#quetzal

[herpsandbirds]

Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno), male, family Trogonidae, order Trogoniformes, Costa Rica

photograph by Dick van Duijn

[mythauragame]

Development Update - December 2024

Happy New Year, everyone! We're so excited to be able to start off 2025 with our biggest news yet: we have a planned closed beta launch window of Q1 2026 for Mythaura!

Read on for a recap of 2024, more information about our closed beta period, Ryu expressions, January astrology, and Ko-fi Winter Quarter reward concepts!

2024 Year in Review

Creative

This year, the creative team worked on adding new features, introducing imaginative designs, and refining lore/worldbuilding to enrich the overall experience.

New Beasts and Expressions: All 9 beast expression bases completed for both young and adult with finalized specials for Dragons, Unicorns, Griffins, Hippogriffs, and Ryu.

Mutations, Supers and Specials: Introduced the Celestial mutation as well as new Specials Banding & Merle, and the Super Prismatic.

New Artist: Welcomed Sourdeer to the creative team.

Collaboration and Sponsorship: Sponsored several new companions from our Ko-Fi sponsors—Amaru, Inkminks, Somnowl, Torchlight Python, Belligerent Capygora, and the Fruit-Footeded Gecko.

New Colors: Revealed two eye-catching colors, Canyon (a contest winner) and Porphyry (a surprise bonus), giving players even more variety for their Beasts.

Classes and Gear: Unveiled distinct classes, each with its own themed equipment and companions, to provide deeper roleplay and strategic depth.

Items and Worldbuilding: Created a range of new items—from soulshift coins to potions, rations, and over a dozen fishable species—enriching Mythaura’s economy and interactions.

Star Signs & Astrology: Continued to elaborate on the zodiac-like system, connecting each Beast’s fate to celestial alignments.

Questing & Story Outline: Laid the groundwork for the intro quest pipeline and overarching narrative, ensuring that players’ journey unfolds with purposeful progression.

Code

This year, the development team worked diligently on refining and expanding the codebase to support new features, enhance performance, and improve gameplay experiences. A total 429,000 lines of code changed across both the backend and frontend, reflecting:

New Features: Implementation of systems like skill trees, inventory management, community forums, elite enemies, npc & quest systems, and advanced customization options for Beasts.

Optimizations and Refactoring: Significant cleanup and streamlining of backend systems, such as game state management, passive effects, damage algorithms, and map data structures, ensuring better performance and maintainability.

Map Builder: a tool that allows us to build bespoke maps

Regular updates to ensure compatibility with modern tools and frameworks.

It’s worth noting that line changes alone don’t capture the complexity of programming work. For example:

A single line of efficient code can replace multiple lines of legacy logic.

Optimizing backend systems often involves removing redundant or outdated code without adding new functionality.

Things like added dependencies can add many lines of code without adding much bespoke functionality.

Mythaura Closed Beta

We are so beyond excited to share this information with you here first: Mythaura closed beta is targeted for Q1 2026!

On behalf of the whole team, thank you all so, so much for all of the support for Mythaura over the years. Whether you’ve been around since the Patreon days or joined us after Koa and Sark took over…it’s your support that has gotten this project to where it is. We are so grateful for the faith and trust placed in us, and the opportunity to create something we hope people will truly love and enjoy. This has truly been a collaborative effort with you and we are constantly humbled by all of the thoughtful insights, engaging discussions, and great ideas to come out of this amazing community of supporters.

So: thank you again, it’s been an emotional and amazing journey for the dev team and we’re delighted to join you on your journeys through Mythaura.

Miyazaki Full-Time

Hey everyone, Koa here!

We’re thrilled to share some news about Mythaura’s development! Starting in 2025, Miya will be officially dedicating herself full-time to Mythaura. Her focus will be on bringing even more depth and wonder to the world of Mythaura through content creation, worldbuilding, and building up the brand. It’s a huge step forward, and we’re so excited for the impact her passion and creativity will have on the project!

In addition, I’ve secured 4-day weeks and will be working full-time each Friday to dive deeper into development. This extra push is going to allow us to keep moving steadily forward on both the art and code fronts, and with Miya’s expanded role, the next year of development is looking really promising.

Thank you all for being here and supporting Mythaura every step of the way. We can’t wait to share more as things progress!

Closed Beta FAQ

In the interest of keeping all of the information about our Closed Beta in one place and update as needed, we have added as much information as possible to the FAQ page.

