Genre: Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Adventure, Indie
Striving for Light
Update 0.9.0.2
🌟New Features:
Cycle through Loot: You can now cycle through multiple dropped trinkets and weapons if they have dropped nearly next to each other by pressing down d-pad button on controller
Improved Loot Physics: Weapons and Trinkets now behave more physical featuring de-acceleration when dropped, what makes them less likely to lay on top of each other. This should also make it easier to see what items you have dropped from chests
⚙️ Improvements:
Improved loot drop positioning for the gambling at Darokin. Also reduced dialog collider of Darokin to make it easier to pick up items around Darokin without triggering his dialog.
🔧Fixes:
Fixed city plaza wrong collider placement
Trinket stats UI is now as well directly closed when exchange trinket UI is closed
Fixed massive shadow on ice bird enemies
Update 0.9.0.1
🌟New Features:
More Accessible Softcore Mode
In softcore mode you will now gain a new shield charge after each defeated gatekeeper. The gained shield charge is now also indicated by a new blue visual effect. Previously shields recharged after each 10 levels. This was way to unclear when shields are recharged and way to unsteady. With this new change softcore mode should be more accessible for new players.
Shockwave Culling System
A new shockwave culling system was implemented that prevents multiple shockwaves being spawned on top of each other, preventing screen articfacts. This should also lead to improved performance.
⚙️Improvements:
Companions are now teleported to your current player position whenever you enter a gatekeeper arena, descent expedition room or world event with barriers.
Companions on respawning when getting out of reach do not perfectly stack on each other keeping better overview on the amount of companions you have
Improved player level up visual effect
Redesigned Light Staff and Phoenix Staff Projectile visuals
Improved Descent Expedition background visuals
Improved bleeding blade visuals
⚖️Balancing:
Tower Defense Upgrades: Blade Orbit now does not knockback enemies (did knockback)
Tower Defense Upgrade: Each Blade Orbit upgrade now increases the chance to spawn an additional blade orbit (was a guaranteed spawn increase before)
🔧Fixes:
Fixed wrong wording on descent defense event start button
Paused game on tower defense while selecting upgrades now does not trigger further tower abilities on pause and release all of them when continuing
Fixed reset serpents phase spawn on softcore when you have died and re-entering the gatekeeper arena
Fixed glaring light total duration of only 1s (should be 3s) (v.0.9.0.1a)
Fixed vanishing trinkets that have been exchanged and dropped again (v.0.9.0.1a)
Update 0.9.0.0c
🌟New Features:
Quality of Life for Trinkets: On trinket exchange now automatically the next empty slot is focused. If all slots are taken the first trinket slot is focused as usual
⚙️Improvements:
Improved Trinket Tooltips: Trinket ability duration now has the suffix "s" to indicate that the trinket ability duration is measured in seconds
Improved Trinket Tooltips: Trinket ability cooldown has the suffix "enemies" to indicate that the ability cooldown is depending on defeated enemies
Improved player level up visual effect (rolled back)
Performance improvements for chicken companions (vfx rework)
Performance improvements to range companions (vfx rework)
Increased brightness on forest map
🔧Fixes:
Fixed crash when exiting rescue darokin world event
Descent Hotfix 0.9.0.0b
Fixes:
Stats window now resumes if it was kept open on closing the skill tree
Fixed a crash when loading offline save files
Fixed ancient tree root attack layering
Inverted the functionality of the transparency sliders in the options menu as they actually have controlled the opacity.
Descent Content Update
After many months of hard work we are hyped to release the long anticipated "Descent" content update!
In this post we will go over all the new features, improvements, balancing changes and fixes that version 0.9 will bring to you.
Awakened Gatekeeper Event
Together with the release of the Descent content update we are hosting an Awakened Gatekeeper Event. Stream your progress live on twitch, defeat all Awakened Gatekeepers in Hardcore mode to unlock the new achievements.
First 3 players succeeding will win: 20€ Steam Gift Card + 1x Striving for Light Steam Key + 1x Striving for Light Soundtrack
Descent Defense: A new tower defense like game mode with new run specific currency.
Descent Expedition Dungeons: Upgradable dungeons utilizing the new currency.
New Trinket System: 31 unique trinkets added to the game featuring legendary trinkets and new active abilities (shapeshifting, healing, attacks, skills, stats).
Active Abilities System: Next to your main attacks you can now find trinkets that grant a second ability that you can trigger on "Q" by default (can be changed in options) and "RB" on controller.
