Yes, Kiran & Ayla will have an introduction cinematic as we did for Octave & Calie!
First thing first, I would really like to fully appreciate how much the game changed since April 12 2022, the amount of changes is really big including -
2 new worlds
2 new playable heroes
Many new rooms
Major reworks like Auras' one
Countless iterations and polish all around
All these changes contributed making the game much better than it used to be and, honestly, much better than what we imagined! We hope it's better thanks to all the great feedback we receive daily but also because everyone in the team is having so much fun playing Astral Ascent.
All the updates we made improved the game and even if we initially announced a final release to be Q3-Q4 2023, we think we should aim a Q1 2024 final release in order to have enough time to polish every elements that need polish.
We hope you will understand this change of plans but be sure that this is for the best of the game. Whole team is working their absolutely best to deliver the best possible game but we are a small team and we do not want to compromise game's quality or push ourselves too hard to release later this year.
This is actually great news because it will allow us to improve everything you are waiting for and even more. So, what is next?
Next month - May 15 - we will be releasing an update including -
Rework of Sun Room - you will be able to change your spells affinity there now
Re-balancingof spells and new Perks
Bug Fixing
Elite modifiers polish
Red Fight Rooms - a new type of challenges during runs
Oloon will have one more category and many new colors for better customisation
Then the next month - end of June - we will be releasing a major Update, this one will be focused on NG+ and Zim-Zim experience.
We do not want to spoil too much but Zim-Zim should have a second version where you will be able to pay new upgrades with Destiny Fragments so farming NG+ will now have a purpose and you will also become stronger by farming NG+.
Each level of NG+ will now be unlocked by completing the previous one instead of having to collect enough Destiny fragments and we will change NG+ structure, levels and elements.
We have many more things planned but we prefer not giving a too precise roadmap and being able to adjust things if needed but you will have an update every 1.5 months approximatively. And we also have really exciting plans for post 1.0 Updates!
Thanks again for supporting us in this amazing journey and have a great day!
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
Spells & Synergies Update is live!
about 3 years ago
– Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 09:57:06 AM
First of all, thanks for the great reception of theWorld 4 Update! It has been by far the most appreciated of our updates since we launched Early Access back in April 2022. Everyone has enjoyed playing Calie, fighting the new Zodiacs and the new direction for game progression that felt more coherent and less chaotic.
It feels like everything is nicely coming together but we are not done yet! Today we release a new update, one of many planned before the Final Release of the game anticipated to be Q4 2023.
These upcoming updates, as well as today's one, are focusing on what is feeling to be the most urgent elements to work on at a specific state of the game. In this case we received a lot of feedback about how complicated it felt to make meaningful & varied builds in the game, so let's discover together what are the changes we made to improve this.
We have added a rarity system for Auras, similar to what is already in place for Gambits. We made it so you will find rarer Auras in each new world, this way you always improve your build through the runs instead of having always the same possible elements in each worlds.
There are 4 rarities for the Auras -
Common - white
Rare - blue
Mythic - orange
Astral - purple
Common, Rare and Mythics exist with better and additional effects depending of their rarities.
On the other side Astral Auras are extremeley rare but have very unique effects that can litteraly change your runs. You can even find them in World 1 if you are lucky but your chances increase when you go to next worlds.
The Common and Rare auras can be upgraded through a new system called the Aura Upgrader.
This new element allows you to upgrade -
a Common aura into a Rare aura
a Rare aura into a Mythic aura
It does not pick a random higher rarity Aura, it is the same Aura that evolves into a better version. It is free to use in Andromeda's bar but you can only use it 2 times in a run (or 4 times in co-oop). We did that so when you find a Common aura that you like in World 1, you are guaranteed to be able to have its Mythic version at the end of your run and be able to build around it if you wish to.
But you are also free to keep it to upgrade new ones later or even salvage it to get a drink from Andromeda.
In addition to that, we have created more effects for each elemental families -
Poison Meteors
Poison Explosions
Ice Swords
Lightning Strike
Fire Shield
There is also some new non-elemental effects unique to certain Astral Auras.