If you have any questions that you can think of, please feel free to reach out to us through our contact form or on Discord!

Winter Quarter (2025) Concepts

It’s the first day of Winter Quarter 2025, which means we’ve got new Quarterly Rewards for Sponsors to vote on on our Ko-fi page!

Which concepts would you like to see made into official site items? Sponsors of Bronze level or higher have a vote in deciding. Please check out the Companion post and the Glamour post on Ko-fi to cast your vote for the winning concepts!

Votes must be posted by January 29, 2025 at 11:59pm PDT in order to be considered.

All Fall 2024 Rewards are now listed in our Ko-fi Shop for individual purchase for all Sponsor levels at $5 USD flat rate per unit. As a reminder, please remember that no more than 3 units of any given item can be purchased. If you purchase more than 3 units of any given item, your entire purchase will be refunded and you will need to place your order again, this time with no more than 3 units of any given item.

Fall 2024 Glamour: Diaphonized Ryu

Fall 2024 Companion: Inhabited Skull

Fall 2024 Solid Gold Glamour: Hippogriff (Young)

NOTE: As covered in the FAQ, the Ko-fi shop will be closing at the end of the year. These will be the last Winter Quarter rewards for Mythaura!

New Super: Zebra

We've added our first new Super to the site since last year's Prismatic: Zebra, which has a chance to occur when parents have the Wildebeest and Banding Specials!

Zebra is now live in our Beast Creator--we're excited to see what you all create with it!

New Expressions: Ryu

The Water-element Ryu has had expressions completed for both the adult and young models. Expressions have been a huge, time-intensive project for the art team to undertake, but the result is always worth it!

Mythauran Astrology: January

The month of January is referred to as Hearth's Embrace, representing the fireplaces kept lit for the entirety of the coldest month of the year. This month is also associated with the constellation of the Glassblower and the carnelian stone.

Mythaura v0.35

Refactored "Beast Parties" into "User Parties," allowing non-beast entities like NPCs to be added to your party. NPCs added to your party will follow you in the overworld, cannot be made your leader, and will make their own decisions in combat.

Checkpoint floor functionality ironed out, allowing pre-built maps to appear at specific floor intervals.

The ability to set spawn and end coordinates in the map builder was added to allow staff to build checkpoint floors.

Various cleanups and refactors to improve performance and reduce the number of queries needed to run certain operations.

Added location events, which power interactable objects in the overworld, such as a lootable chest or a pickable bush.

Thank You!

Thanks for sticking through to the end of the post, we always look forward to sharing our month's work with all of you--thank you for taking the time to read. We'll see you around the Discord.

[simplified-birds]

Simplified bird #5 - resplendent quetzal

( requested by @birdyverdie )

[thewindowofthesummerhouse]

Alex Ross

[plush-birds]

Resplendent Quetzal 💚 Sunlemon

[goldfishu]

Happy nameday to my wol

[wgm-beautiful-world]

Vaseau Quetzal by Charles Catteau for Boch Frères Ceramis. Ca. 1930. FRANCE

[thenamesblurrito]

human designs for Mantis, Quetzal, and Seraph! boy is it difficult to condense their robot shapes into human ones but i managed it i think, without making them look distorted sans clothes which to me is always the hardest part (the clothes are important to the silhouette and all but i want them to make sense even if they swap outfits, yanno?)

Mantis's kebaya isn't suuuuper accurate but it keeps in the right style and colors. if she were human for real her name would be Sri Putri Sudirman. Quetzal kinda came out lookin like a clown which isn't entirely inaccurate, and Seraph unfortunately has that Karen bob

[straziart]

bird and food studies

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Quetzal

Markos Achar, Ciudad De Mexico, Mexico

One Eyeland Photography Awards

[herpsandbirds]

Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno), male calling and displaying, family Trogonidae, order Trogoniformes, Costa Rica

photograph by Karsyn Sterns

[mythauragame]

Development Update - February 2025

Hello everyone! Miyazaki here with February's development update for Mythaura. We covered a lot of ground this month—it is probably the single biggest month for us in terms of development. We're excited to tell you about some of the things that we've finished up and look forward to sharing even more features with you in the future.

Note: Last month we'd said that we'd be posting about Wolfwasps...that's postponed until next month. We will be posting Wolfwasp lore as well as hosting a ✨radiant✨ giveaway.

