Flyway Games, a development studio under the KRAFTON umbrella, is currently developing Ascend to ZERO for Steam. Its demo, released in March last year, holds a Very Positive score on the platform with around 366 user reviews at the time of writing. Recently, we interviewed Tae-uk Ho, game developer and director of Flyway Games, and asked him about how the studio’s new game is positioned among its peers in the roguelike action genre.
To give a brief rundown, Ascend to ZERO is a roguelike action game centered around the core theme of “time,” Ho says. The game is set in the year 2225, in a world where humanity has been wiped out by sentient machine aliens, and you, the protagonist, are the only one left of humankind. Using a time machine, you travel back to the moment before the annihilation of humanity, and attempt to change the future. At the start, you only have 30 seconds to act, but the ability to manipulate time can become an ace up your sleeve if you manage it correctly.
As the developer explains, this is the main duality of the game’s system that the players will need to grasp in order to polish their strategies. “A time restriction versus the freedom to manipulate time. Two sides of the same coin. Within this kind of system, players will have to keep making instant strategic decisions, and experience a deep sense of immersion – that’s the kind of experience I wanted to realize through this game.”
With its top-down view and gameplay that involves taking down large waves of enemies with auto-attacks, Ascend to ZERO has earned comparisons to titles like Vampire Survivors. However, Ho explains that the two games are fundamentally different in how they challenge the player. While Vampire Survivors poses the question of “how long can you survive,” Ascend to ZERO asks the player “how far can you go within your allotted time.”
“I believe the biggest point that distinguishes Ascend to ZERO from other survival shooters is its use of time. In a typical survival shooter, the goal is to survive as long as you can within a certain time limit. But in Ascend to ZERO, it’s the opposite – you have to create as many “time paradoxes” as possible within a certain time limit. By defeating enemies, your character doesn’t only get stronger, but the remaining play time itself also increases,” Ho explains.
Another important point about how the system stands out compared to other roguelikes and roguelites is that players get to retrieve strong weapons and items after each completed run – a feature inspired by Inflation RPG. Ho says this is meant to alleviate the “sense of emptiness” a player feels having to start a new run from ground up after getting used to their cranked-up stats from the previous one. “While the distinct roguelike feel of games like Vampire Survivors has slightly been toned down, the game puts an emphasis on permanent growth and an increasing sense of accomplishment, characteristic to RPGs.”
Ascend to ZERO is currently in development for PC (Steam). A free demo is available now.
