Hey y'all, I noticed an influx of negative reviews recently so I made a small update to fix some bugs/issues as well as adding some new content to the game. I didn’t fix everything that I saw when reading through the negative reviews, just everything I felt like was necessary to address asap.

This was going to be a slightly larger update, I did make a few new cards:

And a new shopkeeper:

…But I’ve decided to scrap all that for now. I’m having a hard time finding motivation to add these into the game at the moment. Maybe in a later update.

v1.2.0.6 Update Changelog

• added new relics

• added new banners

  • the new banners are from art fight attacks, ft. art from rabbitlegs, theargonninja, kafeiketon, slirth, cactuscompanion, ezikk, and flameblaze

  • big gold chests will now always contain these, everything that was in them previously now appears in the green chests

• added new starter deck (Lesha)

  • Lesha starts off with randomized cards, and no card traders will spawn

• you can now reroll lesha’s shop with star tickets

• card stats now display below troop when hovering on field

• reworked unit pathfinding

• added option to skip battles in exchange for star tickets

  • the button will appear if your average card level is higher than your opponent’s

• removed alternate opponent AIs that were added in the previous update

  • this was originally added as a way to make the opponent AIs more interesting, but they were not working correctly (i.e. just not placing down cards at all)

• adjusted difficulty scaling

  • increased upgrades per floor, energy multipliers, and max energy for secundus onwards

  • omicron’s cards now have a base level of 5 instead of 1

• other minor bug fixes and visual improvements

Alongside this update post I have a few words I'd like to say.

I'd like to apologize. For a few things, really. First, I apologize for not having something like this out sooner. I've been juggling a lot of projects recently, so putting out updates for this game hasn't been super high on my priority list. Plus I haven't had as much time to work on game dev lately, as well as having some slight burnout.

I'd also like to apologize for... I guess failing you all? I feel like since there's a lot of negativity surrounding this game a lot of people are disappointed by it. Some people have said that it "feels unfinished" or it's "sloppy". There's also people unhappy with the split screen thing, the difficulty, the writing, the characters, the gameplay, everything. To me it seems like a lot of people just don't like this game, and were expecting something better.

I'm not perfect, and nothing I make ever will be. Despite that, I always try to pour my heart and soul into what I make and hope people will enjoy it. And... maybe that's not enough? Maybe I shouldn't have made this game in the first place. Maybe people are more happy with the pay-to-win garbage that Supercell and it's copycats have been churning out. Maybe I shouldn't have made a game that's a product of my own tastes and should've gone for something more generic. Maybe then people would've been happier. I dunno.

I know Aestheta is just a small $3 game, but it's also my creation. It's an extension of myself, and an insult to the game is an insult to me. I take all the negative reviews seriously, and since there's been so many I feel like a failure. Even if I fix everything that's wrong with the game it's not going to magically lead to a more positive reception, all I can really hope is that it makes it slightly less worse.

So... I'm sorry. Really, I am. Not exaggerating or anything. I feel genuinely guilty for not making something better for you all. My heart aches and I feel like shit. I hope you can forgive me, and I'll try to do better in the future.

I'm certain there's going to be people calling me cringe for opening up and sharing my feelings, and that's okay. I don't expect anyone to take this seriously, I just wanted to be transparent with how I feel as the developer.

Thank you to everyone who cares about this game and wants to see it grow and develop into something better, I truly appreciate your support. It means a lot.

If you have any feedback or bug reports, please DM them to me on discord (@aplove) or bluesky (aplovestudio.bsky.social) and I'll try to get back to you asap. If you leave them in the steam discussions or in a negative review, I most likely won't see it.