Co-op Demo

Players will be able to explore the world of Mythaura—both overworld locations like Talon's Rest as well as the procedurally generated Wild Areas—in groups of up to three players. If there are only two players, you can add an additional Beast to the party lineup.

Players can no longer be added to a Party if they cannot access the Party Leader’s location (e.g., if the area is not yet unlocked in their game).

When a player joins a Party, they will automatically move to the Party Leader’s location. Any location change must be agreed upon by all Party members.

By default, only friends can invite you to a group. However, we are exploring options for players who may want to allow invites more freely or block them entirely.

If a player disconnects, they can freely reconnect and will be placed back in the same location.

Forums

The Forums are the heartbeat of Mythaura's social scene. Whether you're looking to share your most recent PVP builds, recruit people to join your adventuring party in the Waspwood, or talk about how excited you are for Patch 8 of BG3 to come out (not that anyone's excitedly waiting for that, of course), the Forums will have a place to house your discussion.

Mythaura's Forums feature a Reddit-style posting system, with the ability to create nested replies.

Forums will feature:

Trending threads: What are the most popular recent threads? This feature will showcase threads that are receiving the most engagement at the time.

Tags: Players will have the ability to tag their content, helping other players find and sort through relevant content.

Thread following: Keep updated on threads that caught your interest. We know you're waiting for your favorite artist to release the baby Basilisk Glamour they've been teasing for a while.

Markdown styling to customize your posts exactly how you'd like them

Bug Bounties

During our Closed Beta window, the Bug Reports category will be special in that it will function as an issue tracker. Each thread can be marked as a duplicate of another and have a status & severity tied to it, allowing users to follow a bug, reply to indicate they have also encountered a bug, and see what status a specific bug has.

Bug Statuses

New: The default status

Confirmed: A programmer has been able to replicate the bug and confirm its real

Duplicate: This is a duplicate of an already-existing bug

Fixed: It’s been fixed!

Closed: Closed without fixing, such as if this turned out to be user error.

Severities

Low: Typos, minor visual glitches, asset issues, and browser-specific issues that do not impact gameplay.

Moderate: Functional bugs that cause inconvenience but do not break core mechanics.

High: Major bugs that significantly impact gameplay, progression, or player experience.

Critical: Urgent security vulnerabilities, game-breaking exploits, data loss, or anything that could severely affect the integrity of the game or its economy.

To encourage thorough testing and reporting, players who discover and report new bugs will receive a Shard reward once a programmer has confirmed the issue. Rewards scale based on the severity of the bug. Only the first player to report a bug is eligible for a bounty—duplicate reports will not receive rewards. Players who provide exceptionally detailed reports, including steps to replicate the bug, may receive bonus Shards at the discretion of the development team. If a bug is found to be abused before being reported, the player may not be eligible for a bounty and could face consequences.

User Profiles

Beasts are at the very core of Mythaura gameplay, so we want to ensure that you have several ways that you can show off your cast of characters with the rest of the site.

Featured Beast Groups

The Featured tab allows players to showcase collections of their favorite Beasts in a slider. Players can group beasts into customizable folders with a name and background. Up to 5 groups can be featured on your profile. Show of your favorite beast collections!

Abode

The Abode contains all of a user's Beasts. The two-toned background on each of the Beasts is based on their combination of Elements.

Gallery

Galleries are collections of items users would like to showcase.

Galleries are a separate inventory, so an item in a Gallery cannot be added to the satchel or sold until removed from the Gallery.

Stats

The Stats page will showcase a player's statistics across the Gameplay, PVP, and Forums categories.

Dossiers

A literal blank canvas! Enter your custom HTML and CSS to make pages that are uniquely yours.

Winter 2024 Rewards Reveal

Winter 2024 Glamour: Shire Unicorn

Winter 2024 Companion: Ornaboros

Winter 2024 Solid Gold Glamour: Quetzal (Young)

Year of the Snake Companion

Happy Year of the Wood Snake, everyone! It seems that with the arrival of the New Year, a colorful companion has slithered its way into Mythaura.

For the remainder of the Ko-fi shop being open (through the end of 2025), the Auspicious Ophidia will be available for purchase in both its non-radiant and radiant forms. Sponsors of ALL levels may purchase these companions.

