March Madness - Major Update v0.96

Hey everyone!

After a month of development, it's time to reveal the curtains and go over what's new in this major update for Astrolite...

Visuals

• Dynamic backgrounds have been added, including star fields and glowing planets.

  

• Post Process Effects have been added, including VHS lines, CRT Shaders, Bloom, Displacement Maps for jittery effects, Static, and more!

• EXP Shards have been visually reworked into blue stars, now they stand out from the background and no longer slightly resemble the player.

• Some bullets have seen a visual update, including the Fighter's Spray, and Shade's Attacks.

• Backgrounds and the star parallax now dynamically fades and brightens, this is also changed on a stage by stage basis for visual differences.

• On-Fire! now has a vibrant orange border when reaching max stacks.

  

• Taking damage now applies a visual border to the screen in addition to the pre-existing sound effect, making sure YOU KNOW when you've been hit. The border changes colors depending on how close you are to death.

• Astrolite now has a dedicated arcade "shell" surrounding the game screen. Resizing this screen reveals more than meets the eye!

• Visual FX have been added to guardian fights, significantly improving the experience and making certain attacks POP.

  

• Confetti in-game is now colored based on the character being played.

• Guardian Domains have had their back fill removed to reveal more of the stars in the background and less-static-color.

• Ouranos, the Uranus World Guardian has had some slight visual tweaks.

• Graphics Quality Presets have been introduced, they can be changed in the Options menu of the Main Menu.

• Difficulty now reveals bright particles when reaching thresholds, helping players visually understand that the game is getting harder.

• The Play Room now has new visuals, including reorganized button positions and visually more understandable information.

  

Additions

• AddedSaturn World GuardianKronos - has been added. Featuring a ticking pendulum and the power to reverse time. Can you beat Kronos without getting hit?
• AddedJupiter World GuardianZeus - has been added. Featuring explosive bombs and massive lightning spears. Can you avoid it's enrage phase?

• Ouranos now has dedicated SFX added, instead of using Poseidon's.

• Losing Near-Miss Stacks now has SFX related to it, including a funny one when being hit while On-Fire!

• Selecting Locked Skins or Character in the Play Room now disables the play button, preventing you from entering the game.

• An uncompleted tutorial no longer has an exit route when quitting the game early to skip to the Play Room. You must finish the tutorial as a first time player as Hades will play a vital role in the story of the game later.

• Character Stats are now visible when levelling up or selecting new weapons, this should help with understanding where your strengths or weaknesses are.

  

Reworks

• World Guardians now have a completely reworked Roleplay Introduction. Featuring various different quips about what you're doing, and what they'll do to stop it. This is also followed by an explosive entrance for visual ooos and ahhhs.

  

• EXP Shards are now all of one type, with VERY subtle visual differences. They also drop in significantly higher quantities and reward less experience overall as a result.

• EXP level requirements have doubled, level up reward scaling and power has also doubled, and weapon rolls gain an additional roll. This should help reduce "level fatigue" involved in making 40+ choices each run. (and sets the game up well for the next major update)

• Enemy Waves have had a rework, now planets usually feature one new enemy as an attempt to avoid overwhelming new players with too many unique enemies showing up at once. As you approach the sun you'll gradually fight waves featuring all the different types of enemies.

• Music now has seamless interaction, instead of abrupt endings they will cross-fade into one another and main menu music will resume instead of restarting when returning from a match.

• Ouranos has had a new music track replacement, as the old one didn't feel quite right for it. A future update will also have Poseidon getting a music rework.

• Luna Enemies now drop EXP and Powerups in accordance with the previously mentioned EXP Rework.

• The Pause Menu has had a major overhaul, featuring significantly expanded stats to track and weapon tracking.

  

Fixes

• Splitter Variant enemies no longer COMPLETELY CRASH THE GAME when quitting early as they are in the middle of a death animation. Whew. That took awhile to find out.

• Player Size can no longer be reduced below 70% (what the tooltip says) - Sorry, no more invisible player cheese going on.

• Vampire Drain has had its Attack Speed scaling fixed, and as a result actually improved the attack speed scaling formula to apply to all weapons of that same type in the future!

• Mouse Behavior has been improved on the controller scheme.

• Controller users no longer see incorrect information when hovering a weapon or passive in the Play room while simultaneously changing characters.

• Zeus has had its health fixed, and now scales appropriately with the other guardians.

Going Forwards

The next major update in Astrolite will feature a new mechanic called Obelisks, these will act as another layer of power scaling for players. Rewarding risky gameplay with powerful modifiers, some include gaining the abilities or passives of other characters, and tons of new interactions to make unique builds that don't feel the same.

Five more World Guardians need to be developed, scripted, drawn, have SFX added and dialogue thought up etc. etc. including one World Guardian which will be having a second appearance in a plot twist that will not be revealed in a patch note.

Following the final World Guardians and Obelisks, the game will be feature complete and plot driven. No more new bosses or mechanics will need to be added and the game will be prepared for release on September 11, 2026.

If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading. You're awesome.

If you're not already in the Discord, join now: https://discord.gg/yfRmC8YnUe

Check out the YouTube Shorts made about Astrolite: View store page

And remember, if you have ANYTHING of note to discuss, PLEASE PLEASE provide feedback so that I may improve the game further here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScDdcXDs6qTwXtSxRNE8W3e4SK0Lgb93W4aeBwej4bbuz7IHw/viewform