Kin

Story

In KIN, the player moves through the world as a mysterious, tiny girl with big hair clad in a bright dress. Defeating enemies and solving puzzles, she leaps from platform to platform, travelling through different landscapes.

At the start of the game, the player sees the main character, Kira, being woken from cryogenic sleep by a small autonomous flying robot. She is at her home planet, and - unbeknownst to the player at this point - one of the two remaining people of her kind.

Through flashback cutscenes the player finds out about Indy, who has arrived on her planet shortly before, looking for those of her kind, because they hold the cure to his illness. He travels together with the robot companion we saw earlier: Nami. He lands, already infected, sets up camp and goes out to explore. He finds a map on his way which show the locations of the two remaining sisters. He goes to look for Nora, Kira’s sister. Unfortunately to Indy, he finds the cryogenic pod of Nora.. empty. He continues to explore the planet with his last strength, but his illness, the creep, takes over. It encapsulates him in an impermeable black shell.

With his master disabled, Nami goes to find Kira herself and to guide her to Indy. This is when the player starts playing; taking control of Kira to guide her through the different landscapes. She comes across enemies made of the same black substance that took over Indy in the end. Defeating them and solving puzzles, she comes by old logs of Indy and finds out more about the story on the way, finding Indy in the end who has transformed into the last boss to defeat the game.

Design

The game holds an abstract aesthetic that has become characteristic for the studio through their earlier VR experiences such as APEX and Surge. Lively colours are used, especially in the first levels. Later on, as the player moves closer to the end stage, the world becomes darker, gloomier and contains more enemies.

The levels are designed as miniature worlds. The player looks down on the world and the main character therein from a “God view”.

The platforms, pillars and portals are of the world and therefore hold a unifying geometric aesthetic. The different zones are designed with varying backgrounds; you move through islands, forest, desert, cave, up along a tall wall and finally you end up in the black surroundings where you’ll find the last boss.

Gameplay

The game is played with either a gamepad or Oculus Touch controllers. The player moves across the platforms by walking, running or jumping. From the second and third zone on, the player is familiarized with puzzle platformer elements with more challenging jumping patterns, walking bridges that need to be switched on or off, are timed or do damage to the player after time.

The game also contains combat elements. In the first zone, the player finds her sword and is familiarized with using it to battle the small enemies of the early levels. Later on, she also acquires a boomerang, which can be used both in combat and for puzzles.

There are four boss levels spread out throughout the game. These are bigger and harder to beat than the regular enemies found in the platformer levels. The game ends with a boss level followed by a final cutscene.

Hardware Specifications

When running on a Gear VR, the player needs to use a Samsung S6 or higher. The Samsung S6’s technical specifications consist of an Octa-core 4x2.1GHz + 4x1.5GHz 64-bit 14nm Samsung Exynos processor, 32GB of storage and 3GB of RAM.

When running on an Oculus Rift, the player needs to use a “VR ready” PC. Such a PC’s technical specifications consist of an NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 graphics card equivalent or greater, an Intel i5-4590 processor equivalent or greater and 8GB+ of RAM.