Aground Zero started with a simple idea: What if I made a 3D spinoff of Aground focusing on base building and automation? I teased this idea with an April Fool’s joke that turned out to be very real:

Now, four years later, we’ve shared another April Fool’s joke and Aground Zero is finally released!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3rN1CkJEcI

Imagine you wake up underground having missed the Apocalypse. At first, it takes all your energy just to survive, but after setting up a semi-automated base and waking up other survivors to help you operate machinery, you can focus your attention on returning to the surface and learning more about what happened to Earth while you were sleeping. The story has several revelations and takes place during the events of the original Aground game, but you do not need to have played Aground to enjoy Aground Zero.

As you unlock and upgrade new technologies and improve your base, you’ll be able to take on projects like returning to space, finding survivors across the galaxy and even confronting the threat that destroyed Earth in the first place. And if that wasn’t cool enough, you can even learn the secrets of magic and ride your own dragon!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZBzHsZscfo

We entered Early Access a little over a year ago, after finishing the core gameplay concept (base building and reaching the surface). During that year, we added a ton of content and features, including:

• Multiplayer (couch, local and online)
  
• 2 story endings
  
• Spaceships! 2 types to build, customize and fly
  
• Dragons! Raise, evolve and fly them
  
• Magic path - spellbooks, magic lab and more
  
• Science path - auto-builder, fleet battle, and more
  
• The Shattered Moon - moon base anyone?
  
• Space stations & new planets to visit, explore, and build on

You can see a bunch of these features and updates highlighted in this video playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcopWutJE4txCWk3PwS_MPsFZLp6patQe
Obviously I think it's a great buy, especially if you enjoyed the original Aground, colony simulation, automation and base building type games. There's lots of areas to explore, secrets to find, and ample opportunity to flex your creativity. It's also really fun to play multiplayer with family or friends.
If you’re undecided, try the free Demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2255750/Aground_Zero_Demo/

The demo has about an hour of content and includes a lot of the underground base building elements - including waking up and managing survivors.
Maybe! I’ve finished what I wanted to do story-wise, and I’m not currently planning any major content updates, but feel free to make suggestions on our discord!



We’ve made a lot of improvements and taken a lot of fan suggestions while in Early Access, and we’re always willing to hear you out!

In our last update: https://steamcommunity.com/games/876650/announcements/detail/4681018173926286592
We had a lot of interest in a Spanish Translation as well, and today I'm pleased to announce it is done! You can select it in the options menu once you've downloaded the update.



The translator also said it was tough to distinguish the lower case u from v in the default font (and I've had complaints about the font before), so I edited it to be crisper and have a larger difference between the two - and this will affect all languages that use the default font!

Aground is also 66% for the Steam Autumn Sale - so if you haven't gotten Aground yet, or hesitated because it wasn't available in Spanish, now's your chance!

Fixed a bug that was causing frequent crashing, especially when playing in the Chinese language. This also has some stability improvements I made while trying to fix the actual crash - including backing up save files. If the game crashes during saving, it'll now make a saves.sol.bak file - and when you load the game, it should automatically read that file. Hopefully, this will lower the amount of players losing their saves, but I'd still back up files or use the Aground Cloud just in case.

Many of you have been waiting for the Chinese translation of Aground - which was greatly delayed. But I'm pleased to announce it is now available for all players! Simply go to the options menu, and under language, select 简体中文 .



This update also includes the big blocks version of the executable, which removes the 1GB memory restriction. Some players have already been using it, and it is less likely to crash due to running out of memory.

We're also going to include Aground in Whitethorn's 8-year anniversary sale! Whitethorn is the console publisher of Aground, and we've been with them for many of those 8 years, so we're happy to celebrate! The sale starts today at 10am PDT, so if you haven't gotten Aground yet, today's a great time to pick it up!

I hope you’re excited for Aground Zero - it’s been a long journey to reach this point - nearly 3 years of development - and we have so much more planned!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1795570/Aground_Zero/

Aground Zero is a 3D spinoff of Aground. It takes place in the same universe, but its story starts on Earth - while the main character in Aground was still aboard a colony ship heading towards their new home.

