State of Aurory Address - June 2022

Jul 04, 2022

June was another volatile month for the entire crypto space, with many capitulations at the retail and even institutional levels. If you have been in crypto long enough to remember the last big crash, you probably know that it can sometimes feel like the market will never come back. Now, we don’t have a crystal ball, but we do know that for those who are working on real products and solutions, and for the investors who have supported those ecosystems, times like this are usually just a cooldown period until the market eventually turns back around.

Bear markets are generally considered to be a good time for builders. It allows teams that managed their treasuries wisely, to build with less exposure while people take time off from the market. We are confident that with the pace we are going at, we will be favorably positioned for the next wave of crypto adoption, and will be one of the first games that people will recommend to anyone looking to enter the web3 gaming space.

After launching Aurorians in Nexus, the Battle Mode early access, and V1 of the Incubator in May, our team went right back to work throughout June to improve all of these features. We tested the game for a few weeks with some of our most loyal and active community members, before we opened access to all holders of an Aurorian NFT or +250 $AURY.

If you are a holder and have not gotten access to the Battle Mode yet, please reach out to Tim on Discord to get a wallet whitelisted.

Two weeks after releasing the first version of the Battle Mode, and after taking into consideration all of the valuable feedback we received from the community, we were able to deploy a patch with 80+ improvements!

The video below describes some of the biggest changes in the update. For the full patch notes, you can check out the “Patch Notes” channel on our Discord server.

Aurory @AuroryProject

The devs are coming in hot with 80+ improvements in this patch! Check the video for the full patch notes 📄 Who's ready for the next wave of early access? ✨

This patch (v0.2.2) needed a quick fix to keep things balanced. For this reason, our team deployed an updated v0.2.3 just three days after the release of v0.2.2. With this patch, we were able to notice an improvement in general performance and load time, buff damages, and healing, as well as implement Hype system upgrades.

Overall, the rest of June was a month that consisted mainly of testing, patching, and gathering community feedback for our team. We are aware that these phases won’t always feel the most exciting, and we know that many of you are patiently waiting for new patches and features to be deployed. Please understand that this is a necessary time for us to iterate, balance, and optimize. We appreciate all of you who have taken time to play the game, report bugs, and give honest feedback, as it helps us tremendously in creating the best game that we can all enjoy playing!

As Q2 comes to a close, we are looking forward to kicking off this next quarter with a ton of new improvements, events, and announcements. The next deliveries in the pipeline that we can be expecting will come in the form of the following (likely in this order):

Battle Mode improvements.
The introduction of a new Nefty.
V2 release of the Incubator.
Battle Mode ranking and rewards system.
Battle Mode open alpha launch.
Adventure Mode closed alpha launch.

DESIGN

The Design team has been working on integrating a new Nefty into the Battle Mode that you will be able to play with in July, but in the meantime, can you guess who it is?

After the heavy focus from the design team, throughout May, on preparing all of the Battle Mode ingredients, they have been shifting their focus to Adventure mode design tasks while continuing to implement the balancing of Battle mode mechanics.

Some of the discussions/objectives have consisted of the following:

Adventure Mode:

Narrative documentation (dialogues, objectives, on-screen text, characters, etc.)
Finalizing economic loop designs.
Death loop design and validation.
World map design validation.
Level design and map validation.
Discussions about energy and player progression.
Nefty egg drop rate discussions.
Persat Mountain Dialogue UI WIP

Battle Mode:

Implementation of new hype gain features, such as extra hype gain in the center of the grid, transferring hype to teammates, so hype isn't completely lost when a Nefty gets knocked out.
Implementation of the “Danger Zone”.
Combat balancing and bug fixes.
New Nefty integration.

*“Hype Zone” and “Danger Zone” WIP battlefield icons*

ART

The Environmental Art team has continued the polishing of various Adventure Mode locations and ingredients. This came in the form of:

General texture polishing.
Lighting adjustments.
Environmental prop designs and integration.
FUDs battle arena design and polishing.
World map polishing.

Our Character Artists have been pushing out loads of new Nefty skins of many varieties.

