First of all, thanks for the great reception of the 1.7 version! We are working hard on new updates!

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1280930/view/4545912358018084589

The first major change of this new version is the rework of the hub Telescope. We removed all the perks that were linked to a specific build because you would select them in the hub before knowing what would be your build during the run so it would either be frustrating because you do not find the right build or not be useful if you don't do this build so we focused on perks working with all builds. We also added new perks in the hub.

Adding to that, we have created a new room type : The Cursed Telescope!

This new room can be found up to 2 times per run and will allow you to get new Telescope perks, different from the Hub ones, with usual rarities : common, rare, mythic and astral.
But a random Malus is attached to each of these bonus and will be removed when reaching Andromeda's bar of your current world.
That's a total of 31 bonuses there (102 with rarities) and 15 maluses in this new room. This room works very similar to Chaos in Hades, high risk high rewards! ːzagplsː
To help you find what you want, we added up to 6 rerolls you can get from a new Zim-Zim upgrade -
A new feature is also the Build Recap, we used to see community members share their builds through a dozen of screens taken before the final boss and it felt really bad to share a good build. We have came with a solution to that - the Prison Memento! In the hub you will be able to find this large book in the bottom right, if you open it it will show your runs (only the ones post 1.8 release).
This screen also appears when you Win a run or die and it also works in co-op (only from hub for now)!
We truly hope this will make sharing your best runs and best builds easier!

We have also improved a lot of small elements requested by the community!

You can now preview on the progress bar where are the special rooms, the bar and the Zodiac fight, it does not display all the random rooms like Moon/Sun for example but it gives a better idea of what is coming next to help organize your run better!

An icon now shows what is the effect of the Zodiac summon before entering the room so you have a better idea if it will fit into your build or not.

We have added a new system to reward players perfecting rooms, perfected rooms can stack and offer different rewards

• Explo / Fight rooms - 1 Star
  
• Star Guardians - 2 Stars
  
• Zodiacs - 3 Stars

And this stacks over room so the more rooms you perfect in a row the more stars you get in each new room and it resets when getting hit!

It has been requested a lot and the Arsenal is now available in the hub and in Andromeda's bar so you can change your weapon/passive before the boss if you want to!

Another change is also that salvaging an Aura Refiner will give rarer Auras depending of your current world if you have Barbecue's aura.

There are more small changes like a 5th Aura Refiner in Event Horizon, double rewards in Cetus room in co-op and more!

We had also like to address a global concern we started to hear, the 2.0 planned for Q1 2025 with new worlds is not the end of our updates for Astral Ascent, we have more updates planned after that, some of them are already in the work ːzimzimSmileː

We do not tease the 1.9 version (big collab with a famous game) yet because we are still looking for opportunities to maybe announce it in some places to get more visibility but it's progressing very well on our side and we cannot wait to show you more about this update coming very soon! (Q4 2024)!

Last thing, our friends at Doom Turtle just released a massive DLC + free update for their game Ember Knights in a few hours, this update is huge, don't hesitate to check it here -
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2948140/Ember_Knights__Wrath_of_the_Architect/

Have an excellent time in the game and a great week ːzimzimSmileː

Louis

⭐Changes inspired by our community!

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• New room ""Cursed Telescope"": This room can appear as a reward option alongside other rooms starting in world 2, 3, or 4. Inside, you'll find a cursed version of the Telescope from the hub, offering a perk tied to a Malus, which adds a temporary negative effect to the player. The Malus is lifted once you reach Andromeda's bar, leaving only the perk behind.
  

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• Build recap: Players can preview their build after completing a run. A list of previous runs is also available in the hub by interacting with the Altar beneath Sova's spot

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• community inspired ⭐ New Aura Refiner in Event Horizon (co-op players used to have 1 extra aura refiner use they could not use)
  

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• community inspired ⭐ Auras Refiner recycled now drops rarer Auras depending of current world if you have Barbecue Summon
  

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• community inspired ⭐ You now have double the loots in Cetus Cavern when playing in co-op
  

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• community inspired ⭐ Hints are now displayed on Auras from Barbecue interface
  

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• Arsenal now in Andromeda's Bar and in Hub
  

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• Players can achieve a 'Perfect Room' by clearing all enemies without taking damage in the following rooms: Exploration, Fight, Eclipse, The Void, and Boss. Earning a 'Perfect Room' rewards players with stars, with the reward increasing based on the current streak of perfected rooms.

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• community inspired ⭐ Yamat ""Dance of Contempt"" spell now has Dodge at the beginning
  

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• community inspired ⭐ Spirit Swords can now attack faster
  

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• Poison now ticks faster depending on the number of stacks
  

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• Enemies with ""Frostbite"" status effect will receive an additional 20% damage

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• Special rooms, Andromeda's bar and final boss are now displayed in the progression bar
  

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• Challenge Rooms from Zodiacs now display the type of reward/affinity you will have by completing the challenge
  

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• Key Converter now shows number of Keys and Stars when nearby

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• Portal to Elite fight rooms and Elite Star Guardians are now red
  

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• Icons above portal and not changing overtime anymore for better readability

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• community inspired ⭐ Typos fixed in the Forge Room
  

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• ""Vanquisher of the Star Guardians"" and ""Stars Vanquisher"" achievements from Sier Bapy were too similar in english
  

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• Intro voices when entering Elite Minibosses room were missing

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• community inspired ⭐ Loot Keys could sometime never reach players and keep rotating around
  

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• Key Converter was now displaying the right amount of keys to stars if you used keys in the room
  

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• The game would freeze while trying to open the Arsenal if it triggers the first interaction tutorial - ☄️ hotfix 1.8.1
  

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• Wrong dialogue line was played by Ordan when interacting with Elite Minibosses - ☄️ hotfix 1.8.1
  

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• The second player wouldn't receive the aura from the ""City of Gold Telescope"" with the Void Catalyst perk - ☄️ hotfix 1.8.1
  

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• Event Horizon Aura Refiner was not usable if used at the end of Crimson Highlands - ☄️ hotfix 1.8.2

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

• Discord Server [discord.gg]
  
• Twitter Account
  
• Official Store[astral-ascent.backerkit.com]