Some may have noticed references in last week’s post to a minigame featuring Onua that never made it into Program 5, wherein the player discovers the village of Onu-Koro. Here’s a few storyboards and sketches from the game that never was. Originally featuring “wolf rats” (later changed to “fire scorpions”), the game let players save the hard-working Onu-Korans from yet another calamity, and also behold Onua for the first time. Players were also originally intended to barter for goods at the market, and among the items for sale was ammunition (throwing disks) for use in the game that could be purchased in exchange for protodermis and other commodities.

The goal for program five was merely to be able to talk to the Turaga; the various problems plaguing the town had the singular effect of making Whenua too busy to talk with you, as he is besieged by demands from merchants and workers to fix everything. Other problems included darkness (from a lack of lightstones), bad air, rahi attacks and errant lava flows from Ta-Koro. Onu-Koro, however, was the biggest environment yet, and by the time the cave systems and other puzzles were completed the minigame remained undone and had to be scrapped.

Flushed with the success of programs 1-4, and experienced with developing new chapters, we aimed very high with program five. Among the many features that didn’t make it in were dynamically placed merchants that appear on the road, as witnessed in the many “TRADERS may be here” statements for the screens leading up to the town:

X. Onu-Wahi Area

Onu-Wahi Road 1 - West

A road stretching West through the trackless desert. Low hills are visible in the distance. The Visitor may encounter TRADERS here, traveling from Onu-Koro. They are grumpy that they must return home empty-handed (after restoring light to Onu-Koro, they are happy).

Onu-Wahi Road 1 - East

A road stretching East through the trackless desert. TRADERS may be here.

Onu-Wahi Road 2 - West

A road stretching West through dry scrubland. Low hills are visible in the distance. TRADERS may be here.

Onu-Wahi Road 2 - East

A road stretching East through dry scrubland. Low hills fade to desert in the distance. TRADERS may be here.

Onu-Wahi Foothills 1 - West

An expanse of rolling hills and light vegetation. A brook topples from a cliffside some distance to the South, where can be seen distant snow-tipped mountains. TRADERS may be here.

Onu-Wahi Foothills 1 - East

An expanse of rolling hills and light vegetation. A brook topples from a cliffside some distance to the South, where can be seen distant snow-tipped mountains. TRADERS may be here.

Onu-Wahi Foothills 2 - West

An expanse of rolling hills and light vegetation. A narrow stream wanders lazily through a nearby valley. TRADERS may be here.

Onu-Wahi Foothills 2 - East

An expanse of rolling hills and light vegetation. A narrow stream wanders lazily through a nearby valley. TRADERS may be here.

Onu-Wahi Gorge - West

The hills open here to expose a mighty gorge. A distant river valley can be seen in glimpses through the treelined palisade on its far side. Ahead, steps lead down into the shadowy valley.

Onu-Wahi Gorge - East

A view east across rolling hills, from the edge of the gorge. In the distance, the green countryside gives way to dry and rocky scrubland.

Onu-Koro Gorge Steps - Down

A long climb down the cliff’s path is aided by worn but well-built rampways, hewn from the rock. Below, the valley ends abruptly in a wall of earth and rock. At its base, an ornate gateway has been carved into the stone, dwarfing a small group of busy Tohunga working in the gully beside it.

Onu-Koro Gorge Steps - Up

A steep but well-crafted roadway twists back and forth up the side of a precipitous gorge.

Entrance to Onu-Koro - South

A giant, ornately carved gateway pierces the canyon here. In its shadow, several Tohunga keep watch over a pen of Crabs, used to truck stone, biodermis and equipment from deep inside Onu-Wahi. The Tohunga Crabmaster will allow the Visitor to ride a Crab into Onu-Koro.

At this point word was getting around the island that the Toa were afoot on Mata Nui, but the little Tohunga were still always surprised to discover them. In this sequence, Onua appears. His minigame was another of the many puzzles to solve in Onu-Koro, although it became a challenge creating dynamic states for all of them; finding lightstones, for example, really should light up the cave network, and this was something we were able to do. Fortunately, Nate and Gordon worked out a clever way to dynamically change the lighting in Flash without having to make new art.

XI. Onu-Koro Area

Onu-Koro Highway - South

A long, dark tunnel, lit intermittently by flickering torchlight. Other Crab-riders move along the road, barely visible in the gloom. As the Visitor’s Crab nears the far end, a mass of glittering torches do their best to illuminate the tunnel exit. AFTER FINDING THE LIGHTSTONES: The Highway, its travelers, and its exit is brightly lit with Lightstones hung from stalactites.

Onu-Koro Highway - North

A long, dark tunnel, lit intermittently by flickering torchlight. Other Crab-riders move along the road, barely visible in the gloom. As the Visitor’s Crab nears the far end, bright sunlight can be seen through the exit, drenching the valley outside. AFTER FINDING THE LIGHTSTONES: The Highway and its travelers is brightly lit with Lightstones hung from stalactites.

