Kirin Games Manufacture

Established	pa_250	Type	Interactive Entertainment, Recreational Digital Services Video Game Development, Publishing, and Distribution
Headquarters	Kirin's Peak In Aleph Null System, on the planet Albion, in the City-State of York
Affiliate Organisations	On Albion	Kirin Service Hub Kirin Mobile Games Kirin Legend Labs
	On Sargasso	Kirin Unity, Kirin Traditional
Societal Affiliations	Planet Albion, Unity Protocol
Chair Persons	The GROW1) Team
Slogan	Mythical Interactive Entertainment, For Great Justice
Mascot	The Two-Horned Dragon-Horse, Kirin

Kirin Games Manufacture is a games company, which originally specialised in boardgames, but moved into making and publishing video games in addition.

• Games and Entertainment - Kirin Games Manufacture has created the following video and board games. Each entry includes the year of release:
  • Dynamic Chess - PA 251 - A variation chess game made for a 12 by 12 board. It was originally designed and sold as a boardgame, and still gets sold as one in addition to the game. It adds six playable factions with access to different fairy chess pieces. These pieces combine or build on the moves of orthodox chess pieces, and incorporate other rules from similar strategy games.
    The most notable rule change states that if a King crosses into the enemy's half of the board and stays there without being checked or leaving that area for 3 turns, that player wins by capturing the territory. Playable Factions include:
    • Traditionalists - Fields only the traditional chess pieces, or historical pieces such as the Ferz and the Wazir, but gets to field more pieces than the other factions, in a larger variety of configurations.
    • Hoppers - Incorporates the most hoppers and locusts. Hoppers can hop over other pieces (including friendlies) like checkers, and capture the piece located where they land. Locusts can capture enemy pieces they jump over, potentially netting two captures. However, some of their pieces cannot move without hopping, and can become stranded.
    • Castellans - A heavy faction. A handful of this faction's pieces can only be captured from a certain number of squares away from the target, making them difficult to counter with 'close combat', but they are vulnerable to long ranged captures and leapers.
    • Riders - As the name suggests, this faction fields the most riders - pieces which can move a number of steps or to the end of the board, provided nothing is in the way. Their most powerful pieces combine the effect of a Rider and a Locust, but cannot move through friendlies, or move very far.
    • Leapers - Using 'leaping' units who jump over others when they move like knights, Leapers have the potential to have a large amount of reach across the board, but have trouble with units close up. Careful positioning wins here.
    • Medley - The opposite of the Traditionalists, the Medley integrates entirely customised pieces, using mid-powered equivalent units from the other four factions.
  • Elder Warriors - PA 252 - A frantic two-player run-and-gun game which takes place during The Old War, where one (or two) soldiers of fame and fortune take arms against a sea of mechanical horrors from the Greater Cluster. It is a difficult game for its genre, with eight stages ramping up in difficulty steadily, and fifteen bosses. Players who can't handle the heat can rely on entering the Kirin Code²⁾ on the title screen.
  • Outrageous Action - PA 254 - A first person shooter game, focussed on making 'outrageous' kills by using the environment, specific weapons, and the character's ability to boot enemies, and traverse the large, open levels in leaps and bounds - capable of taking enemies with them. One of Kirin's less well received games, for some of its contentious balance fixes in the multiplayer and a poor marketing campaign. Future additions have steadily vindicated it though, adding new game modes, new characters, and a campaign which nixes the esoteric and tedious 'happy ending' neatly.
  • Ogres and Oubliettes - PA 257 - A digitally published tabletop roleplaying game taking place in a purely fantasy setting of wizards, warriors, and wyverns. It has been through a couple of revisions since it was first published, and is currently in its Third Edition. The game's loose setting is added to and expanded on in smaller mobile game titles, allowing players to follow an original story. Those who follow these minigames get additional content for their tabletop game. Retired story arcs are collected and published into compilation splatbooks.
    • Hero's Handbook - Contains character creation, races, classes, character backgrounds, equipment, skills checks, exploration, combat, spellcasting, and the list of spells and descriptions.
    • Orator's Opuscule - Contains a primer on being an Orator (Game Master), list of planes and gods, a wealth of knowledge on worldbuilding and dungeon design, running the game and player management, treasure and magic items, rules for traps and variant rules for combat and encounters, and a sample adventure.
    • Denizen's Documents - Contains an enormous library of monsters, a monster creation/adaptation guide, and an index of common humanoid Non-Player Characters.
  • FrameSTRIKE - PA 260 - A fast-paced mecha combat game, based off the sport of Frame Running, but approached on a more warlike and mercenary tune. This was the beginning of Kirin's study and execution of open world games, with an entire planet to battle through and conquer in roughly 72 unique zones. This lead to environments which could have its actors and props switched up for whichever mission took place³⁾; Combined with the large number of zones, each a couple of square kilometres - it was a recipe for success. Even with its age, it maintains a superbly heated competitive play scene - and it plays entirely differently! A tournament is run annually, and there have been some beautiful moments.
  • Ogre Warriors - PA 263 - Developed by the TGOW.Action Division, this game is an offshoot of the Ogres and Oubliettes property. It was created with the introduction of the Third Edition of O&O. Players take control of archetypal adventurers, villains, and wild cards as leaders on large battlefields, leading units of creatures and non-player characters to capture objectives, fight gargantuan bosses, decimate the enemy armies⁴⁾, and achieve victory. For the setting's handful of factions, there are a dozen or so campaign branches from different perspectives, each having a dizzying number of outcomes. Along the way, the player creates a character of their own with unlockable equipment and rewards from the campaign to carve their own path to glory - the longest and hardest of them all at release. Finally, they can fight alongside or against other adventurers on the network!
  • Mythical Cards - PA 268 - A wearable, portable video game which augments reality in two distinct ways. The first involves trading cards collected by geocaching and step counting; and gathering resources to build decks for the second phase of gameplay. Players use their decks to summon creatures and evoke magical effects, discarding from their deck in the process. Creatures summoned are only discarded if defeated, otherwise they can recover after an hour of realtime. Players then battle their way through randomly generated player-versus-environment missions, fighting monsters overlaid into the world⁵⁾ and allowing the player to capture area, and interact with props or receive communication from NPCs. Upon completion or failure of a mission, the player's deck refreshes, and cards used gain experience, becoming more effective. Experience points are also used to develop and guide four player statistics, to create classes. This game is downloadable on any HUD or hologram enabled mobile device, and connects to anywhere there's good GPS data. At the very least, Kingdom of Albion and Unity Protocol controlled territories have coverage.
• KirinPeak Game Service - A publishing and distribution network for interactive entertainment. Third party developers and publishers often use KirinPeak as a digital point of sale too, with Kirin getting a small cut from every sale made.
  • Mountain Server Network - A network of servers specialised for games traffic. Public servers are available for all games made by Kirin, and with close partners and distributors who use Kirin's services. Private users and clients can purchase private servers on a month-by-month or 12-month plan.
  • Raijin AntiCheat - An anti-cheating and anti-tampering software for online games. All public servers run by Kirin use Raijin, and there are known to be 'ban waves' shortly after new hacks get released. Privately managed servers can disable Raijin, but this isn't recommended for public-facing games!
• The Games Merchants - Co-operated with One-Stop, these miniature outlets within One Stop stores sell physical copies of video games, tabletop games, boardgames, and other geeky paraphernelia and toys. They have a rewards program and a mini-newsletter for buzz about new and upcoming releases.

