If you've been following the Early Access Roadmap, then you're probably aware that we were planning on posting an update with the second to last planet around now. However, The last two planets are strongly linked, so we decided to do both planets in one BIG update at the end of this month, as the current planet felt incomplete alone.


A sneak peek gif of one of the upcoming spellbooks for the next update.

So, what's this update?

This update is mainly small improvements and bugfixes - as making players wait for some of the bugs in 1.6.1 until the end of May seemed too long (the biggest bug being that if you invited an NPC aboard the mobile lab in person instead of via com device - including the professor when the lab is first created, they end up in a weird place and not on the mobile lab). The professor should automatically be aboard the lab the next time you enter it, and for the other NPCs, simply call them with the com device to get them to transfer on board.

There is also one new quest, on the mobile lab, from the professor. This ends pretty quickly, giving you just a hint of the new planet before going to credits. There's a lot of new items/assets for the new planet in this build, but you cannot get there without cheats (and I recommend you don't mess with it unless you're using a cheat/backed up save). I hope you enjoy, and are looking forward to the end of this month!

The main purpose of this update is to fix some major bugs/memory leaks that made the game unstable and crash more often. This version should be a lot more stable and even a little faster, but I also added the following extras:

• You can now board enemy spaceships and defeat them from the inside! This gives you extra loot now... and will have more purposes later...
  
• Added vanity slots to equipment - you can now change your appearance without changing your actual equipment.
  
• Added new hairstyles and character customization options. You can select one from an existing save at the surgery lab.
  
• Added a few new familiar modifiers to the vine copse.

That's all for this minor update, but let me know if you have any issues or crashes! If not, I'll be back to working on the next planet!

The first new major planet is in, and it’s an exciting one! We think you’ll be very curious to see what happened to this familiar planet - along with new NPCs, quests, and features. This planet focuses entirely on the science path - but don’t worry, we have plans for the magic path too! This planet took a little longer than we would have liked, so we adjusted the roadmap, but I think you’ll agree it was worth it. We’re getting closer to the end of the game in terms of content, but we have lots of additional updates planned before we leave Early Access (including the highly requested multiplayer update).



The full changelog for this update is as follows:

• Added a new star system + major planet to the game! This also includes a new music track!
  
  
• Added drones, a new kind of vehicle that can be piloted remotely.
  
  
• Added a whole new spaceship… and it’s a big one (no spoilers, it should be obvious if you do all the new quests).
  
• Added new quests, NPCs, items, crafting, structures and a research lab. No spoilers, but… I will tell you a com device helps.
  
• Teleportals can now be renamed, and are sorted by name. You can organize them by using special characters/numbers before the name, and use this to make a note about important parts of islands. Teleportals are now also locked to the star system they were built in, so the list will only show teleportals in that star system.
  
• Added an FTL jump animation for vehicles.
  
  
• Placing items in vehicle interiors (workbenches, furnaces, etc) can now take items directly from the vehicle’s storage.

The following changes affect the demo as well:

• When you discover an item for the first time, the game now tells you! It doesn’t know about items you already discovered in old saves that aren’t in your storehouse or inventory, so it might come up a lot when you first continue an old save, but eventually it will work as intended.
  
• Crops and pens can now function without a barn (and be placed without a barn). The barn structure is now just a convenience, where you can harvest them all at once.
  
• Added many new sound effects, both to the demo and the full version. We’ll be adding more in the next few updates, fleshing out the sounds for all the attacks, enemies and items.
  
• Added a gameplay option to make steel walkways un-mineable (so you don’t mine them by accident). Just toggle the option to make them mineable again when you want to change/move/collect them.
  
• Added a gameplay option to hide blueprints from the “All” tab in your inventory. A lot of people complained that blueprints cluttered the inventory and could not be removed - well now they can be hidden, unless you intentionally go to the blueprints tab.
  
