Astral Tracks News

📣 Astral Tracks is part of the Women’s Day Event on Steam by WINGS, starting TODAY! 🥳



We are thrilled to have our indie game featured in this event, which will last from March 01st until March 10th (PST). It showcases games from women-led studios and also includes games by teams of marginalized groups. The team of 10 at LAB132 is co-led by one of the female co-founders of the company, who is also the project lead for Astral Tracks, allowing us to participate in this event! 🙌

➡️ Swing on over to the event page to check out all the awesome games: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/womenday24


Talk to you soon,
-The LAB132 team

Ready for some local mutltiplayer action on the tracks?


We are really excited to announce that Astral Tracks is part of the Steam Remote Play Together fest, starting NOW! This festival focuses on games offering local multiplayer fun (coop or pvp) and bringing people together, so Astral Tracks fits perfectly with its recently added features and content.

Get the game now for -15% off and get ready to swing, slide, run, jump and grapple through the tracks and beat your friends time on the leaderboards! We are happy to hear your feedback and thoughts on the game in the comments, in the Community Hub, or via our other social channels!

-The LAB132 team

Hello everyone - haven’t seen you in a while, looking good! ːguri_coolː

We’re really excited to update our game Astral Tracks with a third patch - and it’s a big one! We’ve got some major new features for you, new content, as well as improvements and fixes of course. You can find the full change log below.



The biggest part is the new local multiplayer mode via splitscreen! Now you can also enjoy the game with friends and family in real life - just set up some more gamepads, have them join the game and find out who is the fastest on the tracks! Next to that, there are also some cool new accessories available for you to try out in the Customize tab and new track filters for you to choose from, like sorting tracks from most highscores to least highscores or find tracks that have been played by your friends before.


Please let us know in the comments or in the Community Hub what you think and what else you would like to see in future patches! During Early Access, we are continuously working on improving the game and expanding the game for its full release, so stay tuned.

[h3]Full Change Log:[/h3]

New: Local splitscreen multiplayer!

• Added local multiplayer mode via splitscreen! More players can simply join your game locally if you open up a lobby and have them join your session.
  

Gameplay & Tracks

• Pause menu now automatically opens up and pauses the game if the Steam Overlay gets activated during gameplay.
  
• Included “Restart” button into the pause menu to restart a track all over again (next to the existing shortcut: “R” on keyboard and “Y” on gamepad).
  
• Spectator Mode now stops spectating automatically when you open the pause menu while spectating.
  
• Added new track filter into the PLAY menu: You can now choose to filter tracks to find the ones your Steam friends have played before or haven't played before.
  
• Added new sorting mechanism to the PLAY menu: You can now choose to sort tracks from most highscores to least highscores (or vice versa) before starting. Depending on what setting you chose, you will first get tracks with a lot of highscores or very few highscores first and then more or less highscores progressively if you continue to press "Next" in the end screen.
  

New Content

• Included 6 new accessories in the Customize menu:
  o Hands: Candleholder, Rolling Pin, Wand
  o Head: Colander, Steampunk Hat, Wizard Hat
  

Highscores & Multiplayer

• Display player names above characters (co-players, ghosts) while running tracks so you can see who you're up against and how experienced they are (number of completed tracks and ducks collected)!
  
• Added pop-up message informing players if the connection has been lost (only in English for now, more translations coming!).
  
• Added pop-up message informing players during multiplayer that the host of the session has closed the lobby (only in English for now, more translations coming!).
  

We hope you had a good first few weeks of 2024, stay kind and healthy!

- The LAB132 team

Hello everyone and an early Merry Christmas!

We are happy to announce that Astral Tracks is part of the Steam Winter Sale! Buy it now for 15% off and get ready to swing, slide, run, jump and grapple through the tracks! We are happy to hear your feedback and thoughts on the game. During this time of Early Access, we are continuously working on improving the game and adding content as well as features.


And speaking of added content: The discount is not all! As an early christmas present, we are excited to release our second patch, including several new and fun winter-themed accessories - perfect for the upcoming holidays :wink: Now, you can customize your characters with cozy winter outfits and festive accessories!


