If you enjoy the game, consider leaving a review! It helps a lot!
Update 1.4.10
This update presents an upgraded melee combat design for snappier and more visceral close-quarters takedowns. Logan is now equipped with a katana! Why? Because it's awesome, of course.
Store prices have been decreased to encourage more experimentation with different builds and play styles. Some graphical elements have been tweaked, along with minor AI improvements.
Please leave feedback in the comments when you have tried the new melee combat system. I hope you enjoy the new update!
Changelog:
Added new animations and sound effects for melee combat
Reduced store prices to encourage experimentation
Slightly improved AI behavior in combat with many enemies
Changed sun bloom to not be visible during the player’s death animation
Changed large electronic door graphics to better communicate its function
Reduced stamina cost for door kicking
Reduced screen blur during low health
Fixed enemies sometimes shooting with their weapons holstered
Fixed “Lootbag Full“ text sometimes appearing in a black color
Fixed Remaster Demo stealth music sometimes not playing
Fixed a rare bug where a player’s bullet hitting an explosive barrel after the player had died would crash the game
Fixed cameras immediately triggering when spotting a dead body.
Potentially fixed cameras sometimes triggering immediately after they start detecting the player
Miscellaneous improvements
For questions or feedback, you can join the A-Star Theft discord server, or mail me at: contact@kehlercreations.com
NEW SYSTEMS AND IMPROVED LIGHTING - 1.4.9
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Update 1.4.9
This update brings an assortment of changes I have been working on over the last month. The keycard mechanic has been made more clear by now only opening regular keycard doors. They can no longer open vault doors. Vault doors can instead be opened by using the keypad. Find code segments on the map and piece together the code to open the vault silently. Crew members are now rescued by finding them tied up on the map. This replaces the old system where you had to click on the user interface to make them respawn at your location, which was not properly communicated, not to mention a bit buggy. The lighting have been improved with a new sun bloom effect. This is affected by the time of day, and can make sunsets look very nice and warm. This is somewhat experimental, so please tell me if you like it or not!
I hope you enjoy the new update!
Changelog:
Added keypads for opening vault doors
Added a new system for rescuing captured crew members
Added a new sun bloom lighting effect
Added ability for thermite to destroy security cameras
Added damage displays for shooting range targets
Removed ability for keycards to open vault doors
Removed the old system for capturing crew members
Improved headshot precision even further
Improved healthbar graphics for crew members
Changed headshot effects
Changed keycards to still function after the police has been called
Increased intensity of sneaking vignette to increase clarity
Updated the cocaine buyer’s visual design
Reduced risk of weapons dropped by enemies getting stuck in walls
Fixed the issue where players could repeatedly press F to start the mission by the van, making the fade animation restart
Fixed infinite cable tie bug
Miscellaneous improvements
For questions or feedback, you can join the A-Star Theft discord server, or mail me at: contact@kehlercreations.com
COMBAT AND CONVENIENCE | 1.4.8
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Update 1.4.8
With this update, I want to put a greater focus on actively using equipment during combat, and have therefore increased the effectiveness of several tools. To further encourage experimentation, access to the equipment store directly from a heist has returned, after previously being removed for compatibility issues with the driving mechanic.
I hope you enjoy the new update!
Changelog:
Re-added equipment store access from inside heists (this was temporarily removed when driving was added)
Added a new music track which plays on the Extrication heist
Added ability to drive onto a van armor piece to automatically assemble it
Added more gore
Added cue balls to pool tables
Improved user interface by showing electronic door switch connection lines from any distance
Improved gamepad cursor speed consistency at higher frame rates
Increased health for companions
Increased effectiveness of human shields
Increased thermite damage distance
Increased liquid nitrogen slow effect distance
Increased damage range of explosions on NPCs
Decreased player knockback when hit by a bullet
Tripled capacity of the health kit equipment and increased healing speed
Doubled capacity of the ammo bag equipment
Removed ability to use thermite to burn down vault doors in order to balance against the improved drill equipment
Fixed police cars driving over and killing its own driver
Fixed bullets sometimes not dealing damage when near a police car
Fixed guards able to spot hostages from a distance farther than their sight
Fixed ability to walk during minigames after a companion has kicked down a door
Fixed absolutely ancient code in Bloody Hospital file cabinets which did not respect different key bindings
Fixed camera guards investigating vault drill noise
Fixed occasional incorrect explosion position when police drive through walls
Fixed headlamp light visible while driving the van
Fixed a headlamp crash
Fixed a crash which could occur when a guard investigates a camera
Some fixes and improvements to the Remaster Demo
Miscellaneous improvements
For questions or feedback, you can join the A-Star Theft discord server, or mail me at: contact@kehlercreations.com
REMASTER DEMO VERSION 2 | UPDATE 1.4.7
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Story Remaster
The Story Remaster version 2 brings tons of improvements based on player feedback. Thank you for answering the survey after completing the demo, it truly does help!
