The Shattered Tribes!
"The desolation came like a wave of destruction. A massive earthquake tore through the Shattered Wastes, cracking the already jagged land further. The desolation had a devastating impact on the Shattered Tribes, destroying both the crystals they had stored, and the ones in the Shattered Wastes. It was with these crystals that the Shattered Tribes communed with the land to provide, after the desolation the Shattered Wastes could no longer sustain life. With crystals running low and war breaking out, the Shattered Tribes split, with some of the tribes deciding to forsake the ancient oaths and return to the lands of their Gods."
One of the big aspects of this game is player choice; we want the player to have control over how they want to play the game. To achieve this, the Shattered Tribes have three tribal alignments the player can choose to upgrade to at the start of the game, which will determine how the faction plays. The three tribes are as follows:
Dawn Runners
Born hunters, the Dawn Runners tribe spent the majority of their time within the canyons of the Shattered Wastes, being at one with the wilderness. Closer to nature than the other tribes they are able to tame the various wild animals for use in exploration and battle. Aligning with the Dawn Runners first will give the player access to advanced hunting units with the ability to quickly overwhelm the land's various monsters and assassinate their enemies.
Blood Snakes
The Blood Snakes are a dishonorable tribe, who are shunned by the other tribes for their brutish ways. This aggressive tribe is ferocious in battle, known for sacrificing their tribesmen's lives to achieve a swift victory. Aligning with the Blood Snakes first will give the player access to early siege units and powerful melee units, aimed at conquering their enemies as quickly as possible.
Stone Scorpions
This noble rock tribe are among the most honorable of the shattered tribes and they welcome anyone to join them. The Stone Scorpions rarely seek confrontation, instead relying on their fortifications and defensive units to avoid battle. Aligning with the Stone Scorpions first will give the player access to early fortifications and disruptive units, aimed at developing themselves quickly to overpower their enemies.
As the player progresses they will get the opportunity to align with the remaining tribes, gaining access to increasing amounts of buildings and units depending on which tribes were chosen and eventually obtaining access to all of the units and buildings. Along with spells upgrades, dropped patterns and random map elements the player should always feel like each game is a new adventure, even when playing the same faction!
Elemental Units:
Within the Crystal Kin world there are four elemental powers (Fire/Water/Air/Earth) and these powers can be channeled using the essence of a crystal. Although able to channel all four elemental powers, each individual devotes themselves to one of the four elements. When the Shattered Tribes split only the Air and Earth users chose to return to their ancient lands. Below is a preview of the elemental users;
The Thunder Walker and less powerful Thunder Born love to zap people! They are extremely skilled in manipulating the air around them to cause deadly lighting spells and airbursts. The spells in the infographic are the base spells for each unit and to allow for greater customization the player is able to ‘upgrade' these abilities to new forms of each spell. For example, the Thunder Born's lightning bolt can be changed to lightning surge, a spell that heals a targeted unit. The Air users align themselves with no single tribe, instead requiring multiple tribe alignments for the player to be worthy to command them. Here is a old work in progress gif of them in action: I.imgur.com
The Earth Breaker and less powerful Earth Born act as the siege units for the Shattered Tribes. Skilled at manipulating the earth around them, they are able to topple walls and towers quickly. Similar to the Air users, players are also able to adapt the earth spells to their play style. The Earth users primarily align themselves with the Blood Snakes tribe, while the Earth Breaker requires a second alignment to be used. The majority of spells within Crystal Kin have the ability to be changed to something else and the system for this is likely to be based around unit XP and leveling up.
There is one other elemental unit not listed here; the Frost Born. As none of the more powerful frost users came with the expedition, the Frost Born is untrained and wild in nature. With their limited training they are only able to enchant their weaponry to be frozen and cause wild tempests, as their inexperience causes uncontrollable tempests when they attempt spells. They align themselves with the Dawn Runners.
What's next?
We had intended for this post to contain detailed descriptions of all the Shattered Tribes units, but that would likely cause this post to be far too long as there are 15 in total, not including the heroes. Instead we will find a way to fit them and their infographics into future posts. The next post will contain videos of some of the various animations we have, including some of the physical units you won't have seen before as well as a deeper look into the combat systems within the game.
That's it for now! The next update will be in two weeks from now, but until then you can follow us on Twitter @Crystal_Kin or at Facebook, as well as our Devlog at TGIforums. Thanks for reading!