Full Change Log:

• Added 7 new winter- or christmas-themed accessories: Snow Boots, Candy Cane, Sparkler, Wooden Wand, Santa’s Backpack, Christmas Hat and Snowman Head (names are only displayed in English or German for now, translations will follow later)
  
• Integrated new effect for the characters when they die or (re)spawn, so they are dissolved and reassembled
  
• Look and location of BACK buttons in main menu is now standardized throughout all sub-menus

We wish you happy holidays and good start into 2024! See you next year with more patches and eventually the full release of Astral Tracks!

- The LAB132 team

Hi everyone,

today, we delivered the first patch for Astral Tracks in our Early Access phase!

We added 10 new accessories to the Customization menu for you to unlock, adjusted the grappling mechanic, updated translations, improved save game handling, performance in the main menu and gamepad support, and fixed several bugs in gameplay, highscores, and multiplayer.
You can find the full change log below!

We're looking forward to more of your feedback, let us know what you think and please don't hold back any suggestions for future updates ːguri_coolː



[h2]Full Change Log:[/h2]

Game Mechanics

• Changed GRAPPLE mechanic, so grappling is now allowed from any character state  this means grappling will now lift you off the ground instead of you having to jump or be in the air to start grappling
  
• Fixed bug with disabling grapple particles, where grappling indicator line was shown even though it was not possible to grapple
  

Gameplay & Tracks

• Rotated timers in some level segments
  
• Fixed bug, where no collectable ducks were displayed on the track when rerunning it through the corresponding input option in the end screen
  
• Fixed bug, where the deadly platforms had to be manipulated twice in a row with the EMP to properly reset their deadly state, after having fully reset a track using “R”
  

New Content

• Included 10 new accessories in the Customization menu for Head, Body, Hands and Feet:
  o Body: Fairy Lights, Lifebuoy
  o Feet: Clogs, Duck Feet
  o Hands: Balloon Dog, Plunger, Lantern
  o Head: Pirate Hat, Shark Hat, and Umbrella Hat!
  

Highscores & Multiplayer

• Improved display of highscore in end screen if a track has been finished before, adding a + or – sign to the delta time to clarify if the new highscore is better or worse than before
  
• The ALL TIME highscore list in the end screen now ranks players without “skipping” ranks. The previous implementation had its focus on not displaying the same rank more than once throughout the CURRENT and the ALL TIME list, which seemed confusing after some more testing. The new implementation focuses on the ALL TIME highscore list, so ranks are in correct and complete succession there.
  
• Fixed bug, where it may have happened that two highscore were submitted for one run, because multiple finish times were marked by the game. The game now has several more checks and validations in place for the finish time before submitting it for the highscore list in the end screen.
  
• Fixed bug, where time and rank of a co-player in online multiplayer may have been continuously displayed as “pending” if said player has disconnected from the game
  

Visuals

• Made wallrun animation cyclic and loopable, so the animation doesn’t stop when wallrunning for a very long time
  
• Fixed issue with particle systems on accessories in the Customization menu, causing some particles to have the wrong size
  

More Bugfixes

• Fixed crash in the highscore manager if a highscore has not been validated before accessing it
  
• Fixed potential issue in the saved track options, that prevented players from starting tracks
  
• Fixed bug, where characters may slide on surfaces after wallrunning
  
• Fixed issue with metal material that may have caused a faulty display of transparent ducks on the tracks that have already been collected in a previous run
  
• Adjusted zone on deadly platforms that kills characters, so platforms that are currently set to deadly cannot be climbed
  
• Adjusted staircase assets to make them seamless and fix potential issues with climbing mechanic
  

Improvements

• General improvements to Save Game, especially storage of chosen settings and user data
  
• Game now automatically pauses when a gamepad or controller is disconnected or unplugged
  
• Improved rendering time and performance in main menu and sub-menus by improving the animation of the duck on the lower left displaying your amount of in-game currency
  

General & Miscellaneous

• Updated translations for all languages
  

Stay tuned for more updates! Until next time!
- The LAB132 team