Hello! 哈喽！Bonjour ! こんにちは！Hallo! 안녕하세요!
It’s been a while! We’ve spent the last few months focused on the full release, and we have a lot to share in this demo update. A preview video is on YouTube.
First, the biggest news: Attack of the Astrals is now available in French, German, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean! This was a huge undertaking across the Hewer’s Workshop, Goblinz, and LocQuest teams, and we’re thrilled to welcome new players around the world. The translations and localized assets are 100% human-made. We'd love feedback on your experience playing in the new languages!
There's tons of new gameplay to cover! In summary:
New Astrals: Elf, Fairy, Giant, and Zombie challenge you in new ways.
New boss battle: In Challenger (the highest demo difficulty), the final fight is a unique and powerful set of Astrals. The full release features more bosses.
New difficulty structure: Each run selects a subset of common Astrals, increasing run variety.
New Champion upgrades: Upgrade Scrolls, generate Scrolls, and play with new mechanics.
New run progression: More level ups and new Scroll rewards present a smoother power curve, and Astral health now scales up to match.
New camp screen: Your team rests at camp between battles and collects rewards.
Metaprogression: You unlock new enemies and Summon skills by playing. These are expanded dramatically in the full release.
UI/UX: Run previews, tooltips, full controller support, upgrade trigger previews, and a breakdown of efficiency EXP.
The Astral Army Grows
Returning players will be familiar with Golem, now named Dwarf. It’s a low-Health Astral that gains Protect every turn and was the only common Astral with a special ability. Until now!
Three new common Astrals can be unlocked in the demo.
Elf
(12 base Health)
Active: Deal 2 damage to a Champion.
Passive: Fatigue Champions that move to an adjacent tile.
Fatigue reduces Champion movement range by 1 for their next move. Elf challenges slow teams without access to Haste or Speed.
Fairy
(11 base Health)
Active: Deal 1 damage to all Champions and restore 1 Health to all Astrals.
Passive: Move when damaged.
Fairy is a combo-breaker, making it harder to line up attacks or set up an exact lethal across turns.
Giant
(20 base Health)
Active: Deal 4 damage to a Champion.
Passive: When moved, take 2 damage and deal 1 less damage this turn.
Giant is an Astral that must be managed. It's nearly impossible to kill on turn 1, but you can reduce its damage by keeping it off balance.
Difficulty Levels
Each run, a subset of these common Astrals are selected to appear in all regions. The higher the difficulty, the bigger the Astral army, previewed in the new difficulty screen.
Elf becoming a common Astral leaves a gap in the earth region filled by…
Zombie
(4 Base Health)
Active: Deal 2 damage to a Champion.
Passive: Start battle with Rebirth. Deal +3 damage after reviving.
Rebirth is a new buff that revives a unit at full Health when killed. Each of Zombie’s lives benefits from Earth Wisp’s health buff, and its second life is extra dangerous with a big increase in damage.
This update also features a boss battle at the end of Challenger, which we’ll let you discover on your own.
Growing Stronger
Camp
Battle ends with the Champions gathering (or reviving) around a campfire, giving you downtime to claim rewards and review your team.
The battle report has details for how efficiency EXP is calculated, clarifying the par system we use to measure overall battle performance. Expect a few more tweaks to efficiency in a later update.
Upgrades
As shown above, level ups offer you a choice of upgrade. All Champions have more upgrades, and many upgrades have been reworked to be less situational.
You can now reach Level 7 in the demo, and upgrade combinations are more relevant than ever. In addition to gaining Scrolls mid-battle, you can upgrade Scrolls in your pool to make them more powerful.
Scrolls
All Scrolls now slot into Levels 1, 3, and 5.
Scroll rewards scale into the late game: starting at Level 3, you are given the choice between one high-level Scroll or two lower-level Scrolls.
This keeps low-level Scrolls relevant the entire run, and creates more compelling reward choices.
Enemies
To compensate for all of this extra power, Astral health now scales as you liberate regions, requiring you to adjust your strategy throughout the run. This is fairly limited in the demo difficulties.
Traveling the Realm
Camp gives you breather between battles, and a new map now makes your progression through the run clearer as you liberate regions.
The map is available at all times to view the Astral army and region order.
Unlocks
The game now has metaprogression, with content unlocked whenever you win or lose a run. In the demo, you’ll be able to unlock skills for the signature Summon of each Champion. In the full release, many non-demo upgrades will be available to unlock.
We have no plans for roguelite-style power boosts that make you stronger across runs.
And more!
UI/UX
Common Astrals take on the color palette of the current region. This helps visually unify the enemy team and make cross-region fights in the final region more striking.
Lethal previews are much louder, with killed targets pulsing bright red.
Tooltips are standard across screens. Hold the middle mouse button, the T key, or L2 on controller to view them whenever a tooltipped keyword is on screen.
Triggered upgrades sparkle with energy from the top left of the screen when previewing a skill or Scroll, so it's clear which upgrades will trigger.
Controller support is complete. Everything you can do with a keyboard and mouse, you can do with a controller. The game has full support for Steam Input and Steam Deck (certifications pending!).
All Summons have been renamed. Each now represents a virtue or vice, like Honor (previously Seraph) or Greed (previously The Eye).
Balance
Fire Wisp, Cloven Castle's Minion, has been reworked to provide a flat +1 damage to all Astrals as long as one lives.
Speed, like Health, is a Champion stat that can be manipulated, increasing or decreasing movement range.
Haste is a new stacking buff that increases movement range for one turn.
Sunder, Butcher’s starting Scroll, has been redesigned to Execute a <= 3 Health Astral.
Soul Cleave, Butcher’s Level 5 Scroll, has been redesigned to strip Health from all Champions and the lowest Health Astral.
Clarity, one of Bastion's Level 1 Scrolls, now additionally provides EXP for each Champion without a Debuff, making it relevant in all battles.
Inspiration, Bastion’s leader upgrade, has been redesigned to grant a random Honor skill to his allies. The previous upgrade, which granted movement range to Champions with Protect, was narrow and difficult to maximize.
Honor has 3 new skills: Sanctuary, Born Again, and Wonder Guard.
Several Summon skills have been buffed or redesigned: Totality, Equalize, Blinding Light, Mercy and Fury, and Overgrowth.
All common Scrolls except those that grant EXP have been removed: Emergency Heal, Square, and Cube. They may return in a new form in the full release...