Kind of the same as the old blog smell. We have released that brand new website, which is constantly being updated and being iterated on. As we move towards pre-alpha, we at o7 Studios are excited for the things to come, but we also knew that we were going to need a lot to succeed. We needed a home for when we grew large enough that we needed an official place to be. We needed a place for others to come and check out all of the work that we’ve done on the AetherForged project, as well as be informed as to future happenings, like maintenance and a pre-alpha date. Finally, we needed a place so that when the game started taking off, we could add you to the growing list of those that want to get their hands on AetherForged. This is exactly what we needed, for many a reason, and not just for the fans. This blog, Melvyn will give some of his thoughts as to the challenges we faced and the things we wanted to do with this website.

“As development has barrelled headlong over the previous number of weeks, and as we strike each Pre-Alpha goal off of the checklist, Myself and Gigi decided to look at another avenue to represent the game and bring news and information to our community; a traditional Website.

With the intention of releasing in-game information and providing a hub of resources and Lore throughout development, the Website was to be designed with multifaceted purposes both required now and forward into our release schedule. The primary focus being current and up to date information regarding the game, and to create a compendium of sorts, of our vast lore and design. As progress continues, the website should be maintained and updated to include account creation and maintenance, community-based forums and more.

As we were building the site from the ground up and bespoke, we knew we’d be faced with a number of challenges in the interim, from Graphical Design to functionality and expansion. I took some time to research and iterate based on various websites in the same vein, attempting to achieve the same level of clarity and purpose.”

Iteration on the as-of-yet unavailable links – note, as of yet 😉

“The colour scheme and graphical fidelity of both o7 and Aetherforged had been in flux for some time, so by tying a website together (alongside working on in-game graphical designs, the User Interface, Client etc), if I was able to create and reference motifs between “outer game” artwork and “inner game”, the familiarity and cohesion of the website, game client, interfaces, and upcoming designs would be apparent.”

“The header is based on a faux Parallax scrolling effect made popular in 2D animation throughout the 80’s, most recently made popular by Firewatch (Campo Santo). The colours were chosen twofold; we feature a distinct Green-Blue in-game and across all of our graphics, contrasted by brushed golds and brass colours. Of this, I picked 3 hues of each and grafted gradients that would be used in the other areas. Coupled with the Serif font ‘Cinzel’ and fractal-based button designs using these gradients, were we able to create a website that incorporated leitmotifs of in-game design while maintaining the user-friendly and accessible nature we set out to accomplish.”

“Worth mentioning is the iteration I did on the logo, an arduous process attempting to retain the original themes but introduce the new artwork and architecture, it’s been a long road leading from the Comic-Sans days of o7. As the game development grows, so does its art style – In-game and out. Recent iterative passes have proven popular amongst the team, and laid the groundwork for the art direction and creative decisions we’ll need to make moving forward.”

Melvyn, Creative Lead, o7 Studios

Implications for the future

This website will have a positive impact on our workflow and our ability to serve you as the fans. As the Community Manager of AetherForged, I’ve been working on this blog for the past two months now. While it was certainly workable, WordPress uses HTML, whereas the new website uses Markdown. For myself, this is a huge advantage as I’m used to Markdown already from my time with Reddit. In addition, Markdown is also a more versatile syntax. In addition, the preview is more responsive so I’m more confident in what is posted on the website visually. It’s also important to me that we now have a website that I can start tracking statistics for this website. I want to know what content is resonating with you and, therefore, it’s vital that we have our own website.

What say you? Did we accomplish our goals? Let us know, through our usual channels of communication.