master

• New in the shop of the apps: PAINT MASTER. One purchase unlocks every paint for sale in the hangar at once: hull colours, patterns, finishes and effects, including the ones still to come.
• The paints you earn by flying stay earned: best score, worlds, flight days and streaks still unlock them.
• With PAINT MASTER the PAINT button opens even before your first paid ship.

19.0: Deeper Every Time

• New from sector 4: every sector has its own character. Crystal forest, minefield, gold vein, boulder field, cannon alley, rockfall, or a dark stretch lit only by your ship, and the sector sign tells you which. A second soundtrack takes over in the deep, and the title shows today's cave type (how it works).
• The launch screen of the apps now glows in night violet.
• Ready for iPhone Duo: unfolded, TUNL fills the big inner screen edge to edge. Fold or unfold mid-run and your flight pauses, then picks up where you left it.
• Challenge a friend: SHARE now sends a link to your run. Your friend flies the same cave against your ghost, sees if they beat you and can send a REMATCH straight back. CARD still shares the picture of your run.
• Turn your iPhone to the other landscape side and the game turns with it, never upside down.
• The title now shows TOTAL SCORE: every run you have flown, added up.
• In the hangar and on the title, your F-14 shows its wings slightly spread.
• Android: on some devices the game no longer opens on a flat dark screen.

18.6.3: Climbing in Gold

• A new app icon: your F-14 in gold, climbing through violet light. The launch screen shows it too.
• The F-14's swing wings are wider at the tips and run as one clean arrow from the canopy, in flight, in the hangar and on the share card.
• The cave and the rules are unchanged.

18.6.2: Same Ship Everywhere

• In the apps, the star now pulses in your hand: a kick when it lights up, a beat while it runs, faster as it fades.
• The hangar, the shop and the share card now show the same rebuilt F-14 you fly.
• The address on the share card takes friends straight to the download.
• On iPhone, the launch screen now shows the new icon: your F-14 flying through the violet warp ring.

18.6.1: Through the Ring

• A new app icon: your F-14 flies through the violet warp ring, wings spread wide.
• The F-14 got a careful rebuild: wings that swing back cleanly from the body, a slimmer nose and a sturdier frame. In a warp the wings now fold back further.
• The cave and the rules are unchanged.

18.6: Easier to Find

• A clearer name in the stores: TUNL: Cave Flyer Arcade, with better search words in every language, so people looking for a cave flyer can find it.
• The game itself is unchanged.

18.5: New Face

• The app icon and the launch screen now show the F-14 you actually fly, wings swept back as if it's about to warp.
• A new look in the stores: fresh screenshots and a clearer description of how a run works. The cave itself is unchanged.

18.4: Second Wind

• The practice run over the city is a one-time lesson now: pass it once and later flights head straight for the tunnel. If the beat won't come, the tunnel opens sooner.
• A second life comes sooner: after a few flights a day, a short video can save even a run that ended early. Not now? Tap anywhere else.
• Your daily shard bonus now also waits right after a run: one video, a handful of shards.

18.3: Flight School

• Your first flights wait for you: after take-off your ship hovers over the city until you tap, while the music waits with it on a loop and rolls straight into the beat when you go.
• Then a practice run over the rooftops teaches the rhythm: tap along with the circle and a row of lights flares up behind you. The tunnel opens once you have the beat.
• The star's music now slows down with a blue coin and speeds up in a warp, just like the soundtrack.

18.2: Tap to Fly

• Flying is now a tap. Every tap gives your ship a short hop, so you never have to hold. Holding still works and keeps you climbing whenever you want it.
• Your first flights show you how. A circle next to your ship shows when to tap, all through the opening stretch. Tap along and your ship follows the best line through the coins. Miss a beat and time slows down until you tap.
• The star has its own music. When your ship turns into a star, the song steps aside for a drop of its own, then picks up right where it left off.
• A laser running dry now flickers out like a dying flashlight, so you see its end coming.
• A bomb now pays for what it blows up: every crystal, boulder, mine or cannon shot caught in the blast scores bonus points, just like breaking one with your ammo, the laser or the star.
• A smoother arrival: the tunnel's name sweeps in with a glint and clears the way, and each world's title unfolds from a line of light as you fly into the mouth.
• Smaller fixes: HOW IT WORKS now explains every icon, the star included, and warp hoops no longer sit inside a boulder.

18.1: Starlight

• Frenzy shines brighter. When your ship turns into a star, a light now traces its outline and sparks flash at its nose and wingtips. And the star lasts a little longer.
• Sharper controls at the wall. When you skim along the rock without crashing, your ship now pulls away the instant you steer.
• A tidier cockpit: your hull plates now sit on the left next to the star meter, your ammo on the right.

