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:

Phase 1 Rewards & Post-campaign store live on Backerkit ☄️
over 3 years ago – Thu, May 06, 2021 at 02:50:38 AM

Click to visit the shop now!

We received many messages of people who wanted to support the project but who learned about the Kickstarter Campaign after it ended. It is now possible thanks to Backerkit post-campaign store so if you have friends who would be interested in joining our amazing journey, let them know!

For those of you we had payment issues: Backerkit supports Paypal and all major credit cards. Let us know if you have any questions about it. Available elements in the Backerkit shop:

Why Ayla Figure is not there: For now the Ayla Figure is not available there as it was exclusive to the Kickstarter, depending of the manufacturer we may need to produce a bit more than the numbers ordered during the Kickstarter so maybe in the future we may have extra slots for Ayla figure but we will let you know if that happens.


Important note for Kickstarter Backers

If you already backed through Kickstarter and have no payment issue you do not want to use Backerkit service for now. You will be able to get more add-ons later, when you receive Backerkit surveys (before final release). We know this is not very intuitive, let us know if you have any questions about it we will do our best to answer.


Phase 1 Rewards

Based on our Rewards roadmap, our team has worked hard to deliver the first digital rewards:

  •  Exclusive Discord roles: Astral Backer | Celestial Backer | Zodiac Backer
  •  HD Wallpapers (computer and phone)
  • Dark Devotion Digital keys

To get above rewards: We created a Bot that will handle the digital deliveries, it is a kind and helpful bot created with care within the Workshop, follow these steps:

  • Join our Discord Server 
  • Type !claimReward in #kickstarter-rewards channel
  • Our Kickstarter Assistant will DM you with further instructions 
Some of our HD Wallpapers

Why use Discord? We already have a large part of our followers there and having a digital bot makes it very easy for you to retrieve your rewards anytime by yourself. Using an additional third party service felt off to us, you are of course free to leave the discord once you have your rewards if you want to however it is a positive and respectful place to talk about the game if you want to.

What about credit names? For now we think that we will collect your Credits Name later, probably in the Backerkit Survey. We will let you know about it.


Projects we love: The Iron Oath 

Our Kickstarter campaign is over but great indie titles are everywhere around so we thought we could keep sharing some of our favorite under development projects. One of our first thought was The Iron Oath, the game comes with one of the cleanest pixel-art out there and gameplay looks awesome. You really have to take some time to fully appreciate colossal efforts to create such a detailed and large scoped game for such a small team, I think trailer below speaks for itself: 

Have an excellent day, 

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

Campaign big finale ⭐ What comes next?
over 3 years ago – Sun, May 02, 2021 at 10:51:25 PM

What an amazing success! You confirmed the great potential we saw in the game while working daily on it and this confirmation motivates us even more! ⭐

What you can expect:

  • 4 Unique Playable Characters with their own play-styles and signature spells
  • 4 Worlds to explore with their own enemies, challenges
  • 12 Unforgettable Zodiacs to fight and summon by your side
  • Over 100 Unique Spells to use in the game

Coming thanks to the stretch goals you unlocked:

  • New NPC in hub for Extra Challenges and rewards
  • The 12 Signature Spells of the Zodiacs usable by all characters
  • Emi Evans collaboration for final boss fight music
  • 5th playable character coming as free DLC for all of you
  • A new room type, new enemies and special rewards to fight in the stars

We are fully commited to build the 2D rogue-lite you are all waiting for, you can count on us! 🔥


 To thank you: 

First of all we are extending the Kickstarter Demo availability to monday morning (European time) to let those of you who did not have the opportunity to play it before and wanted to try it during the week end! After that we will make it available only during Steam Festivals.

As you know we reached EUR 148.952 and it was very close to the EUR 150.000 needed to unlock the Extra NPCs Animations stretch goal.

As it was very close (an extra hour would probably been enough to reach it), we decided to do it anyway!

Prepare for new smooth animations for NPCs!

What comes next? 

Our priority is delivering the rewards in a smooth and efficient way. We want you to always be able to always have access to your digital rewards (in case you lost them for example). We found the best way to do that, we are creating a Discord bot on our server that will deliver your rewards directly anytime you claim them

As we see things there will be 5 different phases:


PHASE 1: Post-campaign digital rewards (second half of next week)

  • Receive your unique discord roles depending of your backing tier
  • Receive your exclusive HD Wallpaper (computer & phone)  
  • Select your Credits Name 
  •  Dark Devotion Steam Copy add-on - Receive your Steam keys

PHASE 2: Early Access Release (First half of 2022)

  •  Early Access on Steam - Receive your keys (Astral Aspirant tier & Steam copy add-on)

The Early Access Key also unlocks the final game on game: it is the same key.


PHASE 3: Pre-Launch

Once we are ready for final release, you will receive a survey from our partner Backerkit to select your console platforms for digital and physical and collect shipping costs (at the best possible price).


PHASE 4: Launch date (Sometimes in 2023)

  •  Physical editions - Receive your editions (Celestial and Zodiac Tiers shipped by our partner Limited Run Games)
  •  Digital game on console - Receive your keys (Astral Aspirant (console) tier & Steam copy add-on)
  •  Digital OST - Receive Bandcamp keys (By music composer Dale North)
  • Receive your digital Artbook  

PHASE 5: Post-Launch

  •  5th playable character DLC - Receive your key to unlock
Getting back to development!

During whole development we will share with you updates about the game. Next Milestone is Early Access early 2022 and we feel very confident about it and seeing you play the demo gave us so many ideas on how to improve the game before the Early Access release.


As for all Kickstarter, some of you are having issues with payment, if it happens to you we recommend you  to check this dedicated Kickstarter page.

