News about Aurory & the team
Dear Aurory community,
First of all, our team wants to thank all of you — our loyal community — for the outstanding support we’ve received from you over the previous weeks. You’ve helped Aurory cross over the 100,000 followers mark on Twitter and we are very grateful to have such a dedicated community rooting for us.
A short recap first though for all the newcomers among you! Our August mint was very hyped and we were inundated with demand for the Aurorian NFT, so much so, that we remained the largest mint in terms of participation numbers for quite a long time afterwards (until eventually being surpassed by the Mekaverse!). A few issues popped up on mint day though, with the most (in)famous one being the mint price set to 1 SOL instead of our advertised 5 SOL. It was a difficult day for everybody but an essential one as it taught us many good lessons both about ourselves and also managing the community — the heart of every project.
Ever since then, we have been trying to do better and to learn from that. One month and a half later, the Aurorians have now surpassed the 500,000 SOL (about $75,000,000 USD!) volume on Solanart (the leading marketplace currently for NFTs on Solana). This and the active, vibrant and friendly participation on the discord servers and social media, has demonstrated to us that we really are building something more special than just a game. We are really proud of you guys!
We have been active in enabling the Aurorians to be traded on the many newer NFT marketplaces on Solana (ie. Magic Eden, Alpha Art, Digital Eyes) and even the recently launched FTX.US NFT marketplace where Aurorians had the chance to feature as one of the first collections listed on it. We recommend checking it out — you don’t need to be a US citizen to have an account.
Throughout the month of September, we were also busy developing a partnership with the amazing crew behind TeamSoloMidFTX (TSMFTX), the famous US-based professional esports organization. It was a real pleasure to be able to collaborate with them to form a strong mutual relationship where we will be able to grow and benefit from their support, knowledge and connections.
In the past two months, we’ve released an introduction video about the PvP mechanisms, and early solo game mode footage demonstrating an example of questing systems. As usual, our position towards marketing has been only to use in-game footage — everything displayed in them are actual development assets. Doing so not only allows us to keep expectations realistic but also allows for more accurate community feedback along the way. Of course, at some stage we may release animated lore video(s) to flesh out world lore and encourage more fan creations/contributions.
Talking about development, we have expanded our team and currently have more than 20 active people working on the game. Creating an original game is both a challenging and exciting process as it involves the collaboration of many people of differing talents to build something from scratch — you cannot simply copy the code of another project.
By expanding our team, we are hoping to improve our efficiency and reduce development time. Our goal has been to deliver a strong product for our community as soon as possible, building on feedback and developing the potential of our game further (through more lore and universe building, alongside new and varied game modes).
Many amazing individuals have joined us this month but we are still hiring. If you are interested in joining us, you can contact at jobs@aurory.io
We proudly welcome to the Aurory team:
Jonathan: He has 19 years of production experience with companies such as Gameloft, EA and Ubisoft. His extensive background in production and business development allowed him to reach new audiences during the Microsoft Kinect era, building multiple successful partnerships with Samsung, NVIDIA, AMD and Humana. He has shipped several AAA titles, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Immortals Fenyx Rising, Far Cry 6, Far Cry Primal, Far Cry 4, Just Dance 3 (Kinect), Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game, and Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. His acumen in AAA game production is a crucial asset in Aurory’s shift towards ever more mainstream game development.
Keith: 3D character artist. Keith has been working as a 3D artist in the games industry for over 6 years. He loves creating cute characters full of personality. When he’s not doing art, Keith enjoys playing board games and RPGs.
Manish: With 10+ years experience in multimedia and video games, Manish has worked with several studios (such as Ludia and Moment Factory). Manish is Belgian but Montrealer at heart — you can spot him at any metal show or playing Breath of The Wild for the upteenth time. His skills with UX and UI will create a seamless yet powerful user experience for all players.
Troy: Tech Art/Level Artist. Originally studying 3D modeling, he became interested in Tech Art before graduating. He is usually working on creating shaders, visual effects and basic animation, along with level art. He also likes to leave easter eggs in the games he works on.
Tigran: Rigger. Making games since 2004, older than Unity. He rigs characters for a living, and his definition of it is pretty clear : “if you don’t know what rigging is, don’t worry about it, neither does most of my own industry”. He plays games, walks his dogs and tries to be nice to people (which is not an easy task).
Vira: Graduated from NAD (School of Digital Arts, Animation and Design) with an emphasis in 2D animation during their college years. A lover of all genres of cinema and animation with a heart of a gamer since the beginning of her childhood!
Marvin: Game Developer. Joined Aurory to work on the gameplay part of the project.
Edwin Jang: 2D concept artist. Edwin has been working as a concept artist for 5 years creating characters, props, environment and marketing art for the interactive game industry and film animation. When not creating stuff, he loves to watch cop shows and plays ping pong, hoping one day to become a ping pong master.
Maxime: 3D artist. Maxime has been doing 3D art for more than a decade.
He’s currently working full-time on a AAA title at Ubisoft Montreal and he’s helping part-time on Aurory. He enjoys creating cartoony stuff so he’s enjoying himself with the colorful world of Aurory. In his free time, he likes to play video games (you bet), listening to podcasts and going out for stand up comedy shows.
Jean-Sébastien: 3D Artist. Jean-Sebastien has worked on diverse mobile, PC and VR Games over the past 6 years. His interest for the game industry comes from way back when his main hobby was playing video games. He likes spending his off time watching horror movies and painting miniatures.
Greg: Game Developer. He has been working in the game industry for 5 years and is currently helping with the PVE part of the game! Big animal lover.
Once again, thanks for the amazing support! The details about our IDO will be out tomorrow on a Medium article as well. We hope you will stick around for a long time.