Kirin Expressions

This month, the expressions team—the ever-talented Luci, Sour, and Koa—finished all expressions for the adult and young Kirin. (I'd like to give a personal shoutout to Luci for making the "sad baby"/fourth expression so pitiful...what did they do to deserve feeling like that 😭)

Osstelids

Sponsored by: Lomon

Our final sponsored Companion comes from Lomon, who came to us with a wonderful design for a fairy + ferret creature. Thank you for sharing your vision with us and letting us implement it into the game!

Reminder: NPC Design Contest

As we begin to populate Talon's Rest, we'll need plenty of NPC designs—and that's where you come in!

We've created a Google Form for you to submit up to three Beast designs for consideration. Please be sure to include the Beast Creator code or else your entry will not be considered.

In addition to their design being used for a shopkeeper, winners will receive a bundle of useful items for their adventures through the local Wild Area, the Waspwood Forest.

The winners will receive*:

1x Soulshift Coin (breed-changing item) of your choice

1x Godspeed Potion

3x Lockpicks

3x Crude Torch

3x Travel Rations

3x Small Energy Potion

3x Small Health Potion

1x Beta Key

NOTE: * These rewards will not show up in your rewards lookup tool since that tool only looks up Ko-fi rewards, but they will be applied to your account directly!

Writing Updates

Main story three-act outline completed

Main story greenlit

Intro quest currently being storyboarded; script to follow

Mythaura v0.35

Co-op Gameplay: Players can now form and manage co-op groups. Integrated co-op battles and overworld interactions and adjusted co-op parties to allow global co-op in any location.

Forums Buildout: Built out functionality for forums such as categories, likes, replies, thread collapsing, tags, locking & pinning recent/popular threads, following and forum search.

Social Features: Introduced a friends list, online/offline status, and user search.

User Profiles: Profiles now include additional customization and feature a nice design.

User Settings UI: Initial build-out of the account settings screen.

Beast Grid Redesign: Overhauled the Abode Beast grid design.

Beast Groups: Beasts can be added into groups freely created by users and then features on their profile.

Battle UI Improvments: Cleanup of battle UI and implementation of informative ability tooltips.

Battle Running Mechanic: When running from a battle, the enemies now have a free round of attacks. Only one beast needs to initiate the run sequence.

Battle State Retrieval: When you close your window while in a battle, you will just load right back into your battle when you return. Multiplayer & PvP battles that are completed while away are excluded.

Class & Species-Specific Overworld Abilities: Introduced unique abilities based on class and whether the species flies.

Stealth Mechanics: Sneaking now limits elite enemy aggro range and encounter rates.

Elite Enemy Detection: Added elite enemy detection, idle behavior adjustments, and footstep sounds for improved immersion.

Boss Encounters: Introduced bosses in towns and wild areas.

Fishing Minigame: Added 28 unique fish, catchable in an interactive minigame.

User & Beast Dossiers: Introduced an initial version of the dossier system.

Settable Pronouns: Beasts can now have pronouns set that NPCs will use in dialog. By default, this is linked to your beast's gender, but can be changed. Users can also set pronouns, which will display in their profile and forum header in the future.

In-Game Currency Display: Shards and gold are now visible in the UI when shopping or viewing inventory.

Added Time-Based Passive Effects: Which will allow us to add time-based effects, such as using a torch and having Illumination for 5m.

Cipher Buildout: Began build of Cipher features.

Thank You!

Thanks for sticking through to the end of the post, we always look forward to sharing our month's work with all of you--thank you for taking the time to read. We'll see you around the Discord.

[quazart]

Dragon prompt

@year-of-the-echidna

Big lazy boi

[clockworkcreature]

Just about done airbrushing these feathers.

[flagwars]

Congratulations to Guatemala - Forest of Quetzal by /u/bmoxey for winning the r/Vexillology Contest Flag Wars!

It won against New Magnolia by /u/uptownxthot with 53.6 percent of the vote.

This flag was the winner of the November 2020 contest “Blue and White Switch.” This contest focused on redesigning a blue and white national flag without the colors blue and white. The flag redesigned Guatemala’s flag.

This tournament had a lot of close matches and popular flags, as every flag in it was already a contest winner for one of the r/vexillology subreddit’s monthly contests. Congratulations to u/bmoxey for designing the winning flag!

[purplishly-prosaic]

Finally finished Olrox! 💀🐍💜 Wanted something more ambitious/with more gravitas but this is the best I came up with... I'm sure I'll draw him again though.