Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians

[Enkidou 300]

Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians to strategia turowa, która w założeniach ma być duchowym spadkobiercą Final Fantasy Tactics. Zakładam temat o tej grze, bo nie cieszy się ona szczególnym zainteresowaniem graczy, a jej producent, Playdek, przynajmniej na razie odpuszcza sobie promowanie. Trochę szkoda.

 

Część pewnie nie wie co to jest Playdek. Nie szkodzi, to mniej ważne. Zresztą ja też nie wiedziałem. Za fabułę i game design Unsung Story odpowiada Yasumi Matsuno, a tego gościa już chyba część powinna znać. Projektantem postaci jest Akihiko Yoshida, muzykę pisze Hitoshi Sakimoto, a funkcję tłumacza pełnić będzie Alexander Smith (Vagrant Story, FFXII, Tactics Ogre: LUCT, Crimson Shroud). Gra została sfinansowana na serwisie Kickstarter i ma ukazać się na komputerach oraz urządzeniach mobilnych (w planach były też konsole, ale nie uzbierano wystarczającej ilości pieniędzy).

 

 

Wydarzenia ukazane w Unsung Story toczą się w świecie o nazwie Rasfalia i skupiają się na trwającym 77 lat konflikcie między dziewięcioma państwami (dwa imperia i reszta pomniejszych krajów wciągniętych w wir historii). Scenariusz podzielony jest na epizody przedstawiające zmagania różnych bohaterów na różnych etapach historii. Innymi słowy, nie będzie tu jednego protagonisty jak Ramza czy Denam. Tak jak w Tactics Ogre, podejmowane decyzje rzutować mają na bieg wydarzeń (chociaż poszczególne epizody będą raczej krótkie)

 

Gameplay ma być rozwinięciem formuły FFT i TO. Trójwymiarowe plansze zostaną tutaj pokryte nie kwadratami, tylko trójkątami, dzięki czemu podopieczni będą w stanie poruszać się w sześciu kierunkach. Pojawi się system profesji, które zależeć mają od wyekwipowanego sprzętu.

 

Premiera ma się odbyć chyba w przyszłym roku (a przynajmniej takie są plany), ale wszystkie epizody nie będą dostępne na starcie. Po więcej informacji odsyłam na:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/482445197/unsung-story-tale-of-the-guardians

 

Wywiady z Matsuno (i nie tylko z nim):

http://worthplaying.com/article/2014/2/4/news/91252/

http://worthplaying.com/article/2014/2/11/interviews/91320/

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/why-unsung-story-could-be-the-first-proper-successor-to-final-fantasy-tactics

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/tgs-yasumi-matsunos-new-world

[Velius 5 753]

Nigdy o tym nie slyszalem ale jak zobaczylem wzmianke o FFT i TO to bede monitorowal.

[django 549]

Mialem wspierac, ale jak zobaczylem ze na poczatku chca zrobic karcianke to odpuscilem. Dobrze, ze poszli po rozum do glowy. Szkoda, zeby Matsuo sie marnowal na jakies fanaberie w ktore malo kto zagra. 30$ to nie tak zle wiec blizej premiery pewnie sie skusze.

[Enkidou 300]

No właśnie ten Kickstarter dobrze zaczął, ale potem ostro wyhamował, jak się okazało, że wpływ Matsuno może być bardziej symboliczny. No ale to podobno jego wizja od początku do końca, tak że jestem dobrej myśli.

[Killabien 556]

Alexander. Smith tlumaczy! Chyba zagram w wersje JP i EN. Uwielbiam goscia. Ostatnio rowniez sluchalem muzyki Hitoshi Sakimoto, gosc ma swoj charakterystyczny styl. Bede sledzil, szkoda ze na konsole nie wychodzi.

[Enkidou 300]

Update z Kickstartera. Trochę o fabule (a konkretnie o jednej postaci), trochę o gameplayu i pierwsze artworki Yoshidy.

 

 

 

Greetings Backers,

We have an update to share with you on the development progress of Unsung Story, a small exert from the story line (I did place spoiler tags around this portion), and an art update with some images from Akihiko Yoshida, showing one of the first main characters you will come across in the game designed. So keep reading and I hope you enjoy! 

Story Background

[sTORY SPOILERS]

Sir Vensniel L’Brasca, the “Knight of Knights”, is a character players will encounter early on in Unsung Story. This brave and heroic knight of Alionne is the perfect example of a knight that history books love to retell as the years pass on as his is a story of inspiration and bravery.

When players first encounter Sir Vensniel, he is in the process of planning a diversionary attack on the Jelemond city of Latzera. Jelemond has long been a providence of the Alionne Kingdom, but over the years they have been looking to find a way to assert their independence. Sensing this desire, the Jheksal Empire has invaded Jelemond to take this providence away from the Alionne Kingdom, an act that would become the catalyst of the Seventy-Seven Years’ War.

Sir Vensniel has been tasked with creating a diversion to bring the Jheksal troops stationed in Latzera out of the city walls in order to allow Alionne forces time to advance on the city. The player will take part in this diversionary act as a member of this tactics squad led by this great Knight. Is the plan a success? Is Sir Vensniel able to leave this battle unscathed? Only the history books know at this time…

 [END SPOILERS]

Development Update

Recently behind the scenes we have been busy integrating Unity, a game engine that allows for 3D rendering and iterative content creation and game design, with our own proprietary game engine. The integration of Unity with our own engine allows us to have a 3D graphics layer on top of our game logic, AI, general code architecture and online game systems. Episodes and their stages have been broken down into scenario components by the game designers and are being blocked out as well. Along with this preliminary scenario development, the job and class systems have been designed, and are being incorporated into the ongoing work with the Battle System.

