Adventures of Ari
A story game about Ari, who teaches herself magic and grows up over five passages of her life.
- Platform
- Mac
- Stack
- Godot, Claude Code
- Status
- Coming soon
01Problem
I wanted a hero you actually watch grow up.
Ari is 16 when the game starts, and dark mages have just burned down the second home she's lost. Her parents were killed when she was about 10 and had only just started training with her mom and dad, and in this world only your parents can help you train your magic. So she's basically stuck. She does it anyway, because she wants it so badly. Alone and full of hate, she becomes the first mage to develop her abilities by herself.
02Idea
So you play five passages of her life.
Every passage is one region and about an hour long. It ends with a key quest and new gear, then the story skips a few years and you're back as an older, stronger Ari with a new spell.
Early on she just wants revenge. But the dark mages' king is actually descended from the peaceful mages, and the hatred only grew because each generation was told by its parents that the peaceful mages are worth less. By the end she understands the hate is unnatural and both sides should live in peace.
- Passages of her life
- 5
- Ari's age
- 16 to 25
- To finish it
- 5 h
- 1AshesAri at 16. Out of the burned village, and her first spell.
- 2The HunterAt 18 she tracks down the raiders who killed her parents.
- 3The BorderAt 21 she defends the border towns and starts to doubt.
- 4Behind the VeilAt 24 she sees how the dark mages really live.
- 5One LightAt 25 she stands in front of both peoples.
03Features
I want it as close to Horizon and Kena as I can get.
There are dragons flying around, but everything feels friendly, with a blue, purple and pinkish light-magic ambience. The story can get quite dark, but the tension plays mainly in the hero's heart and it's never horror.
03Features
Fights are quick and clicky, and you have to aim.
Hold the left mouse button to attack, right click blocks, and the mouse wheel switches between her spells. Spells go where you point, so you really have to hit. Normal enemies are easy, like in Horizon or Kena - the bosses are where it gets hard.
In the burned village she only has her fists, and the dark mages are still around, a little drunk from their victory party. I want proper fighting and action, but never so much that it gets annoying or feels like a kung fu game.
03Features
She learns her first spell alone, at the standing stones.
At the end of the first passage Ari goes to the glowing stones at night and forces her magic open. You hold the block until the stones answer, then fire her first bolt.
After that comes the first real boss, a lance captain at the bridge with big hits you can see coming. I honestly don't know yet if he's fun.
03Features
There's no loot, she just gets stronger with the story.
XP comes from fights and quests, and every level makes her a bit tougher. Her gear only changes after a key quest, and you can see it on her. You should always know what to do next, so there's a tracker and a marker in the world, and the quest log is one key away.
Everything that's in the game so far is in the changelog, and every entry is at the bottom of this page too.
04How it works
It's a Godot game, and the factory builds most of it.
It's 3D third person, for Mac, with mouse and keyboard. I told my factory the story, the passages and how fights should feel, and it works on the game every three hours from that. We've already come from just grey boxes to a pretty immersive world.
How quests and the look work
Quests are data files with dialogue next to them, so a new quest is mostly writing. Each one is reach, talk, defeat, collect, defend or escort.
The look starts with stylised kits, so the gameplay never waits on art. The light and fog are all code. Later Ari and the bosses get models made just for this game.
Changelog
The safe village has people in it
Ari's safe village has six people now, and they don't all look the same. A roof and a bowl finally asks what it should - talk to three of them, then go to bed under the bakehouse eaves. The lanterns, the first spark and the scouts now start because someone tells her about them.
Ari earns her first spell, and the scouts come back
Ari now gets Spark by earning it - after the safe village there's a night at the standing stones, you hold block until they answer and then you fire. The miller's cart is in too, a small raider fight and three sacks to bring back. And there's a first real boss, a lance captain at the bridge with big hits you can see coming. So far only bots have fought him, so I honestly don't know yet if it's fun.
Lanterns for the dead
Adventures of Ari has its first side quest. You light three lanterns along the valley road, one for each family, and the last one at the stream shrine - it stays locked until the others are lit. Side quests now run next to the main quest, so the game can hold more than one at a time. I haven't played it end to end yet, only through the test and the captures.
The burned valley comes to life
I rebuilt the whole first level of Adventures of Ari to be somewhere you want to wander. There's real terrain with hills and ridges, a painted dusk sky, trees in blossom, grass that sways and parts around Ari, a glowing stream, drifting petals and motes of light, cottages with warm windows, and a soft soundscape with music underneath. Ari, the villagers and the dark mages are proper animated characters now.
Ari can talk to someone
There is a villager in the safe village now. I walk up, press F and we have a real conversation, and my answer starts a new quest. The ending waits until the talk is over.
A title screen, and Ari levels up
The game opens on an Adventures of Ari title screen now - New game starts Passage I, Continue waits until saves exist. Beating dark mages and finishing quests gives Ari XP, and every level makes her a bit tougher and hit a bit harder. There's a level and XP bar above her health, with a small flourish when she levels up.
Adventures of Ari shows you where to go
There's a marker now that points at your current objective, with the distance, and it sticks to the screen edge when it's behind you. Press J and you get a quest log with what you're on right now. Small thing, but the village finally feels like a place you're walking toward.
Quests in the game are data now
Adventures of Ari has a quest system with six kinds of objectives, and the HUD shows the current one. The first quest, getting out of the burning village, runs on it. Still missing: the quest log, rewards and a marker in the world.
Adventures of Ari opens on a title and ends at the village
The game now opens on a black title card that says Adventures of Ari, then fades into the burning village. Esc pauses everything and gives you Resume, Restart and Quit, and the crosshair doesn't sit in the middle of the menu anymore. Reaching the safe village is a real ending now - the camera pulls back over the lit village and you get Play again. I'd actually built the pause and ending a while ago but they got stuck on a side branch, so this is the first time they're really in the game.
Adventures of Ari has a start and an end now
The game opens on a title screen now, Esc pauses it, and quitting actually cleans up. Walking into the village is the ending of the slice, with a play again button. And fights look more like fights - punches throw an arm, and the mages raise and swing their weapons.
Mage becomes Adventures of Ari
The game has a name now: Adventures of Ari. I planned the whole thing as a five-hour story in five passages of Ari's life, each ending with new gear, a new spell and a jump forward in time, with quests and XP but no loot. The burned-village escape is now the opening of the first passage.
Mage has people and sound now
The hero isn't a capsule anymore - she has legs, arms and hair, and she walks and puts her arms up when she blocks. The dark mages wear deep hoods with their eyes glowing inside. And the game finally makes noise: fires crackle, the wind blows, punches thump and the block chimes. All the sound is made in code, no audio files at all, which honestly surprised me a bit.
Mage is playable now
You can actually play the first bit of Mage now. You wake up in your burned village, sneak past the dark mages who are still sleeping off their victory party, and walk a long road up a valley to a village that's still standing. Fists and a little light-magic block, drunk mages who only notice you from the front, wisps that scatter and a dragon that swoops low over you. It's all greybox shapes so far, but it already feels like a place.
The village floor stopped flickering
The fires in the burned village made the ground pulse - it honestly looked like a glitch. Now the firelight just breathes slowly, and the floor at the gate doesn't shimmer anymore when you walk through.