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The Legend of Khiimori News

Kickstarter Update with 9 Days Left!



Hello, Couriers!

To say that things are busy in our team right now would be the understatement of the year! Our Kickstarter Campaign has left its initial funding goal far behind and is cracking stretch goal after stretch goal. Our communities are more active then ever, keeping our community team on its toes to answer questions from thousands of interested backers and potential players across platforms.

Today, we want to recap some of the most important info and revelations and new bits of material that we’ve been sharing on other channels recently!



Our game reached 100,000 Wishlists on Steam recently—a number that’s admittedly a little bit terrifying, because that’s A LOT of people to make happy. It’s also incredibly exciting and validating to know that this audience is here, more than eager to get their hands on the game we’ve been making!

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[h3]🎬 New Gameplay Clips[/h3]
While our core loop, missions and horse care mechanics are still very much deeply work-in-progress, we’re happy to share what we can:

Recently, our coders, artists and game designers have put a lot of work into crafting, missions and horse behavior, among other things, and will soon be working on the initial missions that the player will face when starting the game.

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[h3]📘 Story Teaser[/h3]
We’re also thrilled to give you a bit more information about our game’s narrative: the game takes place in two different, intertwined periods of time. Mika’s stallion Windstorm from the Kaltenbach Ranch got sick and only ancient knowledge may be the last help. Thus, Mika connects with Naranchimeg, or Naraa for short, a girl from 13th century Mongolia, who sets out to find a cure by unravelling the myth of the Khiimori, the legendary “wind horse”!

The game’s clear focus is in the 13th century setting, with the present day Kaltenbach story providing framing.

After the conquest of Chinggis Khan, the steppe itself saw a time of relative peace and stability, which is where we chose to set our game. With the great Khan gone, his successors rapidly began growing the infrastructure and thus the prosperity of their realm; an accomplishment that is based not only, but above all, on horses. The empire’s achievements, both in war and peace, were built on and carried out by their steeds.

Managing such a vast empire needed fast new ways of communication. Enter the legendary Yam courier system and its brave riders! This is where you come into play. Thrive as a Yam courier, accept a large variety of missions, gain fame and manage to survive the open wilds of Mongolia, with a bow in hand, and the wind as your two-faced ally.

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[h3]🐎 Horse Breeds and Other Additions[/h3]
With the 200k Stretch goal reached last week, we’ve also been able to confirm the addition of two new horse breeds: To fit our setting and time period, we’ve chosen the Akhal-Teke and Ferghana horse as our next two additions. The plan is that these exotic horses will not roam the steppe on their own, but can be bought from the merchants that import them into Mongolia.



We’re further excited to confirm more horse and rider customization, cooking meals for yourself and your horse, and the addition of a storyteller NPC who will introduce you to Mongolian myths and legends. We’ll share more info on how exactly all of those things are planned to look in the game over the coming weeks and months!



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[h3]🏁 Into the Final Stretch[/h3]
For the next 9 days, our focus remains on the Kickstarter campaign, at least where marketing and community efforts are concerned. If you haven’t done so yet, we highly recommend you check out our campaign and consider becoming a backer. While the reduced Early Bird rewards are all taken, there’s still a lot very cool exclusive content to secure.

Every pledge counts—every backer helps us get this game closer to the true vision of where we want it to be. See you all soon!



[hr][/hr][h2]Join the Community[/h2][p]Bluesky Facebook Instagram Threads TikTok Twitter

Discord Twitch YouTube Website[/p]

FULLY FUNDED in less than 20 hours!!

FULLY FUNDED in less than 20 hours 🤯🤯🤯
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!!
This is absolutely amazing! Now it's time to get the stretch goals out. 100k we're coming 😍



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Check out the full trailer and interview only available on Kickstarter
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


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Don’t miss out on the few limited and exclusive rewards that are left. Go to our Kickstarter page right now and claim your favourites!

More rewards are available on our Kickstarter campaign

[hr][/hr][h2]Join the Community[/h2][p]Bluesky Facebook Instagram Threads TikTok Twitter

Discord Twitch YouTube Website[/p]

NOW ON KICKSTARTER: Check out the new trailer, features and exclusive rewards!

Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori is now live on Kickstarter 😱😱😱

We’ve got a brand new trailer, new features being confirmed (hunting, anyone?), exciting rewards (we can’t wait to get our hands on those resin statues ourselves!), console release confirmations, developer insights, behind the scenes footage AND MORE.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Developer Diary #8 | Updates from the Steppe

[p]As we’ve hinted at in our last Dev Diary, our Kickstarter is just around the corner! That means that a lot of work behind the scenes is currently going towards the crowdfunding campaign - not just preparing all relevant materials, but also implementing features and aspects of the game that we want to have ready for when the campaign goes live.

The result of those big preparations is that we don’t have a ton of updates to share right now because we’re saving most of it for this one big beat that’s coming very soon. We do have a bit of insight to share into what’s going on and what to expect though, and the most important part is this:

Sign up here to get notified once our Kickstarter launches so you can snatch up the limited and Early Bird rewards at a reduced price!

What mysterious rewards is the shaman cooking up for you?

[/p][hr][/hr][p]We’re still tweaking the exact contents of our backer rewards and what they entail, but we can already tell you that if if you back the project early, you’ll be able to get a game key including access to our Alpha Playtest, even before the public Early Access launch at a reduced price!

Of course, backing a game on Kickstarter is never quite the same as buying a finished product, even though we’re a bit further along in development. But if you want to play a version of the game as soon as possible – and we know from our comment sections that some of you can’t wait! – then Kickstarter is going to be the best deal for it!

And without revealing too much ahead of time, if you’re someone with an interest in our game’s soundtrack, concept art and cool physical rewards, rest assured that the campaign will have something for you. (side note: this doesn’t really belong in a Steam post, but for the many interested followers eagerly awaiting news about consoles, we can only reiterate that following the campaign is the way to get answers very, very soon!)

[/p][hr][/hr][h3]Facts and Funding[/h3][p]
We’d also like to take a moment to reiterate why we’re doing this campaign even though we initially had plans to launch sooner: a basic version of the game is fully funded, but we believe we can deliver a much more complete and well-rounded product with your support. With all the additional eyes on our project since last fall, we need to make sure our game hits the ground running and can then grow further from there.

Unfortunately, the immense resonance we’ve found in player communities does not by itself translate to additional time and funding, because even though multiple viral posts have proven a strong interest and large audience for a game like ours, additional project funding is incredibly hard to come by at the moment, even for experienced and established studios.

But the very cool flip side of those circumstances is that this is where you, our players come in!

YOU can help us make this project live up to its full potential, through backing and sharing the crowdfunding campaign, through joining our Alpha Playtest and Early Access period, and through giving us constructive feedback and being patient with us while we implement it.

Closer look on Shaman's living place in nature.[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][h3]Future Features[/h3][p]
As for where our development efforts have been going recently: let’s just say for now that bows 'n' arrows and wind conditions were involved, and that there’s going to bee new video footage for all that within the next few weeks. In the meantime, we do have a bunch of cute horse animations to share!

[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Foal Bounce Animation

[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Horse Scratching Animation


[/p][hr][/hr][h3]Previous Developer Diaries can be found here:[/h3]

[hr][/hr][h2]Join the Community[/h2][p]Bluesky Facebook Instagram Threads TikTok Twitter

Discord Twitch YouTube Website[/p]

Developer Diary #7 | Looking Forward to Next Year!

[p]We here at Aesir Interactive would like to wish you all very Happy Holidays and a good end to this exciting year! We’re taking this opportunity for our last Developer Diary of 2024 to give you an outlook for what to expect in 2025:

[/p][h2]Stay Tuned for Kickstarter News![/h2][p]As first revealed in last months' Developer Diary, we are super excited to be launching a Kickstarter campaign Soon™. Make sure to follow the campaign over on Kickstarter by clicking the “Notify me on launch” button. That way, you’ll be first to know when the actual campaign goes live, and you’ll be sure to get your pick out of Early Bird backer rewards!

We’ll also be updating that page over time before the campaign goes live, so make sure to check back there occasionally!

