Version 0.9 is now live!

Jun 21, 2024

Astral Gunners

Get ready to push your skills to the limit against an endless sea of bullets and evil robots in Astral Gunners. Choose from five different gunners to master in this horizontal shooter. With the ability to dodge, reflect, delete, and convert bullets you are more powerful than you might believe.

Ver 0.9 is now live! See below for details on this major update to Astral Gunners. To fully experience every change in this update, we advise that players go into the options menu and clear their save data. [u][b]New Level: Dystopia[/b][/u] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33219254/22bc2bbe84cc674330df001abd15d97944c28c71.png[/img] That's right, we've got an entire level added in this build. With this level, we've completed the pattern of having a level associated with each playable character. The Violet level, Dystopia, features tight corridors, security robots, a race against a robot samurai, and a confrontation against the scythe-wielding X Gunner. [i]Please note: while there are 3 SP Medals to collect on this level, the shadow fight that would normally appear after collecting all 3 is not yet added to the game.[/i] [u][b]Updated Title Screen[/b][/u] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33219254/ff897733191b6dfaf3a8a34b472044885f4a0570.png[/img] The title screen has been updated to feature more than just an image of Light Gunner vs Dark Gunner. It now features every major character in a face off. Characters that haven't been encountered or unlocked are greyed out until you progress further in the game. [u][b]Updated Revenge Difficulty[/b][/u] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33219254/d80c2ff658746984725872be94a850592b940418.png[/img] Revenge mode has now been altered to better accommodate the mechanics of Astral Gunners. Different enemies shoot different revenge bullet patterns, as opposed to previously where every enemy dropped clusters of bullets. [u][b]Red Gunner gets a new move![/b][/u] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33219254/52fc124ae92e656f1535fa5e7fb886b64f163a4f.png[/img] Red Gunner has for some time not felt quite right to us. The charge shot dealt a satisfying amount of damage, but their defend was very lackluster and led to players accidentally killing themselves when using it like every other defend ability in the game. As a result, we decided to change Red's defend to give them a better identity in the game. Red now creates a flame zone that clears bullets. The big difference compared to their previous ability is that this now sticks around for a much longer timeframe. As like before, Red can still charge shot 2 and then use defend to create a bigger zone, but now that functionality is more useful. With this change, Light Gunner finally has competition as a supporting character in co-op play. Additionally, Red's super has been adjusted slightly. It's easier to move around and reposition the fire beam. Hopefully this makes scoring gameplay less frustrating when playing as Red Gunner. [u][b]Six New Achievements![/b][/u] Six new achievements have been added, all centered around the new level, Dystopia. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33219254/83774e59aa3ca2b265e69dd64a88197e85721c09.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33219254/c1772caa3d9bad5a4993797e70b83ce9e68b934b.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33219254/c97ae6bc5754b1eaa9147bdc37ac3b98178667ee.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33219254/fc1c50f1bd4ba4ef099083fccea6d869e2d7c72a.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33219254/df34830582da630020be04878a148e8667d8dc1f.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33219254/50df1178e31fb95844b4d1d357b10ab72c08aac8.png[/img] [u][b]Misc. Changes[/b][/u] A number of miscellaneous changes have been added to the game, although we may be missing some from this list. [list] [*]A HUD element now pops up when collecting SP Medals to remind players of how many they've found. [*]A HUD element now pops up in bonus waves to show the player how far in the bonus wave cycle they are, and which UFO level they're currently at. Ideally this should help make the somewhat obtuse bonus wave mechanics a bit more understandable to players. [*]Both of the aforementioned HUD elements are visible on the pause screen at any time. [*]Can return to the main menu from the level select screen [*]New high speed visual added during bonus waves to make it more obvious when a bonus wave is occurring. [*]Visuals have been updated for dialogue textboxes [/list] [u][b]Thank you![/b][/u] A huge thanks to everyone who has played the game so far, and to everyone in the shmup community for being so supportive and providing great feedback. With this update, we are very close to the 1.0 release. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on the game.