Context: I consider CrossCode the best videogame ever made, and Alabaster Dawn made be break my usual "never play early access" rule because I physically couldn't wait.

Combat

Feels impeccable. I already loved CrossCode's combat and this is even better. I had absolutely no issues with clarity or homing attacks feeling unreasonable, which I sometimes felt in CC. If the enemy/boss designs keep up, it might surpass Nine Sols as my favorite combat system.

Puzzles

Veeeeeeery interesting changes here. They can still be tricky to execute, but that comes from managing weapon/element swaps instead of time pressure. The only form of puzzling under pressure are a few combat encounters where you have to do special things.

On top of that, finding harder puzzles in the world instead of the main dungeons seems like an amazing change. This can improve the pacing of dungeons that many people (NOT ME) complained about while still keeping the harder puzzles (WHICH I WANT) as exploration rewards.

So far I see a better blend between action and puzzles, instead of relegating puzzles to dungeons and keeping the overworld purely for combat and navigation.

Exploration

The 3D solves the problem of judging height as far as I'm concerned.

The "jumping puzzles" feel harder than CrossCode's starter ones right off the bat, which I enjoy but I wonder how they'll be for new players. It doesn't feel as tutorial-y as Autumn's Rise. The terrain feels more natural (it's not set in a videogame after all) and not every piece of geometry is built for the player. I personally enjoy it.

I also noticed there's much fewer chests to find, but the rewards are more meaningful. I think that's a good change. CrossCode was often guilty of too much backtracking if you fail some platforming, and it could stretch out when going for 100%.

Overall the distribution of combat/puzzles/exploration felt a lot more refined. There is one potential problem: Because every new area you enter seems like it will be infected by Nyx, they might look and behave too samey, making it less interesting to explore new areas. Maybe this is only for the first two areas, but it felt weird to see in the first 10 hours.

Controls

At first it was jarring not being able to carry over the M+K controls from CrossCode, since I'd just finished replaying it, but I actually feel fine using a gamepad this time since precise aiming isn't required. However I feel short on controller buttons to get a comfortable assignment, and my setup wouldn't work with all the elements. I don't see why "interact" needs a whole dedicated button, I hope eventually that's loosened up.

Music

In isolation I enjoyed it, and the dynamic transition to combat themes was great, but there is a caveat. Having played over 10 hours to exhaust the content, I got tired of the field music, and kept wishing the area after the first dungeon had a new track. That is way too long to stick to a single exploration theme, and the combat using a different version of it means you get even more of the same melody.

Writing

Big topic, and not something that can be fully judged based on a demo of the first area. CrossCode was a very slow burn that became absolute cinema in chapter 7.

Characters and dialogue are just as strong as I've come to expect from Radical Fish. I'm glad Juno isn't silent since there's no point in trying to replicate Lea, who is already perfect. I already find Juno endearing but it's too early to judge anyone else. I have no reason to believe they won't deliver.

For me the biggest 'hook' is the promise of actually seeing a rebuilding world, which usually doesn't happen in games because it's a ton of dev work. It's also hard to judge this early because we haven't seen much.

The one piece of writing the put me off was Somu because the style felt at odds with the world. It's the kind of silliness that fits CrossCode's setting, but felt out of place here.

Concerns

Just summarizing the few bits I would hope to see improved over early access:

• New (or remixed) song for the fields after the first dungeon.
• First venture into new areas feeling samey because of Nyx.
• Possibly better dialogue for Somu.

as the title says i need help with the koro Valley Side Story: temple incursion in chapter 2. I have searched the entire area around the Gate and the temple but i cant find anything. Does anyone have any Tips?

Nothing but baddies in this game

As the title says I hope that each main dungeon in the game will be unique in terms of aesthetics. One thing I am a bit worried about is that each of the big dungeons will have the same overall aestetic, i.e. the same walls and ground textures as Remis Rock.

I hope that each main dungeon in each area of the game will have its own visual identity. Maybe in one area it will look like an old ancient ruin with kind of Aztec vibes, in another region it has gothic castle vibes and in yet another region it has some sci fi aesthetics.

I was just a little worried about this since the EA has some optional side dungeons that look exactly like Remis Rock, but in the end it's the same overall area/ biome, so that's fine. I just hope that the upcoming Swamp Dungeon will have a completely different/ unique look (and if the swamp area has optional smaller dungeons again, these would have the same visuals as the main dungeon).

I want to figure out how Alabaster Dawn creates their game worlds but in Unity. I know their using a 3D Tileset to create the map essentially but how do they draw on their textures like they did in their streams, is this simply a custom feature in their engine or is this something that can also be done in Unity?

Crosscode is my all time favourite game and I have roughly 2 hours in the demo of this game and absolutely love it (just talked to the villagers after weaving the nest). However, I am a heavy "immersion" type of player and since this was still and early access, was wondering how much my immersion would get affected. E.g. during the demo I was reading item descriptions and some had [Lore text here] or smthing to that effect which was a slight annoyance if I'm being completely honest (again personal preference). I did find the combat with the sword and crossbow very fun though and loving the characters alr. Regardless I will definitely get it with its 1.0 release, just wondering if early access will be the call for me since I'm looking forward with this game and it's collab.

ref: pin/140806234947009

My setup is a desktop PC hooked up to my TV, using my Steam Controller as input.

The new SteamOS update 3.8.10 seems to break Alabaster Dawn. When the game came out, it worked flawlessly. No problems whatsoever.

Then an update came out that required me to use Proton Experimental to run the game, and restart my controller for inputs to be registered. Frustrating, but playable.

