Over the next week, the judges will be reviewing the mods, and we’ll announce the results of all the awards on October 9th.
For the Audience Award, you can vote on a mod by giving it a thumbs up in the Steam Workshop between now and midnight on October 8th. Downvotes will not be counted, so there is no reason to downvote a mod to try to help another mod win the audience award.
Team Lybell: Venometo
A lot of players assume Aground must be a platformer because of the side-scrolling view, and on this toxic planet, it really is! Jump dangerous pit traps, explore a large metroidvania-style level, upgrade your jumpsuit to progress further and discover more of what the planet has to offer!
Due to being unable to access steam on his current computer, he will not be able to upload to the steam workshop until later this month. However, you can still play the mod here: https://aground.mod.io/venometo
Team EA: Thirallan Alchemist Edition
This mod is a kind of collection of my other mods, except they have all been redone to be much better mods. All into one star system. Are you ready to experience what these mods should've been like from the start?
On a far-flung forgotten world, there lies a lost colony and it's up to you to find out why. What happened to the settlers? Why is the world filled with cyborg cats? Find the answers to these questions and many more, as you explore the curious and strange world of Mekaphelin: CybCats.
Would you like to explore the secrets of a new place where you will find new resources, enemies, familiar, mazes, bosses etc? If yes, download/subscribe to this mod now!
To go to hell you must first craft a demonic forge at a crafting table and then a demonic key using the demonic forge, after that go at the starting area at the far left, next to the sand and start digging down, after around 20 tiles you should find a portal. Use the key to open the portal and you will be able to use it to go to hell.
As you might expect if you know Leafy, he showed up out of nowhere with a half-serious mod for the competition! Leafy himself says it’s broken and shouldn’t even be public yet, but it’s here to play only during the competition!
https://aground.mod.io/leaftech
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The following teams dropped out due to not having enough time: Team Zeta Labs, Team Hive.
Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest, and good luck to the teams as the final voting and judging begin!
Hybrid Path Update
One of the most asked-for post launch updates, the Hybrid Path is finally here! This update adds a lot more combinations of magic and science, along with a new ending to the game (and some new post-game content). We wanted to make a path that combined the strengths of both magic and science, but was the most difficult to obtain, requiring progress along both the current magic and science questlines.
To progress on the Hybrid Path, you’ll want to talk to the Professor, the Mirrows, and the Alchemist. The questline definitely plays better in a new or early save, but you can do an abbreviated version after the end of the game (on any path) to get all of the new items, vehicles and areas.
The following changes affect the full version:
Added new items and vehicles for the hybrid path.
Added new quests and a new NPC.
Added a new area to explore.
Added a new ending to the game, that does not require defeating the final boss.
Added the Bombardment Shield, for players that hate the bombardment. You can even set it up after the Bombardment starts, and the NPCs will leave their bunkers before the end of the game!
Added a new official translation - German!
This is our last planned major update for Aground, at least for now. Let us know what you think!
To celebrate this milestone update, Aground is on sale this week for 34% off - our largest discount yet.
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:
We announced the theme - To Boldly Go - two weeks ago, and since then we’ve had many submissions to the modding colosseum with new worlds and areas to explore! Below is a list of all the teams that passed the qualifiers, along with a special bonus mod you can play right now!
For more information on the competition, see this event: https://steamcommunity.com/games/876650/announcements/detail/2733073087959094294
Team Lybell: Venometo
A lot of players assume Aground must be a platformer because of the side-scrolling view, and on this toxic planet, it really is! Jump dangerous pit traps, explore a large metroidvania-style level, upgrade your jumpsuit to progress further and discover more of what the planet has to offer!
Team EA: Thirallan Alchemist Edition
Discover the wreckage of a colony ship in a strange new system. What caused the ship to crash? Why are the robots and drones going berserk and trying to kill you? And most importantly, are there any survivors? This ambitious mod will add an entire star system, with the colony ship mystery being just one part of the whole!
Team NekoTron (TNT): Mekaphelin
Did you know there was a colony of sentient cats? Wouldn’t it be great if you could talk to them? Luckily there’s a cyborg cat who knows just the nanites you need! Help CH355 make peace with the ferals and learn the secrets of this mysterious world.
Team Curatrixians: Curatrixia
Just when you thought the world was saved and the game over, a strange entity requests your help. You’ll need all your magic and skill to defeat the elemental gods in this new post-game realm!
