Astral Tracks News

Dear friends,

the day has finally come that we get to share the official release date for the 1.0 version of our indie game ✨Astral Tracks✨! We are so excited to finally show off all the work and effort the team has put into this game in the last months and launch it to more players.



We are bringing the Early Access phase to an end and ✨Astral Tracks✨, after pretty much 1 year in Early Access, will have its full release on the 21st November here on Steam - just 2 weeks from now!

Wish us luck for the final stretch and see you soon with the 1.0 version!

All the best,
-the LAB132 team

Hello friends and happy Halloween! 🎃

We hope you enjoy the fall season and have a scary time this week! We have a not so scary announcement that we want to share: Our indie game Astral Tracks is currently on sale until November 4th! So you can now get our game, where 3D platformer meets racing game, for -20% off its price 💸



But there is one secret, scary aspect about this... Ready? 👀
This will be the last sale for Astral Tracks before its full release! 😱
This may be your last chance for a good while to get Astral Tracks for such a good deal!

But it is not just scary - we are also super excited to be in the last phase of development and can hopefully soon share more with all of you after almost 1 year of Early Access!

Stay tuned, enjoy the game, leave us feedback on our Socials or in the Community Hub, and - most of all - keep your eyes open for updates!
All the best,
-the LAB132 team

Hello friends,

it’s us! We've been busy working on the full release of Astral Tracks, but it's about time that we give you an update on where we are in development and what you can expect.

But first of all - Astral Tracks is currently available for 20% off until Monday, 16th September! This is your chance to try out our game and help us improve it for the full release, if you've been hesitant until now 😉



Alright, the dev update...
Since the Early Access release of our indie game, we've been hard at work to polish up the existing features, like the different multiplayer modes, fine-tuned character abilities, improved the highscore system and of course fixed a lot of bugs. We also added new content like new accessories, new track elements and level decorations and new visual effects on the character.

But that's not all! It's important to have our game as good as it can be during Early Access already, but it's also very important to us to give you an (hopefully) even better game for the full release! We want to achieve that not only by making what exists better or more but also by adding completely new things.
There are several additions, changes and improvements coming your way for the full release, so let's highlight a few of them to give you some insights! 👀

[h3]Challenges[/h3]
One new feature that will be included in the full release are featured Challenges. They highlight specific tracks and compilations of tracks prominently in the main menu, with the purpose of making your runs more engaging, bring players together on the tracks, and most importantly increase competition 🏁

[h3]Tracks & Accessories[/h3]

We are also working on a completely new Stage to unlock! This new Stage will feature new level elements, bigger structures, will require other combinations of abilities, and thus will hopefully contribute to more variety in gameplay. And for even more content, we already have several new accessories for you in stock, that will hopefully make your experience even more fun and give you even more incentive to collect as many ducks as you can to unlock your very favorite hat, backpack or shoes 😁

[h3]...and more![/h3]
There are other things currently in progress that would go beyond the scope of this post. For example, we are looking into making Astral Tracks available on other platforms, and we are also working a lot on the background visuals inside the tracks with the goal of making the track environments more appealing and diverse!

Our small team does have its hands full, continuing on the road from Early Access to full release for Astral Tracks, as well as working on other projects, but not too full to say thank you for your support and following our journey!

We are always supper happy and grateful to hear your feedback, comments and thoughts, so don’t be shy to let us know what you think, either in the Community Hub, or via our other social channels!

All the best,
- LAB132 team

Hello dear friends of gaming! 🎮

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and… 6! Once again we come with good news - a new patch for you, our 6th patch, and we are excited to show what we have in store for you! 🤩

All of this is happening while Steam Summer Sale is still ongoing - but not for long anymore! So make sure to check out our indie game NOW while it's still on sale! 💲


As probably everyone somehow involved in or with games knows, one of the most important things towards finishing a game, is fixing bugs! So while our previous patch included more new features and content, like the display of the 3D characters of all co-players in a lobby, new accessories and enhanced track filters, this patch focuses mostly on bug fixes! 🪲👀 And some nice improvements as well, of course, for example to the Steam Deck version and to the collectable ducks! You can find the full change log below!

