The Legacy
- ROYALTY ENDS IN BLOOD
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© cingunt 2019
Original Work
Degree Short Film
Game Development
I studied BA (Hons) Animation at Sheffield Hallam University, and in my final year I was tasked with creating a short film to show all I had learned. Despite the influence of the Covid-19 pandemic - which caused a dramatic shift for all of us, from a full final film to an animatic - I'm still pleased with what I've created.
For my final project, I knew I wanted to create a fantasy world to act as the setting for a dramatic, compelling story. Set to Nuvole Bianche by Ludovico Einaudi, which served as the inspiration for the story, I built up a world that has since captured my imagination. Kao Lai tells the story of Ora, the Queen of the Leo'shai people, in the midst of a catastrophic invasion of her kingdom. With the city in ruins and the army encroaching upon her castle, she chooses to protect her son, Raoro - the titular Kao Lai - by summoning him a way out and facing down the oncoming horde alone. The Leo'shai value courage above all, and there is no more sacred courage than defending your kingdom to the last.
After creating Kao Lai, and completing my University course, I wanted to expand on this world and start telling more of the stories found within it. I wanted to use this world as a source of inspiration for game design in Unity and Unreal. I envisioned a narrative-focused single-player game that responds to the choices made by the player - whether that's their choice of origin story or their individual decisions as the story progresses. The story will follow the player character as they grow up in a palace, the youngest of eight royal children, and their choices will influence the fate of the empire.
Three of the children - Kieran, Arvon and Vyani - are the King's biological heirs (albeit half-siblings), and four - twins Manya and Sarya, Kizun, and the player - are adoptive children. Finally, the eldest of the King's children - as yet unnamed - is one who perished before the beginning of the story, setting the story's main conflict into motion: the need for a new crown heir.
The King's eldest child and clear favourite, until their sudden and untimely death. The King still grieves for his firstborn child after so many years, but his love has become twisted with time - there is an almost-religious reverence surrounding the fallen heir, a cultlike devotion springing up almost overnight, and the King refuses to hear any mention of them when not with adoration. As the heir passed away in the same year the player was adopted, the King believes the player to be this child reincarnated, and seeks to ensure they are the perfect heir to his throne.
Kieran, the second-born, eldest of the King's living children and candidate for crown prince. Even now, he lives in the shadow of his older sibling, and is thus desperate to please his father in their stead - he wants to prove himself worthy not just of the crown but of his love. Raised to be a warrior king, he is an exceptional tactician and swordsman in his later years, and yet holds an innate sense of kindness and morality. He is gentle and supportive to the young player character, and believes his father's cause is right and just.
Arvon, or "Arvo" for short, the biological "middle child" of the King and by far his least favourite. Arvo is a rebellious child with no intention to become his father's perfect heir, instead preferring to focus on trade and commerce. He does just enough to stay on his father's good side and nothing more, happy to enjoy the luxuries of royal life, tinkering alone in his workshop when not away in trade meetings. Despite his slacker attitude, he still looks out for his younger siblings. He acts as a merchant and link to the outside world for the player.
The eldest of the adopted royals, twins Manya and Sarya have immense reserves of magical ability, spending all their time practising new techniques and adapting magic for different purposes. Rarely apart from one another, they are reclusive and particularly shy, but their spellcraft is unmatched. They hold a secret not even they are aware of just yet. When the player manages to befriend them, they will provide magical items and enchantments - if they can provide ingredients, that is.
Vyani, youngest of the King's biological children, and candidate for crown princess. Volatile and spoilt, Vyani is certainly a brat, but she is doted on by her father and in his eyes can do no wrong. She is the most antagonistic of the siblings towards the player and yet seems untouchable; she delights in getting the player into trouble and watching the fallout. To her, the player is just an obstacle between her and being crown princess, and she won't stand for anyone getting in her way.
Kizun is the player's closest sibling, a fellow adopted child and nearly the youngest. He has blood of the Dajeko people and recognises that he doesn't look alike to his siblings, finding himself outcast at times. Although he grows up close to his "half-sibling", the player, he grows resentful when they are considered for crown heir but he is not. Depending on the path he can be friend or foe - loyalty to the King, or loyalty to family.
The player is the youngest of the siblings, and the newest addition to the royal court - they were adopted by the King as an act of kindness, when the player's village was ransacked and burnt down by invaders. Brought to the King by Vyani, as a wailing newborn bundled in singed sheets, the King chose to take in the vulnerable child and raise them as his own. Believing the child to be his fallen eldest reincarnated, the player becomes the only adopted child eligible to be crown heir, and is raised to be a perfect ruler.
Fate, however, has other plans in store.
Their choices lead them to a horrifying truth - they were not rescued from their village, they were kidnapped, just like Manya and Sarya and Kizun. The invading army was the very empire they've grown up in. The father figure they so loved was the one who lit the flame. The King's noble cause to unify a fractured world was an act of conquest and of bloodshed and nothing more, trying to reshape the world in his own image. With the King's health beginning to fail, the choice of crown heir - and future ruler - is fast approaching, and the player has to make a choice.
Stay and fight for the crown? Or leave, and become the enemy of those you leave behind?