4-Kingdoms

My Project for the fifth Semester, where I designed a World with four Kingdoms and an independent State. Furthermore I designed two Characters. One of the four protagonist and the antagonist. It is planned as an Action-Adventure RPG, with inspiration from Dragon Quest and Ruined Kingdom: A League of Legends Story.

I created a Worldbible and a list with the translations for the cities, rivers, forests, and so on for the four Kingdoms.

Worldbible

Translations

Game Design

Key-Features:

Title: 4-Kingdoms
Genre: Action-Adventure RPG
Setting: Middle Ages in a fictional world
- Reason: Fitting to their current state of technology and politics
Story (in short): End the war by defeating the four mind controlled kings, and the one who is behind all of it
Target Group: Explorer and young adults
- Reason:
  - Explorer: since there is a lot to learn about the lore and culture of the Kingdoms
  - Young adults: the main characters are young adults and some of their stories could be relatable to someone
3D-Isometric
Singleplayer
Crafting (Potions, Meals, Armor, Weapons)
- Reason: Every Kingdom has specialties when it comes to crafting and on this way the player gets a better insight on it
- Potions and Meals can be consumed and have effects like: healing or stat increase
- Armor and Weapons increase stats
Stats:
- HP
- Mana
- Damage -> Physical Damage
- Defense
- Elemental Power -> Elemental Damage/Healing
- Speed -> Sets the run order (highest Speed begins)
Level and Skill Tree
- Reason: Fitting for a RPG game, so they can build the characters after their preferences
Turn Based Fighting Style
- Reason: By having four playable characters, they don't have to decide who they want to play
Side quests
- Reason: To learn more about the different Kingdoms and their culture and history
Open Map System
- Change from 3D to 2.5D
  - Reason: Only function is to change your location, 3D models aren't necessary
- Locations to enter:
  - Villages and Cities
  - Forest
  - Caves
  - Lakes
- By progression the story, you unlock more part of the map
- Reason for the Open Map System: To showcase the map, but not in a way, where they have to walk many miles to get to a new location

Worlddesign

The Map of Gaia was created with the program Wonderdraft. I spend one month on finishing it.

My plan was to create Kingdoms each to one of the four base elements: Fire, Water, Air and Earth. Furthermore I wanted a fifth element in the middle to bring a little mystery in it but also a motivation for the antagonist who once lived in the Kingdom of Darkness.

Normally the four elements are associated with a direction. Water is North, Fire is South, Air is East and Earth is West. I purposely worked against it, to give more freedom in creating the map.

I also have a version of the map, where you can see the borders of the Kingdoms. The borders where the first thing i insert after the form of the land, to determine the size of each Kingdom.

Karui Shiruku

I started with the Air Kingdom, Karui Shiruku, because I already had a vision for them and place it north, since I needed the width space.

For it I imagined it to be on a plateau to symbolise their connection to the sky. Since it is not completely identifible, I placed a waterfall in front of it.

The main color of the air element is green, so as the roof of the buildings.

Their are forests but not so dense, since they are to far from the base ground for proper nutrition.

They are specialized in scouting, due to their ability to fly, and weave, since they need high level of concentration on barely visible things.

Mizu no Kokoro

Next I went to the Water Kingdom, Mizu no Kokoro, in the south. I placed it there, because i wanted them to be an island and so like the Air Kingdom it needed width space.

It is separated from the rest through a river, through the high sense of the arrogant behavior of the royals. They even separated themselves from the rest of the kingdom.

The main color of the Water Element is blue, so as the roof of the buildings.

Their is also a difference in quality, while the city where the king and the royals live are high quality, the ones of the common folk are low quality. This should show furthermore the arrogance of the royals and their lack of love for their people.

There are many rivers and lakes to stronger symbolise that this is the Water Kingdom.

They are specialized in healing, because the body of a human consists of a lot of water, but also potions are liquid so they are more advanced in analyzing them and how they react in a body, and argiculture, since their water helps them to avoid dry seasons.

Moeru Nabe

After I finished the Water Kingdom, i started with Moeru Nabe, the Fire Kingdom. It is in the West, since the element Earth is associated with it and as i said before i wanted to avoid it.

Untypically for the Fire Element there is a lot of forest. It is because i used this Element not for it flames, but for its heat.