We are curious to know if you’ve previously found all the bugs we fixed and if you discovered even more? Please let us know in the comments, in the Community Hub, or via our other social channels, and share your thoughts and wishes with us! What else you would like to see in future patches or in the full release? 💭💡



[h2]Improvements / Updates[/h2]

• Improvements to Steam Deck version: When playing on a Steam Deck, the game should now automatically start with controller mode instead of mouse/keyboard input, and the game should now also open up the Steam Input keyboard when focusing the "Seed" input field in the PLAY menu to enter a specific track seed
  
• Adjustments to collectable ducks on the tracks: Already collected ducks now have a different appearance and they do not follow your character anymore as if they were being collected again, collectable ducks now interfere less with the camera if there are lots of them following your character while being collected, the gold material of the collectable ducks was improved, and if there are lots of collectable ducks being pulled to your character there is a fade effect in place now so the screen isn't too cluttered
  
• Updated resetting your character with "Q" during a run, because it may have happened that the transition screen with the rotating duck wasn't shown
  
• Adjusted "Press Y to join splitscreen" text in PLAY menu, so it doesn't overlap with other menu text in certain languages
  
• Improved lighting in PLAY menu and brought the camera closer
  
• Adjusted player respawn points on some track segments as well as start and exit points of some segments
  
• Added more padding to description text of accessories (in detail view) in the customization menu and improved shadow casting
  
• Improved display of spinning duck as the currency on the lower left of (almost) every UI
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed the track progress bar in multiplayer mode, which had some issues both with the icons in the lobby as well as with the individual progress of each icon on the bar on the lower right during a run - now, in the PLAY menu, all icons of players inside a lobby should be shown correctly on the lower right and while running a track, the icons on the progress bar should show steady progress whereas before it may have happened that they jumped around on the bar or the bar wasn't shown at all for client players
  
• When a host exits a track back to the main menu while playing multiplayer, all clients should now also be transferred to the main menu instead of getting a notification saying "Connection lost"
  
• In multiplayer, a client's character shouldn't turn automatically anymore when the host player turns their character in the customization screen, and client characters also shouldn't float above the ground anymore in the customization menu
  
• Fixed bug in the display of characters inside a lobby (freshly introduced in the 5th patch!), where characters and/or accessories of client players were sometimes displayed incorrectly or missing
  
• Characters shouldn't be tilted anymore after using a slide and then moving on the ground again without jumping first
  
• When joining a lobby as a client, the very first selection of ghost settings of the host should now be displayed correctly, whereas before they were only shown correctly once the host changed the settings at least once
  
• Updated implementation of the "Personal" and "Friends" track filters in the End Screen, which sometimes weren't working correctly before
  
• Fixed bug where players got stuck in infinite loading when they return to the main menu via the pause menu during the countdown of a track in singleplayer mode
  
• Fixed bug where pressing "F" in the customization menu, to change the color of your character or opening up the detail view of an accessory, sometimes wasn't working because of input focus issues
  
• Fixed dissolving effect on basket accessory, which was not spawned with the wanted effect when putting it on your character in the customization screen
  

We hope you enjoy the updates and wish you a sunny day! ☀️
-The LAB132 team

What time is it? It’s SUMMER TIME! And we are not just celebrating this season, but also the start of - you guessed it - Steam Summer Sale, starting TODAY ☀️
You can get our indie game Astral Tracks for -20 % off for the time of the sale from June 27th until July 11th 😍



This comes just in time after releasing our fifth patch for the game during its early access phase. The last patch included some big improvement on multiplayer, UI, spectating co-players, we added new accessories and visual effects, as well as updates on the track filters. So it is definitely worth checking out!

We would love to hear your thoughts and feedback in the comments, in the Community Hub, or via our other social channels! 📝

Until later,
-The LAB132 team