• For people playing on the keyboard, shift+Z now moves the current object/vehicle to the back. This is useful if you have two large vehicles on top of each other.
  
• Many bug-fixes, tweaks and minor changes!

Enjoy, and as always, don’t be shy if you have any questions or feedback - we are always happy to hear from our players. And don’t forget to join the social channels below if you haven’t already:

Discord

Reddit

Twitter

Facebook

Trading cards were just added to Aground! You should automatically get trading cards already based on how long you've been playing the game! Also, make sure to check the background/emote descriptions, as they might reveal a little more about the Aground universe (minor spoilers)! You can see one of the backgrounds on my profile page: https://steamcommunity.com/id/david_maletz/

Update 1.5.5 brings a lot of new features, and some new content (including a small dwarf planet), and I'm very excited for it as it's the backbone for what will be the final stage of the game - travelling between planets! Spacefaring has always been one of my goals in Aground - I wanted you to be able to eventually build up to travelling between planets, but start the game having no idea that was even possible.



I also set up a Patreon if you want to support my work! It might not seem like much, but every dollar counts!

The full changelog for this update is as follows:

• Added Orbit and the ability to travel between planets.
  
  
• Added a new planet.
  
• You can now build space stations in orbit.
  
  
• Added underground structures (and an event that will make them very useful).
  
  
• Added ladders and walkways for stacking surface structures.
  
  
• Added several new songs! Here's a preview of Chase composing one of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_D2F18Hso4

The following changes affect the demo as well:

• Cables and rails can now be placed vertically.
  
• Structures now operate even when away from the island.
  
• Blueprint error guides (they visually show you what is blocking the structure from being built).
  
• Combat update! I tweaked how combat works yet again - it is now easier to defeat enemies without taking any damage (by dodging), but also more dangerous to blindly mash the attack key as they will knock you back out of range.
  
• 4 more hotkeys have been added by popular demand.
  
• Miner now gives a quest about minecarts.
  
• Builder will explain sticky items when you build the storehouse, and sticky items now are placed above others in the inventory.

Enjoy, and as always, don’t be shy if you have any questions or feedback - we are always happy to hear from our players. And don’t forget to join the social channels below if you haven’t already:

Discord

Reddit

Twitter

Facebook

Update 1.5.1 is here, and it’s a big one!! You can now follow the magic path all the way through many new quests and areas, right up to launching into space! This means that the entire starting planet is now complete, besides a few side quests and optional features we still want to add.



Alongside this major update to the game, we have a very exciting new trailer to share with you! Made by the talented M. Joshua and scored by our very own Chase Bethea, we are thrilled with how it came out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1SV8Q_daSs

What do you think? We hope you love it as much as we do!

In other news, back in late August/early September we showcased Aground at PAX West, which was an amazing experience. We were a part of the Indie Megabooth, and had a very steady crowd of gamers, press, and industry professionals stopping by to chat and try out the game. Pictures from the event are here (featuring our Miner and Alchemist cosplays!): https://www.flickr.com/photos/166774367@N06/sets/72157695274883630/ .



A huge thank you to everyone who came by at PAX, especially the awesome streamers and Youtubers we met, who have released so many great videos which have helped to spread the word about the game - including SplatterCatGaming, Wanderbots, RufioGuy, and many others!


Thank you to everyone who reviewed Aground! Each review helps potential players learn about the game, and we need 50 to reach "Very Positive" on Steam - so if you haven't yet, please take a minute to give us a review, we really appreciate it.



The full changelog for this update is as follows:

• Added a new magic island with new bosses, enemies, NPCs, sub-areas and structures. Rest in the purple hut after defeating the Old One to start these quests (and check out the place the Old One was defeated).
  
• Added many new familiars and new types of nets to catch them.
  
• Added spellbooks and a spellcasting skill.
  
• Added a magic spaceship equivalent, and the quests to get it.
  
• You can now mine the second layer of magic island (although we are still planning on adding caves there later).

