Hello! So I'll be streaming the ASTRALODE demo (or at least attempting to if Steam's servers cooperate!) at 5 PM Pacific. Playing through the tutorial and just generally fooling around in the endless arcade mode with some (hopefully) high-level play. Intending to keep it going for about an hour, but we shall see how stable things are at that time of day!

Anyhow, if you're around about then, hope you tune in for a minute or two :)

- Drixxel

Hi there! Cheers for taking a look at ASTRALODE, here's hoping you give the demo a try during the Steam Game Festival :)

Available in the demo is the game's Arcade mode with a choice of 3 of the game's 10 copilots to join you on a run. The leaderboards are live, so go ahead and get your name up there! In addition to Arcade mode, there's a pretty thorough playable tutorial available from the title menu which is broken up into a handful of different lessons, with each one offering a quick crash course in a specific part of the game. Pick-'n'-choose or play through 'em all, up to you!

A bunch of things are closed off in the demo, such as the Career and Puzzle game modes and the Azimuth HQ section of the menu where the in-game shop and a number of other extras are located. What's here more closely resembles the contents of ASTRALODE Freeminers, the standalone free version of the game I'm planning to release just after the Steam Game Festival.

Anyhow, thanks again for having a peek at the game! Hope you give it a try :D

Hello! In this dev update, I'll be going into the details of each of the 10 standard power-ups available in ASTRALODE :)

As covered in update #4, power-ups are earned by either harvesting ore or getting long (10+) chains, both of which contribute to your p-meter. Fill the p-meter and you'll be presented with a randomized selection of consumable power-ups to pick from. In addition, each of ASTRALODE's 10 copilots bring one power-up each with them into the run.

All burnt ore is reset back to green grade (burnt rare ore is made whole again)

All unburnt ore is pushed forward to golden grade (unburnt rare ore is unaffected)

All frozen chunks are thawed

All thawed chunks receive 1 damage

Wipes out the current lost tools tally

Forces the asteroid to rotate or flip however chosen

An energy cone that harvests all ore on contact

A horizontal beam that instantly destroys all chunks in a row

A vertical beam that instantly destroys all chunks in a column

An energy explosion that instantly destroys all chunks in a 4-quadrant pattern

So the Steam Game Festival is just around the corner! From June 16th and lasting for the duration of the festival, there'll be a demo of ASTRALODE available to check out. Definitely excited to get something out on Steam for people to play :)

- Drixxel

Hello! So in this dev update, I'll quickly run through ASTRALODE's chain scoring system and power-up cycle. The two of these are quite closely linked, so let's get into it :)

During Arcade mode, the green clock-lookin' thing hanging in space to the right of your mining vessel is the P-Meter. Each ore harvested caused your P-Meter to tick up a point, and when your P-Meter is completely filled at 12 points, you'll earn yourself a consumable power-up. Another way to fill your P-Meter involves stringing together unbroken chains of tools, where every 10 consecutive tools that earn $core (without ruining any ore or getting shot off into space) add 1 point to your P-Meter. So, let's imagine you launch 20 tools in a row without making even one dud move in that sequence - that'll add 2 points to your P-Meter.

Once your P-Meter is completely filled to the 12-point mark, your copilot will bring the mining vessel around and park beside a random assortment of power-ups for you to pick from. Choosing from this selection will add that chosen power-up to one of your open power-up slots. In the event that your power-up slots are all occupied, you'll have the choice of either replacing one of your currently held power-ups with a new one from the random spread OR opting to skip picking a new power-up altogether, causing your P-Meter to blow and converting some of that energy directly into a semi-random amount of $core.

Also, just a heads up that there's been a bit of a scheduling change with the upcoming Steam Game Festival that has affected ASTRALODE Freeminer's release! It was announced last Friday that the Steam Game Festival has been postponed a week, which mucks up the plans for Freeminers just a smidge since I intended to have it released just as the Game Festival ended. As a result, Freeminers is now set to launch on June 23rd, just as the gamefest comes to a close. ASTRALODE will be participating in the Steam Game Festival with a playable demo, though, so on June 16th you'll be able to give it a try!

Anyhow, thanks for checking out ASTRALODE. In the next update, maybe I'll go into the specifics of what each of the 10 power-ups do. We shall see! Take care and all the best,

- Drixxel

Hello! So I thought it might be useful to go a little into how ore upgrading works in ASTRALODE. It's a major part of playing like a pro in Arcade mode, and anyone who wants to maximize their score is going to want to upgrade as much ore as they can :)

There are 4 grades of standard ore:

Green (worth 10 $core)
Pale (worth 20 $core)
Golden (worth 30 $core)
Burnt (worth 5 $core)
Ore that gets hit by an explosion will be pushed into it's next grade, starting from Green and ending in Burnt. As you can see by the point totals shown above, there's a sweet spot at the Golden ore grade that you don't want to overshoot if it can be at all avoided!

