Astral Ascent

Created by Hibernian Workshop

Astral Ascent, a 2D platformer rogue-lite on PC and consoles with four worlds to escape, if you can beat the Zodiacs, 12 mighty bosses!

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Physical Editions Update
2 days ago – Tue, Apr 23, 2024 at 12:56:14 AM

Hello everyone, 

We are contacting you today to give news related to the Physical editions and Physical rewards from the Kickstarter campaign! 

1 week left to answer the survey and update credit cards

Limited Run Games handling the Physical editions need a list of how many items to create for each rewards (Physical editions, pin's, Zodiac Cards, etc.) and we need to give them that by the end of the month in order to guarantee the right number of physical items. 

We still have 541 not answered surveys, if you did do not have a physical reward you do not need to, but if you backed a physical item we need your answer to get your shipping address and to calculate the shipping fees, you can find the survey here :


You can still use this survey to update your shipping address if it changes until we lock the adresses before the final shipping.

We also have 46 failed credit cards, we will try to charge again early next week but if you backed physical editions, Limited Run Games cannot guarantee they will have enough stock for Kickstarter exclusive elements and for Kickstarter exclusive Physical editions.

Shipping Dates Update

Limited Run Games now have a window for the pre-order of the game on their side, it should be opening this Summer, once they get their final list of physical editions they will have everything printed and shipped right after.

We are sorry about the physical editions taking longer than expected but we have full trust in our partners to deliver great versions!

Wishing you a great week and let us know if you have questions related to that,

-The Hibernian Workshop Team

1.4 Update - The Arsenal Update!
16 days ago – Mon, Apr 08, 2024 at 03:03:57 PM

Hello everyone!

We are very happy to announce that the 1.4 version is out now on Steam! This time we could not do a simultaneous release on console as we had to release the update as soon as possible in order to be able to participate to a Steam festival in May but we will do our best to release it as soon as we can later this month!

You can check below our first trailer since 1.0 release to showcase the new changes! 

Patch Note 

Find the full Patch Notes here

8 New Weapons

Each hero received 2 new weapons for a total of 12 weapons to play with!

Our goal was to provide more playstyles with the heroes so you should find a weapon you enjoy for your favorite hero!

You unlock the Arsenal by meeting at least once with the Master. And you unlock new weapon by defeating the Master at Destiny Level 2 and 4 with each hero. While doing so you can unlock passives for your base weapons!

36 Weapon Passives

Each weapon, including the base weapon, has 3 passives attached, each passive has to be unlocked through a small quest during your runs. Some quests are easy and some are hard but you can complete them at any Destiny Level.

Once unlocked you can directly use the passive during your run at the next Arsenal because you have one Arsenal in each intro room and before the Master if you want to change your playstyle during your run.

Showing below one passive per weapon so 1/3 of the passives -

As you can see, the passives are very different from each others giving access to even more playstyles variations and they are meant to be more useful in certain situations than others, up to you to pick what you prefer!

What is next?

The Arsenal was a massive update we really wanted to do to give more variety to the gameplay, we wish to keep adding more polish to the game when possible as we had to focus on the new content for this update. We also want to start working on Yamat, the 5th playable character update as soon as possible.

We will hope you will have fun with this update and thanks for supporting us!

The Physical editions are nearly ready, it took more time than expected but we will soon have delivered everything to Limited Run Games!

Have an excellent week,

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

1.3 Update - Affinity System, QoL and Arsenal preview!
about 1 month ago – Thu, Mar 14, 2024 at 05:09:45 AM

Hello everyone!

We just released the 1.3 version on PC and Switch (EU/NA) and in 1-2 weeks for Playstation and Switch Asia. This new version is focused on elements often requested by the community.

Patch Note

Find the full Patch-Notes of 1.3 here!

Affinity System

The most frequent request and complaint about the game since its 1.0 release was the lack of Synergy of your build during your run. Wanting to go in a direction and loots would go in another direction gave the feeling of being unlucky during the runs.

We have created a new system called the Affinity System that increases synergies of the loots depending of your current build so you are more likely to make a fully coherent build at the end of your run. Keep in mind that keeping some flexibility on the loots you find is still important, if you find something very powerful, you might still want to re-orient your build during your run!