New Attack and Ability UI: We added a new attack and ability UI for more responsive combat
Maps and Enemies: 2 new maps: Beach & Courtyard featuring 6 new enemies, 6 new map bosses and 2 new gatekeepers to fight.
Gatekeeper Weapons: 2 new gatekeeper weapons have been added, featuring a melee weapon that triggers projectiles and a ranged weapon that enables mine throw play styles.
Bloodstained Chest: Engage in this new mysterious world event.
Rewoked Tree Of Light: The legacy skill tree got a complete rework and new kind of skill nodes have been added to the legacy tree (like companion/projectile/melee/condition/crit damage node) for even more specialised runs.
City Plaza: The city has been redesigned and a new plaza was added to the city where you can now find the leaderboards in online mode.
Awakened Leaderboards : There is now a new leaderboard tracking your progress and the time and date when you have defeated all 11 awakened gatekeepers in the current season.
Enemy Designs: All "old" enemies have been completely redesigned (6 enemies in total and 1 new enemy and map boss added to older maps).
Gatekeeper Arena: A new battleground awaits.
Awakened Gatekeepers: Fearsome foes that spawn at map tier 6 and beyond. There are band new achievements for defeating those Awakened Gatekeepers.
New Soundtracks: 5 new tracks with over 18 minutes of playtime. Prepare for some of the darkest sounds Striving for Light has seen so far. This takes our SfL OST to a total playtime +77 min
Softcore Mode: Softcore mode now grants 1 more shield and features the same leveling experience as the hardcore mode.
New Visual Effects: A big portion of older visual effects got a complete rework and got optimised for improved performance.
⚙️ Major changes and improvements:
Player Movement Speed: The base player movementspeed got increased.
Player Skills: Numerous abilities have been redesigned with fresh visuals.
Blazing Dodge: It's not just a dodge with a burning dot anymore - leave a burning trail in your wake!
Accurate Enemy Spawns: Enemy spawn algorithm got a complete rework. All enemy spawns are now indicated by a red dot and do not spawn upon your current player position.
Enemy Attacks: Redesigned to offer a fresh challenge.
Map Unlocking System: A map unlocking device was implemented that you can find on maps to unlock new environments.
Extended Map Modifiers: A new map modifier has been added that increases elite enemy spawn rate and increases trinket drop rates
Crafting UI: The crafting UI got a redesign
Map Redesigns: Old maps have been given a visual overhaul.
Performance: Game runs smoother with our latest improvements.
Map Lighting: Map lighting got a complete rework granting more vibrant colors and removes this feel of a dark vail covereing the screen
Old Content Updated: Plenty of tweaks and improvements to older content for a fresh feel.
Improved Hitboxes: Plenty of enemies have received improved hitboxes. No more invisible hits from corrupted merchant or devourer.
Improved Controller Support: Stats window got improved controller support to be ableto view tooltips on weapons, character and the new trinkets. Improved controller support for the skill tree and skill tree UI navigation.
More world Event Variation: World event spawnrates got adjusted to not overload maps with events. Now there are more different events on maps for more variety.
Consitent Arena Music: The music in the aeodra arena is now continuously playing and not jumping to the action loop on each wave start.
Consistent Naming: Remove items at darokin in town for gambling has been renamed to "convert items" as it now also converts left over trinkets and weapons to light fragments
⚖️ Balancing changes:
Phoenix world event now has a lower skill shard drop rate (was 100% before)
Elite enemies now only have a chance in dropping additional huge light fragments containing a light fragment and additional exp (was 100% before)
Life leech got buffed to 1HP/120 defeated enemies on the first node taken (was 1HP/150 before)
Plenty of enemies got improved and changed attack patterns
Softcore mode now has the same required exp scaling as hardcore mode
🔧 Fixes:
Fixed some crashes on some weapon skill combinations
Fixed controller issues in the skilltree
Fixed not being able to go back to map from the gatekeeper arena
Fixed some missplaced enemy hitboxes and colliders
Fixed and cleaned up old art that had some artifacts on borders creating weird red lines floating around enemies when highlighted enemy option was enabled
Fixed various cases where using a portal has removed the collected map chest key
In case you missed our last two previews for the descent content update, where we go into detail about the new featues and mechanics, you can read them here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3694694975390397377 https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3754369573818192135
We want to thank you for your patience and the ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players about the new update, you are invited to join our discord.
