From demo to Early Access: community, combat, and crafting monsters. Talking Aethermancer with the founder of Moi Rai Games

If you are anything like me on social media, meaning your algorithm is completely filled with video game content, you may have come across the stunning pixel art monsters from Moi Rai Games’ Aethermancer. The team behind this monster-catching roguelike often posts about the process of creating and updating their various creatures, from the magma beast Cherufe to the ice minotaur Jotunn, and even the walking book, Grimoire. Aethermancer was just released in Early Access on Steam a few weeks ago, but there has been a demo available since last February’s Steam Next Fest.

Even after its release, Aethermancer still has a free demo you can try on Steam. As a roguelike, there’s plenty of starting over, which might seem counterintuitive for a creature collector, where you normally build bonds with your chosen party members. However, here, instead of catching individual monsters, you capture their essence, allowing you to resummon them later.

Source: Aethermancer, developer: moi rai games

Combat is turn-based, consisting of three versus three tactical battles. Build up resources with basic attacks to unleash stronger ones, and use the attack effects and abilities to synergize with the other monsters on your team. But the player doesn’t just sit back and watch, you can also take actions during combat to heal your monsters or capture an enemy.

As someone who grew up playing Pokémon, it’s exciting to see the monster-catching genre evolve and combine mechanics in unique ways. So, when the team at Moi Rai Games and Aethermancer’s publisher, Offbrand Games, responded to my email to discuss the game, I couldn’t wait to learn more.

My interview with Dennis Sinner, the founder of Moi Rai Games

Matt Buckley, Gamepressure: If you don’t mind, could you please introduce yourself to our audience? What is your name? What is your role on the team?

Denis Sinner, Moi Rai Games: Hello, I'm Denis Sinner - the founder of moi rai games. On Aethermancer I took the role of the technical lead and programmer.

Source: Aethermancer, developer: moi rai games

MB: Leading up to the launch, a demo was available for most of the year. In some ways, it almost felt like the early Early Access, especially since I saw it receiving updates fairly consistently. Do you think having a free demo leading up to the launch was helpful? Did it also help prepare the audience for the Early Access period?

DS: Yeah, we like to release demos of our projects first, we took a similar route with our previous game Monster Sanctuary, and it worked well. We see a lot of advantages in it. Our fanbase can try our new project earlier, the feedback helps us greatly to make the game better, and it creates a lot of publicity and helps us gather wishlists on steam, which are essential for a release.

Source: Aethermancer, developer: moi rai games

MB: How has having an active community helped in updating the game? Has there been anything in particular that the community really rallied around or pointed out that influenced development?

DS: It was very helpful. Even before releasing the public demo, we did a closed beta phase with our community for more than a half year - during that period, we changed or reworked many parts of the game. Specifically, the exploration of the game was something we reworked quite a bit. But also, the balance in combat, the community was good at identifying combos which were too easy to accomplish and trivialized the game.

Source: Aethermancer, developer: moi rai games

MB: Online, I see many players discussing the Mythic difficulty and debating how certain monsters are more effective at specific points in a run. How do you manage balancing the game to make every Monster useful, especially with varying difficulties?

DS: Making every monster useful and viable in some way was certainly a focus of ours, and we put a lot of effort into it. This is also a reason we don't have as many different monsters in total, as we really tried to put love in every monster we have. For Mythic difficulty, certain monsters or compositions will certainly work better than others, but the game offers enough options and complexity that you are able to make any monster work in some way.

Source: Aethermancer, developer: moi rai games

MB: I know it may be too early to talk about this, but are there any future updates you are looking forward to in Early Access? What can players expect in the lead-up to the 1.0 release?

DS: Yeah, we plan to release quite some updates throughout Early Access. We'll focus on issues that were mostly criticized after the early access launch and Quality of Life things first. Then add more content to the game. We'll also publish a roadmap soon.

Aethermancer

September 23, 2025

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• Overview

• monsters
• roguelike / roguelite
• interviews