State of Aurory Address - August 2023

Aurorians are two years old! Much has happened since our mint on the 31st of August, 2021: one game is live in alpha, another is on the way, multiple dApps (Expeditions, Incubator, Staking), an expansion to Arbitrum, IRL events, tournaments, and more.

When it comes to Aurorians, everyone knows that they are a central part of our ecosystem, but they aren’t just NFTs for the sake of being NFTs. They represent some of our most die-hard community members who believe in the vision of Aurory. With the trust they’ve put in us, we feel a responsibility to deliver the best experiences for them. Throughout these past few summer months, our team has continued working hard around the clock in order to deliver everything we have planned on our short/medium term roadmap. Among these objectives, one of the biggest is the art upgrade, which will give Aurorians a major makeover, solidifying them among some of the top collections in Web3.

Here’s a teaser we posted on our X account to celebrate two years of Aurorians 👇

We’ll also be selecting one lucky person to win an Aurorian next week. The details on how to enter can be found here.

DESIGN

After releasing our new, condensed whitepaper, our Design team got right back to its biggest priorities:

• Blitz Evolution - A refined battle experience is on the way with the full Blitz combat system.

• Avatar Customization - 10,000 Aurorians won’t be enough for all the players we expect to have, so we’ll have a base avatar with a degree of customization for non-holders!

  

  Base Avatar Customization

• Procedural Lands - We want you to feel immersed with every step you take in-game, from diverse landscapes to endless exploration of levels that always feel fresh.

• Amplifier - The design of this new feature has been completed, and now it’s making its way to the tech and UIX implementation phases.

• Tactics Design - We’ve assigned a couple of our designers to perform R&D on ways to improve the Tactics experience, from the overall game design to how we distribute rewards. Expect some announcements soon around updates we will be looking to make!

For our UI/X Design team, their focus was on creating or improving the following elements:

• Full Blitz Battle Screens/UI.

• Standard/Prime Neftie Visual Indicators.

• Game Hub Player Profile and Navigation.

• Amplifier Web Tool.

• Rank Decay Notification System.

• SyncSpace Frontend.

ART

Our Environmental team has been putting in some serious work to craft the biomes that you will be exploring in the next version of Adventures. This has consisted mainly of the creation of various elements for the Swamp, and Ice biomes, but work has already begun on additional biomes as well. There is a lot more that we can’t share teasers of just yet (Portals, Amplifier Kiosk), but here’s some of their work from the past month!

Ice Biome Landmarks

New Plains Biome WIP

Crystal Fruit with VFX

We can’t get enough of the incredible work that our Character Artists continue to churn out. Of course, the Aurorian art upgrade is of top priority at the moment, with efforts led by our co-founder and Art Director, Yann. He is tasked with the tricky objective of reimagining the art direction of each of the many traits in an aesthetically pleasing manner while keeping everything cohesive when layered with other traits. So far, he has continued to impress us with his ability to adapt the collection, and we are just as excited as you all are to see our precious Aurorians elevated to their best selves!

Our other Character Artist, Claire, has been tackling the task of creating the various outfits that will be available as a customization option for base characters (non-Aurorians). In addition to this, she’s worked on some concept art for new Neftie variations, as well as new in-game icons and concept art for a starter egg.

Teaser of an Upgraded Aurorian

Avatar Customization Model Sheet

Shibark Model Sheet

Dinotusk Model Sheet

Blitz Icons WIP

Neftie Icons

Starter Egg Concept Art

We’ve seen a lot of new Blitz animations this past month internally, but we’re going to keep most of those to ourselves a bit longer until we can share more polished versions that give you a real sense of the action that is Blitz battles. Here are a few small ones that we are able to share though. Don’t tell the devs!

Bubble Popper’s Move Animation

Lucky’s Knockout Animation WIP

Bloom Tail’s Run Animation

During August, Dracurve paid a visit to our Rigger, who also began working on one of the first environmental landmarks that will be found in the Swamp biome of Adventures.

Rigging Dracurve

Rigging of the Lightning Rod Landmark

Motion Design/VFX

We are getting closer to having visual effects for Glitched and Shimmering Nefties in the game thanks to our talented VFX team.

Aside from this, they also worked on creating effects for the following scenarios throughout August:

• Blitz Battle Ranged Attacks.

• Blitz Battle Shield Elements.

• Door Portals.

• Crystal Collecting.

AUDIO

If you’ve ever wondered how our Audio team works their magic, here’s a short video that reveals what goes into music and SFX production. It’s an intriguing process to watch, and we’d highly recommend checking it out!

In terms of objectives for the month of August, the Audio team tackled the following:

• Blitz Battle Music and SFX.

• Crystal Fruit SFX.

• Swamp Biome Ambient and Miscellaneous SFX Integration

• Ice Biome Audio Track.

TECH

Following a July packed with deployments, the big release in August was one that finally brought custom matchmaking to Tactics! After that, it was back to business as usual for our Tech team.

Their tasks this month also consisted of the following:

Web:

• Game Hub Planning.

  • Navigation.

  • SyncSpace page.

• Quantum Egg.

• FAQ Page Updates.

• Bug Fixes and Optimizations.

• SyncSpace Improvements.

• Site Translations.

Backend:

• Gameplay

  • Implementation of the Full Blitz combat system.

  • Implementation of base avatars.

• Platform and Economy

  • Quantum Egg and Chocomint releases.

  • SyncSpace observability and alerting improvements.

  • Adding metrics for new applications migrated during cross-chain.

  • Standard item (non-NFT) feature design and planning.

  • Amplifier and Expeditions 1.5.

  • 1Kin support.

Game:

• Adventures

  • Full Blitz system.

  • Land system.

  • Base Avatar system.

  • Village activities R&D.

MARKETING

We started out August with a week-long event in Blanche to celebrate our expansion to Arbitrum. A lot of lessons were taken out of this event, which had the village packed for 7 days straight!

Following this event, we successfully hosted our first bracket-style mini-tournament exclusively for Aurorian holders, using the new Tactics custom matchmaking feature. We're already in the process of planning more tournaments, this time with distinct rules designed to appeal to more players. Stay tuned for more details!

As the month drew to a close, we commemorated the two-year journey of Aurorians with a teaser for the upcoming art upgrade, paired with an Aurorian giveaway that will be announcing a winner next week on Thursday! Details on how to enter can be found here.

Looking ahead, we are already gearing up for an exciting week during Breakpoint in Amsterdam this year. If you're planning to be in the area, do let us know! We’ll have team members present at the conference, as well as various side events where Breakpoint tickets won't be a requirement!

August has been a relatively calmer month as we close out the summer after an incredibly busy June and July. Regardless, our team has continued pushing forward with full force to deliver the best experiences for our community. We appreciate each and every one of you who have stuck with us on this journey. The best is yet to come!

Click here to 👉 Play Aurory 🕹️

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