Descent Update - Release Date
We are back with the final post before the launch of the Descent Content Update. On our latest two descent content update previews we promised there will be even more content included into this update so we will share the full set of content coming with patch 0.9 to Striving for Light.
In case you missed our last two previews for the descent content update you can read them here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3694694975390397377 https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3754369573818192135
Descent Release Date
The descent content update will be released at Saturday 14.10.2023 at 10 pm CEST.
Awakened Gatekeeper Event
Together with the release of the Descent content update we are hosting an Awakened Gatekeeper Event. Stream your progress live on twitch, defeat all Awakened Gatekeepers in Hardcore mode to unlock the new achievements.
First 3 players succeeding will win: 20€ Steam Gift Card + 1x Striving for Light Steam Key + 1x Striving for Light Soundtrack
Descent Defense: A new tower defense like game mode with new run specific currency.
Descent Expedition Dungeons: Upgradable dungeons utilizing the new currency.
New Trinket System: Over 30 unique trinkets added to the game featuring new active abilities (shapeshifting, healing, attacks, skills, stats).
New Attack and Ability UI: We added a new attack and ability UI for more responsive combat
Maps and Enemies: 2 new maps: Beach & Courtyard featuring 6 new enemies, 6 new map bosses and 2 new gatekeepers to fight.
Gatekeeper Weapons: 2 new additions for your arsenal.
Bloodstained Chest: Engage in this new mysterious world event.
Enemy Designs: All "old" enemies have been completely redesigned (6 enemies in total and 1 new enemy and map boss added to older maps).
Gatekeeper Arena: A new battleground awaits.
Awakened Gatekeepers: Fearsome foes that spawn at map tier 6 and beyond.
New Soundtracks: 5 new tracks with over 18 minutes of playtime. Prepare for some of the darkest sounds Striving for Light has seen so far.
Softcore Mode: A complete rework to enhance the experience.
⚙️ Major changes and improvements:
Player Skills: Numerous abilities have been redesigned with fresh visuals.
Blazing Dodge: It's not just a dodge with a burning dot anymore - leave a burning trail in your wake!
Enemy Attacks: Redesigned to offer a fresh challenge.
Map Redesigns: Old maps have been given a visual overhaul.
Performance: Game runs smoother with our latest improvements.
Old Content Updated: Plenty of tweaks and improvements to older content for a fresh feel.
Updated Pricing
The release of 0.9 marks the completion for all major features that we plan to include for the 1.0 release of Striving for Light. Post 0.9 we will focus on polishing and giving you more of the great and improving what's not great already.
Therefore we will update our pricing with the release of the new content update.
Since the release of the Aeodra Content Update 0.7 around a year ago the amount of content has grown tremendously without adjusting the price for around a year now. To better align with the enriched content and enhanced value of the game, we'll be updating our pricing as communicated on our steam early access page.
The price for Striving for Light will raise from the current $9.99 USD (€9.75) to $14.99 USD (€14.79) when the Descent content update drops. The price for the Striving for Light Soundtrack will raise from the current 8.99 USD (€8.79) to 9.99 USD (€9.75).
Grab Striving for Light now before the price rises with the 0.9 update!
We will post the full patch notes on the release day at 14.10.2023.
We want to thank you for your patience and the ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players about the new update, you are invited to join our discord.
Descent Content Update - Preview 2
We are sure the latest update preview for the upcoming "Descent" content update has left you wondering how active abilities will work, how the trinkets look in game, how you will equip them, if we are really adding shapeshifting abilities to Striving for Light and what are those descent dungeons and the world event? We hope that this update preview will quench your thirst and give you some insights on what will await you with the upcoming update. Since all major features of the 1.0 release will be implemented with the 0.9 content update we are updating our pricing with the release of Descent content update.
In case you missed the first descent update preview you can read it here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3694694975390397377?l=english
Shapeshifting
Yes, you have read correctly, we are adding shapeshifting abilities to Striving for Light. Those active abilities are bound to legendary trinkets and will temporarily transform you into a powerful creature granting you access to a new attack exclusive to the shapeshifted form.
Use the active ability of the Burning Feather to trigger Ashen Awakening and arise as a blazing phoenix bringing fire to your foes.
If you are more fan of melee combat you might want to search for the Bear Ornament that gives you access to ability Nature Calls that lets you shapeshift into a bear granting you access to a massive ground shattering AoE attack.
Using Trinkets
Now as we have shown some of the new active abilities of the new trinket system you might wonder how you will acquire and use the trinkets.