You are stuck deep underground after the bombardment that destroyed the surface of Earth, and you have to find a way to survive. There is mining, crafting, building, rescuing survivors, and putting them to work. There’s also a larger focus on base building and automation, allowing you to rebuild, thrive and return to the Earth’s surface to see what’s become of it.



If you played the original Aground, you’ll see plenty of references, easter eggs, and even a few familiar faces! If not, don’t worry - knowledge of the original is not necessary to play Aground Zero.

Early Access worked very well for the original Aground - we got a ton of useful feedback and suggestions, which helped us shape the game. Even the magic path - a large chunk of connected quests - was originally a player suggestion from someone who wanted us to expand the role of the Alchemist. We hope to do the same sort of expansions with Aground Zero!

The initial Early Access launch will have all the questlines up to the Surface - a large chunk of the main planned storyline. However, we also have a lot of planned additions (including spaceships) which you can see here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1795570/discussions/0/7091547146194964814/

A lot of the original Aground players discovered the game through our lengthy free demo. So, we decided to have a lengthy demo of Aground Zero as well. The demo covers the initial “stage” of the game, with plenty of survival, base building and questlines up to finding the Professor. You can get the demo for free right on our store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1795570/Aground_Zero/

If you’re unsure about the game, the demo should give you a good idea of what to expect - and your saves will transfer to the full version should you decide to buy the game.

The demo is also a good way to test if the game will run well on your computer (if you’re worried about a 3D game running on your potato). I’ve gotten it working on 8+ year old laptops, so give the demo a try, and if the demo runs smoothly, so will the full version.

Do you want to own both Aground and Aground Zero? Then get the Aground Collection - which will give you a 15% discount and includes both games! If you already own Aground, you can choose the option to “complete your collection,” getting just Aground Zero at the discounted price.

Let us know in our Steam Discussions or on our Discord!

I hope Aground Zero shapes up to be just as special as Aground, and I have a lot of ideas - but every bit of feedback helps!

As some of you may be aware, we ran a Kickstarter for Aground to fund development from the early web version until the early access release. We released exclusive items and weapons at different tiers for backers of the Kickstarter to thank them, and many players who missed the Kickstarter were upset they could no longer obtain these items.



After talking to the backers, some of these items were released publicly, but many (especially the appearance-only items) were kept private. However, after the recent update, I was asked to release these last items as DLC, and so these last exclusive items are now available with this DLC!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2382320/Aground__Backer_Items/

Pricing this DLC was strange, as the kickstarter backers needed to back at $40 to get all the items, but half of these items were already released publicly, and people must own the base game to buy the DLC. We decided $10 was a good compromise.



This DLC includes:

• 2 new functional weapons (laser whip and seeking missiles)
  
• 3 new hair styles
  
• 4 new facial hair styles
  
• 6 new colorable clothes
  
• 2 new colorable hats
  
• 5 new uncolorable hats
  
• Improved appearance of previously released backer weapons

If this is something you’ve wanted, then I hope you enjoy it, and if not, then the core Aground game is a complete experience on its own - this DLC includes mostly appearance-related items.



If you want EVERY item ever created for the game, I also added the web specials to the Steam Workshop (previously available on mod.io):

• Armor Games Web Specials Mod
  
• Kongregate Web Specials Mod
  
• Newgrounds Web Specials Mod

If you were confused by the April Fools update, here are some answers:

1. Yes, there really was an update. Both Splicer and Alchemist have new quests.
   
2. No, this update isn't really going to be removed. You can only trigger the Alchemist's new quest if your computer clock is set to April 1st, but once complete you can continue to cat things forever (and feel free to change your computer clock if you missed it).
   
3. My cat did indeed walk across my keyboard and edit the xml files for Aground while I was making this update.
   
4. He got a piece of turkey for helping out with the update. I hope this doesn't encourage him to edit more files in the future…

The April Fools update was a fun distraction (and it includes lots of cats), but now I’m back to working on Aground Zero and Stardander!