We have also made Auras rarities stand out more on your interface.

Destiny Fragments

You will now be able to get up to 3 Destiny Fragments at once per Zodiac victory!

The way it currently works in 1.2 is this :

  • You get 1 Destiny Fragment per Zodiac per Destiny Level (up to 54) and the Master gives 3 fragments per level, you can at best get 7 fragments in a run.
  • If you defeat a Zodiac at a high Destiny Level, you will only get 1 Destiny Fragment and it will increase by 1 the Destiny Level you need to get a new fragment of this Zodiac.
  • Ex : if you have all fragments of Taurus at Destiny Level 10, if you beat him at Destiny Level 20 you will get his 11th fragment, and you will need to beat him at Destiny Level 12 or more to get one new fragment.

This system is slow, does not reward players wanting to take more risks in higher Destiny Levels and it exhausts the Master Destiny Fragments much faster than the Zodiacs fragments, this is how the 1.3 system works :

  • You get from 1 to 3 destiny Fragments per Zodiacs depending on the difference between your current Destiny Level and the number of Destiny Fragments already collected from the Zodiacs.
  • Ex : if you have all fragments of Taurus at Destiny level 10, if you beat him at Destiny Level 13 you will get 3 fragments. Then you will need to beat him at Destiny Level 14 or more to get new Destiny Fragments.
  • The Master still gives 3 Destiny Fragment per Destiny Level and you cannot collect several ranks at once so your maximum Destiny Fragments per run is now 15 and the Master and Zodiacs fragments would exhaust at the same time if you win all your Destiny Levels runs.

Improved Descriptions

We have made descriptions for Effects, Player Statuses and Elite Aspects much clearer adding details for how they work, durations, chances to add stacks in order to give you a clearer idea of what to expect from each of these elements.

Some Astral Auras also used Common Spells without giving informations on them, they now have the descriptions added as hints.

Permanent spell icon

We added an option to make next spell icon always visible above your head. We know this option can help players having an hard time checking the icon during action.

Astral Dragons 

Small Astral Dragon now gives 3 Auras to choose from instead of 2 so you have more choices to start your build during the run.

We have also replaced the Void Catalyst element that increased strength when killing enemies without being hit by Barbecue's Grace giving the Echo of Barbecue to reroll the Auras you do not want with new Auras of same rarity. This gives even more choices to build during your runs.

Darker Background Option

In order to give more options related to readibility, we added an option to make everything in background darker so enemies and players stand out much more.

Ultimate Challenge

We sponsored Gellot ,a great content creator that performs very hard challenges on games, to do all Zodiacs no-hit at Destiny Level 6 which sounds ridicously hard but that wasn't even close to the challenge he did, making a no-hit on all Zodiacs at Destiny Level 54, it sounds really impossible but he made it!

Send him some love in the comments of the video for the incredible performance this is!

Arsenal Update Preview

The Arsenal will be the next update, the 1.4, it will give each Hero 2 new weapons and 3 passives modifying gameplay of each hero, including for their base weapons.

We announced Ayla will have a Katana giving her more impactful attacks with a longer range.

Kiran will have a Double Falchions for large range attacks at a slower pace but keeping high mobility.

Octave will have a Rocket Launcher to kill enemies from far but without auto-targeting, you will need to position correctly to hit your enemies, a bit similar to the one from Hades.

Below, Octave has a passive creating grenades on the third Basic Attack.

Calie will have Spears, all Signature Spells will keep working the same so the spears will create gems when attacking.

And today we announce the second weapon of Octave : the Gunblade! Giving him the ability to fight at a closer range.

We are targetting for this update to release by the end of April 2024.

Backerkit and Physical Rewards

We are getting closer of the final shipment for Physical rewards, we have closed the possibility of changing your rewards and we will collect shipping costs in the coming weeks.

We reached 80% of Survey answer, make sure you answered it if you have a physical rewards to make sure your shipping address is up to date and that Limited Run Games will be shipping to the right place!

We will do our best to keep manually changing the address until the last minute but answering the survey just makes things much easier!

