Dreams of Estorra

, shortened as Estorra, was a Minecraft stagecraft series, originally set to premiere on August 5th, 2016. It was officially released on August 7th, 2016. The series was first announced on Aphmau's vlogging channel on June 28th.

On July 6th, following the announcement, Aphmau posted on her social media a "World Tree" concept art by Sean Dillon. This would be the first image of the brand new series.

A teaser trailer was posted on July 22nd, 2016, showing the setting of the series with three characters. Additionally, Aphmau also posted a concept art of the main protagonist on the same day on her social media, resembling her greatly. After the announcement, more promotional and concept emerged for the coming weeks until its debut.

However, the date was changed to August 6th, 2016, so Aphmau and her production team could take a break and relax until the launch.

On August 6th, Aphmau posted an update vlog on her vlogging and gaming channel, stating that the premiere is going to be delayed once again with the official launch of the series on August 7th. The series is currently labeled as a stagecraft, a new term for series with a script, recorded via cinematic camera and fully voice acted.

As of October 2nd, the series has been put on hiatus due to low view count and less demand from the subscribers.

On February 17th, Aphmau's second channel, Aphmau Fantasy, reuploaded the first episode of Dreams of Estorra, meaning that Dreams of Estorra has made a return.

Overview
The series takes place in a virtual reality MMORPG game known as "Dreams of Estorra" or Estorra for short. It focuses on the three protagonists, Aphmau, Rune and Simon as they familiarize themselves into this new fantasy world of Estorra.

Like many MMORPGs, they take quests from EVI's (short for Estorran Virtual Intelligence), the inhabitants of Estorra and the "NPCs" of the game with a high level of all capabilities, such as self-awareness and dynamic speech capabilities. The players must be really careful, though, as there are permadeath in this game.

As the party dwell in the game, however, a disturbing and shocking truth begins to reveal...

Development and Production
The series had been in the works since the finale of the second season of ''Minecraft Diaries. ''This was first hinted as Aphmau's uploading schedule was missing a slot, which was intended for a roleplay series.

According to Aphmau, new models, skins, characters and story were being woven into a new world. Characters from her previous series and roleplays will would not return.

It was produced by BluJay Studios, the company Aphmau and her husband Dom started along with her gaming channel. The company primary consists of Jess, Jason, Calvin, Kristina, Sean, Will and Jordan, taking different roles for the current and upcoming series. Deb was previously announced as a member with her role being a part of the management group. The production team was formed in February 2016 and has been together since. It is going to grow within the coming months as well as more people join the team.

The BlueJay Studios team had known each other during their college years. Jess met Sean, Will and Jordan in college, while Jason also met Calvin in college.

Previously, Jess and Jason took the roles of writing, directing and producing the content on the gaming channel. However, since the second season of MyStreet, Jess, along with Calvin and Kristina became the head writers for the series as well as Estorra. Jason returned to become the producer of the series and Kristina is also revealed to be the video editor of the production team.

Additionally, Sean, Will and Jordan were the artists for the series. This group were in charge of creating the concept art, promotional art and 3D models respectively.

Sean drew the concept art for the series. This is shown on social media, showing the World Tree and character designs. In addition, Jordan acted as the promotional artist of the series. The two artists were also responsible for the animated teaser trailer and Minecraft skins for the new characters.

Will, better known as KamiWasa, worked on 3D models of weapons and instruments for the series. Prior to this, he was also responsible for giving an upgrade on Kawaii~Chan's Minecraft skin by adding 3D cat ears and tail, present since the second season of MyStreet. These upgrades are present in Aphmau, the main protagonist of this series. Additionally, he also created several swords, daggers, lute and a quest board. He showcased these models until the official launch.

Will, on social media, explained that he used Monster Hunter as a reference when designing the current and upcoming weapons. These new weapons are swords, daggers and axe. On August 14th, Will announced a weapon contest on social media. The contest involved the viewers of the series to draw a weapon of their choosing from either a sword, axe, dagger, spear or staff. The contest endEd on August 20th and the crowned winner had their weapon featured in the series.

Most of the group are experienced in voice acting. Jess has continuously voiced herself in her many series, Jason voiced Aaron, Calvin voiced Castor and several other characters and lastly, Will voiced Jeff from MyStreet Phoenix Drop High.

July 24 - July 30
As the series was announced, Aphmau continued releasing promotional and teaser images of the upcoming stagecraft series. This chain continued for the following two weeks until the premiere date.

On July 24th, a new image was uploaded on social media. This image was the first to feature the characters in Minecraft skin form. She greatly resembled Aphmau and was at a stance, wielding her signature lavender sword.

The next day, July 25th, a new promotional art surfaced. The picture focused on the three protagonists huddled around a campfire. The group are relaxing while the male protagonist plays his instrument.

On July 27th, Aphmau resumed the chain by showcasing a concept art of the green-haired protagonist. Her name was revealed to be Rune and wielded a short sword.

The following day, July 28th, a promotional image of the purple character (Aphmau) and Rune leaping trees emerged. The caption on social media says "Sometimes people meet in weird ways!". This hinted the origins of their friendship.

On July 29th, a promotional image of the purple character arrived. She is seen wielding her sword once again. At the end of the week, the brown-haired protagonist was revealed to be named Simon. He is seen holding his musical instrument.

July 31 - August 6
To begin the final week, Aphmau released more images centering the main characters. On July 31st, the Minecraft skin of Simon is shown. He is again seen with his instrument and a ledge. Behind him appear to be a foresty area and a market seen below of him. On August 2nd, Jordan revealed an 8-bit art of Simon.