Onu-Koro Square - South

The main center of town. From here, the Visitor can visit the Great Market, the Great Hall, Whenua’s Hut, and find a route to the Mines and the Le-Koro Highway.

A Miner is here. He is fearful that Biodermis will be in short supply until a new vein is found.

A Tunneler is here, on break. He is pleased with the progress to Le-Koro, but at the same time is sad that the lack of light has made the Highway construction take so long.

A Ta-Koran Guardsman is here. He warns to be careful of Fire Scorpions in the tunnels.

An out-of-work Po-Koran Crabdriver is here. He is bemoaning the slowdown of the Quarry trade.

Fire scorpions go for the face, apparently (or the mask, at least). In fact, the whole subterranean Onu-Koro experience was pretty dark and creepy (also due to Justin’s droning music, which may have been my favorite in the whole game), and this minigame might have really scared some of the younger players.

Onua was a pretty tough customer, though, so I’m sure it all would have worked out once he turned up.

One of the (many) challenges we faced, from a conceptual standpoint, is violence in general in the game. Note the claws; the others were no less threatening, with gigantic swords, axes, and other ferocious armaments. At this point in LEGO’s history, however, there were two camps (from what I understood) battling out whether or not to allow violent imagery into any of their media; the product team, clearly, had no problem with it, but the marketing teams I think were trying very hard to retain LEGO’s reputation as a “golden” brand, educational, and non-violent. As a result, we were faced with conflicting directives, and in the end the marketing teams won out: the weapons could only be referred to as “tools” (and to quote Naomi Clark, “tools? yeah right… tools of destruction!”). There could be no fiery explosions or other violent events, combat must be ranged (by means of throwing disks or kicking a Kohlii ball), and of course no one could ever die. It often happened therefore that antagonists were incapacitated not through combat, but rather indirectly, say by having something fall on their heads. It was not that easy from a story standpoint, and art-wise it called for more elaborate demises than simply lopping someone in half with an axe. Kopaka’s battle with the Rahi, for example, ended by slicing off a piece of the ledge it stood on, sending the creature tumbling off-screen. As the game became deeper and deeper, however, the busy LEGO team became hard-pressed to play through each and every scene, and we ended up stretching this where we could, intentionally or no. By the time we got to program six, we had Onua and Lewa get in a brutal melee, which ends with Lewa’s infected mask getting smacked off his face.

How to fight a fire scorpion.

Fire Scorpion schematic sketches.

Onua at work.

The source of the rahi plague was a fissure that had opened deep underground; Onua steps in and plugs it up. In the original dialogue, Onepu, the leader of Onu-Koro’s Ussal cavalry, gives the player tips on how to battle the rahi; I’m pretty sure it was cut, once we realized we wouldn’t have the minigame:

ONEPU

INTRO: (BEFORE FINDING LIGHTSTONE CAVERN):

You there! Fetch those saddles! And we need more disks. Step to it!

Try to stay out of the way, Traveler. We’re organizing a patrol. With all the lights out in Onu-Koro, the Rahi have stepped up their raids.

INTRO: (AFTER FINDING LIGHTSTONE CAVERN):

Thanks to you, adventurer, the roads of Onu-Koro are proeprly lit, and a bit safer now. We could use more like you in the Cavalry!

ASK ME:

Take care when traveling in the deep mines and tunnels, the Sub-Scorpions can appear at any time. Battling them takes special skill.

QUESTION 1:

Who are you?

ANSWER 1:

Onepu, at your service. I am the Captain of the famous Onu-Koran Cavalry Regiment, Champion of Ussal Racing, and Special Aide of Whenua, our great Turaga.

QUESTION 2:

What are Kofo-Jaga?

ANSWER 2:

They are small creatures, but incredibly fierce and cunning… they attack by surprise, and always in large numbers. They shun bright light and use darkness and fear as weapons.

Their nests are scattered throughout the Underworld, and woe betide the miner who breaks through to one! Usually, Whenua uses his special drill to detect these nests before they are opened, but he has been busy and the miners have been desperate to find more protodermis veins.

QUESTION 3:

How do I battle the Kofo-Jaga?

ANSWER 3:

The Regiment depends on their gallant steeds, and a healthy supply of Disks, when fighting the Kofo-Jaga.

The darkness gives the Makuta’s minions strength. It’s good to have a Lightstone with you, if you can find one. Shine it on them and they will usually fall back.

QUESTION 4:

Goodbye.

ANSWER 4:

May your Crab ride swift and true!

It’s a shame the minigame didn’t make it into Program 5, but there were plenty of problems to solve in Onu-Koro. By the end of several late nights, the complaints of the merchants and guildmasters started to ring true, echoing our own complaints about bugs, broken bits and missing parts in the program. Nate did a good job of randomly playing out the conversations between Whenua and the townspeople, and if you sat through the discussions you could learn valuable clues about what you needed to do to help them.

