Astral Ascent News

Astral Ascent x Dead Cells update announcement

We are very excited to announce to you our collaboration with Motion Twin to release a Dead Cells update for Astral Ascent coming out on November 27th! Here is our reveal teaser below! ːbarbecuePogː

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We are very proud of this collaboration as Dead Cells is the most popular of our genre of Platformer Roguelike games it is probably the game that defined this genre the most. It is also a game we took inspiration from for its fluidity of movement and nervous action.

If you do not own Dead Cells already, you can now purchase it alongside Astral Ascent in a bundle!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/46767/Dead_Cells__Astral_Ascent_Duo/

They have also released a Board Game just recently and their great Animated Serie started release in English! And of course they recently launched their new game Windblown we have a ton of fun playing in co-op!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1911610/Windblown/

Though you may want to wait November 27th for an extra discount for the launch of the update.

What to expect from this update?

You will be able to play with 5 unique weapons from Dead Cells :

Nutcracker for Kiran
Throwing Knives for Ayla
Wrenching Whip for Octave
Scythe Claw for Calie
Symmetrical Lance for Yamat

These weapons will also come with 15 new passives.

We are also introducing a new system in the 1.9 update, you will be able to hold 2 weapons at once, giving you more strategy opportunities and poweful combos with weapon passives!

It will of course be possible to unlock both of weapons equipped passives at once!

A new addition is also that weapons will always be visible when playing the game now!

It was a lot of work so we hope you will enjoy this change! It is also the case for big weapons like Octave's rocket launcher!

We didn't show anything from 1.9 before today but we will be able to share more on our Discord Server and Twitter of what is coming in just 2 weeks from now

We hope you will keep supporting us in this journey to become one of the best action roguelite out there ːzagplsː

Have an excellent week everyone! ːzimzimSmileː

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

Cursed Telescope Room, Builds Recap and QoL !

First of all, thanks for the great reception of the 1.7 version! We are working hard on new updates!

[h2]Version 1.8 complete Patch-Notes:[/h2]
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1280930/view/4545912358018084589

Cursed Telescope

The first major change of this new version is the rework of the hub Telescope. We removed all the perks that were linked to a specific build because you would select them in the hub before knowing what would be your build during the run so it would either be frustrating because you do not find the right build or not be useful if you don't do this build so we focused on perks working with all builds. We also added new perks in the hub.

Adding to that, we have created a new room type : The Cursed Telescope!

This new room can be found up to 2 times per run and will allow you to get new Telescope perks, different from the Hub ones, with usual rarities : common, rare, mythic and astral.
But a random Malus is attached to each of these bonus and will be removed when reaching Andromeda's bar of your current world.

That's a total of 31 bonuses there (102 with rarities) and 15 maluses in this new room. This room works very similar to Chaos in Hades, high risk high rewards! ːzagplsː
To help you find what you want, we added up to 6 rerolls you can get from a new Zim-Zim upgrade -

Builds Recap

A new feature is also the Build Recap, we used to see community members share their builds through a dozen of screens taken before the final boss and it felt really bad to share a good build. We have came with a solution to that - the Prison Memento! In the hub you will be able to find this large book in the bottom right, if you open it it will show your runs (only the ones post 1.8 release).

This screen also appears when you Win a run or die and it also works in co-op (only from hub for now)!

We truly hope this will make sharing your best runs and best builds easier!

QoL elements!

We have also improved a lot of small elements requested by the community!

You can now preview on the progress bar where are the special rooms, the bar and the Zodiac fight, it does not display all the random rooms like Moon/Sun for example but it gives a better idea of what is coming next to help organize your run better!

An icon now shows what is the effect of the Zodiac summon before entering the room so you have a better idea if it will fit into your build or not.

We have added a new system to reward players perfecting rooms, perfected rooms can stack and offer different rewards

Explo / Fight rooms - 1 Star
Star Guardians - 2 Stars
Zodiacs - 3 Stars

And this stacks over room so the more rooms you perfect in a row the more stars you get in each new room and it resets when getting hit!