Dropped trinkets will be highlighted by new designed and unique loot beams and drop sounds for the different trinket types. Interacting with the trinket will open up a new trinket exchange UI that lets you select one of your four trinket slots. If you select one already used slot it will show the new trinket on the left and the selected trinket on the right so that you can compare those stats and figure out which ones to exchange. All new UI's have been designed with controller support in mind.
You might want to check the trinket stats when there is no trinket to exchange so you also view the trinkets in the re-designed stats window. The stats window also has received improved controller support so LT/RT will now not only zip through the stats pages but also your weapon stats, character stats and all four trinkets.
Active Ability System
You might have already noticed the two new circular UI elements we have added at the bottom of the screen centre. This left UI element is displaying your basic range/melee attacks also indicating your attack speed cooldown. This should overall improve attack feedback.
The right UI element will display the legendary trinket ability when the color requirements for other trinkets are met. In general the active abilities of legendary trinkets have a cooldown based on defeated enemies. Our goal at designing the trinket abilities was to not introduce a "wait for the ability cooldown" scenario that will interrupt gameplay as this would be the "safest option". As they recharge with defeated enemies this gives us better possibilities in balancing these new powers. When activating an active ability the remaining ability duration will be shown by a new ability indicator on the top centre.
Trinkets Abilities
We are going to big variety of trinkets with the launch of the Descent content update, bringing complete new build possibilities to the roster of Striving for Light. As you might have already guessed from the last image there will be legendary healing potions that let you heal your wounds.
There will also be exclusive new companions only gained by the respective trinket. What about hatching a small phoenix fighting along your side.
Have you ever wished you could collect some of the left over hearts when you already are on full HP, you can search for a mysterious new item that conserves unused hearts just to be released later when you need them.
Descent Dungeons
In the last preview we mentioned a new type of side dungeons. We decided to make the dungeon accessible even without using the new skygem currency you will be able to find deep below the surface in the already showcased tower defense arena challenge. You will always be able to use the descent device to travel to descent depth 1. To increase reward and the size and challenge of the descent dungeon you will have to use skygems to power the descent device to take you deeper below the surface.
But be careful this is a one way ticket to descent, you will have to fight your way back up alone. The deeper you descent the higher your rewards will be, if you make it back up...
Bloodstained Chests
Traveling through the vast lands around Ankerath you will encounter bloodstained chests. No one has seen them before...
The bloodstained echo calls; brace for the falls.
With the bloodstained chests we are adding a complete new world event with a unique mechanic to all maps of Striving for Light.
Improvements and old content rework
With the 0.9 update we are also revamping a lot of the old content. Just to name a very few:
You might have noticed the completely new blood visual effects
More responsive range combat
Improved enemy spawn algorithm that prevents enemy spawns upon player position
Rebuilding some left over old particle effects to utilise GPU calculated particles to prevent CPU bottlenecks.
Gatekeeper arena re-design
Plenty of performance improvements to enable you to further push the bounds with your created builds.
Improved scaling of softcore mode
Improved controller support for skilltree UI navigation
Updated skill effects for older skills like explosions, meteors ...
Updated Pricing
The release of 0.9 marks the completion for all major features that we plan to include for the 1.0 release of Striving for Light. Post 0.9 we will focus on polishing and giving you more of the great and improving what's not great already.
Therefore we will update our pricing with the release of the new content update.
Since the release of the Aeodra Content Update 0.7 around a year ago the amount of content has grown tremendously without adjusting the price for around a year now. To better align with the enriched content and enhanced value of the game, we'll be updating our pricing as communicated on our steam early access page.
The price for Striving for Light will raise from the current $9.99 USD (€9.75) to $14.99 USD (€14.79) when the Descent content update drops.
We will again post a reminder as soon as we have a release date for the update. So that everyone has the possibility to get the game for the current price.
What comes next?
This only marks a fraction of all the new content that will be included in the Descent content update. All main systems are now implemented and will go into playtesting very soon. We will share more details on Awakened Gatekeepers and the new gatekeeper arena as well as more of the improvements to existing content as we get closer to the update release.
Please note that all of what we have showed you here is subject to change as we are still full in active development for all of the new content. Abilities, names and stats might change as we see fit. Also since the scope of this update is huge and we want to make sure everything is polished and enjoyable on the update release day this will still need some time to cook until its ready.
We want to thank you for your patience and the ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players about the new update, you are invited to join our discord.
Descent Content Update - Preview 1
We are proud to announce the name and theme of the upcoming 0.9 content update. Update 0.9 will be the biggest content update Striving for Light has ever seen!
