Welcome to Revelation New Dawn: Echo Island!

The Project:

Project Zen Online is building a game that will be the first of many in its series. Revelation New Dawn: Echo Island is a story-driven tower defense style game, which is planned to be released for PC/Mac and Android.  With the possibility of being released for iPhone and iPad

Story History:

History, what we do not learn from, we are doomed to repeat. We learn about our past so as to avoid repeating it. Time and time again it seems that we never learn from the mistakes of our predecessors - following in their footsteps and continuing the never-ending cycle of destruction. We tell ourselves that it will be different this time - but is it really? As long as there has been life, there has been  war. Whether it is the constant struggle between the forces of nature and survival of man, or the ravages of war created by sentient beings capable of the most terrible types of devastation, the results are the same. Why should we be any different?  After all... we are only human.

Like most wars, this one began on a single planet… but soon engulfed two. We now live in the aftermath of our ancestors' destruction. The evidence of their existence is scattered across both planets, fragments of a once thriving people. Through the failure to heed humanity’s past, they brought about their demise, and so we came to be.

We are all that remains of those once great and powerful nations - the last chance for humanity. Yet we find ourselves inexplicably headed in the same direction as our ancestors.

The Revelation New Dawn setting has an in-depth history.

Our story begins on a single planet, Gniy, about six thousand years before the events in Revelation New Dawn: Echo Island. Gniy had a technology level not far advanced from our own, and was ruled by a totalitarian single world government. This government was composed of the rich and elite, who created an elaborate credit system to economically enslave all the people on Gniy. Things got worse and worse, until the masses could no longer tolerate the crushing debt load any more. An underground movement, the Free Traders, were formed to find a way to escape the totalitarian Gniy government. The Free Traders became interested in an ancient legend, of a second planet which passed close to Gniy every thousand years. They felt this could provide the escape they needed. As it turns out, the legend was true, and so the Free Traders prepared to leave Gniy to start a new peaceful society on the second planet, Gnay. As the planet was coming into range, there was a great rebellion on Gniy, and the Free Traders destroyed the credit systems to reset everyone to zero, and then jumped to Gnay in the private ships they had been building.

The new settlers on Gnay knew they’d left many behind, and immediately began preparing for the next time the planets came close. In order to help with this, the Free Traders had set up a fifth column in the government of Gniy before jumping over to Gnay. This fifth column influenced the Gniy government to build a satellite system to observe Gnay with the hidden agenda of using it to communicate with their fellows on Gnay.  

When the government of Gniy lost their economic control of the people, they turned to military strength instead. Soon, Gniy was under complete martial law. The Gniy government knew that in order to retain their power, they must destroy Gnay and the Free Traders movement completely. Nearly a thousand years passed after the Free Traders left Gnay, and the Gniy government was hard at work developing a plan to destroy the Free Traders. In secret, they designed a weapon of mass destruction, a bomb capable of creating a black hole in a planet’s atmosphere using a recently-discovered gravity control technology. The Free Traders who had infiltrated the Gniy government soon learned of this dreadful plan, and sent word to their brethren on Gnay. The people of Gnay knew that such a weapon was capable of destroying all life on their planet, and immedately started designing a way to counter this threat.

During their time on Gnay, Free Traders had turned the planet into a utopian society with wealth and freedom for all citizens. Thoughts turned from economics and war to scientific pursuits. Knowledge flourished and technology advanced at a staggering rate. Soon the people of Gnay were able to control their environment to a level never before seen. The scientists of Gnay had constructed an extensive research facility inside Gnay’s moon. This facility was tasked with creating the Genesis System, which would be capable seeding life on barren planets in the case of cataclysmic event. Even though the scientists of Gnay were working tirelessly the system was not quite ready for launch the next time the planets came close to one another. 

When the planets neared each other, Gniy launched the rocket carrying their doomsday bomb, and Gnay launched their countermeasures.  Gnay’s countermeasures weren’t fully effective, unfortunately. The bomb detonated between the two planets, and while it didn’t form a full black hole, it did create a gravity well strong enough to smash the planets together, destroying all life on both.

In the next two thousand years, the two planets stabilized into a binary orbit with a shared atmosphere. Gnay’s moon had been broken into pieces, and those pieces became huge islands floating between the planets. The Genesis System was still functional, however, and its automatic systems created life inside Echo Island from abandoned technology and the remnants of the genes of the scientists who were working in the Genesis Vault. This new cyborg species came to call themselves the Mor-Kesh, and they established themselves in the remnants of the Genesis Vault on Echo Island, which they called the Citadel. The Mor-Kesh assisted the Genesis System in re-seeding life on both Gniy and Gnay.

The Genesis system seeded the planets with life once their surfaces had cooled sufficiently and had been terraformed to support life once again. New cultures arose and flourished on both Gniy and Gnay. The only clue these people had to their history was the ruins and relics left behind from before The Event. 

Two thousand years after the Genesis System repopulated the planets and Echo Island, both planets’ inhabitants achieved flight, and soon ventured out to the floating islands in the sky.When they reached Echo Island they met the Mor-Kesh, whom they called the Monks of Echo Island.  Their first encounter with the Monks did not go well. The Monks quickly exterminated anyone who moved onto Echo Island, and would not let anyone live there.

Over 200 years after the first contact with the Monks, a new religious order arose on Gnay, the Zengaku. The Zengaku followers were rabid fundamentalists, and began to seek domination of both planets under a strict theocracy. From their fanaticism arose the Zengaku War, where the Zengaku tried to establish their one religion theocracy. 

About a decade into the Zengaku War, four minor powers on Gniy formed an alliance, the Tauracien Empire, to bring an end to the war. The Tauracien Empire saw Echo Island as a strategic place, and knew the legendary Monks were somehow special, so they sent diplomats to work out some kind of peace treaty with the Monks. The Mor-Kesh refused to grant audience, and continued to live in solitude for several years, until the Zengaku War expanded into the islands.  

The Zengakus claimed Echo Island and the Citadel as their holy land, and began a campaign to strip possession of the island from the Monks. The Tauraciens could not let the Zengakus claim Echo Island, and mobilized in support of the Monks. Together the Tauraciens and Monks drove the Zengakus off the island. In recognition of their support the Monks and Tauraciens formed a treaty, and an embassy city called Gear Town was founded on Echo Island.

Five decades after the end of the Zengaku War, the Monks agreed to allow the Tauraciens to govern the island in exchange for support in protecting the Citadel.  Echo Island quickly became vital to commerce between the two planets, and the embassies in Gear City soon became the preferred meeting place for governments of both worlds.

During this time of peace, a previously underground movement, the Sons of Zengaku, have begun to rise to prominence. The Sons of Zengaku are descendants of some of the most fanatical Zengakus, and they aim to bring the vision of a Zengaku theocracy to reality. The Second Zengaku War began with the decimation of several smaller nations on Gnay, and inevitably finds its way to Echo Island. This is where the player enters the story at the beginning of Revelation New Dawn: Echo Island.

Use of funds:

The funds we raise will be crucial to bringing this game to life. With this money, we will purchase a license for Unity Pro ($1500), the Android Pro add-on for Unity ($1500), the Daz3D Indy License ($500), and marketing ($1500). With additional funds, we will be able to purchase the iOS Pro license from Unity ($1500) and the Apple Developer license ($100), which will allow us to publish for iPhone and iPad.

Any extra funds will be used to help us develop the game that we truly want to create by allowing us to focus on development and not on day to day funding requirements that help us maintain the location and technical tools we need.