A-Star Theft News

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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.

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

[h3][/h3]
This update introduces the new driving feature! Enter your escape van at any point and use it to further develop your strategic choices, with more freedom of approach (and escape!) than ever before. Loot can now be secured in the van, to better balance the Combat vs Stealth difficulty and enhance player agency. I am also introducing an awesome new music track which you can take a sneak-peak at HERE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBCCEcZOvug

I hope you enjoy the new update!

Changelog:

• Completely overhauled the Escape System
• Added ability to escape on foot with limited loot
  
• Added ability to secure loot in the escape van
  
• Added Loot Bag equipment
  
• Added scroll bars for Primary and Equipment categories in the gun store
  
• Added ability for kicked doors to break windows
  
• Added ability for liquid nitrogen to slow down turret rotation
  
• Added more NPC dialog lines
  
• Remastered the music track that plays in Big Bank, among others
• Improved tank driving by using the new vehicle system
  
• Improved tanker truck driving by using the new vehicle system
  
• Improved Freeplay Safehouse decoration
  
• Improved interaction stability with very nearby objects
  
• Improved shattered glass visual effect
  
• Minor improvements to equipment icons in the gun store
  
• Fixed a soft-lock issue when players die from an explosion
  
• Fixed being able to steal items while the game is paused
  
• Fixed an issue where the intimidation music would stop playing even while still in an intimidation situation
  
• Fixed Restricted Area markers becoming visible when de-equipping a weapon during a lockdown
  
• Fixed ability to drive a tank outside of the mission boundaries
  
• Fixed NPCs not activating on Final Raid
  
• Fixed ability to destroy the vault door too early in Final Raid
  
• Fixed time standing still during the Confrontation dialog
  
• Fixed some mouse-default keybinds not working if changed to a keyboard press
  
• Fixed tied civilians appearing above furniture if tied by a crew member
  
• Due to changes in the driving system, enemies now more consistently target players inside vehicles
  
• Due to changes in the driving system, players regenerating equipment when exiting a vehicle is now fixed
  
• Miscellaneous Improvements
  

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

A-Star Theft has been released for over three years now (oh boy how time flies), and is still alive and kicking!

Over 30 updates have been released, featuring new game modes, more equipment, overhauled graphics, added missions, and hundreds of quality of life improvements. Looking back on it today, it almost seems more like a sequel to what was first available on August 28, 2020.

[h2]Going from this:[/h2]




My dedication to this game is evident, and I hope you will consider adding your vote for A-Star Theft - Labor of Love.

Thank you.

Hello everybody!

Over the past month, I have been working on redesigning the escape system to add more excitement to a heist. The plan is to no longer simply press F to win, but instead actually have to flee the scene.

This means that you have to reach the van and drive away!

For this system, I have added several new mechanics:

• Assemble armor - Reinforce the van before driving away
  
• Police stingers - Avoid or deactivate them to not puncture your tires
  
• Escaping on foot - You can escape on foot with limited loot if your van breaks down
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I want your help to verify that these changes are both good, and clear enough in gameplay.

If you want to test these changes, you can join the Public Beta branch on Steam!

TO JOIN - Right-click on the game -> Open 'Properties' -> Press 'Betas' -> Select 'public-beta' in the drop-down menu

These changes are also available in the demo by following the above instructions!

Please provide any feedback that you have, so that the system can become the best it can be. If you don't think it's fun, then I will not implement the system.

I hope you like it, though, as I believe that a proper escape system can greatly enhance the overall heisting experience!