The new demo has player choice at its core, and now allows the rescue segment to be completed with both stealth and action strategies. Both the rescue and arrest segments now encourage player exploration and allows weapons to be used from the very start, if you so choose to do so. Some of the dialog has also been looked at, to better emphasize a consistent tone. Thus, a lot of the more silly dialog has been dialed down and replaced with more appropriate dialog. Logan's narrations has also been tweaked in some places to feel less edgy. I am still looking for feedback on this, so feel free to answer the survey after completing the demo.
Remaster Demo changelog:
Redesigned several parts of the Remaster Demo to support both stealth and action strategies
Improved dialog in the Story Remaster
Added ability to punch civilians in the Story Remaster (experimental)
Greatly improved the Arrest segment of the Story Remaster
Fixed a few bugs in the Story Remaster
Update 1.4.7
Along with the Remaster Demo improvements, this update also includes many improvements for overall gameplay. Combat game feel has been improved with better visual effects, and a long-standing bug fixed that prevented headshots from registring if hitting an enemy's shoulder first. This meant that headshots were impossible when flanking an enemy. I have also made some difficulty tweaks for larger shootouts.
I hope you enjoy the new update!
Changelog:
Added a new Hacking Minigame to replace to previous one
Added recoil indicator on cursor
Added knockback for destroyed fire extinguishers
Made all sprite assets destructible (experimental)
Changed how Low Health Invincibility works - you now must fully heal before regenerating this protection
Increased impact of bloodstains and added more blood effects
Increased knockback from bullets and melee damage for both player and enemies
Improved companion AI for both stealth and action gameplay
Improved hitbox size on enemies
Improved screen effect for shooting and damaging enemies
Improved civilian interaction interface
Improved sound when tying civilians
Tweaked gunplay camera shake to feel heavier
Tweaked enemy AI to be slightly more aggressive
Tweaked police drones to dodge bullets slightly slower
Tweaked recoil for all weapons
Tweaked shooting audio
Reduced the size of crew revival texts
Reduced natural health regeneration to encourage taking hostages
Reduced sniper enemy damage
Reduced the size of the intimidation symbol
Fixed strange camera shake effect when in slow-motion
Fixed headshots not registering if bullet hits an enemy’s shoulder first
Fixed an issue where players would sometimes shoot twice after switching weapons
Reduced frequency of enemies sometimes walking through walls
Miscellaneous improvements
For questions or feedback, you can join the A-Star Theft discord server, or mail me at: contact@kehlercreations.com
REMASTER DEMO IS NOW LIVE!
A-STAR THEFT STORY REMASTER
It's finally time, the Story Remaster Demo is now available!
I am looking for as much feedback as possible, so it would be very helpful if you want to answer the survey after trying out the demo.
If you want to talk to me while playing, for an interview-style testing session, you can contact me on Discord or fill out this form. This way, you can provide nuanced opinions and allow me to observe your play style for analysis.
If you are wondering what this is about, you can read this post for more information.
The Remaster Demo is available for both the full game and the free version, so you do not need to purchase the game to play. Please share your thoughts!
Fixed strange movement for gang members when escorting the player out of a building
Fixed flying heads not having their intended skin color
Fixed flying heads often splashing on the wrong side of the wall
Fixed small interface artifacts when returning to the main menu while True Pixel Style is turned on
Hopefully fixed dropped weapons sometimes getting stuck in walls
For questions or feedback, you can join the A-Star Theft discord server, or mail me at: contact@kehlercreations.com
SILVER SPOON CASINO OPENS TODAY | 1.4.5
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Update 1.4.5
This update presents the latest new Freeplay heist: The Silver Spoon Casino! This expert difficulty heist brings some of the greatest challenges yet, and a giant open space to explore. I have also made some changes to difficulty balance between stealth and loud gameplay, and other improvements to several areas which you can read about below.