We have also improved existing ones visually and on their gameplay. Most of them now have possible new synergies like an Aura spawning Ice Sword when breaking Targets or the possibility to create Fire slimes or Giant slimes (or both!)
We had about 40 Auras that had little to no synergy with other elements, we removed most of them to create 250 new Auras. They are meant to create fun builds that will use your gambits & prowesses as much as possible. To us, this is the progression element that was missing to link every systems together in a coherent way!
Oh and yes we have made new Gambits for all the new effects that we implemented! Speaking of gambits we have made their icons and spells icons visible even when they are closed so you can know about them even before opening them, it made building much faster and game needed to be faster now that you need time to think to make your builds.
37 new hero Spells
We have increased the number of spells to 20 unique spells per hero, Kiran & Ayla in particular really deserved more attention as their spells were created a long time ago.
We kept as much as possible what makes each hero unique -
Ayla low mana costs spells & high mobility,
Kiran's raw power,
Octave's mobility, long range & speed
Calie's versatility
That being said, we have tried to give a bit of everything to each hero!
These new spells make us reach more than 130 spells in the game right now as you can see with the icons -
Progressions changes
A lot of things have changed in the progression as you can see right there!
That's right, merchants will now be in Andromeda's bar! Why? Because it allows you to build all at once and it prevents breaking the flow of the run when starting a new world. It also allows you to better prepare for boss fights! (They are no longer there at the start of each new world)
Removing one room per world allows us to have 2 special roomsper world instead of one(Cetus, Pavo, Yalee Kingdom, Forge etc.) so you will now meet more special rooms.
Speaking of special rooms, the Echo Isles (where you get NPC summons)are no longer linked to Minibosses rooms because it was complicated to understand and many players would not do these fights and miss the Echo Isles room that is crucial for progression.
The new synergies and more special rooms make you stronger than before and we had to increase enemies health points to balance the game - Building is now an important part of the game progression so we expect players to feel weak if they did not build correctly or on the opposite strong if they found good synergies!
Additionally, Gambits and Auras now become rarer with each new world and the rarest can be found in Minibosses instead of Zodiacs as Zodiacs will now give a choice of rarer Auras.
What is next?
We hope you will enjoy all this new content coming for Astral Ascent, there is still a lot more that we would like to take time to improve before final release including Zim-Zim, Minibosses, Echoes, Elites, Andromeda challenges and much more!
The very next update might be lighter than this one because we also need to make progress on the final release content including missing Zodiacs, final boss and reworked narration (a lot of changes are moving for narration!)
We hope you will have fun in the game with this update and as always do not hesitate to share the game if you like it, it is extremely appreciated!
Have a great day,
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
The Crimson Highlands Update is live!
about 3 years ago
– Mon, Jan 30, 2023 at 09:57:30 AM
Play a new Hero, explore a new World, fight new Zodiacs and much more!
That's it, the fourth and final world of Astral Ascentis available right now, here is a list of what to expect -
❗ For saves issues - if you experiment saves issues because you did not play for a long time, please check our guide about how to get back your saves. We had some saves lost when changing the way we store the saves + when integrating Cloud saves, thanks for your understanding!
New Hero - Calie the Geomancer 💎
This new playable Hero is coming with an unique narration and gameplay!
She fights with Gems that she can shape into anything she wants. That's right, she can create a massive 2 hands sword then a long range bow!
Her Basic attacks are mid-range AOE hitting Gems so she is very good at cleaning pack of enemies very quickly!
When her Signature Spell is ready, her Basic Attacks leave crystals on the battlefield. Then, she can recall them by using her Signature Spell, dealing damage to enemies in between and gaining mana points like a regular attack. Be strategic and aware of your crystals placement to maximize your damage and mana for better spell rotations!
Her Perks are focused on the Crystals she leaves on the battlefield, her crystals can have effects when recalled or change shape to trigger an effect like fire crystals creating combustion as below.
The Crimson Highlands ⚡
The Crimson Highlands is the last world of your Astral Ascent runs and it is also the most dangerous one.
