- Update 0.9.0 - Patch Notes - 20 September 2026
You can now reset the skill tree of a specific Elemental in the Elemental selection screen, allowing you to replay your favorite Elementals without restarting the entire game.Added preview videos for all Elementals.
- Crystal Ascend Dev Log Episode 14 - 25 August 2026
Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The incremental game Crystal Ascend has made some progress!The late-game content for this game is finally coming together. In this episode, I'll introduce the hybrid elemental crystals.As the name suggests, hybrids are elementals with more than one element. Once you've successfully nurtured two basic elemental crystals, you can unlock advanced crystals that combine the powers of both. Unlike single-element advanced crystals, these hybrids don't push one element to its absolute limit – instead, they cherry‑pick the most practical mechanics from each and assemble them into a skill tree. So when you play, you'll find that the two elements aren't just thrown together haphazardly – they create a wonderful chemical reaction where 1+1 > 2!The available elemental combinations are shown here: Unlike single‑element builds, these hybrid elemental skill trees a…
- Crystal Ascend Demo is now available for download! Welcome to try it out! - 28 July 2026
Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The Demo version of my incremental game Crystal Ascend is available for download! Welcome to try it out!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, su…
- Crystal Ascend Playtest is closing soon! The Demo is ready for download shortly! - 23 July 2026
Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The Playtest version of my incremental game Crystal Ascend is coming to an end!I'm very glad that so many of you participated in the beta and provided valuable feedback. Thank you all! My Demo version has taken into account many of the suggestions from the Playtest, and I've added even more playable content. All the content is now complete, and I'm ready to present a polished and refined version to everyone.Since the numerical balance of the Demo has changed quite a bit, and for stability reasons, Playtest saves will not carry over to the Demo.The Playtest will officially end on July 24, and the test entry has already been closed. If you're new here and want to try the game, please add it to your wishlist! Our Demo will be available for download very soon, and you'll receive an email notification the moment it's playable.Compared to the Playtest ver…
- Crystal Ascend Dev Log Episode 13 - 12 June 2026
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 mindless…
- Crystal Ascend Playtest – Limited Access Now Open! Come apply to join. - 29 May 2026
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…
- Crystal Ascend Dev Log Episode 12 - 24 May 2026
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 crysta…
- Crystal Ascend Dev Log Episode 11 - 12 May 2026
Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The incremental game Crystal Ascend has made some progress!Before I knew it, I’ve already posted 11 dev logs. It’s quite satisfying to see the game gradually becoming richer in my own hands.Enough small talk – the element finished this time is — Dark. Since this is an incremental game where you absorb aether from elemental crystals to level up, the skill design revolves around elemental themes. The dark element brings to mind darkness, power from the abyss. So my idea is that when a dark crystal is broken, it tears open a rift from the void, instantly slicing through everything it touches. Visually, it looks like releasing a black blade flash.When that blade flash cuts through other dark crystals, it triggers another blade flash. If you prioritize increasing crystal density and dark crystal probability in the skill tree, then when the dark crystal d…
- Crystal Ascend Dev Log Episode 10 - 4 May 2026
Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The incremental game Crystal Ascend has made some progress!This is an incremental game where you absorb aether from elemental crystals to level up, so the skill design also revolves around elemental themes. The element finished this time is — Lightning.The lightning element can imbue crystals with lightning energy. When you break a lightning‑element crystal, the elemental force is released, discharging electricity to other nearby crystals. The high‑voltage arc released in that instant generates extremely high temperatures, dealing instant damage to crystals. Moreover, once you unlock the arc chain skill, the arc will continue to bounce to the next target after hitting one. Even better, you can upgrade the arc split skill. This skill gives crystals a chance to generate extra arcs when discharging. Those extra arcs can also bounce via the chain skill,…
- Crystal Ascend Dev Log Episode 09 - 24 April 2026
Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The incremental game Crystal Ascend has made some progress!Big hammer upgrade 80k, little hammer upgrade 40k… 😄 This is an incremental game where you absorb aether from elemental crystals to level up, so the skill design also revolves around elemental themes. The element finished this time is — Iron.The iron element can create weapons in various forms. The first unlockable skill is summoning a little hammer, which periodically spawns above the cave and smashes down hard on the floating crystals around it. With the little hammer as a helper, you can multi‑task and double your absorption efficiency! If you focus on maxing out the little hammer skill, you can completely free your hands and just watch the show.If you find just watching too boring, there’s also a manual playstyle. The manual option is the big hammer – you get to swing it yourself! Smash…
- Crystal Ascend Dev Log Episode 08 - 22 April 2026
Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The incremental game Crystal Ascend has made some progress!After many iterations, I’ve given the floating crystals variations in shape and size, and their movement now feels like they’re being carried by aether currents. When attacked, they display cracks based on damage taken, and upon destruction, fragments and absorption light bands are added.I’ve also added some randomly generated little sparkles to the crystals themselves, making them look shinier.Such a small crystal requires so many details – making a game really is a lot of work.And it’s not over yet. The next headache is this: my crystals are currently just plain white ones. Higher‑level crystals need different colors. But when I change a crystal’s color, I have to modify the crystal’s base color, highlight color, crack color, fragment color, and the sparkles’ color at the same time. Each n…
