Heralds of the Avirentes is celebrating its second anniversary!

Another year of our exciting common adventure passed, and it brought us some new difficult challenges to cope with, as well as forged new strong bonds with the game’s characters alike. And, most importantly, Azaries is continuing her quest to fulfill her lifetime dream!

On the 30th of May two years ago, one more small yet cozy, colorful and exciting game about dragon-like characters joined the Steam community. For the majority of players, it was yet another project that hatched from eternal pre-alpha version, but for us it was a truly special day – the day that changed the life of our entire team forever. On this day our dear child – Heralds of the Avirentes – was finally ready to reveal itself to the world, and our brave little daughter – Azaries Amnera – was ready to begin her adventures and start exploring the amazing and charming world of Nanraas!

Has anything changed for the past two years? Definitely. We successfully rolled out countless content and QoL updates, greatly expanded the world and introduced many new characters to interact with. In autumn 2025, we even launched our very first expansion – The Beexen’s Tale – a complete standalone story that brings even more Halloween-themed adventures, greatly expands the lore of Nanraas, brings tons of top-notch exclusive content, and is closely connected with the original game, allowing the players to enjoy the local story and even carryout some bonuses to the main campaign!

From theory to practice: how an idea turned into full-fledged Early Access release

The idea of our own game has been in the air since 2019. However, I had no idea my diploma project with a couple of demo scenes featuring some of my original characters would transform into something absolutely magnificent in future. I was just an artist making a couple of artworks when I had some free time, and I thought I’ve climbed my personal Everest. I’ve not been thinking that globally until I started asking myself some complex questions like “What would I do if those classical digital platform for artists would start changing or disappearing?”, “There will remain only a few dozens of fine digital artworks of my entire collection, won’t there?”, “How will people find and appreciate the world of Nanraas then?”, “Will anyone be able to see my works if all those platforms vanish?”.

Note: The influx of AI-based services for artists, as well as unstoppable invasion of relatively cheap AI-generated content, the majority of digital platforms for artists indeed whether got drowned in the limitless ocean of AI-assisted/fully generated artworks, or straggling to remain afloat by balancing between publishing the unique original content and promoting commercial AI-services, so my decision was right after all.

Steam post imageSteam post imageSteam post imageScreenshots from one of the very first game version

Thus, we’ve finally made up our minds to start developing the game. There was no issue choosing the genre – visual novel (VN) was almost the only option available for solo coding and production of 90% of art and assets with minimal dependence on outsource, since the #1 enemy of almost every ambitious indie-project is quarrel between team members, which almost always leads to the project shutdown and its legacy being lost forever, as well as the reputation of its former developers. One of the unique core mechanics that has been unanimously approved by all team members was the branching, plot-impactful system of choices that would be the visit card for your project. The first playable version of the game that featured the partial content of the Prologue and the first city, was released in 2020.

In 2022, the development process slowed down a bit due to the main job, however, a few dozens of people who believed in the project and kept supporting it motivated us to do our best to keep it afloat. Still, the serious threats to our lives and wellbeing imposed by the war greatly affected the development process. Despite being unable to fulfill our plans and implementing all the original ideas, we aimed to release game on Steam and we succeeded. The first Steam version of HotA was the result of the classical development hell, since we tried to combine our main jobs with the production of the new content, had only 5-6 hours a day to sleep between the air raid alerts, as well as desperately trying to cure all the “child’s diseases” of the originally released content, that seemed cringy and outdated in more than one way.

I’ve already been working as an educator when the first version of the game was in early development, and a week after its initial release on Steam, I’ve got my PhD degree. It spelled a pleasant feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction in my life, since I achieved a lot, despite the odds and challenges I’ve been though. Still, it was only the begging of this wonderful journey.

HotA team thanks each and every player and patron of the game for your trust, faith and continuing support of the project! You’re motivating us to move forward and bring you even more top-notch, exciting content and the continuation of the amazing story of Azaries and her companions! We’re doing our best to make this story wholesome and complete, and, unlike many abandoned or money-grab projects, we’re aiming to add yet another jewel to the Steam collection of games about dragons and dragon-like creatures! Just as we promised – the most epic and breathtaking adventures of Azaries and her companions are waiting for you in the next updates, so stay tuned!

Thank you so much for giving us the chance to bring you the amazing world of Nanraas and brave Azaries’ adventures on her quest to fulfilling her dream and saving the world! See you in Nanraas!