A-Star Theft News

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With this update, I want to put a greater focus on actively using equipment during combat, and have therefore increased the effectiveness of several tools. To further encourage experimentation, access to the equipment store directly from a heist has returned, after previously being removed for compatibility issues with the driving mechanic.

I hope you enjoy the new update!

Changelog:

• Re-added equipment store access from inside heists (this was temporarily removed when driving was added)
  
• Added a new music track which plays on the Extrication heist
  
• Added ability to drive onto a van armor piece to automatically assemble it
  
• Added more gore
  
• Added cue balls to pool tables
  
• Improved user interface by showing electronic door switch connection lines from any distance
  
• Improved gamepad cursor speed consistency at higher frame rates
  
• Increased health for companions
  
• Increased effectiveness of human shields
  
• Increased thermite damage distance
  
• Increased liquid nitrogen slow effect distance
  
• Increased damage range of explosions on NPCs
  
• Decreased player knockback when hit by a bullet
  
• Tripled capacity of the health kit equipment and increased healing speed
  
• Doubled capacity of the ammo bag equipment
  
• Removed ability to use thermite to burn down vault doors in order to balance against the improved drill equipment
  
• Fixed police cars driving over and killing its own driver
  
• Fixed bullets sometimes not dealing damage when near a police car
  
• Fixed guards able to spot hostages from a distance farther than their sight
  
• Fixed ability to walk during minigames after a companion has kicked down a door
  
• Fixed absolutely ancient code in Bloody Hospital file cabinets which did not respect different key bindings
  
• Fixed camera guards investigating vault drill noise
  
• Fixed occasional incorrect explosion position when police drive through walls
  
• Fixed headlamp light visible while driving the van
  
• Fixed a headlamp crash
  
• Fixed a crash which could occur when a guard investigates a camera
  
• Some fixes and improvements to the Remaster Demo
  
• Miscellaneous improvements
  

For questions or feedback, you can join the A-Star Theft discord server, or mail me at: [email protected]

If you enjoy the game, consider leaving a review! It helps a lot!



The Story Remaster version 2 brings tons of improvements based on player feedback. Thank you for answering the survey after completing the demo, it truly does help!

The new demo has player choice at its core, and now allows the rescue segment to be completed with both stealth and action strategies. Both the rescue and arrest segments now encourage player exploration and allows weapons to be used from the very start, if you so choose to do so. Some of the dialog has also been looked at, to better emphasize a consistent tone. Thus, a lot of the more silly dialog has been dialed down and replaced with more appropriate dialog. Logan's narrations has also been tweaked in some places to feel less edgy. I am still looking for feedback on this, so feel free to answer the survey after completing the demo.

Remaster Demo changelog:

• Redesigned several parts of the Remaster Demo to support both stealth and action strategies
• Improved dialog in the Story Remaster
  
• Added ability to punch civilians in the Story Remaster (experimental)
  
• Greatly improved the Arrest segment of the Story Remaster
  
• Fixed a few bugs in the Story Remaster
  

Along with the Remaster Demo improvements, this update also includes many improvements for overall gameplay. Combat game feel has been improved with better visual effects, and a long-standing bug fixed that prevented headshots from registring if hitting an enemy's shoulder first. This meant that headshots were impossible when flanking an enemy. I have also made some difficulty tweaks for larger shootouts.

I hope you enjoy the new update!

Changelog:

• Added a new Hacking Minigame to replace to previous one
• Added recoil indicator on cursor
  
• Added knockback for destroyed fire extinguishers
  
• Made all sprite assets destructible (experimental)
  
• Changed how Low Health Invincibility works - you now must fully heal before regenerating this protection
  
• Increased impact of bloodstains and added more blood effects
• Increased knockback from bullets and melee damage for both player and enemies
  
• Improved companion AI for both stealth and action gameplay
  
• Improved hitbox size on enemies
  
• Improved screen effect for shooting and damaging enemies
  
• Improved civilian interaction interface
  
• Improved sound when tying civilians
  
• Tweaked gunplay camera shake to feel heavier
• Tweaked enemy AI to be slightly more aggressive
  
• Tweaked police drones to dodge bullets slightly slower
  
• Tweaked recoil for all weapons
  
• Tweaked shooting audio
  
• Reduced the size of crew revival texts
  
• Reduced natural health regeneration to encourage taking hostages
  
• Reduced sniper enemy damage
  
• Reduced the size of the intimidation symbol
  
• Fixed strange camera shake effect when in slow-motion
  
• Fixed headshots not registering if bullet hits an enemy’s shoulder first
• Fixed an issue where players would sometimes shoot twice after switching weapons
  
• Reduced frequency of enemies sometimes walking through walls
  
• Miscellaneous improvements
  

For questions or feedback, you can join the A-Star Theft discord server, or mail me at: [email protected]

It's finally time, the Story Remaster Demo is now available!

I am looking for as much feedback as possible, so it would be very helpful if you want to answer the survey after trying out the demo.

If you want to talk to me while playing, for an interview-style testing session, you can contact me on Discord or fill out this form. This way, you can provide nuanced opinions and allow me to observe your play style for analysis.

If you are wondering what this is about, you can read this post for more information.

The Remaster Demo is available for both the full game and the free version, so you do not need to purchase the game to play. Please share your thoughts!

[h2]SIGN UP FOR A PERSONAL TESTING SESSION[/h2]
[h2]PROVIDE FEEDBACK ON THE DEMO[/h2]


This update also has some smaller changes for the general game experience.