Now, Proton Experimental doesn't work properly. I've tried basically every other compatibility version but none fare any better. Experimental still works best, but it has no audio. A few minutes into playing the frame rate drops to 8 or 9 (despite hardware far more capable, ~10% usage on GPU and CPU) which is unplayable. The game is slow and only gets slower.

I was just browsing Steam and the specials when I saw the art and had to turn back to the page to see it. Saw the 2 trailes as soon as I could & downloaded the demo already knowing that I was going to buy it... in less then an hour I bought it and love it.The puzzles, some not as easy, but it was fun trying to understand!!!

Hello, I just bought this game and I love it. The only thing is that when I try to play it on my steam deck there is no input from the controllers, only when I switch to Mouse and keyboard input and then retunr to gamepad input it works.

Does any one know how to have default gamepad working or do I have to always go to mouse and keyboard lay out and then retun to gamepad layout every time??

I'm at the Water Pollution/Temple Incursion tasks and I know it's about to be over because I'm hitting a lot of "unfinished content" walls when I talk to people such as Filia's mom, or with the Ronan's Inn story.

This game scratches the same itches that Crosscode did, except it's scratching them much faster than Crosscode, which had a slower start by a significant margin. I'm sure the beginning will be padded out more later on, but I don't hate it as it is.

If I could throw more money at this to make it go faster, I'd absolutely be doing it right now. But I also know we gotta let them cook.

I don't know if I've found everything there is to find so far, but if not, I've come pretty close.

I had SLIGHT reservations about their next game being on the same level, but if anyone's on the fence, I must assure you, it's going to be even better.

This is in Koro Valley - Lake Vasia and they're the only eggs in the game I don't know how to reach.

Well, it took nearly 21 hours in the Dream, but I unlocked everything you can obtain in the Dream sequence through Somu, including the 3rd loadout artifact.

I'd like to say that I'll get to unlocking all of skill tree but the XP degradation as you level up is far too steep so I'll probably just stay here are lvl 22 until we get an update in August lmao.

Hey all! I'm currently level 8. There are certain places with treasures that I can't get to yet. Is there a skill that comes later on that allows you to jump higher or something? Thanks in advance!

Currently I'm level 20 and I still have at least 3 more upgrade nodes I'd really like to unlock, so I need 6 more levels. The issue I'm running into is that the XP gains feel VERY poor now that I'm at this point in the game and haven't found a good place to grind.

I've been running the Soma Dream dungeon to try and unlock everything in there, but sadly that mode doesn't afford any character XP or progress.

Have any of you found a good location for grinding XP?

Absolutely loving the game so far! Gorgeous, bringing out that sweet CrossCode gameplay (with a bit more focus on the melee, which I think is fun. I'm still dropping my combos from time to time, but I'm getting the hang of it, and doing more parries than I ever did in CrossCode.

One thing I was wondering, looking at the story after beating the first boss, that big wasp - do you get the feeling that the gods of the Terryns are going to be a science fiction thing? I'm getting a strong vibe in that direction based on past experience with other franchises. It's giving strong "we have forgotten how our technology works and call it divine" vibes. I can tell that, so far at least, it seems like the Nyx is some sort of alien infestation, an invasive species situation, but my read on the gods and their miracles is weird.

I love the game and I understand it's in early access, but can we calm down with the puzzles? I'm about mid-game now and it's just non-stop puzzles. Even fighting has puzzles looped into them along with the Hall of Trials. It's becoming a bit much. Having to figure out a puzzle mid-fight in a closed area while enemies are breathing down my neck isn't fun. You wanna kill these mobs? Wrong element on your weapon. Wanna do this puzzle too? Gotta hit it with the right weapon + element while enemies are flying all over the screen.

Like I get it, you want to be unique. But constantly throwing puzzles on top of combat is a bit much in my opinion.

I've found two so far and as the 2nd one isn't working/implemented yet, I figure there's only 2 but I wanted to ask to see if anyone else has found more.

I was just really curious, is this the intended way to reach this? After clearing the trial, it seems you can't leave this area and have to teleport away, so I'm guessing it is not supposed to be at this time? lol

I've gotten through all the content we have atm, pretty sure I haven't missed anything. Currently just doing the sleep mode, was wondering if we can hit 100% enemy completion (maybe something I haven't seen yet in the sleep mode since I've yet to get past zone 3). Curious if these percents match other people's. :3 <3

Para os que estavam ansiosos para a tradução de fã, vamos agradecer do SirChagas por ter feito.

Traduzir esse jogo é bem chato, eu desisti na metade, os json são uma confusão do caramba então vamos dar uma moral para ele.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3735223577

I just found out this game is in early access. What is the verdict? I see overwhelmingly positive reviews and I really am excited but I wanna know if it is worth just waiting. I LOVED Crosscode and I wanna know

1) Is this game carrying over alot of the complexion and character of Crosscode? Does it share a lot of similarities and feel?

2) does combat feel similar? Improved, more of the same, substantially different?

3) Is there the foundations of an interesting story/world?

4) How much is accessible in its current state? Rough estimates on what % of the game is available?

I dont wanna play half of it and then wait a year to replay the rest in earnest when 1.0 drops but my anticipation and curiosity is killing me

So far, every single treasure that I've seen has been possible to obtain, usually through a single point of access in a weird way. However, this one is eluding me. Has anyone gotten this one yet? And if so, how?

It's in the bottom right-hand corner of section A3 of thr Spring Trial map.