Hey Everyone!

With the first half of the year done and dusted, we figured it was time to come out and share what we have been working on! Oh man, has it been a busy year so far, so hopefully this update gives you a great behind-the-scenes look at what our team has been working on.

While we are still open to funding (a never-ending journey, it seems), we have been hard at work leveraging the resources we have. Without further ado, let's look at some of the projects and the state of the studio!

Studio Update

We are still chugging along, we have pulled back from hunting funding so aggressively to instead focus on refining what we have and exploring some unique opportunities. One such opportunity is the upcoming Xbox Game Camp.

Our team has applied to participate in the camp to hopefully receive insight and support on how to take Ravenwood to the next level. With mentors from Xbox subsidiary studios and publisher pitch support provided by the ID @ Xbox team, we are excited to see how that could support our team and the region as a whole.

While we will not know if we are participating in the event till mid-July, this event is bound to be a huge success for our region and support our efforts to educate local Angel investors in the potential of game studios located in Michigan.

Special thanks to Christopher Douglas and Peter Zetterberg for bringing this awesome opportunity to the region and supporting the Michigan game development community. Check them out and give them a follow on LinkedIn!

Supporting Students

Supporting local students is a sentiment that is baked into our DNA here at Azure Ravens, with multiple members of our team being educators, this just makes sense. While we do not have the funding to support apprentices at this time, we have found a fun way to support some rising talent while expanding our marketing reach.

We have partnered with Daedalus Studios to help bring their games to Steam. This collection of students has created two phenomenal 2D RPG games while in college and polished them to a state that is fitting to launch a new studio.

While we are unable to support them beyond the initial marketing support and process support, it's a great opportunity to provide mentorship and guidance.

There will be a whole blog/interview posted with the team once their games are live for all of you to enjoy and check it out!

Current Contracts

Currently, we are just maintaining our current contract load with minor changes to length and engagement. We are excited to announce that we aim to participate in Steam Nextfest with Forked Up this October! It will be a great opportunity to playtest the demo and give some much-needed feedback for this chaotic party game.

If you are looking for a group to play with, let me know! I am always down to play a few rounds.

We are open to contract if anyone knows a Brand or person looking to develop a Game, Fortnite Map, or Roblox Experience, we are more than happy to chat!

Our UGC Adventures

As you all know, we dove headfirst into the Fortnite UEFN ecosystem and have built a few different experiences, with our most successful one being Dodgeball Blitz. We applied for Epic's Picks a while back and are waiting to hear if we have made it through selection. This would be an excellent opportunity to expand our presence in the ecosystem and open us up to taking on branded work, so we remain optimistic and continue to update the game based on player feedback.

We have some cool updates planned for Q3, so keep an eye out for any news on that front.

We have also begun exploring Roblox and building unique experiences within the Roblox ecosystem. We hope to leverage this as an opportunity to explore potential ideas while at the same time building up an audience for when we start marketing Ravenwood and Forked Up. Roblox also provides a unique opportunity to create and sell cosmetic assets from our games to a wider audience. Serving as both marketing and additional revenue generation.

We will keep you updated as we explore and create new things!

Ravenwood Update

As we are approaching another major playtest available on Steam for all investors and registered playtesters, we have been hard at work with overhauls to our combat framework. We are excited to show off our new systems and, more importantly, build out the rest of our combat lifestyles from this!

Art Updates

While it's not the most interesting to see, we spent a few days going through every single model and making sure we had them all in and scaled correctly. We also took the time to optimize some shaders so that we can keep the framerate high. 

During this process, we found that some assets that were complete had been missed! This goes to show that creating systems for checking and confirmation while on a fast-moving project can be essential. This has led to us carving out an hour or so every week just to make sure that everything has been implemented and set up correctly. 

Our art team is so excited for you all to explore the new map and the updated world of Ravenwood! 

Combat Updates

Our combat has received a major overhaul to its under-the-hood framework. We had previously used plugins to handle some of the initial logic for combat, but have since built on top of our existing codebase to make our combat systems much more modular and flexible. We have been hard at work getting ranged combat into the game for our initial testing, which will be the focal point for two of our future Combat Lifestyles: Ranger and Mage.

Our combat framework has been separated out into multiple components that the player will be able to leverage under the hood, such as logic for both melee and ranged combat, defensive logic for blocking or dodging, a flexible ability system to work in conjunction with our lifestyles, and more! These components give us a ton of flexibility with how we implement our functionality for combat, for both the player and for NPCs as well!

This was also vital for allowing us to eventually have player Companions that can leverage these components, which will be important for our other future Combat Lifestyle: the Tamer. This lets us build a functional AI companion that will have one state of logic as an enemy, and can use that same combat tree and functionality against the player, or as a summoned ally as a Tamer.

User Interface Updates

We have also made major updates to our User Interface! This includes cleaning up the transitions and layout of our menus in Journal, including our Quest Journal, Inventory, Lifestyles, Relationships, and our new Calendar! The Calendar will follow along our four seasons in Ravenwood: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, and will show off holidays, birthdays, and other major events happening around town.

Besides updates to our menus and journal, we have also added in new Popup! Now, whenever you complete a crafting mini-game, finish a quest, or Rank Up in one of your Lifestyles, you’ll be greeted with a new glorious pop-up to show off your success! These popups will showcase vital information, such as the quality of the item you crafted, what new rank tier you achieved, and even if you have unlocked new abilities or recipes! We hope you like them and cannot wait to unveil more juicy pop-ups and effects later on!

Closing Thoughts

While this year's funding landscape has not changed much (I am looking at all the LinkedIn posts that said just hold out till 24, then 25), we have changed massively. Our team has resolidified our commitment to getting the games done and exploring every opportunity that has come our way.

I am looking forward to announcing the launch of the “Forked Up!” Steam page while also sharing the updated gameplay trailer of Ravenwood this July. I am also looking forward to hosting a playtest in the coming weeks for both games, so be on the lookout for that information!

As always, should you have any questions or wish to chat with me personally, please feel free to email me at Reeves.corbin@AzureRavens.com or schedule a Zoom call with me using Investor Calendar Scheduling.

Thanks for your continued support!

Corbin John Reeves

CEO & Creative Director

Azure Ravens Entertainment LLC