The enemies there won't be forgiving any mistakes and you better be ready for what is coming!
2 New Zodiacs : Libra ♎ & Aquarius ♒
The Crimson Highlands is also the land of the 3 most dangerous Zodiacs - Aquarius, Libra & Gemini and you can now face 2 of them, Libra & Aquarius.
Libra is one of the most dangerous being in the Universe and she will be testing your agility and reflexes.
On the other end, Aquarius is a bit special, they are a golem and a child bound together, they will be testing your stamina & concentration.
New Zodiacs also mean new challenges, new summons & new zodiac spells! Getting them by your side can be a precious help as you can see with Libra summoning below.
Fifth world ❓
If you success to defeat Libra or Aquarius, you will have a teasing of the final boss, the Master of the Prison and you will be able to fight him in the Final Release. Based on this world and statue you might be able to guess who he is!
Also, in the final release, before the final boss you will be able to spend your last quartz, stars & everything to be as prepared as possible for the fight!
Run progressions change + Telluric Ruins
We have changed a lot of things regarding the progression of your runs, from your feedback and our own experience we thought we had too much of everything and it made runs and building confusing.
What we did is first is creating rules for the special rooms so they cannot appear randomly anywhere in order to have a better control on the runs. We have also greatly reduced the amount of Spells, Gambitsand Slot unlockers that you drop but made the merchant much more central in the game experience.
The Minibosses are not always there.
The Echo Islands are now a reward for defeating minibosses and do not require keys to get there anymore.
Exploration rooms rewards are now Quartz, Auras & Gambit and you cannot have multiple auras or gambit at once.
Merchants are always there in first room of worlds.
Astral Key chests are now limited to one per exploration but they have been reworked (see below).
Andromeda's drinks are not increasing anymore so you are not too penalized if you are taking a healing room before a boss.
Healing rooms can now spawn more frequently depending of your current HP.
Healing Altars now use stars instead of Quartz so you can still create your build at the merchant.
Salvaging Auras now grant 4 stars so you get Andromeda drinks if you are unhappy with your dropped Aura.
The new forge Room is not in world 1 but there is a special room to get an extra spell from the beginning there now - The Telluric Ruins
There are more change to come obviously, we want to make the Auras much more central, be able to get rarities on them and to make them synergize better with our builds.
The Forge - a new room Type 🔨
A new addition to this update is the Forge, a room that let you choose one of these bonuses -
+1 to all your spells level
Pick one new spell among 3 choices
Unlock a locked gambit slot on all of your spells
Given the progression changes we made, this room gives you more control on your builds and became very important!
New Gambit rewards ✨
Zodiacs rewards has been changed and they now only drop gambits, mythic ones! But this update introduces a new rarity for gambits - The Astral Gambits.
They are very rare drops that can only be dropped by Zodiacs and they can completely change your builds as they are really powerful. For example one of them create several saplings on each hit as you can see below.
Chamaeleon's Lottery 🪅
Lottery has also been changed, our point of view is that too many systems were facing each others instead of working together. The lottery that used to work with Stars was preventing you from using the stars at Andromeda's bar and some players would only use it or always ignore it.
So we decided for the Lottery to be a free bonus appearing randomly once in a run in an intro room giving you some currency. We might change his position later!
Stone Altars & Key Chests rework 🗝️
First thing first, we decided to change the Key Chests reward. They used to ask you for 1 key (few quartz + a bit of heal/mana) or 3 keys (to randomly get a Stone Altar or an Aura).
We thought it felt bad to sometimes have unwanted Auras and sometimes have unwanted Stone Altars so Auras are now Exploration rooms rewards and Key Chests are now randomly Pavo Feathers or Stone Altars chest, then you select if you want to use 3 or 5 keys in it.
Using 3 keys will give you access to 1 Stone or a Pavo Feather +1 (level one of your spell, each level adds 20% damage to your spell).
Using 5 keys will give you access to 2 Stones or a Pavo Feather +2.
