The art workshop: pixels by code
A style guide, a new environment, a new character rig and twenty effects, all built by code and reproducible at any time. No AI images.
Night scene from the starting zone test map: a village with lanterns, a canal, a bridge, fields and a graveyard beyond. A warrior and a mage cross the bridge; a wolf trots through the grass.
Pre-alpha · MVP in progress · nothing playable yet
Rivenward Online
A 2D online role-playing game built the way the classics were: slow, social, with dungeons, raids and a realm where death is final. In a world that did not exist before.
Join the waitlist Development status
Solo project. No pay-to-win. No AI images.
9classes with three talent trees each, levels 1 to 60
5 · 10 · 25five-player dungeons, raids for ten and 25
3realms: Haven (PvE), Warfront (PvP), One Life (hardcore)
Vessar. A sea that is gone.
Thirty-one years ago a thirty-year war ended when both sides set off a forbidden weapon. The inland sea between the continents tore open and ran dry. Since then the Ebb has been rising from the dry seabed: the dead come back, magic turns unreliable.
The ceasefire, the Grey Water Accord, was signed on the wreck of the flagship. Both sides sealed their files and tell their children a different story. You are the first generation after, sent to the borderlands as a Warden.
Corvane, the West
The Concordat
Law, registers, memory. A council of crowns under an elected High Chancellor; decisions are slow, written and binding. Slate, limestone, brass, lanterns, canals. The returned dead are citizens by law and unpaid labour in practice.
- Human
- Court Elf
- Returned
- Dwarf
Varrach, the East
The Free Banners
Clans, the Moot, banners, river boats, stone circles. Every banner rules itself; the Moot decides loudly, quickly and revocably. Wood, leather, copper, thorns. The banners fund themselves by border raids, and their Speakers know what they woke.
- Orc
- Thorn Elf
- Delta Folk
- Beastfolk
Race names are working names. Both sides are right and both are guilty; no NPC calls the other side "monsters".
Classic systems as the foundation, everything else our own.
Rivenward takes the rules of classic MMORPGs as far as that is allowed and builds its own world on top, with its own content, its own numbers and its own names. What the "plus" means is below.
- Tab-target, three roles
- Tank, healer, damage. Threat is real, interrupts are real, the server decides every hit.
- A world that costs something
- Travel on foot, flight points you have to reach first, mounts at 40 and 60. No instant travel, no dungeon finder.
- Dungeons and raids
- Five-player groups, raids for ten and 25. Boss loot tables, need or greed, attunement chains.
- Talents
- Three trees per class, 51 points at 60, a capstone at 31 points. Specialising is a decision.
- PvP with honor
- Battlegrounds, honor ranks, world combat in the Riven. By Banner Mode on Haven, always on Warfront.
- One Life
- A hardcore realm with its own characters. One life. The Ebb takes what falls.
- Professions and economy
- Gathering, crafting, auction house, player trade. Saltglass as a trade good from the Riven.
- The plus
- Sigils unlock new class roles, a short comfort list, more endgame breadth. No comfort that devalues groups.
- Controller from day one
- Browser, PC, Linux, Android, handhelds. The controls are built for pad and keyboard, not retrofitted.
Nine classes. Three of them first.
The MVP starts with Warrior, Priest and Mage, levels 1 to 15, on the Concordat side. The figures below are the rig v2 from the workshop, not the final class looks.
Warrior
Tank, melee
Rage
in the MVPPriest
Healing, ranged
Mana
in the MVPMage
Ranged, control
Mana
in the MVPPaladin
Healing, tank, melee
Mana · Concordat only
after the MVPHunter
Ranged, pet
Mana
after the MVPRogue
Melee
Energy, combo points
after the MVPShaman
Healing, caster, melee
Mana · Free Banners only
after the MVPWarlock
Ranged, pet
Mana
after the MVPDruid
Tank, healing, melee, caster
Shapeshifting, the Hedge
after the MVP
Pixel art, 48 pixels, by code.
No AI images. Every figure comes from a rig with joints, masks and palettes that lives as code in the repository and can be rebuilt at any time. Armour, race overlays and palettes are layers on top. Eight directions, seven animations, three body types.
Maps are built from autotiles with seamless transitions, cliffs and props, assembled in Tiled. What you see here is the workshop state of October 2026: characters and monsters are placeholder quality, tiles are close to release.
Where the project stands.
Rivenward is a solo project with about three build days a week. So it did not start with "build everything" but with a four-week spike that tests the three biggest risks before a single quest gets written. Status: October 2026.
- 2026-10-07
Concept and specification
World, factions, classes, legal framework, art pipeline. Research on lore, races, naming and law complete.
done - October 2026
Spike: netcode, combat, boss, load
Server-authoritative at 20 ticks per second, tab-target with casts and interrupts, one boss with ground effects and adds. All twelve hard metrics green, including 200 bots at 150 ms latency. 113 tests.
done - 2026-10-08
Decision: go on
Netcode provisionally green, art pipeline green, MVP estimate green (about 4.5 months expected, 8 pessimistic). The feel sessions with a questionnaire run in parallel.
done - now
MVP plan 1: account and foundation
One account for website and game, login, persistence, zone servers, character creation. This portal with forum, wiki and devlog is the first visible part.
open - next
MVP
Levels 1 to 15, The Concordat, human and court elf, Warrior, Priest, Mage, one starting zone, one capital, one dungeon, realms Haven and One Life. Estimate: about 4.5 months, 8 pessimistic.
planned - later
Full game
Two continents, the Riven, nine classes, raids for ten and 25, battlegrounds, professions, Warfront.
planned
None of this is a promise. If the spike fails a kill criterion, it will say so here instead of the page disappearing.
One e-mail when there is something to test.
No newsletter, no sharing. You get a confirmation e-mail (double opt-in) and after that only mail when a test is coming up or the project ends. The address is stored in our own database.
Questions that already come up.
When can I play?
Not yet. There is a spike with one room, three roles and one boss that tests the technology. A first test with players comes with the MVP at the earliest. Join the waitlist and you will hear about it.
Does it cost anything?
The plan is a one-time purchase, no mandatory subscription, optional cosmetics. No pay-to-win: nothing you can buy makes a character stronger. Prices are not set.
Is this a clone?
No. Rivenward is inspired by classic MMORPGs and adopts their rules as far as that is allowed. World, story, names, numbers, texts and graphics are our own. There is no connection to other games or their publishers.
Is there AI in it?
Not in the images: all pixel art is made by code and by hand from our own rigs, no image models. AI tools help with programming; a human makes the decisions and every line goes through tests.
What does it run on?
In the browser, as a PC and Linux application, on Android and on handhelds. Controller support is part of the design from the start.
What does One Life mean?
A separate realm with its own characters. If a character dies, it is gone. The exact rules for groups, duels and transfers are in the specification and will be fixed before the MVP.
German or English?
Proper names and the game interface are English. German as a second game language is planned but not decided. This site exists in both languages.