Please note that this heist is very large, and may perform poorly on some computers.
I hope you enjoy the new update!
Changelog:
Added Silver Spoon Casino heist
Added ability to shoot cameras to disable them
Added actual lights for construction site lamp asset
Added ability to pick up dropped enemy weapons as loot
Added animated floor lights
Added destruction to garbage bags
Added destruction to fire extinguishers
Added body parts dropping when running over NPCs with the van
Improved quality of some graphical assets
Changed screen shake to be affected by distance to the triggering object
Removed noise detectors triggering from players running because it is garbage game design. They now alert nearby guards instead, similar to cameras
Tweaked action difficulty to be slightly more unforgiving
Tweaked health regeneration to benefit more from hostage count
Tweaked Heavy Pistol to shoot slightly slower
Tweaked police drones to dodge bullets slightly slower
Slightly increased noise from breaking windows
Increased credit cost of thermite to 2 credits
Increased credit cost of C4 to 4 credits
Made small code optimizations to how loot is stolen
Fixed guards immediately shooting players when spotting them, after first having lost sight when escorting out of a building
Fixed guards not starting a search after losing sight of players when escorting them out of a building
Fixed a recently introduced issue where civilians rotate towards the player in discrete steps
Fixed wall lamp posts maintaining their sprite brightness when the game is paused
Fixed military turrets shooting at normal speed when game is in slow motion
Fixed noise detectors not detecting noise, lmao
Fixed a rare bug where the prompt to deactivate police stingers did not disappear
Fixed a small memory leak
Fixed a rare variable-related crash
Miscellaneous improvements
I have detected a bug where guards may sometimes become aggressive to a player even in public areas after having done some unknown illegal act. This seems to be a very rare issue, as I have only experienced it once, but I hope to find a solution soon. If you experience this yourself, feel free to contact me and provide details about what you did before the guards became aggressive.
For questions or feedback, you can join the A-Star Theft discord server, or mail me at: contact@kehlercreations.com
Big updates on the new story!
Hello everybody, I have some very interesting news to share about the remastered story!
It's been a while since I wrote, back before Christmas when I released the Escape Update. It could seem from my silence that I have been passive in any further development, but I assure you that I have been anything but passive.
During the past year, I have been rewriting the entirety of the story in A-Star Theft, only keeping the general premise and characters, while completely rethinking how to tell it. As I have earlier explained, I was never happy with how the original story turned out. I have since then finished the script and worked on better character development, and it is looking promising so far.
BUT NOW -
- I am very happy to announce that all new missions have finished their level design phase. This means that every map is playable and functional as individual levels, somewhat like Freeplay mode. The next step is to connect them all through the story and dialog. This will work like the current story, with a safe house for preparing and conversing with your crew. One of the most exciting things for me is to get an opportunity to make actually identifiable characters. I think that the current characters all feel the same, like I took a set of traits and randomly assigned them to a character depending on what I felt like on any given day. A brown sludge of generic goons. The new dialog written so far will much better portray everyone as unique and interesting individuals, with mannerisms and opinions worth remembering.
The remastered story also has an added benefit of giving you much - MUCH - better designed maps to play. While the primary motivation for doing this is to create an emotional experience I think the game currently lacks, my experience as a level designer has drastically increased since 2020. There is no doubt you will see an increase in level design quality in the new story missions.
To get all of this working, I have had to redesign several major systems, including the Dialog, Objective, and Save file systems. The Dialog and Objective systems now operate with JSON files for maximum flexibility, and will support localization in the future. These changes also allow me to work faster and be more organized, as JSON code is more easy to read than my stinky ten year old self-made garbage.
So how is it going? Very well, I would say. Most of my current focus is on making a great first impression, with an enhanced introductory mission that involves more story, better set dressing, and dynamic help texts. I intend to release this map as an early showcase of the new story once it's ready for testing.