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For developing its games, Kirin has a couple of specialised game development facilities with a staff of artists, designers, programmers, marketers⁶⁾, infrastructure technicians. The main team may hire contractors to cultivate their talent, or get a new perspective on a project when it has encountered a roadblock. In addition, each game usually has some voice actors and other motion capture actors hired specifically for the project; In these spheres, there are reliable talent contacts for Kirin to call on.

Next, distributing the games is easily handled by being responsible for creating and maintaining the prime multimedia entertainment distribution services in the Aleph Cluster. In addition, Kirin maintains servers for their games in-house, for ease of support and updates and tweaks. Access to the network service is freely available throughout Kingdom of Albion and Unity Protocol, and games from first and third digital goods can be brought through it.

If digital connection is lacking, standalone copies can be bought at any respectable retailer, or The Games Merchants for UC15⁰⁰ for local releases and indie games or UC60⁰⁰ for fully featured Kirin games or those from third party developers. Pieces of optional downloadable content rarely exceed UC10⁰⁰, or may be released for free.

The logo and mascot of Kirin Game Manufacture is the Kirin, a mythical beast of peace and good fortune. It resembles a horse with long, bony antlers behind its ears, a dragon's whiskers, an iridescent scaly coat, a fiery mane - and a surprisingly peaceful and harmonious disposition. They are often likened to unicorns to most alien translations or interpretations of the logo; 'Unicorn Games' is a common transliteration.

The company uses a handful of designs for their branding, ranging from elaborate stamps marking anniversaries to outlines of the Kirin's head, punctuated by company initials. Its colour scheme is not consistent, but black, green, gold, and red seem to be a favourite on Kirin's services and printed material.

In addition to selling physical copies of games, The Games Merchants maintains an online newsletter customers can subscribe to for updates. Subscription to this newsletter includes membership to a message board to discuss games, a free installation application of the KirinPeak Game Service⁷⁾ client and access to the digital marketplace, and source development kits for old Kirin titles, to make freely distributable game modifications with.

In addition, hundreds of third party games are sold through KirinPeak. Promotions and discounts also include third party software in periodic deals or promotions.

Kirin Games has the following holdings and distributions, by location: