Auratus

[ilrak]

Auratus is an upcoming game where you play as a school of goldfish, establishing species dominance in a seemingly new pond. Neutral goldfish are available to help you as you try to please the "gods" for special rewards. These fish seem to know something about the pond, however, that seems to reveal a tumultuous past. The greeting you get at the entrance to the pond from the old Common, Goldie, seems to back this up.

But no matter, you need to build a large school so that the gods are happy with you!

Features to be included by opening in 2015/2016

• Two starter breeds: Common and Ryukin
• Markings that can be inherited
• Three forms of currency: gravel (basic currency), favor (rare dropped currency), and river rocks (premium currency)
• Crafting/Alchemy feature to get new items
• Questing (Last one to be added, may be a 2016 feature)
• Stats (in preparation for the battle system in Mys 1.5?)
• New breeds added once a month

And much more!

Starter breeds:
Common (Modeled by a Female with the layered markings)

Ryukin (Modeled by a male with Calico Markings)

 

[ilrak]

The site is still under construction (no registration allowed yet), but the forum is open! http://auratusghoti.com/forum/index.php

Just added NPC characters to the forum page and am figuring out how to get them added on the item shop pages (and maybe do a background for those too).

Also, working on an item that will randomly change color, as well as one that will change breed and markings. >> I'd rather have that be the way that people get new breeds or markings than buying fish with those and breeding them, but we'll see how it goes!

 

[Hall of Famer]

It looks very nice so far, you have interesting ideas for your site and I hope you keep up the excellent work so far. ^^

 

[ilrak]

Thanks so much! ^v^

Code I most likely am going to need help on (though, right now I can't pay in anything but art/promotion due to life events going on right now):

A Questing feature (with possibly a battling feature)
Marking/Gene changers (so someone can take a basic colored fish and turn it into a fish with markings)
Secondary and tertiary currency (tertiary currency is only given at random or possibly from eating certain food, secondary currency can be purchased for RL money or found randomly)
Stats!

Umm ... there might be more to come, I just can't think of it right now.

 

[ilrak]

Just added an extremely basic Explore feature using textadventures.co.uk. Until I can afford a coder, that will have to do.

Next up will be adding more items that will be dropped during the quests (currently, promo code appears that can be entered to get the items). Some of these items are food, others can be used for crafting.

Might get a wiki set up soon that explains the backstory more. Once most of the site is in place, I'll open up for Alpha testers. After Alpha, there will be a kickstarter.

Still need:
Secondary and Tertiary currencies
Better explore feature
More marking and breed changers (after new breeds are designed)

 

[ilrak]

In memory of two beloved pets who passed on this week, here are two of the NPCs for the game.

Alex is the Shetland Sheepdog who belongs to "The Gods" and introduces new "breed changing food" to the pond. This is who you would buy the breed change food that has common currency from.

New Fish is one of the fish who survived the "First Pond" and is in charge of seasonal items. These items cycle out every month (I'm still working out how they will be obtained exactly, if it's a season currency or not).

Other NPCs (except for the Raven and Goldie) are also based on pets (and I'll post more about them later).

 

[ilrak]

May have figured out a secondary (and possibly tertiary currency)! Now I just need to integrate one with paypal xD

I may need help with coming up with a new "Welcome new members page" where one could adopt two random adoptables to start their school with. I'm also working on a 2048 came with the fish breeds.

 

[ilrak]

Just redid the shading and colouring of the common Goldfish Female and tweaked the colour palette a bit.



On Page 8 of my design doc now and I think I will need to put out an ad for a programmer or find a programmer to help co-found the site because this project is getting big and has reached thelimit of my programming knowledge. xD I'll be putting an ad out soon for Staff

 

[ilrak]

Thanks so much!

I'm currently looking for staff now, because I definitely cannot do this on my own. I'm looking for a programmer/developer and someone who is versed in Web Design/CSS.

Unfortunately, right now, the positions are not paid (but when the site is up and running, they definitely will be), but I want the people who take those positions to be co-owners in the game (we can work out how much share in the game everyone wants. I want everyone to benefit from it). Contact through skype is preferred. Staff must be at least 18 years old.

If anyone is interested, please let me know via PM!

 

[ilrak]

Back with some art updates! No programming updates yet (My husband's friend is going to look at the script and see what he can do with it for me - though, I hope the new version comes out soon so he can work with that since he's more javascript oriented than php).

First, some breed art:

Breeds who have had art either finished (markings and all) or mostly finished:
Common (Female, Male)
Ryukin (Female, Male)
Crown Pearlscale (Female, Male)
Bristol Shubunkin (Female, Male)
Egg (Female, Male)
Tosakin (Female, Male)
Lionhead (Female, Male)

Breeds who have one gender finished:
Ranchu (Male)
Oranda (female)
Telescope (Male)

Also, on the alpha forum (which can be joined until alpha testing starts - and members of this forum are guaranteed to alpha test the game), we have a glimpse at the Alpha Tester only apparel, Some markings, and a skin contest!

 

[ilrak]

Working on adding referrals in (or seeing if I could do it myself, rather) ... I got the words "referrals" and "referrer" to appear in the profile, but nothing else. xD Back to the drawing board.

Also, finished base art for the female ranchu.