It all starts with infrastructure. Phase 1 of Aurisona’s development is focused entirely on building the essential systems that will power the game.

I’ve been deep in server work, spinning up the first LAMP stack server with NGINX acting as a reverse proxy for Apache (which serves the main website) while also handling the game’s API endpoints. It’s a hybrid setup that balances efficiency with flexibility.

Most of my energy so far has gone into designing and building a fast, optimized database schema and secure API layer to match. I’m taking the time to do it right, because these are the systems that everything else depends on.

The first major system to take shape has been the user authentication and settings infrastructure. I’ve built a secure login system with long-lasting session tokens, complete with refresh tokens for persistent logins across devices. Behind the scenes, every user’s settings, from audio preferences to playback behavior, are stored in a clean, scalable way that will sync across platforms.

My years in radio broadcast experience are helping shape my decisions around the music layer of Aurisona. I’m designing the music delivery system with performance and immersion in mind. The game client never downloads full music libraries; instead, it requests individual tracks as needed, saving a ton of space on your mobile or VR hardware while still delivering a vast assortment of beautiful music to accompany the nature sounds in the game. The system remembers what songs you’ve already heard, spaces out repeats intelligently (dayparting), and ensures the playback feels organic with cross-fades and dynamic compression to ensure the volume remains consistent from song to song. I’m even preparing support for special audio modes (like “Sleep Mode” or “Study Mode”) with tailored EQ, compression, and volume settings. All this without requiring massive installs or storage space on the player’s device.

This is still just the groundwork, but it’s essential groundwork. The goal for Phase 1 is to have a stable and secure back-end capable of supporting a fully immersive, audio-first exploration game across desktop, mobile, and VR platforms.

Next steps include building the nature sound engine, real-time zone-aware audio loading, and integrating the player’s in-game location and biome data into the audio system. After that, I’ll shift toward visual prototyping… but only once the foundation is solid. That is a step I can’t wait for. To be able to bring my vision to life and share screenshots and videos is something I’m really excited for. I’ve been staring at a bash window far too long.

More updates to come as the game unfolds. For now, back to the console.