Hey, it’s Adam from the Astral Flux team. Welcome to another devlog! In this devlog I’ll take you through some of the new content coming in our final two updates: Seeds of Doubt, and Elevated.
It probably goes without saying but this devlog contains spoilers, so if that’s a problem for you maybe consider reading with your eyes closed. 🫣

Let’s talk about the big update first: Elevated. This update will add another world, and similar to Submerged, we’re bringing you new boss mechanics, more advanced enemy AI, and dynamic environments.

Unlike other worlds, Elevated is set high in the sky, well above the planet. With this comes a new hazard: gravity. Where other worlds provide a safe landing at the bottom of the temple, this new world has no bottom, and one misstep could send you falling to your death!

To make things more interesting, we’ve also implemented a new type of level generation: rather than the winding paths of other worlds, the level is mainly open, and we’ve added jump pads to give you a boost to higher areas.

In Submerged we explored a world with two distinct biomes: above and below water. For Elevated we’ve done something similar: a weather system with multiple distinct phases. When the level first starts you’ll be greeted by a colourful sunset with twinkling stars and layers of clouds gently blowing by.

As you hit switches the weather will become more and more stormy: the sky will darken, the wind will pick up, and the rain will intensify.

To make the world feel more alive we’ve added animated grass throughout. Naturally, the grass will sway faster as the storm picks up.

Similar to Submerged this level will also feature a free roaming boss that spawns in once all three switches have been hit. Unlike Submerged, this boss will snatch you and carry you to its nesting area!

Once in the boss room you’ll be trapped, or so it seems at first, but one of the boss’s primary attacks is to grab rocks and drop them on you. Larger rocks will destroy the floor beneath you, providing you with an escape route back to the temple.

As with Submerged, fighting the boss is optional, but if you’re overzealous you might find yourself permanently trapped in the room!

Submerged introduced a new pathfinding system for underwater enemies. Naturally, we’ve taken full advantage of this in Elevated, but we’ve gone one step further: a new flying fire ant enemy with several distinct phases. It starts life as an egg which will hatch when you come near it. Initially it can fly around, pursuing the player. You’re able to defeat it during this phase, but if you’re not careful you may accidentally clip its wings. Doing so will cause it to drop to the ground, where it will leave a trail of fire in its wake!

Since the focus of Elevated is on aerial movement, we’ve reduced the number of spikes in the level to make traversal more fluid. But you didn’t think we’d let you off the hook that easily? In place of spikes, we’ve introduced a new type of enemy that crawls around the level.

One final bit of exciting news about Elevated: we want your feedback! We’ll be running a playtest early in the new year and we would encourage you to join. Keep an eye on the Steam store page for the sign-up button.

Last but not least I wanted to give a quick mention to the smaller content update we’ll be pushing before Elevated. The Seeds Of Doubt update adds an option to enter a random seed at the start of your run, thereby enabling you to repeat the same run, compete with others, etc. We plan to run some competitions along with this update so stay tuned!

Along with this we’ve implemented what we call “The Invisible Hand”: a new system that will make the game slightly more forgiving to new players by offering them a helping hand when needed. I won’t spoil it by mentioning the specifics of what this does, but if you found the game a little too difficult I would encourage you to give it another shot!

Oh, and don’t forget to pet the Cosmocat that accompanies you now in your spaceship. 😉

Greetings interdimensional adventurers,

It's finally here! We're incredibly excited to share that the Submerged Update is now live. Like our previous updates, all players will be receiving Submerged for free.

With this update, we're introducing a brand-new world, enemies, and a slew of bug fixes. Our new boss in particular will provide a challenge. You can find the full patch notes, with more information about the bug fixes, below.

This has been a long time coming for the team and we can't wait to hear what you think.