Oops! My cat walked across my keyboard and accidentally posted an update to Aground!
I’d been working on an update to Splicer, but it wasn’t ready to be posted! And what’s worse, it looks like he edited a few of the other files!
I tried to bribe him with food, but all he would tell me was that the Alchemist is part of the cat-astrophe.
Working on getting things un-catted - I should have everything back to normal by tomorrow.

Implemented the new ShowFloatingGamepadTextInput to pop up a floating text input field for use on the steam deck or big picture mode.

After the launch and final post-launch updates of Aground, we floundered (hah) for a bit deciding what to do next. We made many prototypes - several of which were put on hold, before finally settling on two games. Yes, that’s right, we’re working on two big games right now, and if that wasn’t wild enough, we also just finished a third game in a month-long game jam that you can play right now for free!




After finishing </reality>, the Visual Novel we made right before starting Aground, we had many ideas for better story-based games. But, at the time, we decided to hold off on them because of how challenging the visual novel market is. However, we both really like the magical school setting and kept trying to think of ways to make our witchy game idea better. We had loads of ideas before, during and after Aground’s development - from a tower-defense based game, to a multiplayer-only game. But, eventually we settled on a management/simulation style game where you can recruit, train, and battle with your witches - sort of like Fire Emblem: Three Houses.



This game is Stardander School for Witches, a narrative-heavy RPG rich in lore and worldbuilding, focusing on Dare (the fae cat you play as) and the witches she recruits. You can view the trailer for Stardander School for Witches below:

Stardander School for Witches will release Fall 2022, and you can wishlist it right now on Steam!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1733050/Stardander_School_for_Witches




We also wanted to do something directly related to Aground, but I always want to try something new, and making DLC for the base game just didn’t excite me. I wanted to change the art style, as a lot of people didn’t like the pixel art. The idea for Aground Zero came to me when I was reminiscing about one of our first commercial projects, I Can’t Escape: Darkness (ICED), which was a 3D game. I really liked a lot of the things I did for ICED, especially the lighting system (and I even had plans for a sequel), and I thought - why not make a 3D Aground spinoff? This idea was shortly before April, and prompted the April Fool’s joke of Aground: Minecraft Edition - a farcical but also partially true joke.




Aground Zero takes place during the events of the main game - but deep underground on Earth where you are one of the few survivors of the bombardment. You have to build up a bunker and rescue other survivors and eventually make your way to the surface. While it’ll have the mining and crafting of Aground, it’ll focus more on the base building aspects - taking the ideas from my scrapped colony update for Aground. You can view a short teaser for Aground Zero below:

You can wishlist Aground Zero on Steam now:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1795570/Aground_Zero/




As if making two games at the same time wasn’t enough, when the Spooktober visual novel jam came around, we couldn’t resist making a halloween-themed spinoff of Stardander. The core mechanics are the same as Stardander School for Witches, but the story, characters and enemies were all made in the month of September for the jam.



Stardander Revenant is short (1-2 hours) and story-focused, but I definitely like the interactions between the two main characters (fun fact: they are based on our cats). You’ll also have some interesting battles (especially on hard mode) that require you to utilize the spells that your two older witches have learned (and you get to teach them some more spells along the way). You can view the trailer for Stardander Revenant below:

And you can play Stardander Revenant now, for free:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1779840/Stardander_Revenant/


That’s a lot of announcements to go through, and it looks like 2022 is going to be a busy year for us at Fancy Fish Games! Which game are you most excited for? Did you give Stardander Revenant a try?

And, after having made many prototypes, I have plenty of ideas for what to make next! My game ideas document continues to grow (now at 61 entries), so Stardander and Aground Zero are only the beginning! Look forward to a lot more from Fancy Fish Games!

This is a minor update that only affects Steam Big Picture mode and the upcoming Steam Deck. The game now uses the on screen keyboard, and a few tweaks to the controls have been made (the largest being that keypresses now perform actions on release instead of held, with a few exceptions like placing nets/rails). The Linux build is also 64-bit now, the 32-bit build being retired (there are very few people still running a 32-bit linux OS, and it can be tough to get 32-bit builds running on 64-bit linux depending on the OS).