The next stage for these skins is to make their way to our lead 3D Character Artist for modeling. Some of these designs have already undergone that process and will be ready for integration soon.

In addition to new skins, we have some new Nefties being modelled, rigged, and animated in preparation to be integrated into the Battle Mode.

Also, Sam might have trouble walking at times…you’ll discover why soon.

TECH

Our front-end team has had their hands full with integrating UI updates and improvements to our web ecosystem, while the back-end team has been staying busy with the monitoring and testing of various server-side metrics to ensure that we can scale our game and matchmaking services in a stable way. They have also continued onboarding the newest members of the tech team.

Other tech-related tasks and priorities throughout June have consisted of the following:

Back-end Services:

Working on providing match data internally.
Adding database backups.
Transitioning to newer infrastructure (EKS).
Balancing update - storing raw stats for the Marketplace and item back-ends utilizing SDK updates.
Scaling the player base.

Infrastructure

Game server deployment pipeline analysis.
Matchmaking observability improvements.
Services and game servers migration to new AWS accounts.
Initial monitoring setup for migrated services.
Migration of the game servers and basic services to Kubernetes.

Web3

Reworking Nefties DB storage.
Refactoring Incubation system.
DNA SDK updates.
Expedition reward updates.
Airdrop mechanism redesign.
New website navigation menu UI.
Integration of better data live sync through server sent events.
New Expedition Rewards
New Navigation Menu UI WIP

MARKETING

We are happy to report that our first video project with Invisible North is now ready for release. As you can imagine, it was a huge piece of work, and we’re excited to share it with you all!

We are still working out some details on the content distribution end, as we want to make sure that we can draw as many eyeballs as possible, especially in these current market conditions. Stay tuned for any teasers as we lead up to our first official trailer release!

After two weeks of you all testing ‘in the dark’, we shared a Battle Guide to help you all master Aurory! Keep in mind that there are still many features that have yet to be implemented. Things like tacticians, which will determine your Nefties’ starting positions and some passive abilities; Power Stones, unlocking new tactical abilities during the fight; and a pool of abilities, meaning that Nefties from the same species won’t all have the same skills, will all be added with new patches. We will make sure to update the battle guide with any relevant new information as these new features are deployed.

Aurory @AuroryProject

If you're tired of getting rekt in Battle Mode, study up on our new guide and use it to start scheming your winning strategy 🏆 aurory.substack.com/p/aurory-battl… The guide covers important game mechanics, creature abilities, and gives insight into our Nefty DNA system! 🧬

aurory.substack.comAurory Battle Guide ⚔️So you’ve entered the Nexus because you want to get some reps in on the battlefield. Here’s what you should know!

As we wait for Battle Mode rewards to be implemented, we have been thinking of ways that we can reward players who have really studied the game and have been putting the time in to improve their skill level. We decided, what better way to do that than hosting a competition! Our team is currently working on implementing an upgraded matchmaking system that would allow us to hold a separate “league” for a competition like this. We are still working out the details of the best way to go about it all with the current infrastructure we have, but you can expect to have a Battle Mode based competition with some awesome rewards announced soon!

We’ve also been working with KuCoin to launch a giveaway campaign to celebrate the opening of our Battle Mode to the public. Stay tuned for the announcement, as there will be some big prizes to be won!

The DAO has been gaining traction with the newly elected council. These nine community members have been putting their heads together to lay the proper foundations to allow for easy, democratic, DAOry operations. Their first proposition has already been put to a vote. If you are an Aurorian holder, join us on Discord and make your vote count!

DAOry - Aurory DAO @daoryaurory

🗳️ Proposal - Should DAOry buy Aurorians worth the equivalent of 5% of $SOL in treasury❓ 🟢 Yes 🔴 No ⏰ Closes July 6th Our 1⃣st proposal, discussed w/ the community & finalized by council, has been put up for an official vote 🫡 Please vote in Aurory Discord DAO channels

That just about sums up the month of June for the Aurory team! For those of you that are still here with us, stay tuned for a Q3 full of new releases and updates. As always, we appreciate all of your support and can’t wait for you to see what’s coming next!

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