Until next time,
AF Team


New Features

• A brand new world accessed through a branching path system. In this new world you will find:
  
  • Unique underwater sections with separate biomes above and below the waterline
    
  • Challenging new enemy mechanics, including more aggressive path-finding enemies
    
  • A dangerous free roaming boss which you can either engage or try to evade. The choice is yours!
• Mute SFX on pause

Fixes 🐛

• Fix for D-pad input inconsistent in some menus
  
• Fix for ceiling robot spawning in platforms and getting stuck moving
  
• Fix for worms getting stuck
  
• Fix for broken stats menu in tutorial
  
• Turned off the mini-map during the tutorial
  
• Fix for ice worm moving too fast and landing in wall collider and getting stuck
  
• Fix for snail getting stuck
  
• Fix for ice worm getting stuck
  
• Fix falling spikes still hurting the player when landed on a falling bridge part
  
• Fix for barrels sometimes getting stuck in tilemap colliders in the wall when throwing barrels against walls
  
• Fix for spider getting stuck in wall

Greetings interdimensional adventurers,

The Switch version of Astral Flux launches on Thursday October 31st in all regions. Alongside this, the steam version will also be updated with additional content: the new (and free) Submerged DLC, which adds an entirely new world accessible via a new branching path system.

Nathan recently took some time to share his thoughts on this, as well as some more details about our demo competition. Check it out!

We can't wait to dive into Submerged on Thursday!

Until next time,
AF Team

Greetings interdimensional adventurers,

To celebrate the upcoming release of the Submerged update, and the game coming to Nintendo Switch for the first time, we're hosting a challenge where you have a chance to win a copy of the game!

All you have to do is leave a comment with your favorite moment from playing the demo under one of these two posts on Instagram[www.instagram.com] or Twitter[x.com]. Winners will be announced on November 4th. Of course, terms and conditions[oc11.m3cloud.nl] apply.

We can't wait to dive into Submerged next Thursday!

Until next time,
AF Team

Greetings interdimensional adventurers,

We're incredibly excited to announce that our next free update "Submerged" will be released on October 31st! In Submerged, you will travel to a brand-new planet filled with ancient horrors and discover dangerous new enemies that lurk in the water.

Our new trailer will give you a first look at the exciting adventures that await.

Additionally, we will be bringing the full game—including Submerged—to Nintendo Switch on October 31st. Switch players can already try our free demo right now.

We can't wait to dive into Submerged very soon!

Until next time,
AF Team

Greetings interdimensional adventurers,

Cosmocat is excited to announce that we’ve joined forces with the publisher Mindscape to continue developing Astral Flux together!

With today’s update, a free demo is now available, new languages have been added to the game, alongside a plethora of bug fixes and quality-of-life features. This update has been a huge undertaking for the team, and we have even more content coming soon!

Following the successful releases of the Artifact Hunter and Balance of Power updates, the next free update, Submerged, will introduce an underwater planet filled with ancient horrors and dangerous new enemies.

We can’t wait for you to see everything that Submerged has to offer!

Until next time,
AF Team


New Features

• Add full input rebinding system for keyboard and gamepad. Note: most input actions only have one default assignment now; if you were relying on any of the old defaults you will need to use the new system and rebind the controls to your preference!
  
• Localize the game in French, Spanish, German, Japanese, and Traditional Chinese
  
• Add haptic events (rumble) for gamepad 🎮

Changes ⚖️

• Upgrade the hero's car visuals
  
• Increase air dive damage to to allow insta-killing world 2 worms
  
• Remove ladders and fences that go to the edge of room exits
  
• Force-spawn map item until first level is beaten
  
• Remove ice from world 2

Improvements ⚒️

• Settings:
  
  • Add settings menu to title screen
    
  • Add tabbed navigation to settings menu
    
  • Visual improvements and fixes to settings menu
    
  • Add master volume slider
• Visual:
  
  • Add indestructible tiles below ground hazards
    
  • Cover most indestructible tiles with regular ground tiles
    
  • Add bigger, world-specific particle explosions for terrain destruction
    
  • Update upgrade card colours, add distinct visual feedback to melee and projectiles for different upgrade levels
    
  • Add visual degradation for explosive barrels
• QoL:
  
  • Display planet name at the start of levels
    
  • Add wave number indicator to challenge rooms
    
  • Improve readability of artifact portals
    
  • UI: Improve HUD, including improved support for ultrawide resolutions
    
  • Performance: Many, many performance optimizations!
    
