Genre
A rhythm game disguised as a third person action adventure. Also a detective game about solving a mystery that happened a hundred years ago. The story genre is eastern historical fantasy. Targeting audience who are 18 -35 years old.
Themes
1. Reformative justice. 2. An undermining of the Taoist idea of “heaven and earth are unkind, everything under them are but ritualist offerings, used and then thrown away.” 3. Uncovering the history that is not written in the official records.
Magic source
Magical realism driven by folklore. The interaction between the supernatural and the real is barely perceptible for most people. Still, superstition is very common.
Technical level
It is an alternative world with more imposing architectures, and more mechanical inventions and ingenuity than its historical counterpart.
Two timelines and one location
There are two timelines in this game: the past that is set around 720CE and the present that is around 840CE. All information relating to the past timeline will be in this color.
The player will be introduced to the present timeline first. Set around 840CE, in a great border city sandwiched between Gokturk Khaganate and Tibetan empire, during the epilogue of China’s Tang dynasty. As a city flourished on cross country trading, imaging caravans and ships coming from as far as Byzantine and Baghdad stopping here, and leaving behind visual influences mingling with the local ones. Its architectural landmark is the summer palace of a vassal king built in 730CE. The border city is in close proximity with a great river that allows the flows of commerce between distant lands. The great river itself is the center of some almost magical events, which in the span of a hundred years, helped to transform the border city from a shanty town to a prosperous hub between lands. The time when the protagonist arrives, he is greeted by a lazy sort of haze looming above the city. The weather only becomes gloomier and hangs for days, as if expecting a long week of rain and thunderstorm.
The past timeline (720CE) is entwined with the plot progression with the present timeline. In the beginning of this timeline the prosperous border city was merely a large staging post for ships and caravans. The protagonist in this timeline is the catalyst for events that lead to the prosperity of the border city. The truth behind some major historical and somewhat magical events will be revealed: 1. The flood that eroded away the land between the great river and another major waterway, which in turn allows more traffic on the great river. 2. A vassal king’s passing by on the great river, and the sudden blossom of lotus during his visit. The vassal king is entranced by the river’s beauty, thus leading to the building of the summer palace. 3. 7 days of heavy rain and thunder, whose time coincides with an armed revolt that has rattled the mainland (a more detailed explanation is in the social circumstances section).
Two timelines and two protagonists
“Jack” of the timeline 840CE. The two “Jacks” are both someone with a gift of sight. His name is pronounced Ah’mingja, written 阿明夏. A young man trained in the transcription of medical practices and images in a repurposed temple on a snowy mountain. He received a gift of sight by accident: it involves the blowing of a candle lit by a sun’s fire and its spark leapt into his eyes; but this is a story for another time. He works as a scribe in a medical brewery while waiting for his official travel documents. His routine is interrupted by a series of events: 1. The investigation of a rumored “water ghost” dressed in a gown of the previous dynasty’s fashion. It roams the city at night as if in search of something, leaving a trail of water behind. 2. A bargain with the said “water ghost.” In exchange for him not getting eaten, he must help a certain water demon to find out the whereabouts of a woman who disappeared in that 7 days of rain and thunder in year 740. 3. Becoming a somewhat under-qualified shaman in the process. 4. Uncover the truth behind the 7 days of rain and thunder a hundred years ago, and bare witness to the end of a promise made in the heavy rain.
“Jack” of the timeline 720CE. She is a shaman traveling with the displaced people from the plains. A shaman’s name must stay hidden, because when other entities cannot name them, they cannot curse them. She is called Huheen (girl) in her youth. And in her later age, she will be called Ucheen (Lady/Madame). As a shaman, her way with demons and spirits always involves a drum (thus a rhyme game). She is the person behind the making of the great border city, the mortal who wins the battles of wit against a water demon, and the woman who disappeared in 7 days of rain and thunder in year 740.
Aku the water demon
“Aku” is the lord of the great river. She is a demon once bound to a promise, and now furious and weakened thanks to a promise broken. Like the two “Jacks,” Aku has a different name. It is Yu Shuihuo, written 御水火, meaning ‘the one who has power over water and fire.’In the present timeline, she has just awoken from a near- hundred-years of sleep after she was severely injured by lightning. Since Yu Shuihuo is a creature of water, the entry onto the land is very harmful to her essence, therefore she dons a mask of water to tread the land. The mask she currently possesses is that Shaman girl (Huheen)’s reflection in water.
Her true form will be influenced by a Chinese dragon or some other illuminated beast, but something is off center that sets her apart from the image of a divine creature. For example, she can have only one horn, and four toes on its claws (the typical representation of a chinese dragon has two horns and five toes on its claw) . The scars on its skin looks like this creature has been struck by lightning (See 2 of Laws of physic for explanation).
She is also quite illiterate, and an unreliable narrator in 840CE’s storyline. Plus a greedy bastard who will drag anything she wants to possess into water, ranging from beautiful ships that pass through her river, to the creatures who she would like to devour. However, ironically she is also the force behind the making of the greater border city, due to a promise made with Huheen.
Laws of physics
There are some concepts tied to the logics of eastern folklore: 1. The boundaries of deities, demons and spirits are never clear, and they are very different from western traditions. This is to say, not all of them are antagonistic. In classical chinese folklore literature such as Liaozhai (聊斋志异), a demon(妖怪) or a spirit can take the role of a dear friend, a family member, a lover, or a creature on its way to become a deity. 2. The taoist concept of 劫; this word means suffering, it is something like a heavenly tribulation that is meant to kill demons and spirits who lives for too long. The creatures must endure this suffering if they wish to live on. A creature’s tribulation occurs once per a hundred years in the form of nature phenomenons such as lightning accompanied with heavy rain. Interestingly, in Buddhism, 劫 is Kalpa (aeon), a unit for time.
Social circumstances
The story in the present timeline is set a hundred years after Anshi revolt, in which a Turktic general leads a nearly successful rebellion against Emperor Xuanzong. This revolt had intensified China’s xenophobic attitude, which is in stark contract to the longing and intrigue for the places outside of the border as a common literary sentiment during the earlier half of the Tang dynasty. In the actual background of the game a similar event inspired by the Anshi revolt has taken place, and left a scare on the border city’s history. Since the story is centered around a border city, there is no prevalent tension between cultures. Still, people can feel the xenophobia radiating from the mainland.
In the past timeline, there are groups of nomadic people displaced by war and conflict residing outside of the city fortification. During the event in which the summer palace is built, they are hired on site and were accepted into the city. Because of the sheer amount of the labor required by this construction project, the people fleeing wars from the plains are able to find livelihood here. Huheen (Jack of 720CE) is with those displaced people, and she is well respected among them.
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