Pyria Expands: Castle City, Soundscapes, and the Last Week!

Pyria Comes to Life: Sound, NPCs, and the Grand Opening!

Into the Fire: Pyria’s Opening Moments Come to Life!

Into the Fire: Pyria’s Opening Moments Come to Life!

Cinderhorde Rising: A Day of Lore & Dungeons!

Building Pyria, One Note at a Time!

NPC Routines and Locations

Meet the Draglings – Pyria’s Most Loyal Companions!

Marching Forward: Pyria’s Final Push Begins

The Countdown Begins: Pyria’s Final Sprint

Back At It: Filling Pyria with Life

Building a Living World: Pyria’s Progress Report

Hey everyone, it’s Kay and Ele here with another little update on the ever-growing world of Pyria! It’s been a long week, but we’re excited to share some of the magic we’ve been working on!

Harp Snails and Greetings

Another Quick Update from Pyria

It was a productive and exciting day, though it was a bit of a whirlwind with Ele’s birthday celebration and party prep happening alongside work and game development! We’re getting ready for a weekend of fun, but the progress never stops in the world of Pyria. Especially since this weekend will be our first playtest with family and friends!

Another Day, Another Step Closer to Pyria!

Fresh developments to share! So much stuff we’re excited about and can’t wait for others to experience. The world of Pyria is expanding, and with every step, it’s feeling more alive and immersive.

As the clock ticks down, it feels like we’re caught in a race against time—but it’s a race we’re determined to win. With just 40 days remaining until the final stretch of our 90-day Pyria journey, every moment matters. And when you have as many layers of life as we do, it means balancing game development, real jobs, health, family time, and, yes, social media posts. In all honesty, sometimes the last thing on our minds is posting updates—especially when we’re so deep into the work of creating the game.

Today was one of those days where we managed to carve out a little time to bring Pyria closer to reality. Even though it was a busy day for both of us, we found a way to make progress, and it felt great to see things come together.

We started early, eager to tackle what we could before the day got away from us. In the morning, Ele focused on updating our timeline and preparing some posts for social media. She also decorated our cozy home office for Lunar New Year 🐍 tomorrow and even set up a quick “company photo op” for our GDC badges during lunch. Kay set up a plan for adding new NPC types after work using the tool built yesterday.

Kay had a late workday but still found time to add the new batch of NPCs. These characters came from the Polygon Fantasy content pack so they needed some different animations, but the process was quick and seamless—except for one small bug. But we design our tools to be edited and debugged as they grow, so it was pleasantly easy to find, fix and test the issue in isolation before finishing the content pack configuration.

In another win for our tools-first approach, Gii logged in earlier than we did and, without any training, created several NPCs using the tool! That was a huge confidence boost and a reminder that the small steps we’re taking to build solid tools now will pay off in a big way later.

Check out our TikTok or Instagram for more updates!

Today we’re excited to share more about the mysterious creatures that stalk Pyria’s frozen wastes. While catching up from the holiday season, we’ve been quietly crafting some of our most ambitious features yet.

The Laviini: Terror of The Frozen Tundra

Beneath Pyria’s snow-covered plains, something ancient lurks. Today we’re thrilled to reveal more about the Laviini - the legendary ice wyrms that have haunted northern tales for generations. These massive predators embody winter’s savage heart, hunting in packs through the frozen wastes. Ele spent hours detailing the Laviini’s lore, ensuring these creatures feel as real and terrifying as the blizzards they command. Like everything in Pyria, the Laviini aren’t just monsters - they’re part of an intricate ecosystem. Their hunt of the mammoth herds shapes the very culture of the Northern Rangers, who risk everything to protect their charges from these frozen horrors.

Tools of Creation

Meanwhile, Kay has been working his coding magic on our NPC creation system. With just a click, we can now breathe life into new characters who will populate our world. It’s amazing how a few lines of code can lay the foundation for thousands of future stories. With time of the essence, every saved second counts.

The Road Ahead

47 days remain in our journey to launch. Sometimes it feels surreal - building this dream in the quiet hours after our day jobs, piece by piece, monster by monster. But every new feature, every character, every creature like the Laviini, makes Pyria feel more real. More like home. There’s still so much to share about what we’ve been working on during our posting break. Stay tuned - the secrets of Pyria are just beginning to unfold.

Together in code and creation, Kay & Ele Crowknuckle Studios

Written on January 26, 2025 Posted the next day…

Tonight, in the quiet corners of our evening, between our day jobs and life’s responsibilities, Pyria took another step from imagination into reality. After a brief winter hibernation for the holidays, we’re back - and the timing couldn’t be more perfect. The planets have quite literally aligned today, inspiring us to create something special within Pyria to mark the occasion. While we took a step back from posting during the holidays, our minds never truly left this world we’re building. And now, as the celestial bodies converge, we can’t wait to show you what happens when the stars align in Pyria.

In game development, some of the most meaningful moments arise not from careful planning, but from the organic evolution of ideas. Today brought one of those moments as we expanded our world with a new presence: animal companions.

Frostkeep - the last bastion of civilization before the endless tundra claims dominion. This frozen city-state is where survival and celebration intertwine in ways that shape every aspect of daily life.

Every world has its stories. Today, we’re pulling back the curtain on one of Pyria’s most intriguing cultures: the Rangers of the Frozen Wilds.

Today, we welcomed our first inhabitant: Helga the Huntress, the inaugural character in what will become a vibrant community.

Today, we tackled an invisible but critical challenge: how to handle the sheer weight of Pyria’s digital assets. When you’re dealing with 20+ gigabytes of content—everything from textures to models to sound effects—even simple tasks like sharing files between developers can become a bottleneck.

Spent the day importing content packs from the asset store—thousands of pieces spanning everything from foliage and buildings to characters and particle effects. All of these assets are now integrated into our first playable scene, representing many gigabytes of foundational content.

Yesterday, we named our world. Today, we set foot in it. A real, working copy of Pyria hosted a playtest over the internet.

Yesterday, we spoke about magic—the kind that lives in games that truly transport you. Today, that magic has a name: Pyria.

There’s a special kind of magic you only find in a good game: it can be a complete, interactive world separate from our own.

Hey y’all! 👋 We’re Crowknuckle Studios, and we’re about to kick off development of our first game.