It has been requested a lot and the Arsenal is now available in the hub and in Andromeda's bar so you can change your weapon/passive before the boss if you want to!

Another change is also that salvaging an Aura Refiner will give rarer Auras depending of your current world if you have Barbecue's aura.

There are more small changes like a 5th Aura Refiner in Event Horizon, double rewards in Cetus room in co-op and more!

2.0 is not the end!

We had also like to address a global concern we started to hear, the 2.0 planned for Q1 2025 with new worlds is not the end of our updates for Astral Ascent, we have more updates planned after that, some of them are already in the work ːzimzimSmileː

We do not tease the 1.9 version (big collab with a famous game) yet because we are still looking for opportunities to maybe announce it in some places to get more visibility but it's progressing very well on our side and we cannot wait to show you more about this update coming very soon! (Q4 2024)!

Last thing, our friends at Doom Turtle just released a massive DLC + free update for their game Ember Knights in a few hours, this update is huge, don't hesitate to check it here -
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2948140/Ember_Knights__Wrath_of_the_Architect/

Have an excellent time in the game and a great week ːzimzimSmileː

Louis

Patch Notes - October 2024 - 1.8.2

⭐Changes inspired by our community!

[h2]Major Features[/h2]

New room ""Cursed Telescope"": This room can appear as a reward option alongside other rooms starting in world 2, 3, or 4. Inside, you'll find a cursed version of the Telescope from the hub, offering a perk tied to a Malus, which adds a temporary negative effect to the player. The Malus is lifted once you reach Andromeda's bar, leaving only the perk behind.
[hr][/hr]
Build recap: Players can preview their build after completing a run. A list of previous runs is also available in the hub by interacting with the Altar beneath Sova's spot

[h2]Small Features[/h2]

community inspired ⭐ New Aura Refiner in Event Horizon (co-op players used to have 1 extra aura refiner use they could not use)
[hr][/hr]
community inspired ⭐ Auras Refiner recycled now drops rarer Auras depending of current world if you have Barbecue Summon
[hr][/hr]
community inspired ⭐ You now have double the loots in Cetus Cavern when playing in co-op
[hr][/hr]
community inspired ⭐ Hints are now displayed on Auras from Barbecue interface
[hr][/hr]
Arsenal now in Andromeda's Bar and in Hub
[hr][/hr]
Players can achieve a 'Perfect Room' by clearing all enemies without taking damage in the following rooms: Exploration, Fight, Eclipse, The Void, and Boss. Earning a 'Perfect Room' rewards players with stars, with the reward increasing based on the current streak of perfected rooms.

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

community inspired ⭐ Yamat ""Dance of Contempt"" spell now has Dodge at the beginning
[hr][/hr]
community inspired ⭐ Spirit Swords can now attack faster
[hr][/hr]
Poison now ticks faster depending on the number of stacks
[hr][/hr]
Enemies with ""Frostbite"" status effect will receive an additional 20% damage

[h2]Interface[/h2]

Special rooms, Andromeda's bar and final boss are now displayed in the progression bar
[hr][/hr]
Challenge Rooms from Zodiacs now display the type of reward/affinity you will have by completing the challenge
[hr][/hr]
Key Converter now shows number of Keys and Stars when nearby

[h2]Visuals[/h2]

Portal to Elite fight rooms and Elite Star Guardians are now red
[hr][/hr]
Icons above portal and not changing overtime anymore for better readability

[h2]Narrative Design[/h2]

community inspired ⭐ Typos fixed in the Forge Room
[hr][/hr]
""Vanquisher of the Star Guardians"" and ""Stars Vanquisher"" achievements from Sier Bapy were too similar in english
[hr][/hr]
Intro voices when entering Elite Minibosses room were missing

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

community inspired ⭐ Loot Keys could sometime never reach players and keep rotating around
[hr][/hr]
Key Converter was now displaying the right amount of keys to stars if you used keys in the room
[hr][/hr]
The game would freeze while trying to open the Arsenal if it triggers the first interaction tutorial - ☄️ hotfix 1.8.1
[hr][/hr]
Wrong dialogue line was played by Ordan when interacting with Elite Minibosses - ☄️ hotfix 1.8.1
[hr][/hr]
The second player wouldn't receive the aura from the ""City of Gold Telescope"" with the Void Catalyst perk - ☄️ hotfix 1.8.1
[hr][/hr]
Event Horizon Aura Refiner was not usable if used at the end of Crimson Highlands - ☄️ hotfix 1.8.2

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

New Bosses collab, Forge Rework & more!