PLAY TESTERS ARE WELCOME I will prepare for this in the coming weeks, and update you once it's time for beta testing.
A new Freeplay map is coming
Beyond the remaster, I am still creating new content for Freeplay as well. The Silver Spoon Casino will be the 15th Freeplay mission, and will join the 4 other expert maps in the next few days. This map is a colorful and luxurious Casino and Hotel with a lot of opportunities for strategizing and experimentation. It will feature one of the highest security vaults yet created for A-Star Theft - hopefully an exciting puzzle to solve for all stealth enjoyers.
I look forward to showing you more as the story gets developed further!
Thank you for reading.
UPDATE 1.4.4 | THE ESCAPE UPDATE arrives today!
If you enjoy the game, consider leaving a review! It helps a lot!
Update 1.4.4
This update introduces the new driving feature! Enter your escape van at any point and use it to further develop your strategic choices, with more freedom of approach (and escape!) than ever before. Loot can now be secured in the van, to better balance the Combat vs Stealth difficulty and enhance player agency. I am also introducing an awesome new music track which you can take a sneak-peak at HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBCCEcZOvug
I hope you enjoy the new update!
Changelog:
Completely overhauled the Escape System
Added ability to escape on foot with limited loot
Added ability to secure loot in the escape van
Added Loot Bag equipment
Added scroll bars for Primary and Equipment categories in the gun store
Added ability for kicked doors to break windows
Added ability for liquid nitrogen to slow down turret rotation
Added more NPC dialog lines
Remastered the music track that plays in Big Bank, among others
Improved tank driving by using the new vehicle system
Improved tanker truck driving by using the new vehicle system
Improved Freeplay Safehouse decoration
Improved interaction stability with very nearby objects
Improved shattered glass visual effect
Minor improvements to equipment icons in the gun store
Fixed a soft-lock issue when players die from an explosion
Fixed being able to steal items while the game is paused
Fixed an issue where the intimidation music would stop playing even while still in an intimidation situation
Fixed Restricted Area markers becoming visible when de-equipping a weapon during a lockdown
Fixed ability to drive a tank outside of the mission boundaries
Fixed NPCs not activating on Final Raid
Fixed ability to destroy the vault door too early in Final Raid
Fixed time standing still during the Confrontation dialog
Fixed some mouse-default keybinds not working if changed to a keyboard press
Fixed tied civilians appearing above furniture if tied by a crew member
Due to changes in the driving system, enemies now more consistently target players inside vehicles
Due to changes in the driving system, players regenerating equipment when exiting a vehicle is now fixed
Miscellaneous Improvements
For questions or feedback, you can join the A-Star Theft discord server, or mail me at: contact@kehlercreations.com
Nominate A-Star Theft for the Labor of Love award!
A-Star Theft has been released for over three years now (oh boy how time flies), and is still alive and kicking!
Over 30 updates have been released, featuring new game modes, more equipment, overhauled graphics, added missions, and hundreds of quality of life improvements. Looking back on it today, it almost seems more like a sequel to what was first available on August 28, 2020.
Going from this:
to THIS:
My dedication to this game is evident, and I hope you will consider adding your vote for A-Star Theft - Labor of Love.
Thank you.
NEW ESCAPE SYSTEM - Feedback wanted!
Hello everybody!
Over the past month, I have been working on redesigning the escape system to add more excitement to a heist. The plan is to no longer simply press F to win, but instead actually have to flee the scene.
This means that you have to reach the van and drive away!
For this system, I have added several new mechanics:
Assemble armor - Reinforce the van before driving away
Police stingers - Avoid or deactivate them to not puncture your tires
Escaping on foot - You can escape on foot with limited loot if your van breaks down
I want your help to verify that these changes are both good, and clear enough in gameplay.
If you want to test these changes, you can join the Public Beta branch on Steam!
TO JOIN - Right-click on the game -> Open 'Properties' -> Press 'Betas' -> Select 'public-beta' in the drop-down menu
These changes are also available in the demo by following the above instructions!
Please provide any feedback that you have, so that the system can become the best it can be. If you don't think it's fun, then I will not implement the system.
I hope you like it, though, as I believe that a proper escape system can greatly enhance the overall heisting experience!