We love and appreciate all the excitement we’ve already been seeing for the campaign in our communities, and we can’t wait to show you more. With your support on Kickstarter, The Legend of Khiimori can live up to its full potential and get all the time and resources it deserves. 💖

➡️Support The Legend of Khiimori on Kickstarter!⬅️

[/p][hr][/hr][h2]Playtests[/h2][p]It took a bit longer than initially planned, but we conducted our first playtest this month! In the test, a small group of players were able to give the horse riding and camera controls (or “CCC” for Camera, Controls and Character) a first try and give feedback. We’ve kept this initial testing group very small on purpose, to make sure that there weren’t any major technical hang-ups. We did in fact find a few crucial bugs to be fixed before our next test, so that turned out to be a good choice.

We’ve also gotten a first batch of very valuable feedback for how first time players react to the behaviors of camera and control. Making movement feel good is an incredibly important aspect of making a game where traversal plays such a big role, so even though this iteration took quite a bit more time than we were initially planning for, we’re confident that it was worth it. Overall, the feedback from this first test was very positive, which makes our whole team very happy and is a big motivation booster! The fact that we got very specific and detailed constructive criticism from our testers for aspects of the controls is also an indicator that the overall CCC experience is on the right track.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be able to reach out to more people on our tester waitlist and test again with a slightly bigger group, to ensure that the feedback we’re getting is more representative and diverse. Make sure you’re signed up here if you would like to participate too! Note that while we ask for which specific expertise you have in the sign-up, that does not mean we’ll only pick testers who know about all those topics! We want the game to be accessible to more people than die-hard horse fans in the end, so we’ll make sure to test with players from different backgrounds.

[/p][p] [/p][hr][/hr][h2]Gameplay Systems[/h2][p]Now that we have a solid basis in CCC, it’s time to tackle other crucial gameplay systems that we’ve been outlining and designing over the past few months. Some of these systems have been implemented in a basic first iteration already and need extra work to function as we want them to, while others are getting the team’s full attention for the first time:

🌬️ Wind, Weather and their impact on the ground you ride on: The plan is that depending on where you ride and which paths you choose, your horse may have an easier or harder time traversing that ground depending on its own traits and preferences, or may train different attributes, giving you a relevant strategic choice for whether you want your horse to (for example) become stronger or faster.

🐎 Horse Care, Traits and Trust: For a bit more insight into our plans for this topic, have a look at our Dev Diary from September!

📜 Missions: While “ride around and explore” is fun enough for some players on its own, the main character in The Legend of Khiimori has an actual job (courier rider) that you’ll be doing as part of the gameplay! This means managing your inventory to not overload your horse and getting to specific parts of the game world despite difficult terrain along the way.

As always, note that game development is a very iterative process and that the specifics can change along the way.

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[/p][hr][/hr][h2]Community [/h2][p]Building up a following and community for this game has been a very new experience for Aesir Interactive. In the past, this work was mostly done by our publishers for different projects. But we LOVE to be able to communicate directly, more openly and more regularly to you, our players.

While a big part of this activity is of course getting the word out about our project, we also want community to be a two-way street. Meaning: please do join our Discord or leave comments here if you have specific questions, hopes, requests or even concerns about The Legend of Khiimori! We will do our best to answer what we can and give insight into our dev process wherever possible.

So we’re ending this year and this Developer Diary with a handful of questions to you, the community:[/p]
  • [p] What feature are you most looking forward to in The Legend of Khiimori?[/p]
  • [p] Which topic(s) would you like to see us tackle in upcoming Developer Diaries?[/p]
  • [p] Are you planning on backing the project on Kickstarter?[/p]
  • [p] What could we include to make an even more convincing campaign?[/p]
  • [p] What sort of backer reward would you love to have?[/p]
  • [p] Which existing game has your favorite horse(s) and why?
    [/p]
[hr][/hr][p]Thank you all for your trust, your enthusiasm and your unwavering support over the past few months! We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t wholeheartedly believe in the potential of our project, and we’re excited for you to join in helping us make that a reality.

Stay tuned for more info very soon!

[/p][hr][/hr][h3]Previous Developer Diaries can be found here:[/h3][p][/p]

[hr][/hr][h2]Join the Community[/h2][p]Bluesky Facebook Instagram Threads TikTok Twitter

Discord Twitch YouTube Website[/p]