Team 8-bit Wolf: Dark Magic
Arsonist McStabby was not satisfied mining every island and killing every enemy, so one day he decided to perform a dark ritual and unlock the door to hell itself… so he could mine and kill everything there too!
Team Zeta Labs: Wyrm Tales
Ever wonder what it’d be like to be a wyrm? Travelling around, mining, fighting rival wyrms, and most importantly - serving your queen. You may even be able to evolve into new forms and gain power.
Team Birb: Spirit Sandbox
Have you ever wanted to create your own spirit world? A domain to do with as you please? Well, now you can - just talk to the spirit guide after defeating the final boss, and he’ll help you out… for a price…
Team Styler: Cynoserium
Hidden underground is a secret cave. And in that secret cave is a strange and valuable resource that can create some of the most powerful equipment known in Aground… but it is guarded by dangerous enemies… and worse...
Team Hive: Treasure Hunt
Do you like exploring? How about searching for buried treasure? Join the Archaeologist in his mission to discover hidden treasure, lost temples, and ancient caves!
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Bonus: KSP Meets Aground
In celebration of this competition, gASK - one of the judges, created a new mod that you can play right away: https://aground.mod.io/ksp-meets-aground ! Help the KSP with their first mission to the mun - with your powerful spaceships, even Kerbals can’t mess it up!
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Good luck to all the teams, I’m looking forward to all the new worlds and ideas! We’ll be holding an informal feedback session on September 1st where you can play and give feedback on in-progress versions of the mods, and you’ll be able to play and vote on the final mods September 30th! Join the discussion in the Aground Modding Server: https://discord.gg/ySkErpx
KOZ Modding Colosseum
KOZ is sponsoring an Aground Modding Competition! If you're a current or aspiring Aground Modder, read the rules below, and if you're not, stick around to try out the mods and vote on your favorites!
Like with game jams, this contest will have a single theme for all participants and an end date when the mods must be submitted and judging/voting begins.
Details
Theme - To Boldly Go - Aground is all about adventure, travelling to new places, discovering secrets, and facing dangers! For this contest, we want your mods to take us to new places! Contest End - September 30th.
Qualifier Round
After the theme is announced, you can brainstorm ideas and share them to get feedback from the community/Judges and build teams. Then, on August 10th you must submit a basic prototype of the mod. These prototypes will be judged, and ONLY the prototypes chosen by the judges can enter the full competition. There is no limit to the number of mods that can make it past the qualifier rounds.
Ideas and prototypes must be submitted to this link by August 10th to be considered for the qualifier round: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfGAg57IfpmWpgm1Q1tYXxC3cm9nZ_OOhskn6K7LurlBjCe2g/viewform
Every primary developer that passes the qualifier round will be given a Steam key of Aground (to help you make the mod, or gift to a friend/team-member if you already own the game)!
Teams
Teams are allowed, but one person must be designated as the primary developer, and they will be in charge of distributing any prizes the team wins. You can be a part of multiple teams, but you can only be the primary developer in one.
The Contest
Once you've made it past the qualifier round, you have until September 30th to finish the mod and submit it for judging and voting! The submitted mod does not have to be complete and can be updated after that, but the judging and voting will only account for what is submitted by the end date.
To be submitted, the mod must be uploaded to Steam Workshop and/or Mod.io and set to public by the deadline with the team name that passed the qualifier round in the description.
The Judging
On September 30th, the submitted mods will be shared with everyone following this event, and voting will be opened. Awards (with prizes) will be given out by the judges, along with an Audience Choice award for the mod with the most votes.
Awards & Prizes
Grand Prize - $150 - Best mod overall Prettiest Pictures - $50 - Best looking new art Bopping Beats - $50 - Best sounding new audio tracks Fanciest Features - $50 - Most interesting/fun new game mechanics Spellbinding Story - $50 - Best storyline Audience Award - $50 - Most votes
All money prizes are in USD and will be sent via paypal (requires a valid paypal account).
Aground Modding Discord: https://discord.gg/djycx6R First Mod Tutorial: https://corvblimey.github.io/aground-tutorial/ Modding Basics Guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1570801575
I'm hoping this will be a fun, exciting event for both new and old modders, and a way to bring some new, exciting mods to life for Aground!
Update 2.0.7
2.0.7 is now live! Like 2.0.6, it’s another small update with some neat additions, bug fixes and quality of life improvements.
The following changes affect the full version:
Added a Backer NPC and cameo. All players can find and talk to these NPCs, and there’s even a new quest. Hint for finding them: check divider island and CaptAIn’s colony.
Thanks to the generosity of our Backers, some of the Backer exclusive weapons are now available for everyone (Boomerang, Laser Sword and Leech). Backer weapons also work now in Multiplayer even if some players are Backers and others are not.
Fin modifiers now lower the use cost of all Equipment (stamina, power, etc).
When you enter a Colosseum Arena, the difficulty is set to Normal while you are in that Arena (it will return to normal when you leave). This is because the Arenas were balanced with Normal difficulty in mind, and some of them are impossible in 1hko. You can still change difficulty while inside the Arena if you want an extra (perhaps impossible) challenge.
PvP combat is now possible in multiplayer with a dev console command. Because the game is not cheat proof and is not balanced for PvP, I am not making this a publicly available option, but I added it for modders to play with, and for adventurous non-modders. Join our Discord if you want to learn more!
These changes affect the demo as well:
The Owl familiar, when equipped, now zooms out the game (like when you are riding a spaceship). This lets you see further, and gives you the option to always be zoomed out if the normal zoom level is too pixelated for your tastes.
Hotkeys will no longer unequip equipment. Some players like hitting an equipment hotkey multiple times to make sure it’s set, and before this would unequip what they wanted to equip. Equipment will still swap back and forth unless you uncheck “Switch Equipment Hotkeys” in gameplay options.
Other bugfixes and minor tweaks/improvements.
In other news, we have started work on a Hybrid Path, which will be the first major post-launch update. It will combine the magic and science path and add a new ending, new equipment, spaceships and more! The Hybrid Path should be available by the end of the summer.
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:
Our first post-launch update is live! 2.0.6 is a small update, but it adds a few neat features and finishes the last incomplete area. It also has a lot of bugfixes and minor quality of live improvements.
The following changes affect the full version:
The final "incomplete" area is now complete. If you know what I'm talking about, try entering that portal now!
Multiplayer will now check that the game version and mods match when joining a game.
Various multiplayer bugfixes - including issues joining by IP address.
These changes affect the demo as well:
Water now has a more natural flow and is easier to drain and plug leaks. Before, a single water tile would spread infinitely to any tiles left, right or below. Now, water will move and evaporate, so one water tile will never spread to more than one tile (and often less).
Game difficulty is now set per save, not globally. You can have a hardest difficulty save and a normal difficulty save without having to manually switch difficulty modes each time you load. New saves will be set to the last difficulty mode you used.
The Shift key is now an official, assignable "walk" key and has controller support. It also allows you to slow down blueprint placement for pixel-perfect placements.
Controls have been changed to a keyboard+mouse layout where you attack/defend with left/right clicks. C and Space still work as alternates, and you can change the controls in the options menu.
Adjusted the default controls for QWERTZ and AZERTY keyboards (windows only for now).
The game's FPS can be adjusted with the command line argument -fps x, and vsync can be turned off with -vsync false.
The auto-collect gameplay option now lets you change it to always auto-collect, never auto-collect, or set to default (auto collect unless overweight).
Other bugfixes and minor tweaks/improvements.
Going forward, I have some final backer rewards to deliver, and I am considering options for the hybrid path. I have also finalized the design document for my next planned game, which I plan to start once things slow down a bit with Aground!
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:
Today is the day! Aground has left early access and is now fully released for PC, Mac and Linux! The launch build includes Co-op multiplayer (up to 4 players), two official translations (more to come), modding support, two backer planets, the complete science and magic paths, and much, much more.
It’s been a very full 2.5 ish years - but we didn’t do it alone. A huge thank you to:
Our awesome crowdfunding backers - your support kept us going.
Our Beta testers, Discord and Reddit communities - you found many bugs and shared much enthusiasm!
All the streamers and Let’s Plays that have shared the fun of Aground with their watchers - your impact is amazing.
Our families and friends - for putting up with us being in this wild, creative, unpredictable field of work!!
Now’s the time to jump in and share the game far and wide! Tell your friends, stream your gameplay, get on social media, join a Multiplayer game online… going out is dangerous, right? Might as well stay in and play / share Aground.
[previewyoutube="Ia0Rk-73OFQ;full"]
It was so much fun hanging with the community and streaming today - we chatted with fans about the development process and all hit the launch button together! What an exciting moment!
Aground will also be coming to Switch, PS4 and Xbox later this year - keep an eye out for more announcements as that gets closer.