18.0: Firepower

• New: the ruby laser. Deep in the cave an ammo coin sometimes turns into a ruby. Grab it and a beam fires from your nose for a few seconds, burning through crystals, mines and cannon shots. It is the only weapon besides the bomb that breaks a boulder: a single touch of the beam sets the rock glowing, and a moment later it bursts.
• New: Frenzy. On a deep run, coins fill a star meter at the bottom left. When it is full your ship becomes a star for a moment: whatever you fly into shatters, the walls cannot hurt you, and every smash hits hard. Coins you let slip by drain the meter, and every further star in the same run costs more.
• A new cockpit under your wings. Every power-up now carries its own symbol and drains right before your eyes, so you always know how long it lasts. Your magazine and hull armour show exactly what is left, and the gold bar opens up just like the tunnel. Even the first gold coins of your flight fill it.

17.3: Live dangerously

• Close calls pay now. Skim past a crystal, a mine, a boulder or a cannon shot and get out clean, and you score bonus points. Close calls in quick succession build a chain that multiplies them. A wall scrape never counts, and a hit your shield takes pays nothing.
• The music builds with a deep run: past the first few sectors it lifts a notch with each new one, gliding up so you never hear a jump.

17.2: A proper way in

• The flight in over the city feels alive now: windows light up across the skyline as you take off, and streaks of air rush past as the mountain closes in.
• The rock lip at the tunnel mouth catches the last of the dusk light and steps down into the dark as you enter. The cave itself stays as dark as before.
• The approach has its own sound: open wind over the rooftops that swells toward the mountain and cuts off the moment you slip into the rock, with its last gust ringing through the cave.

17.1: TUNL speaks Greek

• Greek is the 16th language, in the game, in the stores and on this site. The language picker in the settings is now a tidy four by four grid.
• A mine can no longer appear inside a boulder island. When the two would overlap, the mine moves further along the cave instead.

17.0: Paint your own ship

• The hangar has a real paint kit now: hull colour, pattern, material and a reactive effect, each bought once and mixed however you like, replacing the six fixed liveries. The ship's light (its glow, nozzles, strobes) stays untouched by any of it.
• Your streak and stardust are finally visible: an always-on wallet, a path to your next ship, an arrival card each morning, and a shard bonus for a full week held without a break. Miss a single day and a banked rest day covers it once.
• A new silhouette in flight: swept F-14-style wings that fold fully back for a warp and swing fully forward for a blue coin, easing back to a cruise sweep in between.

16.1: Shoot for repairs

• Every mine or cannon shot you destroy with ammo now drops a wrench where it blew up. Fly through it and your hull gets back one scratch, whatever you had lost, and it still pays a few points on a full hull. It stays where it fell: the magnet does not pull it in.
• A wall hit now spends a shield before it touches the hull. The hull is the ship: it only picks up a scratch once nothing is shielding it.
• A scratched hull shows it, with gouges on the fuselage and a trail of smoke, both gone the moment a shield covers you again.
• Crystal stalactites stay rooted on the wall. Where the cave bends, the small crystals at the base of a cluster could float off the rock; they now follow it. The hitbox is untouched.
• A crash sounds like a crash now, not a balloon popping.

16.0: The stalactites are crystal now

• Every stalactite and stalagmite is a cluster of upright crystal prisms instead of the smooth cone the cave has had since version 1.0, with a different mineral for each of the seven daily worlds - calcite, rust quartz, selenite, obsidian, amethyst, olivine, rhodonite. The hitbox is untouched: same triangle, same size, same fairness.
• Breaking one now sounds like glass, not gravel, and throws real shards - whether you shoot it, fly through a shield, or die on it.
• A falling stalactite now leaves its rock socket behind on the ceiling when it lets go, and lands tip-first, buried in the floor like it actually struck something.

15.0: The run now begins outside the cave

• Every run opens over the day's city at dusk and flies into a rock mouth. An "ENTERING THE TUNL" banner marks the way in. The cave, the score and the daily seed are exactly as before.
• The ship in flight is drawn in a three-quarter side view: its wings sweep back with the speed, the hull rolls with your climb, and the warp ring gives a barrel roll. Hitbox unchanged.
• The soft walls are gone. Walls are lethal from the tunnel mouth on, and the two hull scratches now last the whole run.
• A sound and interface pass: distinct sounds for a hull scratch and a revive, stereo panning around the ship, an audible warning just before a cannon fires and before a loose stalactite falls, cave reverb on impacts, a low turbofan spool-up, three-level music and sound settings, and a pause when the app loses focus mid-run.
• Local records were reset once, on first launch. Shards, stardust, ships, achievements and lifetime counters are untouched.