After several days of inactivity on social media, Aphmau and her production crew annouced the series launch would be delayed by one day. On the update, her channel schedule was to be at a pause until the series premiere. This gave the crew more time on the production and a much needed break. With no new videos on the gaming channel, vlogs on her vlogging channel and her friends would be in placed for the time being.

On August 4th, Jordan revealed the promotional image of Rune on social media, the last one of the trio. She was seen winking and waving to her right.

On August 6th, the intended new date, Aphmau and her team created a video on the series delaying again, with the permanent set date on August 7th. On the video, the series suffered glitches from the new technology, causing errors to surface. The update video also included a non-canon puppet play which starred the three core characters. Despite it being canon, some of the parts match with the first episode, such as Aphmau chasing down Rune and enountering Simon at a later part.

Later that day, a new image of a character named Owen surfaced. He is seen wielding a brown revolver and is dressed in a western style clothing. A few hours later, another photo was revealed of two new characters. One is a man reading a book and a woman who appears to be a mechanic.

On Jordan's channel, he explained that the production team did not take the days off, but instead worked on the premiere episode. This resulted on the team to stop producing new episodes of MyStreet and focus on the brand new series.

Hiatus
After the premiere of "Bunny Love", the series went into hiatus for the coming weeks, until Aphmau spoke on the issue on October 2nd, almost a month since the previous episode premiered. She explained the amount of time Estorra episodes produce doubles that of a regular MyStreet, making the episodes more time consuming. Compared to MyStreet's popularity and demand, Estorra couldn't compete to the series in view count and interaction, despite the work Aphmau and her crew put time on it. The series would continue to be produced depending on if it is either a hit or miss to the audience, which Estorra was a miss. Some viewers did not enjoy the series as much as her other series. It got to the point where viewers enjoyed and preferred watching minigames more, which took less time to make.

After the explanation, Aphmau included several series that suffered the same fate as Estorra, namingly Mod Mod World, Sassy Lawyer, Minecraft Isles and several others. The series is currently not airing, and it is unknown if it would make a return in the future.

According to Aphmau, she believes the series' low support is due to its constantly and instantly comparison to the anime Sword Art Online.

Revival
A day after Minecraft Diaries was put on hold, Dom announced on Twitter at the possibility of reviving Minecraft Diaries and Dreams of Estorra but the series would be uploaded on a secondary channel dedicated to fantasy roleplays.

On February 17th, Aphmau's new channel, Aphmau Fantasy, uploaded a video introducing the channel explained by Aphmau and Castor. The two will be the head on creating and writing the episodes, so it would be easier to help Aphmau manage the new channel. Although episodes will be uploaded less frequently, once a week, the support from the viewers will heaviliy fuel the channel. The first six episodes of Dreams of Estorra and the first nine episodes of the third season of Minecraft Diaries will premiere on this new channel with new episodes premiering later on.

On the same day, the first episode of Estorra was uploaded and retitled as "REM Drive" on the Aphmau Fantasy channel.

Characters

 * Aphmau: A dark blue-haired woman wearing purple clothing, silver bracers and her outfit is outlined in gold trimming. Her most notable trait is her feline-like ears and tail. In social media, she is seen wielding a curved lavender sword. The guard is maroon, the grip is gold and pummel is brown.
 * Rune: A light green-haired woman wearing a one piece and brown gloves. Her head is mostly covered with a green hood. She wields two thin, short swords, that resemble a ninjatō.
 * Simon: A brown-haired man wearing an armor with a red-blue color scheme. His armor appears to be like plate armor. Out of the trio, he is carrying an instrument that bears resemblance to a lute on his back.
 * Owen: An EVI with light brown hair turning gray. He wears brown vest, underneath is a white long-sleeve and blue pants. He uses a brown revolver, matching his western aesthetic. He specializes in giving quest to players. He and Reed do not seem to like each other.
 * Val: The Captain of the Sentinels and a respected EVI. She is a young woman with long hair, pale skin and wears heavy armor. She takes charge of her army well and is well known in the game.
 * Braxton: An EVI whose job is to heal and cure ailments of players by using his staff.
 * Reed: A skilled and experienced player who assists Aphmau and her group. He and Owen do not seem to like each other.
 * Two unnamed characters were shown on social media. One is a man who appears to enjoy reading books and the other is a woman who appears to have a knack for mechanics.

Episodes
On the update video, Jess confirmed that the series would contain about 30 episodes, matching this number with her MyStreet series.

On August 14th, late at night, Jason announced on social media that Jess was suffering from minor internal bleeding and was in the hospital. Although promised of new video on August 15th, she explained in a video that there would be no videos at the current time as she took time to recover.

On August 17th, Jess got discharged from the hospital and started resting. She took a few days off before she fully recovered and start posting videos.

The series was revived on February 17, 2017, re-uploading its first episode on Aphmau Fantasy. After the first six episodes have been all re-uploaded, new episodes will resume, premiering once a week.

Trivia

 * In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil is the world tree. Yggdrasil is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. In both sources, Yggdrasil is an immense ash tree that is central and considered very holy.
 * It should be noted that the Yggdrasil Forest, the village and elves are mentioned heavily in Minecraft Diaries, mostly by Zoey in the first season, Levin and Malachi in Season 2, and it is shown in Season 3.
 * In the description of the first episode, there is a link for a hero kit. In it are wallpapers, icons and pixel art for phones and computers. It contains images that were previously released by Aphmau and production team, however it did have new unreleased art located in the icon folder.
 * The first episode was retitled "REM Drive" upon the re-upload on Aphmau Fantasy.