Aground has finally reached update 2.0 - and it’s a big one - it adds co-op multiplayer! You might have seen the multiplayer beta announcement: https://steamcommunity.com/games/876650/partnerevents/view/1712996449562039865 But it has now been tested and is ready for everyone to try!
More big news: we now have an official launch date - we will leave Early Access on April 17th! To celebrate, we created a revised, launch-ready trailer with the help of friend @MJoshua and score remix by Chase. Watch it here:
[previewyoutube="Ia0Rk-73OFQ;full"]
To play a game in Multiplayer, one player must host a save slot (it can be a new game), and then others can join that save.
To host a save, select Multiplayer, enter a name for yourself and select Host Game, then select a slot to host.
To join a game, select Multiplayer, then enter a name for yourself and select Join. It will show a list of everyone publicly hosting the game and you can select one to join, or you can manually input their IP address to join their game.
We also added a chat feature for Multiplayer - in game, hit Tab to chat, and type /help in chat for a list of useful commands!
Some April 1st shenanigans in the Multiplayer Beta.
We also added our first official translations: by popular demand, Russian and Brazilian Portuguese! We are still planning on adding more, but these translations were included in the big 2.0 update!
I hope you enjoy being able to play with friends, and let me know if you come across any issues! With only a few days until our full launch date, we’re hoping to fix any last minute bugs and maybe add a few more last minute quality of life updates!
Going out is dangerous! Stay in and play Aground!
P.S. Don’t forget to join the social channels below if you haven’t already:
After more than three months of hard work, the Multiplayer update is now available in Steam’s BETA branch, and we are hoping to push it to live within 3-4 weeks! The BETA branch is publicly available to all Steam owners who opt-in, so you can try Multiplayer right now!
To opt-in to the BETA, right click Aground in your Steam library and click properties. Then go to the Betas tab and select beta in the drop down (no beta access code is necessary - leave it blank). Once done, Steam will download the beta version and it should say Aground [beta] in your library. You can use this drop-down to return to the stable version at any time.
The BETA is currently Windows only - this is because we have to push frequent updates and bugfixes. The Mac and Linux versions will get cross platform Multiplayer before it goes live.
To play a game in Multiplayer, one player must host a save slot (it can be a new game), and other players can join that save.
To host a save, select Multiplayer, then enter a name and select Host Game and select a slot to host.
To join a game, select Multiplayer, then enter a name and select Join. It will show a list of all friends currently hosting the game and you can select one to join, or you can manually input their name or IP address to join their game. You should also be able to join or invite people to play by right clicking them in steam chat.
Our Discord server now has a #looking-for-players channel too - so check it out if you want to find someone to play with!
Multiplayer has been tested for a while in a closed Alpha, and enjoyed by many folks when we showcased the game at PAX a few weeks ago. It should be mostly bug free at this point, but if you encounter any bugs, definitely let us know.
Thank you to all our dedicated fans for your patience and enthusiasm - we hope you’re looking forward to Multiplayer going live in just a few short weeks, and the Full Launch next month!
Aground at PAX East and Multiplayer!
Aground is Coming to PAX East!!! We made it happen, folks - we are so excited to be able to share Aground at a big expo again and meet so many fans out there! Please stop by at booth # 25047 - in the central area of the show floor, Boston, February 27-Mar 1.
Rocking out alchemist’s robes while demoing the game.
We will be showcasing Multiplayer at both events, which is very exciting! We’ve been quietly working on Multiplayer for a long time now, and we finally have something demo-able. Multiplayer is currently in Alpha, and is stable on the starting island - visit the #beta-feedback channel of our Discord if you want to learn how to sign up for the Alpha.
We’re hoping to transition multiplayer to the public beta in early March, and go live at the end of March/Early April (right before the full launch). It’s pretty exciting, but also a crazy busy time for us - preparing for launch, finishing multiplayer, getting ready for PAX, etc. It’s been nearly 3 years since I first had the idea for this game, and while it’s definitely evolved into something more than I originally imagined, it’s also fulfilled all my hopes for the game (with space travel and everything).
We also have official translations in the works for the full version - by popular request, we’re translating the game into Portuguese and Russian. Our console publisher, Whitethorn Digital, is also translating the game into French (and is considering other languages too). Speaking of Whitethorn Digital, they will also be at PAX East (booth 28035), and they are hoping to have a Switch demo of Aground running!
We’re looking forward to seeing many of you at next week’s events, and we hope you’re as hyped for multiplayer as we are!
P.S. Don’t forget to join the social channels below if you haven’t already:
