Trivia / Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom

• Acting for Two:
  • In the Maherian version, Kevin Bréro voices both Kayenne and Ayron, and Florence Ricaud voices both Mingane and Irys.
  • In the English version, Tamara Ryan voices both Chado and Mingane, Cristina Milizia voices both Poky and Sabba, Kiel Adams voices both Askel and an Adoryan general, and John Doe and Sean Chiplock voice four characters each: Doe voices Kayenne, Meos, King Ranahel and an Adoryan soldier, and Chiplock voices Ayron, Nashoba, Reize and a Mantarian villager. This means that in some scenes, some actors are actually talking to themselves.
• Adaptation First: In non-French-speaking countries, since The Shiness was only published in French while The Lightning Kingdom and Crossroad are the only parts of the franchise that were translated into other languages.
• Amateur Cast: Most of the Maherian version's voice actors were unknown, freshly-graduated voice acting students, though a few were professionals mainly known for other roles, most notably Brigitte Lecordier, the French voice of young Goku and Gohan in the Dragon Ball franchise, who voiced Poky, and Frantz Confiac, the French voice of Idris Elba, who voiced Meos.
• Ascended Fanon: Not in the game per se, but Mingane's equivalent in the original continuity, Silty, was created by a fan known as Jasrah before Samir Rebib canonized her. Jasrah also created Kayenne's cousin Saya, but she didn't appear in the game.
• Blooper:
  • Nashoba's outfit changes between the non-animated cutscene where Kayenne introduces him to Rosalya and the animated cutscene immediately following it where Poky unties Chado: in the former, he wears a sleeve on his left arm, not in the latter, where he suddenly gains Handwraps of Awesome and a Badass Cape instead.
  • In the Maherian version, the cutscene where Poky realizes that Irys/Kaorys accidentally killed her sister uses the wrong Maherian line if Kaorys is the one who kills Irys, Chado asks Poky how Kaorys is in both versions.
  • In the English version, Chado's name is used instead of Poky's in one line when the party flies aboard Xaham's ship for the first time, so Chado says "Chado! Look! Buttons everywhere! Everywhere!" to himself.
  • Ayron's name is only spoken twice in the Maherian version, both times by Chado, the first time, it's pronounced /eʁɔn/ ("eh-ron" with a guttural R), but the second time, it's pronounced /ajɾɔn/ ("eye-ron" with a tapped R). Either a mispronounced take ended up being used, or his name's pronunciation was changed at some point during the development, and one of the lines was already recorded and wasn't updated.
  • One of Chado's voice clips, which sometimes plays when he dodges an attack, has a noticeable echo his other clips lack, the mixing engineers presumably forgot to fine-tune it after it was recorded.
  • In the French version, Kimpao is mistakenly called Hika (which was Kimpao's name in the original manga's continuity) in one line when Kayenne discovers that Chado is a summoned one.
  • Similarly, Gendys is called Adorn in some tooltips in the menu, the latter name was used for most of the development before being changed to the former because it was too similar to Adorya's.
  • Ranahel's name is sometimes misspelt "Ranaël" in the menu.
• Christmas Rushed: Made pretty obvious by the numerous Game-Breaking Bugs and missing promised features and the fact that the cutscenes in Maherian aren't even included in the game and must be downloaded separately. Worse, this happened despite years of Schedule Slips.
• Creator Killer: The game's delays left Enigami so indebted that when it was finally released, it failed to make back its budget. The studio went into administration within three months of the game's release and into liquidation 5 months later, Samir Rebib went back to being a game artist for other studios such as Game Atelier while Hazem Hawash hasn't scored another game since and virtually disappeared.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Chado and Poky are voiced by actresses in both versions, Mathilde Boureau and Brigitte Lecordier in Maherian and Tamara Ryan and Cristina Milizia in English.
• Crowdfunder Cameo:
  • The Optional Boss Reize Seatlan was created by the backer Seizui and appeared in several other games Seizui backed.
  • The NPC Rimite and the Optional Boss Rennerd were designed by a backer named Jeff Epes.
• Cut Song:
  • Several, such as this battle theme which was used for a preview of the game at the Toulouse Game Show in 2013 and doesn't appear in the final game. Some of them can still be found in the game's files.
  • Inverted with some short tracks that can be heard in the game's cutscenes but are missing from the official soundtrack, like this one, which plays if either Ajoss or Vrynn dies.
• Dawson Casting: All the game's voice actors are adults in both versions, even the ones who voice Chado and Poky. Justified in the case of the Maherian version, since it would have been extremely difficult to find children who can act in a language they don't speak.
• Doing It for the Art: Samir Rebib started imagining the Shiness universe in the '90s when he was seven, the game and the manga before it were passion projects he spent more than two decades of his life trying to get made.
• Dummied Out: A mysterious human character called "the stranger" appeared in an early trailer and a demo before being removed from the game, his model and textures are still in the game's files.
• Early Draft Tie-In:
  • The Maherian guide is an example to some extent, as it contains some words for things not found in the final game and ends with an older table of phonemes that contradicts the one appearing earlier in it. Curiously, it's also an inversion, since many Maherian lines in the game use an outdated version of the language, which was retooled during the development, whereas the guide uses the final version aside from the aforementioned obsolete table.
  • The guide to the game's secrets that was given to some backers also contains outdated information, for instance, it calls the Isolito camp by its old name "Chaolito camp" and wrongly claims that Bagogue can be fought near the Mantarian camp (he can be found there as an NPC, but not as an enemy).
  • The old name "Chaolito camp" is also used in the backer-exclusive world map.
• Executive Meddling: The game's voices were intended to only be in Maherian, but the publisher Focus Entertainment had the cutscenes dubbed into English anyway, possibly to make the game more marketable.
• Inspiration for the Work:
  • Samir Rebib named Dragon Ball, YuYu Hakusho, Sonic the Hedgehog and Ganbare Goemon as his main inspirations for The Shiness.
  • Hazem Hawash named Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda, Joe Hisaishi and Yoko Kanno as his major influences for the game's sountrack.
  • Rebib and Hawash named Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm as their main inspiration for the game's combat system, as well as many notable RPGs such as Secret of Mana, Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and Skies of Arcadia as major influences.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • The Maherian language guide, the digital artbook and some other documents were only given to some backers and were never made public.
  • Similarly, the game's beta was backer-exclusive.
  • Some pages of the game's old websites weren't archived, so the extra lore and the details about the game's development they contained are now lost.
  • Samir Rebib's original manga The Shiness is a rescued example: when he started working on the game, The Shiness no longer satisfied him, so he shut its website down, but he changed his mind in 2023, so if you speak French, you can read the original manga on this Instagram page.
  • Rebib's other pre-The Lightning Kingdom creations such as the game Inside The Shiness are no longer officially available anywhere.
  • The unreleased seventh chapter of Crossroad is another rescued example: Géo, the artist, kept it and finally released it on Instagram in 2022.
  • The English version of Crossroad is also a rescued example: while most of it wasn't archived by the Wayback Machine, the complete manga has been recovered because it was one of the game's Kickstarter rewards.
• Lying Creator:
  • The final game is missing several promised features such as a multiplayer mode, Italian and Portuguese translations, a world changing depending on your choices or a sidequest requiring you to learn some Maherian (though it was arguably for the better in the latter's case, as the Maherian dictionary was only given to some backers). Furthermore, the game never had a DRM-free release on GOG.com despite an announcement it would.
  • The promised Kickstarter rewards included some physical ones such as a Chado figurine. They ended up never being made.
  • The trailer made for Gamescom 2016 features little to no content from the actual game and instead consists of animated scenes cobbled together from the game's assets, many of them have nothing to do with the actual plot. This is because Enigami had no involvement in its creation, it was made by the publisher Focus Home Interactive.
• Manual Misprint:
  • A non-game example, the Maherian guide contains some contradictions, for instance, the words for "left" and "right" are mixed up in an example. It also incorrectly converts 1326 into the duodecimal number 986 (actually 1398) rather than the correct 926.
  • Another non-game example: the lyrics of Maherian Dreams written in the game's OST's packaging are wrong because whoever typed them didn't know how to use the International Phonetic Alphabet, which resulted in the symbol ʃ (the English sh-sound) being replaced with f, for example.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: The combat system was originally turn-based, the designers didn't decide to add the fighting game elements until they saw a gameplay video of Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm.
• Missing Trailer Scene:
  • Several trailers, such as the one made for the game's Kickstarter campaign, show Chado and Terra's first meeting as an animated cutscene. It happens offscreen in the final game.
  • Many old trailers feature 3D cutscenes that were replaced with 2D ones in the game (such as the one where Irys calls Mantara or the one where Kayenne and Rosalya realize Askel has tracked them down) or were completely removed due to rewrites.
  • An early trailer contained parts of a cutscene featuring the "stranger", a mysterious human who ended up only appearing in a beta in 2015 before being removed from the game. The full cutscene can only be watched in the beta, which was only given to some backers.
• No Dub for You:
  • The game's text is available in French, English, European Spanish and German, but the cutscenes' voices are only available in English, or in Maherian in the PC version with a DLC. Voices outside of cutscenes are only available in Maherian, a remnant of the fact that all voices were originally intended to only be in Maherian.
  • Crossroad was only available in French and English, even though the game's Spanish and German versions also contain the puzzle requiring reading it.
  • Unlike the other Kickstarter rewards, the Maherian guide was only available in French.
• Non-Singing Voice: Rosalya is voiced by Sophie Clavaizolle in the Maherian version and by Brianna Knickerbocker in the English version, but in both, her song "Maherian Dreams" is sung by Marion Chauvel.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: The NPC Feindar Fourbépines's surname^note a portmanteau of the French words fourbes épines, meaning "deceitful thorns" was submitted by a fan during a contest held by Enigami.
• One-Book Author:
  • The Lightning Kingdom was the only game Enigami made before going defunct. It's also the only thing Hazem Hawash scored.
  • The franchise as a whole is the only thing Samir Rebib is known for creating.
• Orphaned Reference:
  • A few old names weren't updated everywhere in the game's script, for instance Kimpao was mistakenly called by its old name Hika in one sentence in the French version. Gendys was also called Adorn for most of the game's development, and every instance of "Gendys" in both written and spoken Maherian is actually still "Adorn".
  • Kayenne's name is meant to be a Pun on cayenne peppers, which made sense in The Shiness as he was a fire shi user, but he was changed to an air shi user in the game.
  • Probably the reason why giant versions of some common animals appear in a few places: unlike regular critters, they don't move, they don't despawn, they can't be interacted with and they're never mentioned by anyone, hinting that they were intended to be part of a scrapped quest.
  • The giant, useless chair in front of the Gromiz lair was intended to be sat on by a gigantic gromiz, presumably a boss. The idea was scrapped but the chair remains.
• The Other Marty: Poky was intended to be voiced by Sophie Asencio, her voice can be heard in an early trailer and in the game's backer-exclusive beta. She was recast with the famous voice actress Brigitte Lecordier in 2016.
• Playing Against Type: Brigitte Lecordier is famous for voicing the heroic and fearless Son Goku in Dragon Ball, a far cry from Poky's Cowardly Sidekick personality.
• Pre-Order Bonus: The Maherian guide and some exclusive skins could only be obtained by backing the game on Kickstarter. As the guide was never made public and quite a few backers never even received their bonuses due to the mishandled campaign, information about the language became nearly impossible to find.
• Release Date Change: The game was announced in 2011 for a 2013 release, which was then pushed back to 2015, then 2016. It was finally released in 2017. This resulted in the final game using outdated graphics, and critics noticed.
• Self-Adaptation: Samir Rebib cofounded Enigami just so that an adaptation of his manga The Shiness could be made.
• Stillborn Franchise: The game ends with a Sequel Hook and was intended to be the first part of an Episodic Game, Crossroad was also intended to be published as a print manga set in an Alternate Continuity. Unfortunately, the game's mixed reception and disappointing sales killed the studio, resulting in the cancellation of the rest of both the game and the manga. Worse, Samir Rebib lost the rights to the franchise for several years and was unable to make a Sequel in Another Medium to finish the story.
• Unfinished Episode: Crossroad was Quietly Cancelled before its seventh chapter was completed, the latter was eventually revealed by Géo in 2022, but since it was never finished, some of its speech bubbles are empty and it has No Ending.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Samir Rebib was planning to remake The Shiness a few years after dropping it, but Hazem Hawash convinced him to make the game instead. He also briefly tried his hand at making an Isekai story in the Shiness universe titled Zaki, but changed his mind after only 13 pages.
  • While working on the aforementioned remake, Rebib shared some ideas he had for it, many didn't make it into the game, like an Evil Counterpart of the Shiness known as Shiross, or Chado's goal being to see his deceased sister again, whereas in the game, his mother is the one who died instead, and he has no siblings.
  • According to a comment from a developer on YouTube, only a quarter of the Gendys Plain was completed and the game's playtime had to be halved due to budget constraints.
  • Early versions of the real-time combat system featured Sneak Attacks and used Quick Time Events to get initiative at the beginning of a fight.
  • Crossroad was intended to be 10 chapters long, and Enigami was planning to publish it first online then as a print manga, but it was Quietly Cancelled after its sixth chapter and never went past the online stage.
  • The seventh chapter of Crossroad was teased but never released. Géo, the artist, eventually revealed it in 2022.
  • The reason why Mahera exploded, the overexploitation of the shi, was originally going to be explained to Chado by Terra in the opening, and Samir Rebib stated during the game's development that the exploitation of nature would be one of the plot's main themes. The final game completely lacks that theme and never explains what happened to the planet due to the shortened story. In fact, the game states that Poky somehow built a shi generator to power the Asanao-3, which means that the shi is renewable.
  • Mingane's bio on the game's defunct website stated that Kayenne disagreed with her choice to become a warrior and isn't on good terms with her master Nashoba for this reason. This was dropped in the final game.
  • Mingane was playable in a demo of the scrapped multiplayer mode. Whether she was ever meant to be playable in single player mode is unknown.
  • Dynastion, a boss designed by Reno Lemaire, was teased in 2014 before being removed from the final game for unknown reasons.
  • The lost city of Adorn, a dungeon which appeared to be an early and very different version of Meos's palace, was shown in early teasers before being replaced with the palace's final version.
  • A photo from a devlog post◊ showed an artist working on the model of a shelk who never appeared in the final game, possibly one of Nalluka's mentioned but never seen elders.
  • Maherian was first meant to be pure Simlish to make dubbing unnecessary, the conlangers Déborah Lebon and Clément Michard, who were originally hired to devise a way to generate gibberish for the game, eventually convinced the team to let them create a functional Conlang instead.
  • Mathilde Boureau was originally going to voice both Chado and Rosalya. She only voices Chado in the final game.
  • Early in the game's development, Askel's name was Youra, as seen in this early trailer. This wasn't his first renaming, as his name was Youko in The Shiness^note Samir Rebib changed it because he realized that it was almost identical to the feminine Japanese name Yōko and because it was too similar to Yōko Kurama's. Incidentally, Youra was the name of Youko's father in The Shiness.. Quite a few other names underwent similar changes first from the manga to the game then during the game's development, for instance the manga was set on a planet called Orion, which was first renamed Météora for the game, then Mahera for the final version.
  • Some old concept art◊ shows that the Isolitos were intended to look different from each other, budget constraints presumably forced the studio to make them Ditto Aliens instead.
  • "Riding an Amos", the theme that plays when the player is riding an amos, was first intended to be Chado's theme.
  • An early artwork showed that Fox, a shelk Samir Rebib was planning to include in his remake of The Shiness, was meant to appear in the game. Interestingly, this artwork was actually used for the final game, but Fox was erased from it.
  • One might wonder why there's a giant chair in front of the Gromiz Lair's entrance. This is because a gigantic gromiz berserker was supposed to sit on it according to some old concept art, but he wasn't implemented, so the chair stays empty for the whole game.
  • Old concept art reveals that Ajoss was first intended to be an archer, his model's quiver was repurposed as a large bag when this idea was scrapped.
  • In early builds, spells and techniques weren't the only moves players had to master in order to use them without needing to have the corresponding scroll equipped, this also applied to overworld moves, even the most basic ones like jumping. This mechanic was presumably removed to improve pacing, or it might just have been a placeholder for testing purposes.
  • According to the game's Kickstarter page, the place where backers can see their names was originally intended to be a wall on Mantara rather than the ruins near the Giant's Hall, this was probably changed because Mantara turned out to be too small. Furthermore, according to the game's artbook, the place was also intended to be a tower at some point.
  • In the beta that was given to some backers in 2015, the weather of the Gendys Plain could change. In the final game, the weather never changes, no matter where you are.
• Working Title: The game was originally announced under the French title Shiness – Chapitre 1 : Le Royaume Étincelant ("Shiness – Chapter 1: The Sparkling Kingdom"). According to an artist's portfolio, "The Wind Kingdom" was also used very early in the game's development.

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