14.2: Music, the death screen and small feel fixes

• Seamless music loops, with no audible jump.
• The song's real ending plays when you die, then silence until the title music returns.
• A longer death freeze frame, with the reticle on whatever hit you.
• The bomb sound rebuilt as a thunder boom, and an engine spool-up that matches the launch.
• Shooting a hazard now scores points, and the ammo coin is a brighter orange.

14.1: Sound and slow-time

• A new in-game soundtrack.
• Reworked impact sounds for the shield break, rock hits and mine and bomb explosions.
• Picking up a blue coin now visibly slows the world: ripples, an ice-blue wash on the left, and slowed particles, exhaust and coin animations. Presentation only.

14.0: Paint and polish

• Six hangar paint finishes, bought once with shards and equipped per ship. Purely cosmetic.
• A full audio pass: a shared master bus with a soft limiter, and a rebalanced mix so that warnings are never quieter than a routine pickup.
• A fix for the rendered wall pulling away from the screen edge when the corridor bonus was maxed or a warp was live.

13.0: A new look

• New typography across every screen.
• The title screen takes the colour of the day's world, and the TUNL wordmark was rebuilt.
• A new score display: a gauge that fills toward your record, a combo chip beside the score, and a spark from each paying coin.
• Every coin is drawn as the thing it does: an hourglass, a shield, a crosshair, a magnet, a bomb with a lit fuse, a poison flask, a whirlpool, a gem with outward arrows.
• The death screen was rebuilt as a debriefing on a clear grid, with the score as its hero.

12.2: Leaderboard reset and an achievement fix

• The all-time leaderboard was reset on both platforms, because its top scores were set on much easier builds. Daily and weekly boards were untouched.
• "Master of the Fleet" now requires every ship in the roster to be maxed.

12.0 and 12.1: A gentler start and a plan for the run

• A safe, hazard-free opening flight for the first stretch of every run.
• The run is now a plan of seven-second sectors, each introducing one new thing, with a breather at the start of each. See the pacing devlog.
• Two hull scratches to forgive early wall mistakes.
• Boulders became rock islands with four outline families, and cannon shots got more flight time.
• A faceted ship hull, and physics that no longer depends on the refresh rate.
• A frozen death frame that points at what killed you.

11.0: The warp portal

• A hoop hangs in the corridor now and then. Fly through it to surge ahead, untouchable, with gold coins pulled in automatically.
• Ten new achievements.

10.5: Fairness across screens

• Every screen size now flies the exact same daily cave. Four separate causes of per-device difference were found and fixed.
• Boulders and falling stalactites moved much earlier, where players actually reach them.
• A re-paced power-up economy, and two placement bugs fixed.

10.4: Flight-time achievements

• Two new achievements for staying airborne for a minute and for two minutes in one run.
• A fix for late-run power-up coins overshooting their intended share, after a player said there were too many shields.

10.3: Reachability

• Ship unlock costs were cut hard, so the daily calendar rather than the shard count paces every ship.
• The opening coins now teach releasing, not just holding.
• World rank is hidden until enough players have flown the day's cave for it to mean something.

10.2: Thrust retune

• The upward acceleration was eased after player feedback. See the story.

10.1: A bug fix

• Achievements you had already earned before they existed are now granted retroactively.

10.0: Deep runs get variety

• For runs past a few hundred points: a corridor whose shape changes character, pulses of extra speed, wide breather chambers, and a shifting colour palette.
• A second hazard coin, the drain, which takes a share of your current score.
• Lifetime distance on the title screen, and two lifetime-distance achievements.

9.1: The seven daily worlds

• Eight new achievements built on the seven-day world rotation: one for a real run on each of the seven worlds, plus a Grand Tour for all of them.

9.0: Achievements

• Eighteen achievements on Game Center and Play Games, unlocked by flying, upgrading ships, hitting milestones and returning daily.

8.4: Invite a friend

• Invite a friend and earn a shard bonus when they fly their first cave, and a shared link now opens straight into the app if it is installed.

8.3: Daily reminder

• An opt-in evening reminder on days you have not flown the day's tunnel, with one tap in Settings to turn it on or off.

8.1 and 8.2: Optional rewards

• An optional video to continue a run, and a once-a-day optional video for a shard bonus.