"Descent"
With the upcoming content update traces of a new ore have been found in the vast lands around Ankerath. The ore was a shimmering hue of blue, as deep and mesmerizing as the sky. News of the discovery spread like wildfire. It's told that some light fragments formed the ore when colliding at the great scatter.
The lands are transforming. Where once there were meadows and forests, now wooden scaffolds shadowed the ground. The clang of hammers and pickaxes became a constant echo as mine shafts, like scars, began to appear, burrowing deep into the belly of the earth, driven by the insatiable hunger for the new ore. No one thought we would awaken these ancient dormant terrors...
In Descent you will find frequent tunnels that lead into the belly of the earth. Construct mine shafts and install defense upgrades to defend yourself and your mine shaft from the awakened horrors to descent and digg for skygems.
Prolong and intensify your descent to maximise the risk and reward of your expedition into the deep!
New Trinket System
The upcoming content update will introduce a new item type: Trinkets. Trinkets come in 4 different types and can not only grant you passive stat improvements but also active and passive abilities. So lets take a look at the different trinket types. You will be able to carry 4 trinkets at the same time and you can combine them freely as you see fit.
Legendary Trinkets
Legendary Trinkets are the rarest and most powerful trinkets you can find. These trinkets do not only hold passive stat improvements but also an unique active or passive ability that you can gain by meeting the trinket power requirements. These are indicated by colored circles that stand for other trinket types you need to have equiped to gain the ability. In general legendary trinkets belong to no color and do not count towards meeting the requirements for other trinkets.
Once you have met the requirements you can use the new active abilities by the right mouse (or assigned) button. Active Abilities have a cooldown that requires to empower the trinket by a certain amount of enemies that have to be defeated. The active abilities can be everything from shapeshifting into a new form, a temporal shield preventing you to receive damage, berserker auras or massive new attacks.
Normal Trinkets
Normal trinkets are colored blue (defensive), red (offensive) and green (utility) and can hold a variety of stats but also passive effects. Those trinkets are required to activate the abilities on the legendary trinkets. While the active abilities from legendary trinkets are powerful they might not be best for all builds. Some builds will benefit more from stacked passive effects from normal trinkets or even combining multiple legendary trinkets without activating the legendary ability. The possibilities are endless.
We are planing to add a huge amount of different trinkets with the upcoming content update to bring a huge variety of new build possibilities to explore. Here are some of them to give some hints on what will await you.
These trinkets can be aquired all throughout the world but also in the new descent events.
What comes next?
This only marks a fraction of all the new content that will be included in the Descent content update. You will be able to use the new skygem currency to descent into several brutal mini dungeons. There are plans for a new world event. We are currently experimenting with awakened gatekeeper bosses that you will call once you dived deep enough into the darkness. There might even be a complete new map. And this is just the new content, we not even have talked about all the improvements that will come to the existing content like reworked range combat with overall faster projectile speeds to make range attacks feel more responsive.
Please note that all of what we have showed you here is subject to change as we are still full in active development for all of the new content. Abilities, names and stats might change as we see fit. Also since the scope of this update is huge and we want to make sure everything is polished and enjoyable on the update release day this will still need some time to cook until its ready.
We want to thank you for your patience and the ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players about the new update, you are invited to join our discord.
Update 0.8.7.2b-e
Improvements
Performance improvements for all constructs
Additional projectiles from weapon stats do now update the range attack immediately (was updating after next skill tree scene switch)
Bugfixes:
Fixed a memory leak when using range constructs
Fixed skill tree node search camera pan after searching for nodes that contained letters "wasd"
Fixed a crash on player death (v.0.8.7.2c)
Fixed a crash due to new improved scene loading (v.0.8.7.2.c)
Fixed a crash on player death while active world events (v.0.8.7.2d)
Fixed a crash that could occur when a unstable internet connection leads delays in posting leaderboard entries. (v.0.8.7.2e)
Update 0.8.7.2b-d
Improvements
Performance improvements for all constructs
Additional projectiles from weapon stats do now update the range attack immediately (was updating after next skill tree scene switch)
Bugfixes:
Fixed a memory leak when using range constructs
Fixed skill tree node search camera pan after searching for nodes that contained letters "wasd"
Fixed a crash on player death (v.0.8.7.2c)
Fixed a crash due to new improved scene loading (v.0.8.7.2.c)
Fixed a crash on player death while active world events (v.0.8.7.2d)
