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. 😉