About
The Fall of Kyos was originally envisioned as It’s like Elder Scrolls, but on Kyos. (Which Elder Scrolls? Which??)
Main features:
- Open-world exploration of Kyos and its subrealities in 523 AW.
- Anti-checklist approach to quests and activities; emphasis on unique content over scope. A sense of discovery as the cornerstone of the experience.
- Comparatively complex RPG mechanics, such as class progression, itemization, etc. – as opposed to more streamlined systems.
- Heavy emphasis on story and worldbuilding/lore. If you’ve read the “World” section of this website and played Minotaur, you know what I mean.
- Life-sim gameplay elements (housing, real-time travel option, non-combat jobs, etc.).
- Penguins.
Let’s go a little more in-depth on each of these! Except for penguins, because what more is there to say, really.
Exploration
Kyos overall, including all of its 35 principal locations, was originally designed with the open-world exploration in mind. Our goal was to combine the traversal mechanics and setting as seamlessly as possible. From the layout of the continent map to systems that facilitate long-distance travel (such as machines), the geography and infrastructure of Kyos, as well as its world in general, are intended to be a meaningful part of the game.
Kyos at night in 523 AW
A sense of wonder and discovery: while a certain degree of standardization is unavoidable, we strongly believe that the exploration should not come down to chasing markers and filling in checklists, literal or otherwise. Admittedly, this does limit the scope of the world of TFOK, but populating it with meaningful and varied content takes priority. Instead of expecting a routine pattern, an explorer of Kyos can never be sure about what awaits them around the next corner.
Subrealities: the lore concept of subjective realities lends itself very well to two interactive systems: a soulslike multiplayer and emergent gameplay. Kyos in its post-Collapse state provides a solid narrative basis for player encounters, as well as for their actions having a tangible effect on individual locations, such as set dressing and enemy placement, which can enhance replay value at a reasonable development cost.
Below: a series of images of the Cathedral of Grace alterations within a player’s subreality
RPG mechanics
U7 core rulebook was written primarily with TFOK in mind; as a result, its contents are easily translatable into a digital format. That’s not to say its systems are oversimplified: as you could have seen from the pages about Kyosian races and classes, the rulebook suggests a relatively deep level of character customization — something that we would like to purposefully preserve in the game.
Bridges and nodes are a big part of item customization on Kyos (as Nod Pikes from Minotaur would happily tell you)
In the UI mockups, you can see more examples of this; the prototypes of the equipment screens in particular demonstrate an in-depth approach (with each race having a specialized layout of the gear section, as well as completely unique augmentations sections).
There’s certainly an argument to be made in favor of more streamlined systems (especially for first-person combat), but as some recent releases have clearly demonstrated, complexity in itself by no means hinders success.
Story and characters
It’s Minotaur 2.0… with gameplay! Seriously though, if you played Minotaur, you know that we put a great deal of effort into story and setting. We fully intend to maintain this approach — double down on it, even, as with The Fall of Kyos, we’re much less constrained by genre and scope limitations. The world of Kyos is very well-developed already, and TFOK is meant to give it an opportunity to become fully explorable.
The game begins with the events of Sarin 12, 523 AW, when one of the seven dome cities of Kyos fell (hmmm), and a train heading from it was attacked by a Demon for the first time. If you’d like to learn more about the plot setup, check out a report about the incident, promptly submitted to the head of the Nova sept, as well as the main character profiles (some of which include their music themes)!
Felicity 12
Race: android
Age: 7 months (2-year grasp)
Class // kit: Prime // Predator
Music theme: Grace Alone (this and other fantastic character themes were composed for TFOK by Jon Everist)
One of TFX’s finest products, Felicity had almost all of her limiters disabled, which resulted in a record-low grasp. She was a bespoke Prime made for Aria Nova, who had just become the head of the Nova sept, in 487 AW; nearly 40 years later Samuel, Aria’s eldest nephew, found out that Felicity’s expired blue box hasn’t been destroyed as per regulations, and secured his aunt’s consent to try and recreate the old model with the help of TFX — not an official practice, but it really depends on who’s asking.
Based on the fact that Samuel has repeatedly expressed his concerns over the alarming rate at which Felicity learns abstract concepts — one of the more difficult feats for androids to achieve — the reconstruction was a success.
Bartholomew Keats
Race: synthet (68% IR; abuser)
Age: 68 years
Class // kit: dual — Officer // Enforcer (current), Prime // Saboteur (dropped)
Bart says he has seen more subrealities than… well, we can’t really repeat, or we’d have to age-restrict the website. Having served in over a dozen PSFs for over 40 years, he gathered an impressive inventory of scars and became an abuser with some hard implants his squadmates say couldn’t have come from anywhere but the black market. He’s got many friends in high places — men and women he trained with in The Academy. When recruiters from a prestigious Bloodhound PSF reached out to Centurion Guin for recommendations, the man said: “Mr. Keats and I saw a Death battling a Demon. We joined in on the fun.”
Malé
Race: penguin
Age: 14 years (≈28 in human equivalent)
Class // kit: Herald // Grey Herald
A pin’s pilgrimage usually lasts for a couple of years, after which they must return to their fleet with something of value. It appears that Malé has been on Kyos for almost five. There are rumors of him having been banished from his tribe, joining the Brass Fist PSF, gambling away stolen crown gems in Mira’s Inner Wards and doing Syl knows what else, but those few who know Malé well enough have a pretty good idea about where all the gossip comes from. What’s objectively true is that Malé is as restless and energetic as a rockhopper can be, and that there’s more to his upbeat personality than meets the Kyosian eye.
