The demo for Attack of the Astrals is now live!
We’ve had a blast with our public Steam playtest, and it’s only fitting that this update is our biggest yet: more content, more depth, and more cinematic gameplay that focuses on the champions’ personalities and relationships.
The first half of this post will be a demo content overview, and the second half will focus on changes from the playtest for returning players.
The cosmos wages war against the realm. Your Champion trio is humanity’s last hope.
Attack of the Astrals is a turn-based strategy roguelike with unique movement-based combat:
Champions can move through others on the map, swapping tiles with those in their path.
Champions automatically unleash an area attack after moving.
Each Champion must move once per turn.
(Image: A combo of Champion moves, each one setting up the next.)
Each turn becomes a tactical movement puzzle to find the best 3-move combo you can. As you progress, you’ll expand your arsenal with consumable Scrolls with map-wide effects, alternate skills called Summons, and powerful Champion upgrades.
(Astrals and their minions in the Cloven Castle region.)
Each region of the realm has new Astrals and a unique minion, immobile and passive enemies which spawn every turn. Liberating a region from Astral control expands their minion army, increasing the challenge for the region ahead.
(Image: A level up reward.)
Victory requires you master positional combat and make the most of your Champions’ abilities. Build unique teams of Knights, Mages and Rogues to explore different strategic and narrative relationships.
We’re proud of the game’s growth through playtest feedback and look forward to hearing more! Send feedback from the main menu in-game or join our Discord to chat with us directly.
We are hard at work on the full release, but we’ll be updating the demo regularly with balance changes, bugfixes, and polish. We also have plans for additional demo content:
Progression with EXP earned as a currency to spend on unlocks
More Champion upgrades, especially pair upgrades available when 2 Champions are on the same team
One more threat level, above Challenger in difficulty
We’ll be using our Discord and Steam community to share announcements and updates about the full release. And as always, we’d love to hear what you think of the game!
Hello, returning players! And curious new players.
There are five key changes from the playtest.
(Image: The new level up flow showing Tyrant's Blood Ledger upgrade available with Butcher.)
Leveling up now rewards a choice of Champion upgrade!
Like leader abilities, they’re passives attached to a Champion. All upgrades are unique, and none are shared. The pool is limited, but we plan on expanding in the next update to support more playstyles and pair upgrades.
(Image: Casting spells at the end of the turn, triggering Sorcerer's Flow ability.)
Your turn no longer ends on its own after moving your final Champion. We feared this would make the game feel less fluid, but in practice it feels great. Many Scrolls are positionally targeted, so being able to use a Scroll after all Champions move opens up more strategic options.
(Image: Champions settling around the fire after liberating a region.)
Your path through the realm is now determined for you at the start of the run, and you’ll no longer visit a world map to choose your destination. It just wasn’t an interesting choice. Most players picked Cloven Castle first, almost no one started in Lost Haven, and there was no real tradeoff to consider otherwise. We’ve removed the screen and choice entirely.
This allowed us to make the next big change…
(Image: A continuation of the above, with Bastion offered a skill from 3 Summons.)
When you liberate a region, one preselected Champion is offered a Summon skill from 3 different Summons. This gives you more opportunities to find a particular Summon that fits your strategy, which is more important than ever thanks to Champion upgrades. Some upgrades benefit from more Protect (so you want Seraph) or healing (so you want The Eye), and that type of cross-mechanic synergy will only increase over time.
Additionally, this naturally spreads Summon skills across your team, so the Champion at the Summon altar will always be in need of something new. Previously, a Champion who already had 3 skills was almost never picked for a 4th.
Summons are still unique on your team. Once you have one, they won't appear in future rewards.
We’ve reduced the amount of EXP from Astral kills and Champion survivors from 8 EXP to 6 each, and we’ve increased the rate at which efficiency rewards EXP. Overall, it’s more difficult to level up quickly without playing efficiently. In addition, leveling up no longer rewards a Scroll (you get an upgrade instead), so you have 1 less Scroll to use to hit Level III.
All of the above results in the demo being more difficult than the playtest. If you can hit 1000 EXP in the demo, we need to hear from you!
New player experience: We've improved the tutorial, slowing it down and spacing out instruction prompts. All new players start a run automatically on Starter difficulty without Scrolls.
New map visuals: The maps have been updated with gorgeous new visuals.
New header UI: The reset turn button has been updated to make its function more clear, and the top right UI has been condensed.
Bastion unlock: Bastion is now unlocked by using 10 Scrolls.
Scroll previews: Like skill previewing, Scroll previewing now shows the results of the spell directly on the map. Random Scrolls are less exact and cannot preview passive ability responses.
Astral movement: Astrals now move at the end of the turn and reliably move towards your Champions and away from map edges. This allows you to use your Champion positions to "direct" Astrals in a predictable way.
Passive ability effects: New visuals and sounds make it clear when a unit is reacting with a passive ability, with fewer pauses to block input between passive ability reactions.
Summon balance:
Reaper's Gauntlet has been nerfed significantly. It can still manage a turn 1 Execute, but only on a single Astral and with a high health cost.
Reaper's Destiny Chain has been reworked. It now has an Execute threshold that grows with each dead Astral and Champion.
Butcher starts with Destiny Chain when selected as team leader, instead of Death's Echo.
Chariot's Blink Strike, Reverse Polarity, and Plane Shift have all been buffed.
The Serpent's Intercession now distributes its 8 damage evenly among targets.
The Eye's Bloodlust buffed to give +1 movement for the rest of battle.
The Eye's Totality reworked to no longer cost health.
Scroll balance:
Challenge and Challenge II no longer target Astrals who already have Protect.
Cursed Offering nerfed to Execute the lowest health Champion.
Insanity is now a Level II Scroll for Butcher, and Soul Cleave is Level III.
Tyrant now starts with Thorns, instead of Riot.