Crystal Ascend

Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The incremental game Crystal Ascend has made some progress!This episode continues building the Iron element skills.When you think of iron, it feels hard – perfect for making blunt weapons that can knock enemies away. So after the absorption ring gains the power of the Iron element, it can now launch crystals! When a crystal is shattered, it flies out in the direction opposite to the impact point relative to its center. If it hits other crystals along the way, it deals collision damage. Finding the right angle, hitting fast and accurately – that’s the key to mastering the Iron element! See, Iron is the second unlockable element, and it’s slightly trickier than Dark – it requires a little bit of skill. But don’t worry, it’s not demanding. The game is still a relaxing, casual experience. Once you’re armed with higher‑level skills, you can just mindlessly flick your mouse and still destroy everything.Paired with this mechanic is another Iron skill – Caltrops. When you land a critical hit, caltrops shoot out in all directions, dealing significant area damage.What’s more, the caltrop effect can be passed on to launched crystals. That means when a flying crystal crashes into another crystal and scores a critical hit, it also releases caltrops. If the crystal density is high enough, a single flying crystal can clear the entire field!This won’t be the final version—there are still plenty of effects to add, but I’ll stop here for now.About this GameA simple incremental game where you nurture crystal elementals by destroying floating crystals and harvesting aether. Upgrade the skill tree, unlock new abilities to gather resources faster, and build your ultimate crystal companions. If you’re interested, feel free to add to wishlist 😊

Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The Playtest version of my incremental game Crystal Ascend is ready!Let me briefly explain the gameplay. You start with an absorption ring, controlled by your mouse. Aim at the floating crystals, “smack!” – the crystal shatters, aether flows out, and is absorbed by the large crystal in the center. You don’t need to click the mouse; the absorption ring attacks automatically at a fixed frequency. The large central crystal is your elemental Crystal Sprite. Your main goal is to keep breaking crystals, collecting aether, and feeding it until it’s full!Each round gives you limited time to collect aether. When time runs out, the Crystal Sprite falls asleep (kids need their sleep to grow – perfectly normal). At that point, you can spend the aether you’ve collected to upgrade the tech tree. There are many upgrade nodes, such as increasing the absorption ring’s range, attack power, attack frequency, and so on. In the mid‑to‑late game, there are also plenty of corrupted crystals with special effects. When broken, their special effects can trigger chain reactions. So this game is not just about pure numerical growth – the real joy lies in unlocking new mechanics!Here’s what the skill tree looks like now. I’ve only shown a small part to avoid too many spoilers.Here’s a short clip from the late game.Unlocking the entire skill tree in the Playtest version takes about 40–50 minutes. Unlike some incremental games that pad the skill tree with time‑wasting nodes to stretch the experience beyond two hours, my design philosophy is to keep the upgrade process constantly fresh. Therefore, the playtime for a single run won’t change much from the current version. In the full release, after fully feeding one Crystal Sprite, you’ll get a system similar to “rebirth” that resets the skill tree. But this reset isn’t just replaying the same thing – it completely transforms into a new playstyle! For example, the current version is a complete Dark element build...

Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The incremental game Crystal Ascend has made some progress!In the last episode, I finished the Dark element. Crystals influenced by Dark power generate a black blade flash when shattered.This time, I made a brand new crystal type and designed a set of skills that can synergize with Dark crystals.First, the new crystal – Rainbow Crystal. Think of it as a special large crystal. It has high health and also contains a large amount of aether.As you keep upgrading, you will unlock a special node that allows Rainbow Crystal to release a Dark shockwave when shattered, causing all nearby ordinary crystals to be corrupted by Dark energy.And just like that, a large number of dense Dark crystals appear in an instant. Then, all you need to do is use your absorption ring to break any one of them. The released Dark blade will instantly shatter adjacent Dark crystals. Boom! The chain explosion begins – one‑click screen clear, with an explosion of satisfaction!This won’t be the final version—there are still plenty of effects to add, but I’ll stop here for now.About this GameA simple incremental game where you nurture crystal elementals by destroying floating crystals and harvesting aether. Upgrade the skill tree, unlock new abilities to gather resources faster, and build your ultimate crystal companions. If you’re interested, feel free to add to wishlist 😊