  • Input: Improve menu navigation with gamepad

Fixes 🐛

• Fix masking issue in resolution dropdown
  
• Fix for multiple interact prompts shown when standing near multiple barrels
  
• Fix for custom bindings not loading in some scenes
  
• Fix masking issues for ultrawide resolutions
  
• Fix for menu SFX playing on start
  
• Fix for barrel still visible after explosion
  
• Fix for destructible tiles in final boss room

Greetings interdimensional adventurers, we come bearing good news! Our next free update to Astral Flux is nearing completion. Nathan has prepared a video devlog outlining what you can expect to see in the Submerged update:

We will be beta testing the update from December 17 until early next year. Existing players are encouraged to sign up and will receive priority. We are also inviting new players (you will be provided with a key), but we have limited space.

If you’re interested you can sign up here[docs.google.com]! Space is limited so please sign up early to secure your spot. Submissions will close on December 16.

Safe travels,
AF Team

We are pleased to announce that the second major update to Astral Flux is now available!

• New achievement: Artifact Hunter!
  
• New temple escape mechanic: world destroyers
  
• New mechanic: artifact system! Discover randomized artifacts during your runs, apply gameplay modifiers in subsequent runs. (See devlog for full details)
  
• New stats UI and large minimap display (press Tab key or Back button to access)

• Minor visual updates to tutorial scene
  
• Fix for some enemies remaining passive when aggroed
  
• Update damage upgrade descriptions to be more clear
  
• Fix for player walk animation remaining active during certain situations (teleporting, etc)
  
• Make player invincible during teleportation
  
• Fix some enemy navigation issues

• Chance of enemies spawning in aggro state
  
• Enemies now aggro when hit
  
• Tweak enemy spawn logic (The enemy difficulty spawn curve was not properly evaluated in previous builds; this has been corrected)

Hey, it’s Adam from Cosmocat here with some details about the upcoming content update for Astral Flux: the Artifact Hunter update!

This update adds several new mechanics to the game, the most notable of which is the artifact system.

The artifact system consists of multiple parts. Firstly are the actual artifacts: these mysterious objects are found during your run (at most: one per world) but can’t actually be used until you bring them back to your ship to decipher them.

To facilitate that, you’ll now start your run in your ship, where you’ll have access to a (comically large) computer that is able to analyze the artifacts to determine their effects.

The artifact effects available in this update are: enemy spawn rate, enemy health, item spawn rate, starting oxygen, aggro probability and world destroyer spawn rate. (More on those last two in a minute.)

Artifacts can provide either a buff, a debuff, or a combined buff/debuff.

You read that right: some artifacts will buff your oxygen (and quite significantly). Hopefully this will help alleviate some stress for the players who expressed their dislike of the oxygen system. 😉

Naturally, there’s a new achievement to go along with this, appropriately dubbed “Artifact Hunter”.

To help you make better decisions during your run, we’ve also added a new stats UI and map display screen. This screen will show you the currently active artifacts, along with your stats (rate of fire, damage, etc.), and an enlarged version of the map.

Last but not least, we’ve added a couple new mechanics to keep you on your toes.

Enemies now have a chance of spawning in an aggro state. Moreover, when you attack them, they will automatically aggro. (Previously enemies only aggroed during the escape segment.)
Additionally, we’ve added a new hazard during the escape segment: world destroyers! These anomalies will spawn randomly around you, doing damage as well as what their name implies: literally destroying the world. In fact, this can be both a hindrance, and a benefit, as you can use them to carve a path out of the temple.

As noted above, both the aggro probability and the world destroyer spawn rate can be affected by artifacts.

We’re looking forward to sharing the update with you!

If you’re keen to check it out now, we’ve uploaded a preview build to the beta branch. Feel free to comment here or on the Cosmocat Discord with your thoughts. You can expect the official release within the next few weeks. (It's a brand new branch; you might need to restart Steam for it to appear)

If you’re curious about what’s coming next, some ideas we’ve been kicking around for our final two content updates include: new worlds (including new enemies, bosses, etc.) via branching paths, new upgrades, and new weapons. What do you think? Are there things you’d like to see more of? We’d love to hear from you!

Until next time,
Adam