The following changes affect the demo as well:

• Added an indicator when the smelter/kitchen/pen/farm have items ready.
  
• Allowed some weapons/items to work underwater.
  
• Added spider familiar.
  
• Some magic structures can now be uprooted and moved.
  
• You can now collect items while riding the dragon (like helium sacs)
  
• You can now aim dragonfire manually while riding a dragon by using up/down while holding attack.
  
• Many smaller fixes and improvements, including color changes to the background art.

For Modders:

• Added <loadAfter> tag to the mod metadata. This works just like <requires> (forcing the labelled mod to load first), but won’t cause the mod to fail to load if the labelled mod is missing.
  
• Added the evalXml function. This parses the passed argument string as xml and then runs it after the current action block completes. Useful for dynamic xml generation.
  
• Added setGlobal and getGlobal, to manage global variables that can be used between saves and in different scopes. These are not saved, and clear when the game is restarted (or you set them to null).
  
• Added setPlayer and changePlayer functions. setPlayer changes the player to an already created player object, and changePlayer changes the player to a new object with the passed id. These are dangerous functions.

Enjoy, and as always, don’t be shy if you have any questions or feedback - we are always happy to hear from our players. And don’t forget to join the social channels below if you haven’t already:

Discord

Reddit

Twitter

Facebook

When we released the early access version with update 1.4.0, you could go all the way to building a spaceship like we promised, but many things we wanted to add before you left the planet (higher tech upgrades, power cores) didn’t make it in. So, for our first update in Early Access, we added a new quest on the Science Path (talk to the Fisherman), with new enemies, equipment, upgrades and more!


Headshot!

If you haven’t seen it yet, we’ve also added a roadmap which details all our plans for Early Access Updates up through the full release. We will be working on the magic path to space next. You can expect it to be complete by the end of September. But first, we’ll be heading off to PAX West in Seattle to show off the game! If you’re going to be there, be sure to stop by at booth 663 (with the Indie Megabooth)! There will be goodies to be had! And Aground cosplay!


Not the nicest addition to Sunset Haven...

I don’t want to spoil everything this update adds, but there are many new items including power cables (for connecting generators to buildings), new blueprints, higher tech upgrades, a new skill, a new vehicle, craftable robot NPCs and many tweaks and minor improvements (including the ability to change your appearance at the surgery lab). As mentioned above, be sure to talk to the Fisherman, and check out the factory for new stuff!



There are still more things we wanted to add for the science path (like starting island upgrades, which you can see in the above gif), but we needed to prepare for PAX. We might post it with a bugfix update after PAX, but we also want to get cracking on the magic path update!

Wish us luck at PAX - we'll be sure to take lots of pics for those who can't make it.

P.S. You didn’t miss update 1.4.1, that was a beta only update! But if you’re playing on Windows and you want access to the Beta, you can do so by following this guide: https://steamcommunity.com/app/876650/discussions/0/1734336452582675296/

The early access version of Aground is now available! Join us on Discord, Reddit, Facebook or Twitter today for some launch day festivities!



It has been a wild ride getting to this point - from the initial prototype over a year ago, an underwhelming reception to the early versions, to an incredibly enthusiastic response to the browser version, an amazing crowdfunding campaign, and update after update of new content and improvements.

And - hopefully - this is just the beginning of Aground’s story!



The early access version includes new quests, vehicles, enemies and areas not in the demo version. And we still have a ton of exciting content left to add before the game is complete.

Update 1.4.0 is now Live!



This update includes lots of new content for the early access version (see above), but we also included an update to the free version too! This update includes swimming and many small improvements and tweaks to the game. As a big thank you to Armor Games, Kongregate and Newgrounds who helped us get to this point, we also added a few secrets and specials on those sites - can you find them all?

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I hope you enjoy the early access version and demo updates! And if you played the game, help show your support by writing a review or posting a screenshot! I hope you’re looking forward to the magic path update, which will include the magic path between the demo and outer space!