Have an excellent day

-The Hibernian Workshop

1.2 Update - PvP Arena, new Spells and more!
2 months ago – Mon, Feb 12, 2024 at 08:22:47 AM

Patch Note

Find the full Patch-Notes of 1.2 here!

20 new spells

We have added 5 new spells per Hero, 2 of them are directly unlocked and you need to buy 3 of them at the Merchant. If you already have a rarer spells you won't need to unlock them with experience at the end of runs

We received a lot of feedback saying you would like to see more spells about making the enemies move. More spells making something else than pure damage. We have tried to include that as much as possible in our new spells design and we are really happy about these new spells!

PvP Arena

The PvP Arena is placed in Andromeda's Bar. It is accessible only in local co-op during runs and you can make as many duels as you want. We had so much fun testing this new feature, we know it won't be used by everyone as it requires playing in co-op but during co-op runs it adds a lot of fun!

When you start the duel it will make you full life and full mana and it will restore the amount you had before the duel when getting out. 

During the duel both players get mana point with time so you can focus on launching spells more than attacking with Basic Attacks to restore mana. We also added some buff trees spawning sometimes to spice things up. We also removed the Echoes and Zodiac Summon during the duels, it was way too chaotic when it was possible.

The player winning the Duel will get a little crown symbol above their avatar as a reward for the run but it can change back to the other player if they win another duel.

We received a lot of questions relative to online PvP but we are not going for it as it requires so much work. We also thought about accessing the PvP from main menu or from the game hub but it would require a build creating system and we also know that the PvP is not balanced depending of the spells you currently have, it's mainly targeted to get some fun when you do co-op runs!

Extras

Some noteworthy change mainly inspired by community suggestions!

  • Offline Telescope - We have made the Telescope working offline now, it will solve the problem that it was not working in some regions of the world and it will also be available on Console now. 
  • 4 Categories at Cetus Cavern - Cetus Cavern now has 4 categories instead of 3, the fourth one will always be the random one (Nebulous Choice)
  • Pavo Feathers - Feathers on Pavo's ruins will always be of a higher level after sacrificing health 3 times (globally)

Arsenal Update Preview

We have also started working on the next update : The Arsenal. In this update each Hero will have new weapons and associated passives. We will explain this better next time but for now you can see one of the new weapons of Kiran below - 

Merch Suggestions event

We are also gathering your ideas about potential merch on our Discord Server, you can give your own ideas and vote for other suggestions you like, do not hesitate to join!

Backerkit Survey

We have received 57% of the Backerkit survey, please do not forget to fill it. More details in the previous update if you missed it. And you can access it anytime from this link.

Have a great time in the game and a fantastic week,

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

BackerKit surveys are coming very soon!
3 months ago – Wed, Feb 07, 2024 at 05:29:30 AM

In a few hours you’ll receive an email from us with a special link to your BackerKit survey. It’s important to respond to your survey as quickly as you can since we need this information to fulfill your rewards. If you do not receive the survey very fast do not worry, we are sending them progressively so we can answer better your questions during the process. 

In this survey you will be able to purchase Physical add-ons (visible below) even if you initially backed a digital reward. As announced during the Kickstarter Campaign, the shipping cost will be collected in this survey if you have any physical reward. The shipping costs are calculated based on the total weight of your order based on price ranges per weight per region provided by Limited Run Games.

You don’t need to create a BackerKit account to fill out your survey. When you receive the email with the survey, click the survey link to respond. Answer the questions about your reward preferences, provide shipping information, and purchase add-on items if you like. You don’t have access to this survey link yet, but it will be available soon via email!

After you respond to your survey, you can go back later and change your responses at any time before we close the surveys and get our final counts.

If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://astral-ascent.backerkit.com .

If you used your Facebook credentials to log in to your account, the BackerKit survey is sent to the email address you use for your Facebook account.

We have created a FAQ page to answer your questions about it the process -

You can also ask for support from the FAQ page if you need.

As a reminder, you can claim your Digital Rewards on our Discord Server http://discord.gg/hibernian-workshop in the #Kickstarter-rewards channel.

Have an excellent day,
 

  • The Hibernian Workshop Team