If you have questions about the campaign or if you simply want to spend time with lovely people, don't hesitate to join our kind community on our dedicated Discord Server:

Also, if you want, you can wishlist the game on Steam in order to help us getting a bit of visibility on the store.

One more time, thank you: we will make sure to meet expectations 🔥


The Hibernian Workshop Team

Star Guardians Enemies Funded + Announcing Last Stretch Goal ⭐
over 3 years ago – Fri, Apr 30, 2021 at 03:13:54 AM

EUR 140 000 reached! 

We are reaching the stars with this new Stretch Goal! The Star Guardians Enemies are confirmed!

You can expect stellar fights among the stars with these elite humanoid fighers. Nothing final yet but we imagine unique gambits containing the power of the stars themselves as rewards, these new rooms will give extra spice to your runs and we are very glad to have it unlocked as we are genuinely hyped ourselves about it!


Announcing our Last Stretch Goal ⭐

Hopefully we had so many ideas for Stretch Goals so we are announcing our eighth and last stretch goal which we really love: Extra Animations for NPCs

If unlocked, it means new unique animations for the NPCs in the hub to make this place (The Garden) feel even more alive. It takes so much time and efforts to do these frame-by-frame animations and reach the very high level of quality & fluidity that we seek (examples below). 

Sova base animation
Zim-Zim base animation

These new animations would be an addition to the base animations already existing. Stretch goal will be unlocked if we reach EUR 150,000 (about $181,600) before the end and it would be 500% of our funding goal reached: it would be absolutely amazing!


Check your ADD-ONS 👇

Only a few hours remain, don't hesitate to check your add-ons, description below:


- DIGITAL ADD-ONS

(Unlocked if you backed a digital or physical tier)

  • 20€ - Steam Copy (includes Early Access for first half of 2022)
  • 22€ - Console Copy (Switch - PS4 - PS5)
  • 10€ - Dark Devotion Steam Copy (our previous game, key sent quickly after the campaign ends)
  • 10€ - Astral Ascent OST (by Music Composer Dale North, made for tiers not including OST)
  • 250€ - Backer Statue (Be forever represented and named in the game as a Statue in merchant room)

- PHYSICAL ADD-ONS

(Unlocked if you backed a physical tier)

  • 34€ - Physical edition (Limited Run Edition for PC - PS4 - Switch)
  • 20€ - 4 Enamels Pin's (hard enamel, high quality)
  • 12€ - Set of 12 collectibles Zodiac Cards 
  • 90€ - Kickstarter Exclusive Ayla Figure (Made by talented Sculptor Graphigaut)


Thanks again for all your support and have an excellent day,


The Hibernian Workshop Team

Zodiac Reveal and New Stretch Goal ☄️
over 3 years ago – Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 11:16:06 PM

New stretch goal: Star Guardians Enemies

Things are going very fast in these last 48h of the campaign! We already unlock the sixth stretch goal : Zodiac Spells Water/Wind!

You will be able to gain the power of 6 new Zodiacs!

So here comes our seventh stretch goal: Star Guardians Enemies ☄️

Being thrown into space to face unique brand new enemies. Humanoids, they will be very though opponents but you will receive great rewards linked to the stars if you can defeat them.


You can find a very early mockup below: (nothing final only with basic silhouettes)

Kiran & Octave face 3 Stars Guardians (mockup)


 Zodiac Reveal: Cancer ♋

Cancer ♋ is joining Scorpio ♏ as the second Zodiac reveal from water world:

"So you think I am not wielding any weapon?... this should be quick."

Cancer knows his strengths and, as a perfectly balanced deadly assassin, he hides his weaknesses. He wants to prove worthy and stopping you should absolutely not be a problem for him.


Statue 360° video 

Last but not least, Graphigaut made a 360° video of his beautiful 20cm height Ayla sculpture so you could see better the stunning details! She will have 2 daggers but as it is 2 times the same one you can only see one on the video.

Project we love: UNBEATABLE 

This is a rhythm game with an incredible art direction (if you love animes like us!) and it throws you into frenetic action as well as a great adventure! Oh and it also comes with an awesome soundtrack too: witness that directly with their trailer below!


It has been an incredible campaign but we are not done yet, there is still 24hours left so don't hesitate to spread the word to your friends about it and unlock one more stretch goal!


Have a great day,

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

400% REACHED ⭐ FREE DLC FOR BACKERS ⭐
over 3 years ago – Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 02:43:37 PM

5th playable character for the game! 

Thanks to your amazing support we reached 400% of our funding goal and the game will have a 5th playable character: Yamat - the stars bringer. ☄️

This brand new character uses magic linked to animals & nature. You can expect: 

  • new dialogs
  • new interactions
  • new signature spells
  • much more! 

All this will come as a DLC, offered for FREE to all backers to thank you as early supporters of the game!



New Stretch Goal: Zodiacs Signature Spells Water/Wind 

This is our sixth stretch goal: "Zodiac Spells Water/Wind" Stretch Goal, if we reach EUR 126,000 (about $152,000).

This time it will let you use the Signature spells of Water 💧 and Wind 🌪️ worlds Zodiacs:

  •  Scorpio - Cancer - Pisces 💧 
  •  Gemini - Libra - Aquarius 🌪️
Calie using Pisces magic | Octave using Gemini's scythe

New add-on: Original Soundtrack 💿 (digital)

If you pledged lower tiers than Celestial (50€) you could not access the digital OST: it is now possible with a brand new add-on

The OST is made by the talented music composer Dale North (Dreamscaper, Wizard of Legend etc.) who is doing an amazing job on the project, some examples below

Projects we want to share: 

 Today we want to show you Suffering, we think the game is not receiving enough attention while it has some stunning visuals and promising gameplay! If you are curious they are nearly funded so don't hesitate to check their campaign!

Have an excellent day, 

- The Hibernian Workshop Team