- Crystal Ascend Dev Log Episode 07 - 20 April 2026
Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The incremental game Crystal Ascend has made some progress!The crystal effects are almost done, but the variety is still quite limited.I used Blender to create several different crystal shapes and have them spawn randomly. This makes things look less monotonous.There are also two sizes. Larger crystals have more health and contain more aether.Crystals of the same size differ only in appearance; their collision boxes are exactly the same.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 😊
- Crystal Ascend Dev Log Episode 06 - 16 April 2026
Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The incremental game Crystal Ascend has made some progress!Last time I finished the hit effect for the crystal.But just having a hit effect isn’t enough – there’s nowhere to display the crystal’s health. Simply putting a health bar won’t work; with so many moving crystals, health bars would create clutter and hurt performance. After much thought, I decided to add cracks to the crystal. The less health it has, the more cracks appear, making it look closer to breaking.By writing a shader, I made the number of cracks change smoothly based on remaining health. This only uses a small amount of GPU computation, with almost no performance impact.Next, I added floating numbers to the absorption effect, showing how much aether was actually absorbed. I have to say, floating numbers bring a great sense of satisfaction.This won’t be the final version—there are…
- Crystal Ascend Dev Log Episode 05 - 13 April 2026
Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The incremental game Crystal Ascend has made some progress!This time, I’m mainly doing some detail optimization.I’ve already added plenty of animations and effects for the crystal’s spawn, disappear, and movement. But there’s still a long way to go before it’s perfect. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the absorption ring (i.e., the player’s mouse) and the crystal have zero interaction. This means there’s no feedback on whether the crystal is being boxed in or attacked, making the feel quite airy and insubstantial.To solve this, the first thing that came to mind was adding a hit feedback – when the crystal is attacked, it flashes white with a shake effect.But that alone isn’t enough. Without clear feedback that the absorption ring has boxed in the crystal, the gameplay experience feels unnatural. So I also added a shake effect when the absorpt…
- Crystal Ascend Dev Log Episode 04 - 10 April 2026
Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The incremental game Crystal Ascend has made some progress!Last time I added the crystal breaking effect. It felt pretty impactful, but something still seemed missing…Looking at the lonely, hungry crystal elemental spirit in the middle of the cave, it suddenly hit me – the crystal just shattered, but the Crystling never got fed at all… It’s starving 😂.So an aether absorption animation is absolutely necessary! I must go all out on it.Since what’s being absorbed is aetheric magic, it can’t look like gold coins flying over. It should feel more like a torrent of magic power. After some tinkering, the aether absorption effect ended up looking about like this:The Crystling successfully attracted the aetheric magic, but I still felt something was missing – a “gobbling up” action. The aether must be devoured fiercely 🍔.So I added another absorption specia…
- Crystal Ascend Dev Log Episode 03 - 7 April 2026
Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The incremental game Crystal Ascend has made some progress!I’ve already made the crystals emerge quite naturally, but the breaking effect was still a disaster—they just vanished like magic. No, wait, even magic tricks at least produce some smoke or something 😂. So, “how the crystal disappears”—this profound question lay before me.Since these crystals are magic crystals filled with aether, when they are broken, the aether inside flows out, and the crystals themselves turn back into ordinary stones, losing their sparkling, translucent appearance.So I added a physical shatter effect, letting the fragments fall freely under gravity, eventually disappearing into the bottomless mist of the cave. Breaking alone felt a bit soulless, so I also added a splash particle effect. Now, when a crystal is broken, it gives that satisfying “pika” feeling.This won’t b…
- Crystal Ascend Dev Log Episode 02 - 4 April 2026
I like to think the lava moves the crystals around. Terry says that's "unscientific." Don't listen to Terry.——Donny VermillionHey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The incremental game Crystal Ascend has made some progress!In the last episode, I got the crystal to float up successfully and added a simple movement effect. But obviously, a plain circular motion just doesn’t look good. The first problem to solve was: what exactly drives the crystal’s movement? Thinking about this, the voice line “I like to think the lava moves the crystals around...” from StarCraft 2’s co‑op mode suddenly echoed in my mind.In this cavern filled with aetherial energy, the crystals are carried by the aether currents, moving slowly along the direction of the aether flow. Because the density of aether is uneven, the flow direction fluctuates a bit, so I added some dive‑and‑rise perturbations to the crystal’s t…
- Crystal Ascend Dev Log Episode 01 - 1 April 2026
Hey everyone, this is Zodiac GameLab. The incremental game Crystal Ascend has made some progress!In the initial version, the crystal was just stuck in mid-air, looking fake and lifeless 🥲 To make the crystal feel more dynamic, I added a short floating-up animation. The rising motion can’t be too fast or too slow—if it’s too fast, it looks choppy, and if it’s too slow, there’s hardly any time left for interaction by the time the crystal is ready. Tweaking this parameter was a real headache.Once it floats up, the crystal also needs a spinning animation. To make it look natural, I found myself in parameter hell again 😂 After adjusting all the parameters, it ended up looking something like this: 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 flo…
