There are a ton of different Upgrades that players will steadily be unlocking as they progress through Across the Obelisk. And, one of the meta Upgrade systems in this delightful deckbuilder game that has a deceptively large impact on progress are the Town Upgrades.
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These are permanent buffs to the different facilities players can use in towns at the start of each 'Act' of Across the Obelisk. So, let's go through exactly what Town Upgrades do, how to unlock them, what methods exist to 'farm' Upgrades, and which ones to focus on unlocking first in this massively underrated roguelike deckbuilder.
What Town Upgrades Actually Are
When players first start a run in Across The Obelisk, the first Map Node they'll be forced to go to is the 'Starting Town'. This location is a small courtyard area of a town where players can get their party all 'geared up' for the adventure ahead. In this Starting Town courtyard, players have a total of 5 different buildings and facilities they can interact with, each with its own unique functions:
Location Name | Function |
|---|---|
Magic Forge | Where players 'build' specific cards for their Deck using Shards, save Deck builds, and generally organize their starting Decks. |
Altar | Where players can spend Shards on specific cards to upgrade them to either of their two possible upgraded versions. |
Church | The location where players can pay to remove Cards from their Deck down to the required minimum each Deck is required to have. |
Zingarian Cart | The cart where players can spend Gold to trigger Divinations of different Rarities that usually would take place after battles. |
Armory | The building where players can spend Gold to equip their party members with different Gear, with the ability to reroll the options as well. |
Town Upgrades, simply enough, just buff these different locations/facilities in variety of ways to make them better or reduce the 'cost' players must invest to use them to their utmost.
How To Unlock Town Upgrades
Now, since Town Upgrades are permanent buffs , a genre built around the idea of 'starting over' each run, it should be obvious that they have a pretty large impact overall. A player who has all the Town Upgrades acquired has an incomprehensibly better starting point for their runs than a player who doesn't have any Town Upgrades. But, how do players even acquire/unlock these Upgrades? Well, Town Upgrades are essentially 'purchased' Supplies, which is the in-game currency to the right of the Shard currency counter at the top left of the screen UI, marked by the brown crate icon. Think of spending Supplies on Upgrades as an in-game implementation of a merchant 'investing' building materials and other supplies into a town they often pass through to get more out of said town.
To get Supplies, players will need to defeat the different bosses across the game's multiple 'Acts', risk their runs by accepting and completing Corruption challenges, or interact with certain Map Events at specific Nodes and make specific choices. After gathering a sizeable hoard of Supplies (which are retained across runs) players can then spend them in any starting town on any map to unlock Town Upgrades. As they buy more and more Upgrades, the Supply cost will become greater and greater, jumping from a measly 1 Supply per Upgrade to a whopping 15 Supplies for the best of the best Upgrades.
And, for those who are wondering what players are meant to do with Supplies after unlocking all the Town Upgrades, don't worry, there's actually an Upgrade that makes it so that players can sell excess Supplies for both Shards and Gold, so this resource is still useful even after all the Upgrades are unlocked.
Best Town Upgrade Farming Method
With how much of an impact Town Upgrades can make on an Across the Obelisk run, it only makes sense that players would want to grind a massive hoard of Supplies as quickly as possible. So, what exactly is the best and/or fastest way to achieve this?
Well, in all honesty, Supply farming is most efficiently (and easily) done in Across the Obelisk by just playing the game as the developers intended and trying to get as far as possible in each run (of which there will be many). The further a player gets in their run, the more events they'll encounter that may offer Supplies, the more Act bosses they'll fight that reward Supplies on death, and the more Corruption modifier opportunities will be presented to them that offer Supplies as a reward.
Sure, there are probably 'hyper-efficient' methods players have figured out for farming Supplies by getting to Ylmer (the boss of Act 1) quickly, killing it, then intentionally losing the run to rinse and repeat this process for easy Supplies, but doing this is wholly unnecessary and anti-fun.
Instead, players should just focus on forward progress if they're looking to farm Supplies, which can be difficult in its own right as this will require players don't take too many risks trying to unlock new characters, go across specific Map Node paths, or take on too difficult of Corruption Challenges.
Which Upgrades To Buy First
And finally, it's time to get to the most important aspect of Town Upgrades in Across the Obelisk, which is our recommendation of the Upgrades players will want to get first. Across the 36 Upgrades available in AtO, here are the best ones to purchase or save up for first, as well as the best choices in each category of Supply Cost:
Supply Cost | Which Locations To Upgrade First | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
1 Supply Crate | Church, Altar, Armory | The Church Upgrade should be a no-brainer, as getting the ability to remove cards for free in the starting town makes the initial deckbuilding way more versatile. The Altar choice means that players can Transform Cards and experiment more in general. And lastly, the Armory option lets players who had a lot of Gold from their last run reroll their options for some overpowered starting Equipment. |
3 Supplies | Zingarian Cart, Magic Forge, Global | Basic Divination is cheap and very worthwhile, making the Cart an easy early grab. Crafting being cheaper means players can build more of their character's optimal decks in the starting town. Lastly, the Pet Shop is vital to unlock once players gain access to their first pet (regardless of whichever one they unlock first). |
6 Supplies | Altar, Armory, Global | The Altar follows the same reasoning as the 1st Supply Crate Upgrade, but it's now 50 percent instead of 25. The Armory Upgrade makes it so higher rarity items can show up in Armory, which can honestly break the balance of the game if players get lucky. And for the Global Upgrade, it's a Currency Retention Upgrade, and those should almost always be grabbed whenever the player has the available resources. |
9 Supplies | Magic Forge, Church, Altar, Global | Crafting Rare Cards in the Starting Town at the Magic Forge can make getting through Act 1 a breeze. For the Church, making Curing Injuries cheaper just means that players don't have to be so terrified of their choices in Map Events. The Altar Upgrade is also pretty obvious, as cheaper Upgrade costs mean more Card Upgrades overall. And for the last option, the Caravan Node can let players skip entire areas of the game, though it's a bit of a risk-reward option. |
12 Supplies | Church, Altar, Armory, Global | 50 percent less cost to remove cards at the Church means that players don't need to be so wary of removing cards past the Starting Town. Free Transformation Costs at the Altar is honestly one of the best Upgrades in the game, bar none. The Armory Upgrade to reduce item costs by 30 percent makes it much more possible to fully gear out a team at the start of a run. And finally, the Global Currency Retention Upgrade just means more resources per run in general. |
15 Supplies | Church, Altar, Global | Free card removal at the Church in the second town may not sound like much, but it lets players trim down decks they may have overzealously inflated. For the Altar, a 50 percent decrease in Upgrade costs means that players can really experiment with upgrades to some of the higher-rarity cards without breaking the bank. And finally, unlocking the ability to sell extra Supplies allows players who have already grabbed all the Town Upgrades to build up a dragon's hoard of Gold and Shards throughout multiple runs. |
Across the Obelisk is available now for PC.
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