Dev Blog - June 2022

June 30, 2022

Dev Blog - June

Summer has arrived for many of us, and we hope everyone is enjoying its start! We are ending the month of June with our latest Dev Blog!

As a short reminder, we’ll be releasing these at the end of each month to make sure our community is up to speed with the happenings of our team as we continue the development of Ilysia.

ICYMI: More Additions To The Team!

I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome our newest additions to Team 21 Studio! Please join me in welcoming Norm and Kyle!

Some short and sweet words from Norm: "Navy vet, Fullsail Grad, and alum of Cartoon Network, EA Sports(Madden console & mobile), Zynga Sports 365, Fanduel, CastAR, and more. Loves gaming, programming, APA billiards, his gorgeous lady, and his kids."

And some words from Kyle who is joining our narrative team: “I’ve known that I wanted to do storytelling since I had any concept of career goals. Creating a world and characters that people can develop a connection with feels like a worthwhile pursuit to me. I got a degree in creative writing, as well as a minor in theater, from the University of Nevada, Reno. I’ve worked with groups local to my area, such as indie filmmakers or a dance troupe, as well as creative groups with members living across the country and world. I’m thrilled to be a part of this team and tell some engaging tales within this fantasy world everyone has been passionately working on to bring to life.”

Development Update

Hi everyone, Arthur here,

Alpha 2 was a smashing success! We had thousands of players show up, they helped our team tackle some bugs, and gave us some great feedback to aid us in our steps to Beta 1. Our dev team has been hard at work getting creating new features for players to test, some of those being mounts, new classes, player-owned content, a PvP zone, increasing draw distance for mobile VR, and more of the social aspects that players come to expect from MMORPGs.

World and Character Building - What has the art team been up to?

Last month we looked at what it takes to go from concept art to in-game assets. This month we dive a little deeper into new projects the team has been up to.

Introducing The Igara, these creatures began life as a redesign of our Tokas, seen in Alpha 2, but we decided to make them a new mob instead and leave the Toka as the smaller and cuter mobs they already were.

The Igara

Additionally, Our character artists have been adding to our already wonderful avatars, creating new hairstyles and avatar customization options, as well as adding two new races that will appear in our upcoming Beta 1.

Elf hair

From Seth, one of our Character Artists:

"My main inspiration in concepting these hairstyles was looking at modern trends for braiding hair as well as gaining inspiration from Viking culture and hairstyles! I wanted to play with different silhouettes and styles while still making sure they feel connected and belonged together in the same realm for the Elves. I am excited for the players to see the finished styles!"

From concept art to in-game assets, our art team continues to flesh out the world of Ilysia by introducing unique flora and terrain props to the world. Below are some examples of flora you might come across in the game!

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And last but not least! Some Toka environmental prop concept art!

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#Music That Motivates

It doesn't matter if you are writing code from scratch, working on a cool new character design, modeling game assets, or sculpting terrain. We all need music from time to time to either motivate us or keep us going late into the night. Our team is made up of a diverse group of people and our taste in music can be just as diverse. We asked each team member what their current top three songs are at the moment and this is what they came up with.

Arthur | President and Chief Creative Officer

Xander | Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer

Geoffrey | Co-Founder and Chief Narrative Officer

Tyler | Chief Executive Officer

Jared | Developer

Josh | Developer

Samer | Developer

Jason G | Developer

Norm | Developer

Jason S | Developer

Kyle | Narrative Writer

Ralph | Environmental Artist

Kevin | Character Artist

Seth | Character Artist

Pam | 3D Artist

Abbie | 3D Artist

Sam | Community Manager

Justin | Composer

Why yes, I did in fact place all these songs into a YouTube playlist and it might just be the most chaotic thing in existence, enjoy!

👉 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6mhsVZoqnl6mNPfgcQXVYrAymk7RlKuK

Community Spotlight

Our Discord continues to grow and we’ve recently reached 10k users! If you’re not in our Discord, we highly encourage you to join us! Talk about all things Ilysia, VR, and other various topics.

Not only do you get to meet others excited about Ilysia, it’s also an opportunity to score a key for our upcoming Beta. Users can self-assign the giveaway role for a chance to be entered in the drawings when they surface!

We also on occasion host some hilarious game nights with the community and encourage users to jump into those as well!

Now thats out of the way, let's take a peek at some community artwork! We are going back a bit to showcase some older pieces that at the time didn't get the spotlight they deserve!

Nervly7805 02 Drawing by Nervly#7805