Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom looks like a game that has deep roots. The style and imagery evoke AAA manga-based games and the characters seem familiar enough that you might wonder if you’d seen them somewhere before. When I previewed the game at What’s Next de Focus in Paris I initially thought it was based on a 90s Saturday morning cartoon I vaguely remembered. But it’s not. The story and world of Shiness began as a web manga from Samir Rebib in 2005, and the concept for the game came a few years later when Enigami CEO and Lead Producer Hazem Hawash discovered the story and fell in love with it.
“I saw it and said ‘Wow that’s cool.’ I wanted to do a video game, I never did a video game before,” Hawash said. “Let’s try it.”
After a few years of pre-development Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom hit Kickstarter in 2014. It achieved its funding goal of $100k, and even hit a few stretch goals, all based on the strength of its appealing visuals and unique concept. For Hawash, the point of building a rich world that does justice to Rebib’s labor of love was to give players the opportunity to truly experience the world as an open, engaging adventure.
“We try to do something original we never saw before, an RPG fighting game mixed in with puzzle mechanics,” he said. “In Shiness you can do absolutely what you want. You can play the way you want. Every choice you make will lead you to one end or another.”
It’s not yet clear just how much influence combat and character choices will have on the narrative, but Hawash emphasized that the game is more than just action. There are more than 100 different puzzles in the game, many of which have more than one solution. There’s also a large scale crafting system that involves gathering loot and hunting, or capturing, some of the original creatures scurrying about the bright, pastel landscape. All of this adds to player agency and choice, and Hawash said that having multiple characters allows for players to handle the wide range of challenges Shiness throws at them.
“You can play as you like, with more magic or more attack. And some enemy types resist magic more or physical attacks more. You need to be careful and make the build you want to each character,” he said.
Hawash played through a few boss fights for me, and showed me one of the puzzles in the game. From what I saw (and from a little playtime) it’s clear there is a lot going on in Shiness. Maybe too much. Hawash said they try not to overwhelm players and present new mechanics and gameplay challenges about every 30-60 minutes through the early portions of the game. All told he estimated the playtime on the campaign to be about 25 hours, but said completionists could find nearly twice that if they fully explore the world. Above all, Hawash wants players to know that Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom is the product of a lot dedication from a passionate team and the final game will reflect that.
“We are 15 people doing a 100-person job,” he said. “We are true gamers and we love to play.”
Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom is scheduled for release later this year on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
