Ten Years!

April 28th, 2012, History, Whispers in Akarra

Today it is 10 years since the first pre-alpha of “Whispers in Akarra” was released. Back then I was building the game on my own, but the project was shortly discovered by Kinten and thewreck, and the three of us are now the core of Oxeye Game Studio. I think I always will look back at this game with fondness. It may not have been the best game in the world, but we peaked at over 100 players online, and it’s nice to say that you’ve made an “online RPG.” Maybe we’ll get the chance to revisit that area some time!

Hit the jump for some pictures!

This is what Akarra looked like back then (screenshot from pre-release 3, May 2002):

This is what Akarra looked like at the end of 2003:

Here’s a pic of thewreck and Kinten  from the summer of 2006:

vraket_kinten

… and a picture of me and thewreck:

jens_vraket

You can read more about Whispers in Akarra in its blog category!

/ jeb_

PS: There are still some active shards where you can play Akarra! Check out www.akarra.com.  /Kinten

13 Responses to “Ten Years!”

  1. Zyper :

    ^^
    Congratulations!
    Making games is a awesome adventure :)

  2. Tehn :

    Those were some good times, happy anniversary Khaile

  3. Kukiol :

    Congratulations!!!

    young.jeb (!beard) == young++; !!!

  4. Lunamatic :

    Congratulations on ten years of making games! Very impressive indeed :)

  5. Ned_Lud :

    Y’all have likely never heard of me, but I remember playing Whispers in Akarra for quite some time, back in 2002-2003, hopping over to a shard or two over the years. Caught the tail end of the original right before it went down. Ten years later I hear of Minecraft and get sucked into it as well. I see the name Jens Bergensten and think, “Why does this name seem so familiar.” Then I put “Khaile” in the middle and it all makes sense. I don’t even consider myself a huge gamer, but it’s just amazing to see such a transition over ten years which have flown by.

    Whispers in Akarra was such a great game, I just loved the style and the simplicity of it. I would love to see it revisited someday, but either way, you guys have done some great work over the years. Might have to check out one of those active shards and go kill Kal Zatra sometime.

    Happy belated anniversary, Oxeye! Hard work pays off and I look forward to more great things to come.

  6. thorr :

    GUYS! whats the deal…? goraths hosting a shard, but is that the only active one? I have only seen one other person online since i rejoined. There must be a different shard iI dont know of thats a little more active?!?! please let me know of anything.

  7. thorr :

    LETS BRING AKARRA BACK TO THE GOOD OLD DAYS PLEASE! hahaha i <3 that game.

  8. Poof :

    Wow… Those are some of my fondest memories as a teenager. Truly a great game with potential seeping out of every corner it could. Jeb: Don’t stop what you’re doing. Keep up the fantastic work.

  9. Luthor :

    Hello Guys!

    Totally loved this game when it was out and played from some of the earlier pre-alphas until the game was finally shut down. Right now there are no active shards are there? I was wondering if anyone knew the contact information of anyone who further developed the game and had a latest patch (I suppose) or version of the game available. All of the old shard’s websites seem to be inactive at the moment and it would be a great shame to let everyone’s work, including the people who released new updates on their shards go to waste!

    I would love to play this game again in my own home with some friends and I would really appreciate it if anyone had any knowledge about who I could contact!

    It’s True Luthor :D !!

  10. Kaoryn :

    Hey y’all. Figured I’d post on this in case (like me) anyone happened to stumble by. While it is true most of the heavily modded servers are down, after paying a visit to the WiA Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/WhispersInAkarra) a few of the folks there and myself really wanted to see a shard back up and running. Now that I have had a computer worth a damn, I host a server 24/7 for nostalgic purposes.

    If you have FB, give the page a like, and you’ll see the post where I give the IP needed to log in. All of the other tools you need are right here on the website. I’m only dabbling right now in any kind of edits, as time is too short to really dig into anything serious. Regardless, I don’t mind keeping it running, and I hope if you’ve got even the faintest of fond memories with the game that you’ll stop by and play with the rest of us.

    Also, if anyone happens to have the other source code to the client or editors and wouldn’t mind file sharing, I’d appreciate it. The current website where it was hosted has been shut down, and I don’t see it coming back up in the foreseeable future. :)

    Talk soon,
    Kao

  11. BudMan :

    A server is still going after all these years. http://www.akarraxp.com
    check it out.

  12. janeator :

    I saw them tweet it, I’ll try it out :)

  13. BudMan :

    There is an akarra server up if anyone wants to play.

    http://axpr.webs.com/


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