# AFARIANS UNITE! By [playafar](https://paragraph.com/@playafar) · 2022-06-21 --- How We Develop Our Game Together with Our Community --------------------------------------------------- _At Lava Labs, we have, in the past, talked about our player-centric approach to game development — we have said before how vital input from our community is on our mission to create the most fun experience possible with AFAR. In this post, we will shed some light on what developing our game together with our players means to us, and how you can become involved in A Far Away Realm_ Growing our community organically has been one of our main priorities from day one. To us, this means continuously growing the pool of people passionate about AFAR — the Afarians — by simply sparking a genuine interest in what our game will have to offer… and we have been quite successful to date! The [AFAR Discord server](https://discord.com/invite/playafar) has steadily grown with every announcement we have published and is our main testament to that success. Our latest news about our [roadmap for 2022](https://medium.com/@playafar/2022-afar-roadmap-7098f846a151), the [upcoming mining mini-game](https://medium.com/@playafar/what-afars-mining-mini-game-is-all-about-156aba6abca3), our [financial supporters](https://medium.com/@playafar/lava-labs-raises-10-million-for-multiplayer-web3-game-afar-c970b41d8346) — with every update, our community over on Discord has shared their excitement about what we’re trying to achieve with AFAR, about the game’s characters and visuals, and about our laser-focus on creating a fun gaming experience for everyone. Through community management, guidelines and anti-bot verification methods, we’re obviously doing our part to ensure that the AFAR Discord remains a safe space. But most of all, we’re incredibly proud of how Afarians communicate, collaborate and organize themselves, and their drive to engage and contribute to creating something really special with _A Far Away Realm_. **Developing with Afarians, for Afarians** Our most fundamental understanding of “player-centric” development is that we strive to collect feedback from the community about as many elements in and around our game as possible. Even in moments when our team at Lava is extremely focused on developing features we can’t share yet, we’re always creating opportunities for our community to contribute. Our **Discord Server Icon Art Contest** is an example of that: we’re inviting all Afarians to get creative and help us design a new icon for the server. **_Haven’t heard about the Discord Server Icon Contest yet?_** _Simply invite three of your friends to the server and share your submission in the fanart channel, tagging the friends you invited._ **_The reward:_** _a whitelist spot for you and your friends, and an official AFAR artist role for you! For the full announcement and instructions, head over to the announcements channel on Discord._ **The contest is still open until 24.04.2022!** Check out some of the artworks already submitted: ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/2c12bc4e59bf56a4de51f45dd716f93f8e7a577bb553a99f01f979ff1ebd217b.png) If art and graphic design are not your passions, don’t worry, there are plenty of other ways you can get involved in the AFAR community. In fact, **we are always looking for volunteer Server Moderators and Community Moderators**. Community Moderators are responsible for looking after an individual language channel (usually the channel that corresponds to their native language). They offer those who aren’t necessarily fluent in English a way to become familiar with _A Far Away Realm_, for example by translating announcements and other materials. Our overall Discord Moderators are the driving force behind keeping the server healthy and safe. They respond to any questions or doubts from the community and you can always approach them if there is something you need help with. So there you have it! **To us, being player-centric simply means continuously creating opportunities for our community to contribute and get involved**. As we have mentioned before, we’re incredibly proud of all the progress we have made with _A Far Away Realm_ so far and are extremely grateful for all the support, suggestions and kind words we have received from the community to date. _If you’re still left with any questions, want to participate in the Server Icon Competition, or want to become a Discord Community Moderator, we encourage you to head over to our Discord channel and reach out to one of our moderators — they will point you into the right direction!_ Your Lava Labs Team --- *Originally published on [playafar](https://paragraph.com/@playafar/afarians-unite)*