Also, to give you more choices when selecting stones, the Stones Altar will now have 6 choices instead of 3, the 3 new choices are -
Armor points, each of them reduce the damage taken by 2
Critical hits, each of them increase all your crit chances by 2
Mana Max, each of them increase your max mana by 1
Same applies to Andromeda's bar and both drinks are reset when one is selected.
These change allow you to have a better control of the reward you select and a more steady progression on your spells level. It also removes the randomness of the reward as you know what is the reward before using your keys.
Co-op Balancing Changes 🤝
Co-op players have been requesting for a long time for a better co-op experience loots and progression. Here is a list of what we changed -
Explorations rooms now give twice the rewards in co-op
Forge & Telluric Ruins give twice their bonus in co-op
Echo Island allows you to take 2 Echoes in co-op
Merchant quartz price is reduced by 40% in co-op so you can buy more elements
Minibosses & Zodiacs rewards are doubled in co-op
We hope these changes will make your runs more enjoyable!
Now that we have our 4 main worlds it becomes much easier to balance the global experience and we know a lot of things still require our attention on the coming months. We are still planning a Q3 2023 release for the final version (to be confirmed) so we will use this time to do frequent smaller updates, some of the things we would like to improve/expand before final release -
Minibosses fights and number
Elites modificators
Zim-Zim improvements
New Game Plus System (giving the Moon Currency a purpose)
Rework and improve Auras system
Improve Heroes perks building
And many more things!
Thanks again to everyone following us during this journey and thanks for your support which means everything to our small self-publishing team!
Hoping you enjoy this update and have a great day,
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
Next Update Sneak Peak - New World, New Hero & Libra ⚡
about 3 years ago
– Mon, Jan 02, 2023 at 08:34:01 PM
Hello everyone,
Whole Hibernian Workshop team is wishing you a great 2023 ahead! 😊 We are back from holidays and are ready to do our best for this coming year!
On our side 2023 is very promising & exciting, we will have the final release of Astral Ascent with physical and console editions, the 12 Zodiacs & the final boss, Calie, Yamat & even more things coming!
We wish Astral Ascent to be one of the best roguelites experience of 2023, count on us to do our absolute best to reach your expectations for the game! ✨
While we released the exporter update in December 2022, we also made great progresses on the World 4 update - The Crimson Highlands, please check below some of the exciting new features coming very soon!
Calie the geomancer!
Calie is the last of the heroes to be released for Final Release and she is coming very soon. She fights with stones that she can shapes into very varied weapons. As Octave she fights from a longer range but her attacks go through all enemies leaving stones there. Her utility spell, calls back the stones to her dealing extra damage and effects on the way back.
We personally really love her gameplay and wish you will like her as much as we do!
The Crimson Highlands
This is the final world of the game, the wind world and the closest to the final boss. The Zodiacs there (Libra, Aquarius & Gemini) are the most dangerous of all.
The enemies are also more dangerous and more intense as you can see below -
New traps & new enemies
Deadly Enemy
Libra, the deadliest of all
We are sure you are impatient to fight against Libra, one of the 2 bosses from next Update, we have to tell you she is extremely strong right now and she will be your toughest challenge in the game so far.
This was a quick sneak peak update, this update will be released Q1 2023, hopefully very soon. Also, we wanted to tell you that we are aware of some elements that need polish in the game right now, there is so many things that we want to improve but we decided to start with the world 4 update and do a lot of polish between world 4 and final release.
Having the whole game experience will make things much easier for us to balance the game and have the most appropriate design changes.
Have a great day,
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
New Exporter Update & Level Up available now! 🪄
over 3 years ago
– Thu, Dec 08, 2022 at 06:36:58 PM
Hello everyone!
After the launch of the Coral Archipelago Update we immediatly started working on the next major one: the Crimson Highlands Update. This upcoming one will make possible to visit the 4th world with the most dangerous Zodiacs as long as playing Calie, the Geomancer.
We have already made great progress on this update and we should be able to release it early Q1 2023. But do not worry, we will take our time to polish it as much as we did for all previous updates. We will share more about the Crimson Highlands Update in next newsletter as we have exciting news to share in this one!
