AVIAN
ROYALE MONKEY
Generalist Designer & Studio Co-founder
INTRODUCTION
PROD DETAILS
AVIAN is first and foremost a student master degree project. Born at IIM Digital School Paris, its development starts in January 2021 and ends a year later. Designed by former school colleagues they planned to Co-found a Video Game Studio named Royale Monkey in early 2022 right after our graduation to bring the project to a professional shippable state.
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DEV STUDIO: Royale Monkey (Paris)
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GENRE: Adventure / Walking-Sim / Platforming / Musical
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RELEASE: Cancelled (initially 2025)
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DEVELOPMENT DURATION: 1.5 Year (April 2022 to August 2023)
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ROLE: In charge of the Level Design & Narrative Design
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ENGINE: Unreal Engine 4
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PROD: Indie
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TEAM MEMBERS: 10
GAME SYNOPSIS
"In Avian you play as a guardian of an ancient and forgotten civilization gone long ago. A dark matter has infested your homeland and you must use your ancestral instrument, the Anavi, to bend the alien-like plants of the world to your will."
STUDIO DETAILS & TIMELINE
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DATE OF STUDIO CREATION - CLOSURE: April 2022 - December 2023
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UNDER GAME PUBLISHER: from April 2022 to October 2022
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SELF-EMPLOYMENT: from November 2022 to August 2023
Conception Milestone:
I joined the project in April 2022 at the end of my studies and after an agreement with a publisher we started our conception development phase to develop a First Playable based on the student Vertical Slice.
I worked as a Game Designer developing new gameplay mechanics and musical features then worked on the game blueprint, level - world structure and the world building to start a first version of the story and scope the project.
Indie Journey:
The pre-production was about to start in October 2022. In the end we part ways with the publisher and paused our development to focus on bringing new investors in participating to severals competitions and events around the world (France / Germany / Brazil) to present our new vertical slice. In early 2023 I moved to Midgar Studio as a Full-time Level Designer but still working on Avian during free-time.
Take a step back to see the big picture:
Supported by publishers, development incubators or conducted independently while scouting for sponsors, the Avian project has undergone several redesigns during its conception and pre-production phase. Although the team failed to find financial support, splitting its development between content production and meeting sponsors, Avian won multiple prizes including the Epic Mega Grant award.
On a team agreement we decided to stop our indie journey, the project ended at the end of summer 2023 so we took the hard decision to close the studio in December 2023.