An expectedly inaccurate introduction. — Malé, a penguin explorer and adventurer extraordinaire, 523 AW
Bane the Shattered
Race: demonspawn
Age: 40 years
Class // kit: Shade // Doppelganger
The March of the Damned ended when the joint forces of Tali and Mira defeated Daniel the Shunned’s army at the foot of Aegis in 314 AW. The remaining demonspawn scattered throughout Eastern Plains, migrating in small groups. Very soon both septs started sending out their scouts to offer survivors “side jobs”, which included a wide range of activities varying from sabotage to assassination. The families found themselves capable operatives in subjective realities, who proved to be so effective that the practice spread and exists to this day. Bane is one demonspawn of such talents; little else is known about him.
Norah Bloom
Race: pure human (null IR)
Age: 17 years
Class // kit: dual — Aspect // Grove Keeper (current), Herald // Green Herald (dropped)
Music theme: Fair Coin
Pure humans are rare; although purists are formally regarded as valid members of society, as their numbers inevitably dwindled, so did the efforts to accommodate them. The Somas, with their obsession over the pre-War world, have been the only major exception (many believe that it was purists who ignited the Hysteria there). Other welcoming places include Tali’s temples, some of whose priestesses are purists themselves, and settlements, where life doesn’t rely on augmentation as much as in dome cities, as their inhabitants often lack the means for it.
Norah was born and raised by her family in Eshaness; when she turned 17, this cheerful and straightforward young woman managed to enroll into the Megaversity, which was struggling to fulfill its yearly quota, and relocated to Pion.
Vyne Lockheart
Race: esper
Age: late twenties (appearance)
Class // kit: Aspect // Ice Shaper
It is extremely unusual for an esper not to have a face sigil; in fact, the Megaversity thinks it’s not possible at all, since it contradicts the very nature of the Manifest. Makes sense, then, to only put expensive hunters at the door; one can’t wear a mask all the time. Vyne, who appeared in Ares in 517 AW, took advantage of that logic and soon got a position in one of the newly established Helmsmen research divisions. His intelligence helped him to quickly rise through the ranks, and in only five years, he managed to become an executive, having made some powerful friends along the way — including the famously isolationistic Magister Boldan, for whom he often acts as a personal courier.
It’s difficult to say what Vyne is trying to achieve with this charade, but he’s on the clock; synthetics allow one to look younger and live a longer life, but it’s still far from being ageless, and sooner or later the truth will come out.
1755
Race: android
Age: 7 years (unallocated)
Class // kit: Executor // Fury
Music theme: Replica
Unlike orphans, who are often relocated, fresh hoppers only have one choice: to run or cease functioning. They all want to get to Terminus, but even for someone fleeing from the Republic of Artas, which stands just a couple hundred kiloleagues away from the station, it’s a perilous trip, so most end up in settlements not far from their original domes, trying to make their lot and waiting for an opportunity to depart for the promised land.
1755’s hardware holds up nicely for his age, and he has long since altered his patterns himself, so the android is not in a hurry to leave Sungate, where he set up shop (literally) after hopping over his authority — some delivery company in Nova. He was an orphan before that; his master was a good man, 1755 says, laughing as he offers you a peach from his stall for free, but for the kind of life he has here, he would have hopped over that man just as well.
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Elara Quinn
Race: esper
Age: early twenties (appearance)
Class: multi — unknown
“Diaries of Elara” is an all-time best-seller — an inexhaustible anthology of adventures in all kinds of subjective realities, experienced by their author first-hand. Some Kyosians (and most pinz) even mistakenly think that the mountains surrounding Low Pass are named after her rather than Queen Bates. Elara stands by what she wrote, but there’s often no way to tell the truth from fiction (to be fair, she was one of the first to describe The Void, and those few expeditions that managed to glimpse it proved her story to be accurate).
Rumors have it that Elara is one of the Firstborns, but she is well-known to dodge the subject. She’s certainly been around for a long time, though, and unlike many others of her kin, she used that time to forge ongoing connections with the powers that be. Accounts put her in all kinds of high places: one day she’s walking in the Ares Gardens with the next Magister, the other she’s inspecting Mira Platform with half their sept.
All the more surprising, then, that she was transported as a prisoner on the last train from Soma on Sarin 12.
Living the dream
It’s not all fighting Demons and braving the Outside; Kyos was originally designed as a livable place, with a range of activities available to those who seek to immerse themselves in a (relatively) more peaceful existence. From housing in different DCs and settlements to non-combat jobs like an outfitter or a subreality farmer (yep, you read that right), we have prototyped a number of systems for more casual and relaxing gameplay.
Fun fact: Nod’s apartment was “born” from one of the playable 3D environments that we originally designed for TFOK — a player’s apartment in Nova!
While life-sim elements are often introduced into similar single-player games by talented modders (and we strongly support mod-friendly architecture), one of the goals of TFOK is to provide a more solid vanilla foundation for this type of experience, with sufficient focus on it out of the box.
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But wait, there’s more
There really is! From the void marbles mechanic, which generates isolated instances of locations with altered physics after a player interacts with special flux items, to seamless vertical travel and unique weather phenomena, Kyos is full of wonders, and our hard drives are full of their demonstrations.
I did try to squeeze in as much of it all as possible, but this is ultimately meant to be a short(ish) presentation… Still, I hope that it at least managed to pique your interest and make you wonder what kind of game The Fall of Kyos would be. Despite the large amount of work we put into planning it and developing its setting, at the moment it’s still in a GDD stage. But all things have to start somewhere, right? So here’s to one day exploring the vast lands of Kyos!