WHENUA & THE GUILDMASTERS

(before solving problems)

Mining Captain:

Turaga, the mining guilds have hit an underground rock layer that they cannot break through.

We fear the protodermis will run out if we cannot continue our digging!

How far does it run?

Shaft 3 and Shaft 8 have ceased protodermis mining because they cannot break through this rock layer.

That’s the entire mining area!

Yes, Turaga. For all we know the strata extends beneath all of Mata Nui, except perhaps the Mangai volcano.

Are you certain there is no soft spot to dig through, Captain?

We’ve been over every inch of the surface. There are no fractures, no fault lines, nothing!

How much remains of the surface deposits?

They are running out. We may have to look elsewhere for more protodermis. Like Ta-Wahi, or Po-Wahi.

What is this layer made out of?

Our prospectors believe it to be rock, but it has higher organic levels than any mineral composite we’ve seen.

Organic?

Yes. It seems to have more in common with an Ussal Crab shell than any normal stone strata.

Strange. I wonder what we will find if we break through?

Turaga, I must have more men and more machines if we are to know. You must allocate more resources to the mining guilds!

Captain, I am doing everything I can. No one wants to see the protodermis run out. But Onu-Koro has many problems right now.

Tunnel Foreman:

Without a fresh supply of Lightstones we cannot light the digging site.

Have you been able to continue the tunneling at all?

Yes, but we are working at about 25% capacity. It is too dark down there to work safely!

The Le-Koro Highway must be completed soon. We need safe passage between the villages.

Turaga, we cannot ask our workers to continue under these conditions!

Taipu says he can dig by torchlight, without difficulty.

Taipu is very stubborn, and strong. But he is slow even when he has a team of diggers to help him. One Tohunga cannot dig a tunnel to Le-Koro!

Foreman, until we can repair the flood damage, there is little I can do.

You can give us more Tohunga, and more equipment! The Guilds and the Traders have extra. We can use those!

They do not have extra. And how would it help if they did?

The air is bad because of the torches. The Rahi attack frequently because of the darkness.

If we had more workers we could alternate teams before they get ill. We could put more guards on duty.

Foreman, I understand the problems you are facing. I am doing everything in my power to get you the help you need. But you must be patient.

Guildmaster:

Turaga Whenua, I will not tolerate this kind of delay! The Trade Guilds have contracts with four of Po-Koro’s most influential artists.

I understand that, and I am doing everything I can.

Protodermis production is stopped. Stonemasons are slowed by the darkness. And half the shipments were lost to Rahi attacks!

Ta-Koran torches are being used to light the stone quarries now. Those deliveries will be made.

The Fire Scorpions are not afraid of torchlight. And what of the protodermis? The Po-Korans cannot trade stone for nothing!

The Mine Captains are working to break through this rock layer. Until then there is little we can do.

They make goods and livestock from the protodermis. Without it they cannot trade for stone! We will lose that market.

There are other markets.

And what of the Le-Koro highway? It was to be finished months ago. My caravans refuse to travel to the south until it is complete!

The Le-Korans will have to come trade at our market until it is finished.

They try, Turaga! But they can no more come north than we can go south!

Perhaps the sea is a better route.

There are even more dangerous Rahi in the waters than on land!

What of Onua? Is he doing nothing to help Onu-Koro?

Onua did not descend from the heavens to help your profits, Guildmaster. He is pursuing a great quest that may yet save us all.

I demand that more attention be paid to the needs of the Trade Guilds! The Great Market is Onu-Koro’s most valuable asset!

Guildmaster, I will speak with Onepu. Perhaps he can spare an escort for your caravans until the Highway is complete.



WHENUA

(after solving his problems):

INTRO:

Thank you, adventurer, for helping with so many of Onu-Koro’s problems! I thought the guild masters would never leave me alone!

ASK ME:

Now that I have some peace, is there anything you would ask of me?

QUESTION 1:

Who are you?

As seen here, in the end, the player’s reward was largely information about the world, something in short supply in the beginning months of Bionicle. It fell to Taipu, strong but naive, to give a clue about the next month’s program:

TAIPU

QUESTION 2:

What is Le-Koro?

ANSWER 2:

It is a village in the south, where the Le-Koran Tohunga live in trees. I have never been there. Onepu says there are tall, pretty forests, and huts built in the sky! Onepu says the Le-Korans are great musicians, too, and play music all day long from the treetops.

QUESTION 3:

Who is Onepu?

ANSWER 3:

Onepu is my best friend in all of Onu-Koro. He is very smart and knows a lot about Ussal Crab racing and fighting Rahi. He is supposed to be digging, too, but he showed me how I can do both of our digging at the same time. THAT’S how smart he is!