New Exporter & new Systems are available! 💪
Once again we had ambitious & promising new features ideas for the next upate but instead of releasing everything at once as we did for the Coral Archipelago Update, we decided to release part of it for you to play right now on Steam! Full Patch-Notes
This should display version 0.38.0 or higher on main menu, you can relaunch Steam if it's not.
This new content is getting available alongside the long awaited New Exporter version provided by our partner MP2 Games and we would like to thank them again for the tremendous work porting the whole Astral Ascent game from our game engine to C++ for the best possible performances!
This new exporter fixes a lot of crashes and issues (like Steam Remote sound issue) & massively improves FPS allowing you to play at constant frame rate with almost no loadtimes.
This new version will change your game experience by making it much more comfortable and fluid, in particular for smaller settings. The game is also now playable for Steamdeck with very stable 60fps, you can even do Remote Play co-op with 2 Steamdecks without issues.
However expect some inconsistencies (badly oriented elements, small visual glitches etc.) as this build is very close but is not yet the same as the main build, we are still working on it!
If you see anything wrong please let us know on our Discord Server in the #bugs-report channel.
Level up system - an answer to many issues! ✨
Basic attacks issue - Basic attacks do not become more powerful with time unlike your spells with levels & gambits so the more you progress the weaker your basic attacks feel and are. Also, getting Auras for your basic attacks was preventing you to have Auras for other purposes so you would sometimes sacrifice interesting builds to get them.
Utility Spells issue - Utility spells were very inconsistent as it was rare (and occasionally too frequent) to get one. Sometimes they were strong, sometimes they were too weak and it was easy to forget to use them as they were not really part of our build.
From these questions emerged new systems.
Signature spells - They completely replace the Utility Spells that we removed from the game, they are new and unique spells based on cooldown different for each Hero. You will have many synergies to discover and play with from one run to another as you can improve them with the Level up system!
Kiran signature spell is "Parry then Punch!", making you temporary invincible!
Level up system - Defeating enemies will now grant you experience points, filling an experience bar above your HP, when it reaches a certain threshold, your character will level up gaining maximum Health, Basic attacks damage and the possibility to claim a Prowess.
Octave, level 7 with 9/40 xp points to level 8
The Prowesses - They are a set of passive skills that can be claimed in intro rooms of each world, including first world, when interacting with the giants there. Every level, you will be able to claim 1 additional prowess to a max of 8 in a run. These prowesses are of two kinds: Basic attack (right) & Signature Spell (left)
The Prowesses for Signature spells are unique to each hero, there is a lot to try out! Also, Zim-Zim now has an ability to make you reset the choices of Prowesses.
Ayla's signature spell "Shadow Mark" (teleports behind enemies) with reset on kill Prowess
Andromeda's trials! 🧩
Another fun addition to the game are the Andromeda's trials!
In the exploration rooms, sometimes you will find a purple altar, interacting with them will teleport you to a new room where you will have to face a platforming challenge without being hit to get one of the famous rainbow drinks poured by Andromeda herself!
Do not worry, if you get hit you are simply teleported outside but you will not lose HP so feel free to try them as many times as you want! We personally love them and we hope you will too!
Discord trading card game!🃏
A smaller addition has been made to the Discord server, the Astral Ascent Digital Trading Card game!
Every day Barbecue offers you a new card from his fine collection! You can trade them with everyone or merge them to gain rarer cards (4 rarities for the 39 existing cards) and get the greatest collection!
Hop on our discord to get a card whenever you want!
There was no newsletter last month but be sure we are working our hardest to make the game the best it can be and we are still active on the Discord Server for any of your suggestions and feedback!
Oh, and here are some extra elements!
We added a Glossary that you can check anytime while ingame!
Merchants culture is ancient and not very well known but they remember it through these statues
Oloon wanted her place to feel more precious as you can imagine
More improvements are coming later!
Don't forget our Backerkit shop and our Discord Server to speak with the community and give us feedbacks on the game!
Hard working team!
Have an excellent week ahead and next time we will share about the upcoming world 4!