Astral Ascent X Scourgebringer X Ember Knights X Spiritfall

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We have teamed-up with Roguelites we love for this new update, bringing -

Bodyboulder from Scourgebringer
Praxis from Ember Knights
Tasmos from Spiritfall

If you haven't play these games you, we highly recommend you to try them and we might have the best reason for you, we created an Action-Packed Roguelike Gems Bundle adding an extra 10% off to all the games already discounted that you do not own already!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/44735/ActionPacked_Roguelike_Gems/

We have also made a specific video about our collaboration with Ember Knights team as they added Yalees as Spells in their game! :barbecuePog:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Version 1.7 complete Patch-Notes: [/h2]
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1280930/view/4607833411865476591

[h2]The Relentless Void[/h2]
A new room has been added to the game with this update, now you will find The Void to fight minibosses in each world up to 3 times in a run. If you pick it and win in world 1, 2 and 3, you will be able to find the Relentless Void, a new type of Miniboss room, coming with a new song!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Minibosses there are harder than regular Minibosses with more patterns and more complex fights. For now there are 3 Minibosses in this room : Bodyboulder, Praxis or Tasmos.

Why take the risk? Well... guaranteed Astral Gambits :taurusSmirk:

[h2]Forge Rework[/h2]
We have reworked the Forge Room, you used to be able to get random spells to pick but it was not very exciting and it was rarely giving you what you wanted so we follow a community suggestion and reworked it so you can now select any spell of your hero and with the affinity of your choice!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

It is also working differently in co-op where you can select 2 times the reward and they only work for the player selecting the reward instead of working for both players at once.

[h2]Keys Converter[/h2]
Who never had leftovers of Keys at the end of a run? Well we might have the perfect solution for you!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Convert your Keys into Stars to use for drinks right before the final fight and always maximize your efficiency :zimzimSmile:

[h2]Sneak Peak of 1.8[/h2]
We are aiming to release this new update for October, the main feature is a rework of the Telluric Telescope, we will modify the existing bonuses in the Telluric Telescope so we dont give bonuses that are linked to a specific build anymore as we think it felt bad.
We are also going to add new ones, mainly for the Telescope in the main hub but also in a new Room that you will be able to find during your runs!

Visuals not definitive!

In this new area you will be able to select an extra Telescope bonus but these bonuses will be mostly different from the existing ones and they will also be attached to negative temporary effects.

Room and UI visuals are not definitive!

Bonuses examples (subject to change) -

The mana cost of the spell in slot 4 is remove
Spells that cost 3 mana have a X% chance to not use mana
Spell in slot 2 cost between 1 and 3 mana
Reduces Echoes cooldown by X%
On spell refresh, kill X random enemies
X% chance to reset the signature spell when you use it

Maluses examples (subject to change) -

The rooms are hidden
The signature spell is unavailable
All spells cost 3 mana
The damages can’t critical
Max life reduced by X%

We are also working on a new feature so you will be able to show your past runs builds and be able to see your whole build at once!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Very placeholder elements!

Visuals not definitive!

It was painful seeing the community share so many screenshots to share a build so we hope this will be better this way and encourage everyone sharing their best builds :zagpls:

We really cannot wait to share with you what is coming, in particular for the 1.9 but we have even more collabs unannounced collabs coming from licences we love!

Have an excellent time in the game everyone :kiranThumbUp:

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

Patch Notes - September 2024 - 1.7.0