8.0: A rebuilt title screen and a record moment

• Shield, ammo and magnet coins were redrawn with their own shape and size, easy to tell apart at a glance and safe for colour-blind players.
• A "+RECORD" moment, with its own sound, the instant you pass your all-time best.
• A gentler start: no obstacles before score 25, so the first lesson is the flying.
• A rebuilt title screen with quick access to ranks, challenges and ships, and rank and challenge badges on the rail.
• A richer share card, and a fix for purchases that got stuck on some Android devices.

7.0 and 7.1: A rock for every day

• Each day of the week now has its own rock, from asteroid grey to rust to obsidian to amethyst, instead of a wall colour that changed as a run got harder. Every player sees the same rock on the same day.
• The blue coin now slows the world and lets it glide back to full speed, in the music and for projectiles too, instead of snapping back.
• The coin sound climbs a step with every coin in a combo, the magnet hums while it is live, and the rare pickups are a little louder than the routine ones.
• Today's planet shows under the world name, the ghost of your best run is always on, and the bomb coin gives destroyed cannons their own explosion.
• 7.1: coins were redesigned so each type has its own silhouette and size, menus got sound, the app icon became the ship, and mastery no longer lets a ship's drawback heal away completely at the top level.

6.0 and 6.1: Stardust and Unlock All Ships

• A second currency, stardust, earned by opening the app on a new day. Every paid ship now needs both its shards and a number of days played, so the whole roster is a multi-month goal rather than a week of grinding.
• An optional one-time Unlock All Ships purchase, and a shop of its own, split from Settings.
• A sound for going ON FIRE and a punchier shot sound.
• 6.1: an info panel that explains shards, stardust and coins, a glow on a new record, and locked ships shown as silhouettes on the title screen.

5.0, 5.1 and 5.2: Runs you can share

• 5.0: a daily run card, a picture of the tunnel you actually flew with the point where you died and your best just ahead of it, ready to share.
• 5.0: your world rank on the death screen, a ghost of today's best run to race, and a clear runway on your very first run.
• 5.0: ads were limited to every fourth death and at most once every two minutes, because a good run only lasts 20 to 36 seconds.
• 5.1: an ON FIRE effect when you pass today's best (a twin afterburner and embers), the eighth ship SOLARIS, and a fix for a crash on the first launch.
• 5.2: a new app icon and wordmark, and a cleaner death screen. 5.2.1 added measurement of app installs from ads and nothing you would see.

4.0: A new icon

• The app icon became the player's ship with its thrust.

3.0, 3.1 and 3.2: Shards, trade-offs and new hazards

• 3.0: ships are unlocked with shards banked from collected coins instead of a score, so one great run no longer clears the whole list. Two prestige ships, VOID and NOVA, were added above the old top tier. Everyone started from zero shards.
• 3.0: every ship now trades one strength for one weakness, and flying a ship grows its strength and softens its weakness with mastery levels.
• 3.0: three daily missions, the same for every player on a given day.
• 3.1 and 3.2: a poison coin that taxes your pending shards, a bomb coin that clears nearby hazards, and rare wall-mounted cannons. Milestone popups became rarer on long runs.
• Each day's cave now differs a little in wave shape and obstacle density, and the icon, wordmark and in-game logo became one tunnel-ring drawing.

2.0 to 2.3: More languages and steadier audio

• 2.0 brought iOS and Android onto the same version number.
• 2.1 to 2.3: music that stayed silent after the app was backgrounded was fixed, and it took three tries to fix it for good.
• 2.2: scroll speed keeps climbing instead of levelling off at maximum difficulty, and an all-time leaderboard sits next to the daily one.
• 2.3: Arabic, Turkish, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Hindi were added, for 15 languages in all. A "LEVEL n" banner opens each run, and a Game Center Challenge button (iOS) lets you dare friends.

1.0 and 1.1: The first release

• Hold to climb, release to fall, down a landscape cave that is the same for every player on a given day and grows harder the further you fly.
• Gold, slow-time, shield, ammo and magnet coins, stalactites and mines, and ships with their own perks. A day streak counts the days you fly.
• Daily leaderboards on Game Center and Play Games, ten languages, a share button, and an animated title screen.
• A one-time Remove Ads purchase, with interstitial ads that ask for consent first (App Tracking Transparency and GDPR).
• 1.1 (Android) updated the app to Android 16's API level to meet Google Play's requirement.

Versions 1.0 to 8.0 are also the story told in the devlog post The First Two Months.

For how the current game plays, see the how-to-play guide. If something in a new version broke your run, tell me at [email protected].

Play today's cave