Changelog:

• Added new Freeplay hairstyles
  
• Added ability to stand on conveyor belts
  
• Fixed story characters not having their own proper hairstyles
  
• Fixed airport luggage transporters transporting bullets
  
• Fixed strange movement for gang members when escorting the player out of a building
  
• Fixed flying heads not having their intended skin color
  
• Fixed flying heads often splashing on the wrong side of the wall
  
• Fixed small interface artifacts when returning to the main menu while True Pixel Style is turned on
  
• Hopefully fixed dropped weapons sometimes getting stuck in walls
  

For questions or feedback, you can join the A-Star Theft discord server, or mail me at: [email protected]

If you enjoy the game, consider leaving a review! It helps a lot!


This update presents the latest new Freeplay heist: The Silver Spoon Casino! This expert difficulty heist brings some of the greatest challenges yet, and a giant open space to explore. I have also made some changes to difficulty balance between stealth and loud gameplay, and other improvements to several areas which you can read about below.

Please note that this heist is very large, and may perform poorly on some computers.

I hope you enjoy the new update!

Changelog:

• Added Silver Spoon Casino heist
  
• Added ability to shoot cameras to disable them
  
• Added actual lights for construction site lamp asset
  
• Added ability to pick up dropped enemy weapons as loot
  
• Added animated floor lights
  
• Added destruction to garbage bags
  
• Added destruction to fire extinguishers
  
• Added body parts dropping when running over NPCs with the van
  
• Improved quality of some graphical assets
  
• Changed screen shake to be affected by distance to the triggering object
  
• Removed noise detectors triggering from players running because it is garbage game design. They now alert nearby guards instead, similar to cameras
  
• Tweaked action difficulty to be slightly more unforgiving
  
• Tweaked health regeneration to benefit more from hostage count
  
• Tweaked Heavy Pistol to shoot slightly slower
  
• Tweaked police drones to dodge bullets slightly slower
  
• Slightly increased noise from breaking windows
  
• Increased credit cost of thermite to 2 credits
  
• Increased credit cost of C4 to 4 credits
  
• Made small code optimizations to how loot is stolen
  
• Fixed guards immediately shooting players when spotting them, after first having lost sight when escorting out of a building
  
• Fixed guards not starting a search after losing sight of players when escorting them out of a building
  
• Fixed a recently introduced issue where civilians rotate towards the player in discrete steps
  
• Fixed wall lamp posts maintaining their sprite brightness when the game is paused
  
• Fixed military turrets shooting at normal speed when game is in slow motion
  
• Fixed noise detectors not detecting noise, lmao
  
• Fixed a rare bug where the prompt to deactivate police stingers did not disappear
  
• Fixed a small memory leak
  
• Fixed a rare variable-related crash
  
• Miscellaneous improvements
  

I have detected a bug where guards may sometimes become aggressive to a player even in public areas after having done some unknown illegal act. This seems to be a very rare issue, as I have only experienced it once, but I hope to find a solution soon. If you experience this yourself, feel free to contact me and provide details about what you did before the guards became aggressive.

For questions or feedback, you can join the A-Star Theft discord server, or mail me at: [email protected]

Hello everybody, I have some very interesting news to share about the remastered story!

It's been a while since I wrote, back before Christmas when I released the Escape Update. It could seem from my silence that I have been passive in any further development, but I assure you that I have been anything but passive.

During the past year, I have been rewriting the entirety of the story in A-Star Theft, only keeping the general premise and characters, while completely rethinking how to tell it. As I have earlier explained, I was never happy with how the original story turned out. I have since then finished the script and worked on better character development, and it is looking promising so far.


- I am very happy to announce that all new missions have finished their level design phase. This means that every map is playable and functional as individual levels, somewhat like Freeplay mode. The next step is to connect them all through the story and dialog. This will work like the current story, with a safe house for preparing and conversing with your crew. One of the most exciting things for me is to get an opportunity to make actually identifiable characters. I think that the current characters all feel the same, like I took a set of traits and randomly assigned them to a character depending on what I felt like on any given day. A brown sludge of generic goons. The new dialog written so far will much better portray everyone as unique and interesting individuals, with mannerisms and opinions worth remembering.

The remastered story also has an added benefit of giving you much - MUCH - better designed maps to play. While the primary motivation for doing this is to create an emotional experience I think the game currently lacks, my experience as a level designer has drastically increased since 2020. There is no doubt you will see an increase in level design quality in the new story missions.

To get all of this working, I have had to redesign several major systems, including the Dialog, Objective, and Save file systems. The Dialog and Objective systems now operate with JSON files for maximum flexibility, and will support localization in the future. These changes also allow me to work faster and be more organized, as JSON code is more easy to read than my stinky ten year old self-made garbage.

So how is it going? Very well, I would say. Most of my current focus is on making a great first impression, with an enhanced introductory mission that involves more story, better set dressing, and dynamic help texts. I intend to release this map as an early showcase of the new story once it's ready for testing.

PLAY TESTERS ARE WELCOME
I will prepare for this in the coming weeks, and update you once it's time for beta testing.

[h2]A new Freeplay map is coming[/h2]
Beyond the remaster, I am still creating new content for Freeplay as well. The Silver Spoon Casino will be the 15th Freeplay mission, and will join the 4 other expert maps in the next few days. This map is a colorful and luxurious Casino and Hotel with a lot of opportunities for strategizing and experimentation. It will feature one of the highest security vaults yet created for A-Star Theft - hopefully an exciting puzzle to solve for all stealth enjoyers.


I look forward to showing you more as the story gets developed further!

Thank you for reading.