Unsung Story - Design Update

In a new design update for Unsung Story, Little Orbit has checked out what the original design ideas were and what Playdeck made of them, noting that the original deisgn was for a mobile game and that many changes were made by Playdeck to transfer it to a PC game. Little Orbit wants to focus more on the original design ideas, without it becoming a mobile game only.

I don’t feel comfortable sharing the actual initial design without Matsuno’s permission, but I think it is important to understand the main focus, because that has formed an important starting point for us. The key note is that his first design was for a mobile game. So many of his decisions were based on simplicity to match that platform. It wasn’t until the Kickstarter that Playdek massively increased the scope of the game to the spiritual successor of Final Fantasy Tactics. At that point, we see lots of changes that attempt to retrofit the original ideas into a larger framework.

Here is an overview of Matusno’s original design goals:

• A traditional epic fantasy theme 
• Original notes talk about a war with an invading “demonic” force 
• The story is focused through Story Characters and Chapters 
• The player controls “Unsung Heroes” who are the true heroes but lost to history
• Instead of using a main map or any concept of linear time, the player chooses to play key battles during the war that they could replay at any time 
• Unsung units have classes like Knight, Archer, Priest, Wizard, and Pioneer 
• More classes for the Unsung units unlock based on leveling up that give new abilities and slightly modify power or speed
• Players can switch classes from the base class to new classes as they unlock
• Use group-based skill points to level up or improve skills
• Height and incline affect movement speed and attack
• No complicated stats

We agreed internally that we needed to focus on a couple goals to help focus Unsung Story:

• Preserve most of Matsuno’s original design and narrative 
• Combine those ideas with the scope of what backer’s paid for in Kickstarter
• Combine those ideas with the extra features added by Playdek if possible

With this base, we spent some time analyzing how to meet these goals.

And they found out the following:

1. PLAYDEK'S WORLD LACKS MANY OF MATSUNO'S IDEAS

2. PLAYDEK'S LINEAGE, CLASS, AND PROFESSION SYSTEM IS OVERLY COMPLEX

3. MAGIC IS NOT DESIGNED

4. PROBLEMATIC PROGRESSION FOR UNITS

Which are things that Little Orbit is planning to change in the game. I wonder if Little Orbit knew what they were getting themselves in to.