Astrolium: ONLINE

**Astrolium: ONLINE** is an MMO being developed by Cunningham Media, and is the main focus of the Astrolium video game franchise, despite *Astrolium* being the main game story-wise. The game is to be updated with new content for the playerbase until enough funds have been collected from the Astrolium project to launch more single-player games in the series.

It can be downloaded separately via astrolium.net or downloaded through a third party (like steam) as a DLC of *Astrolium.*

## Premise

In *Astrolium: ONLINE*, each player is a clone of supersoldier Erhald Farhoc (main character of the first game), mass produced by The Federation and sent into the galactic interior, where the ruins of the Golichrellan Empire lie, in order to guard the Rift; a hole blown in spacetime by the explosion of the Core of Astrolium in the previous game, from The Crimson; a multiverse-scale army of alien demons, parasitic lifeforms, and other manifestations of sin. During their travels, players will encounter civilizations; hostile and friendly, and empty planets and asteroids; which they can interact with for profit, humanitarianism, or anything else. Despite having a goal, players have free will, and the game is open-world. This means that on top of the enemy, there lies the threat of other players, and the hierarchies and civilizations that they themselves form.

The game takes place around 760 years after the events of *Astrolium.*

No "endings" nor player-driven events are cannon to the series, although all information presented to players throughout the game is. The canonical results of what happens in this era of time will be revealed in future games, if they end up being developed.

## Abstract

In contrast with the first game, *Astrolium: ONLINE* merges the existing world of lore with that of the expanded Cthulhu Mythos (see H.P. Lovecraft and others), which, through the exploration and discovery of information by players, forms a clear, overarching narrative; which gives the potential of expansion of said narrative in future games.

Furthermore, *Astrolium: ONLINE* has a retro aesthetic, with the game's graphics being downscaled and with outlines, particles, GUIs and billboards being pixelated and sometimes posturized. The music of the game also meshes low-resolution sounds, basic shapes, synthesized instruments, and analog instruments together to form ambient pieces which fit the strange aesthetic and its even stranger alien environments.

As of 2023, both *Astrolium* and *Astrolium: ONLINE* are being developed side by side. Although *Astrolium: ONLINE* is intended to be the "cash cow" of the Astrolium project, once it is halfway done in development, all efforts will go towards completing *Astrolium*. This is to draw attention to the Astrolium project, so then the reception of *Astrolium: ONLINE* will be much greater. This is so that there can hopefully be enough funds to turn Cunningham Media into a salary-providing company, allowing the hiring of more developers to work on more games for the franchise.

*Astrolium* is also being prioritized because of the current uncertainty on the state of *Astrolium: ONLINE*. This is due to its limitations.

## Limitations

The game is currently being developed using an obsolete version of Unity (2018.1), due to old code that can't be carried into new versions of the game engine. It furthermore relies on foreign servers (Photon Unity Networking), which poses a risk to the development, as the shutting down of said servers, if it ever comes to that, would not be something that Cunningham Media could prevent.

On another note, the goal of having a "faux retro aesthetic" clashes with the Unity Engine's design to optimize a game for polished, anti-aliased graphics. The game currently being developed is not optimized to run well on cheap computers, which was a goal for the game.

In a worst case scenario, the game will need to be rebuilt from the ground up to fix all problems or, worse yet, a game engine will need to be made for the Astrolium games, to prevent any future issues. Such isn't currently something that is in the capabilities of Cunningham Media, however.

## Music

Below are the currently confirmed pieces of music to be found in this game:

* Tyler Cunningham - Astrolium Early Access Extended Theme
* Tyler Cunningham - Yuggoth
* Ronan Nieforth - Crimson Surface Theme