So in this Kingdom we have the biggest forests on the whole map, but also a desert, since there is the core point of the heat.

The main color of Fire is Red, like the roofs on the buildings.

Their specialty lies in hunting and cooking. One comes from the high amount of hunting space and as a cook you work mostly with heat, which is easy to handle for the Fire Elements.

Anbiru

The Last of the Kingdoms, was the Earth Kingdom, Anbiru. There was no other space left than the east, but it benefited more from a good height quantity, since the mountains doesn't go that in the way of vision of other structures.

There are many mountains in this Kingdom and it is the only one with a stone ground, why the others all have grass ground. In my opinion, it suits the Earth Kingdom more.

The trees are orange, to symbolize that they are not normal trees. They are as hard as iron and live from connection to the ground and dusty air.

Earths main color is Yellow, which gave the roof their color.

As specialization they are well trained in mining and forging. Both deals with different types of minerals, which are stones. So their Element gives them an advantage in finding and working with them.

Independent Land

Last but not least, is the independent part of Gaia. Formerly it was the Kingdom of Darkness but got destroyed by the other four Kingdoms out of fear. It is placed in the middle, since it is going to be the main base for the player, where he rests after an adventure in one of the Kingdoms.

There is no forests or lakes, to the destruction of the Kingdom. The only things remained are the ruins of the former capital and Zero, the city where emigrants live.

You can see a little bit of purple on Zero, since it was the main color of the Darkness Element.

As you can see they have small space, but the reason behind is, that they lived underground with only a few cities or villages at top for visitors.

Also the capital is above, because of meetings with other kings, so they don't need to go all the way underground.

PDFs of the two Version of Gaia

Character Design

There is a total of four playable Characters, one each representing one of the elements plus an antagonist from the Dark Kingdom. I generated AI Art for my Characters with Gencraft: https://gencraft.com/generate

Note: Their AI-Art is not my final version of them, just a direction which way they would go.

Nero

Nero (Italienisch) = Schwarz
Final Boss of the Game
Former soldier of the Darkness Kingdom
Was there when his home got destroyed
Saved by his mentor, to wake up after 300 years
Fueld by hate and thirst for revenge
Went out to mind control all current Kings and start a war
Collects elemental energy from the fights to kill all non Dark Elements and resurrect them as such
Goal: Rebuilding the Dark Kingdom as the sole King of Gaia

Mizu

Mizu (Japanese) = Water
One of the four playable Characters
Princess of the Water Kingdom
Specialize in healing
Doesn't like how the royal treats their people
Found out about the mind control of the Kings
Was stabbed and thrown out into the ocean by her brother
A smuggler found her and brought her to Zero
There she started to look for allies to end the war
Role in Fights: Elemental Damage & Healing

After the Story: Queen of the Water Kingdom

In the wordbible their stories are more fleshed out. The other three protagonists aren't in the wordbible, but i put some though into them and where their story would go.

Kasai

Kasai (Japanese) = Fire
One of the four playable Characters
Trainee Chef in the Fire Kingdom
Specialize in cooking
First playable Character (Tutorial)
His sisters got abducted by the believers of the cathedral
By his first attempt to save them, he got chase out of the Kingdom into Zero
Allied with Mizu to save his sisters
Role in Fights: Elemental Damage & Physical Damage

After the Story: Famous Chef in Zero

Kaze

Kaze (Japanese) = Wind
One of the four playable Characters
Orphan in the Air Kingdom
Specialize in stealing
Since he was alone as a kid, he gets through life by stealing what ever he needs
He was hired by some smugglers, who passed by for his thief skills
After the task, he stayed in Zero to become a smuggler
Allied with Mizu for the possibility to steal from royals
Role in Fights: Physical Damage & Self-Buffs

After the Story: Head of an orphanage in Zero

Daichi

Daichi (Japanese) = Earth
One of the four playable Characters
Son of the Head Knight in the Earth Kingdom
Specialize in fighting
He set out to become a knight to earn his fathers recognition
Still his father didn't care for him, because he was so weak, he couldn't fight alone
He went out to of the Kingdom to get stronger and got injured
Some travelers found him and brought him to Zero, where he got treated
Allied with Mizu to get stronger and earn his fathers recognition
Role in Fights: Buffs & Taunt

After the Story: Head Knight of the Water Kingdom (Mizus Right Hand)