The AETHERION development diary, from the first connections to the world all the way to launch.
This is the first version of the official website. For now it is the place to follow the game's development and get to know the world of Aetherion before launch.
Account creation, login, the shop and the market already have their own pages, but they are not connected to the game yet. Everything in those sections is a demo and is marked as such.
The KYNETRA Studios team finished the first full connection test: the client logged in to an account, received the character list and entered the test world.
The next step is drawing the map on screen and letting characters move. There is no public launch date yet.
The game will be played on its own client, developed by KYNETRA Studios. The login screen already features the official logo and artwork.
When a version is available to download, it will appear on the information page.
On April 10, 2024, we started with a 16x16 pixel knight. Two years later we have terrain, creatures, items, spells and a test village.
Thank you to everyone following since the beginning. There is still a long way to launch, and news will keep coming here.
The start of the year went into spreadsheets and internal progression tests. We want the first levels to go by quickly and growth to keep mattering later on.
The numbers will still change a lot, and the server's experience rate will be announced closer to launch.
As the world took shape, we started drawing the interface: health and mana bars in the corner, a minimap and an action bar with items and spells close at hand.
The goal is a clean screen that always keeps the world in front.
It was the first time every piece showed up together: houses, a stone square, paths, a river and creatures roaming nearby.
The test showed what works and what still needs tuning, such as how houses read against the grass and how wide the paths should be.
After the slime from the combat prototype, we drew an ether-touched variant and the first goblin, with big ears and a leather tunic.
They are early-journey creatures, meant for a player's first levels.
The first spell is a burst of ether around the character, animated in three frames. It helped us test how effects are drawn over sprites and terrain.
The magic system is still at an early stage. Costs, cooldowns and schools of magic will be defined later on.
We closed the year with the first set of items and a simple inventory, with slots that accept stackable items such as coins and potions.
Each item got its own sprite in the same style as the hero, so everything feels like part of the same world.
We built a small arena to test the basics of combat: picking a target, attacking, seeing damage pop up over the creature and following both health bars.
It is still a draft. Attack speed, damage and targeting will change a lot before the final version.
The world of Aetherion will be built from tiles. The first four are grass, dirt path, stone and water, all drawn to fit together without visible seams.
They came along with the first tree, which helped us test how tall objects sit on top of the ground.
With the first sprite done, the next step was making it move. The cycle has four frames: standing, left foot forward, standing again and right foot forward, with a slight body bob on each step.
Four frames may not sound like much, but it is enough for the motion to read clearly from a distance, which is how players will see their character most of the time.
Before writing any game code, the team started with the look. The first sprite is a simple knight with a closed helmet, golden pauldrons and a belt that already hints at the project's blue and gold palette.
We also tried color variations on the same drawing to see how different armor sets will look in the world.
On April 10, 2024, KYNETRA Studios began developing AETHERION. It was the first step of a project that is still being built today.
News from each stage is published here.