It's not all hopeless if an ore gets a lil' toasty, though. One of the starter power-ups, the Restorenizer, refreshes all Burnt ore in the asteroid you're currently mining back to Green.

In order to actually realize the value of an ore, it must be harvested by a grabber. The frequency by which grabbers appear in your randomly generated tool clusters depends on how much mining progress you've made on the current asteroid, with the likelihood of grabbers increasing as more chunks are mined away and as the ratio of ore-to-chunks rises. Any ore hit by a grabber is harvested, and both the ore and the grabber are removed from play when that happens.

Rare ores, which as their name suggests will only rarely be amongst a given asteroid's ore allotment, start at their maximum value grade (worth a hefty 50 $core) and will be pushed into Burnt state after only a single hit by an explosion. Burnt Rares (worth a mere 5 $core, like their non-Rare brethren) can be refreshed back to their full value through the use of a Restorenizer. Also, Rare ore collectors need not worry if they harvest a Burnt Rare - that particular Rare's harvest record will still enter into the Atlas Mineralis just the same as if it were harvested uncooked.

That's all for now! I think a rundown of chain scoring and the power-up unlock cycle would be a good candidate for the next post. Until then, cheers for taking a look at ASTRALODE :)

- Drixxel

Hey! Just wanted to quickly run through a little of how ASTRALODE's Arcade mode works, as it's nice to have a more detailed written description of what's going on in screenshots and video :)

So an Arcade run starts by selecting your copilot from among those you've unlocked. Only a few are available from first launch.

Your copilot determines which power-up you start the run with, and they'll comment on your run as certain milestones are met. All ore harvested while running with a copilot contributes to their level, which results in an increasingly fancy badge displayed next to their name and a general warming up to you.

Once the run begins, you'll be presented with a randomized asteroid loaded with ore. Your copilot-determined power-up is here hanging out to the right of your mining vessel, and a preview of your first tool cluster is projected in the mouth of your vessel's tool generator.

The game plays out in a self-paced, quasi-turn-based fashion as you chip away at the asteroid, one generated cluster of mining tools at a time. At random intervals, the asteroid will rotate 90 degrees and you'll be presented with a new face of the formation to mine.

An asteroid is cleared when all of its ore has been removed, ideally by safely harvesting it rather than ruining it with misplaced tools! Ruined ore sticks with you and ruining 4 total will end the run. Similarly, casting tools into space will end your run if a total of 8 tools are lost, but unlike ruined ore, this count resets at the start of the next asteroid.

So that's the basic rundown of how a typical Arcade mode level plays out! This doesn't touch on ore upgrading, the power-up cycle, rare ore collection, performance bonuses, etc., but I'll be getting into more of that in a later post :)

Also, just wanted to provide a quick update on release date stuff! The Steam Game Festival is coming up in June and ASTRALODE will be participating in that with a playable demo. This has slightly gummed up my scheduled plans for Freeminers - I've decided to push its release until after the Steam Game Festival as it would be too confusing, IMO, to have a free version and a demo version out simultaneously when they'll pretty much contain identical content. Also, this will give me time to tidy some things up and incorporate more player feedback. I've gotten things set up such that your save file will carry forward from the demo, so any time put in there won't be wasted.

Anyhow, thanks for checking out ASTRALODE! Looking forward to getting the demo out there for everyone who wants to give the game a shot :D

- Drixxel

Hey there! Thanks for checking out ASTRALODE :)

The free version of this thing focused on the Arcade mode (ASTRALODE Freeminers) is getting pretty dang close to release ready. The planned May 28th launch for that one is coming up awfully quick, but I might end up pushing it back just a smidge, maybe a week or two to give a little more time to expand on the metagame and tighten some technical things up. The core game is thoroughly tested, rock solid and ready to play - have a peek at a handful of GIFs showcasing how it's looking at the moment!

Copilot selection:
Mining action:
Power-up unlocks:
Rare ore collecting:
On the topic of testing, some cool folks have been kind enough to spend a bit of time with the game and I've gotten lots of valuable feedback. This has definitely improved the game's feel and fun, and now, I'm hoping to get more scores onto the ASTRALODE Freeminers leaderboard to stress test it. If there's anyone here on Steam who's interested in getting pre-release access to make their mark on the free version's leaderboard, that'd be awesome and I'd really appreciate it. As the name suggests, ASTRALODE Freeminers is going to be totally free, so you'll just be getting pre-release access to a free game, but let me know if you're into the idea of jumping the queue and lending a hand!


Cheers and all the best,

- Drixxel