The portions of the Battle System our designers have been focusing on are the turn-management system and the action point system. By expanding on the traditional turn based tactics model through the use of a strategic turn-based timeline which can be manipulated by the different actions available for the characters, Unsung Story brings a new game play approach to the tactical RPG genre. Players are given greater control over when and how they can use their characters during battle, which opens up an entire new level of strategy formulation. This turn-management system is dependent on the action points needed in order to perform certain tasks during the character’s turn. Players can choose to perform lesser actions during their turn to influence the activation order and chain the activations of specific units to change the turn order based on their plan.

The start of the scenario will begin with each team’s party members being positioned into an initial starting order based on the character’s allocated base action points. You will be able to see the turn order by looking at the icons placed on the turn-base timeline. Characters will advance down the timeline and once they reach the end of this line they will need to take their turn (attack, move, wait, etc). During the turn, any event that results in the spending of action points is immediately reflected by the unit’s icon position on the timeline. The player can continue moving and acting with the active unit provided they have the action points to perform the desired tasks.

Internally we have been working on this system and have created internal playable builds that I am not able to share with you just yet, however as we move further along in development we will have screens to share with you over the next few months.

Art Update

 

Earlier in this update we gave you some background information on one of the first characters you will come across in Unsung Story, Sir Vensniel L’Brasca. Sir Vensniel is an honorable knight in the Alionne Royal Army who believes in carrying out justice for justices’ sake, which oftentimes leaves him inflexible and stubborn. He is also the first character Akihiko Yoshida has been working on and we are very excited to have his unique art style helping to influence Unsung Story.

These next images have not been shared anywhere else, so you are the first people to view these images of Sir Vensniel, as well as a conceptualized piece of the capital of the Alionne Kingdom which shows the visual direction the game will head towards in designing the empires.

 

 

 

 

[kazuyoshi 231]

Gra zapowiada się ciekawie - duży plus za wygląd postaci. Tak czy siak. Cel został osiągnięty. Teraz tylko czekać na efekty.

[Enkidou 300]

Nareszcie update. Pokazali pierwsze screeny. Wprawdzie build jest bardzo wczesny, ale już można pokusić się o twierdzenie, że zachodnim grafikom stylu Yoshidy nie uda się odwzorować w grze (nie żebym spodziewał się czegoś innego).

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/482445197/unsung-story-tale-of-the-guardians/posts/1065801#comments

 

 

Storyline Segment

[spoilerS AHEAD]

[Continued from the last Story Update]

 

In an attempt to distract the Jheksal Troops that are amassing outside the walls of the fort-city of Latzera, Sir Vensniel L’Brasca gathers a squad of Alionne soldiers to assist him in a diversion mission. His hope is that by setting fire to the Jheksal troopships in the nearby harbor, the Jheksal troops will be baited to leave the city and rush to the harbor buying Sir Vensniel and the others trapped within the city much needed time until the main Alionne forces arrive to rescue the city from the Jheksal grasp. In the middle of executing this plan, Sir Vensniel and his troops are attacked by the Highmarshal Veracruz the Red and a band of Jheksal soldiers. A battle ensues at the harbor and when things start to look bleak for our hero, backup appears as he is joined by Giovanna Breneit, the daughter of Count Breneit of Latzera, and her troops. With the aid of Giovanna, Sir Vensniel is able to finish his mission and defeat the Highmarshal and Jheksal soldiers before leaving the harbor.

 

As Sir Vensniel accompanies Giovanna and her men back to the safety inside the city walls, Giovanna receives word that her husband, Lord Rheims, has fled the city to join the service of the Jheksal Army. This goes against the wishes of Count Breneit as he has already pledged fealty to the Alionne Kingdom. However it isn’t the fleeing of the city by her husband and joining the opposing army that upsets Giovanna, it is the news that the Lord has abducted their son Joshua and fled with him. Understanding the brevity of this situation and being the honorable man that he is, Sir Vensniel quickly assembles a troop of soldiers and leaves the city at once to track down Lord Rheims and return Joshua to his mother.

 

Sir Vensniel and his troops move with great urgency through the forest as the sun begins to set, in order to close the gap between them and Lord Rheims. The forest surrounding Latzera is a hazardous and dangerous place filled with vile monsters who show no mercy upon the unfortunates who happen to come across them. Fresh, dead units begin littering the ground giving Sir Vensniel the impression that he and his troop may not be alone in these woods. As the party continues to move quickly the silence of the forest is interrupted with the sounds of fighting, a scream, and then muted scuffles and whimpers. Arriving just a tad too late, the party watches as one of Lord Rheims attendants is mauled by a beast. In the distance Sir Vensniel sees a rundown fort and lights flickering from within, giving him the impression that Lord Rheims and Joshua may be hiding in the fort for safety from the creatures outside. Sir Vensniel makes his way through the monsters surrounding the fort and as he approaches the entrance, the sound of fighting grows louder with each step. One final gasp is heard as he enters the fort, just in time to witnesses the last moments of Lord Rheims life as he succumbs to a monster while defending his son. Sir Vensniel and his men finish off the last of the monsters and save Joshua from the same demise as his father. Our hero picks up the boy and him and his men slowly make their way back to Giovanna and the safety behind the city walls of Latzera to reunite mother and son.

 

Unreleased Painting of Sir Vensniel L’Brasca by Akihiko Yoshida

 

Development Update  

 

Our designers have been very busy balancing and adjusting the Battle System that we talked about previously. One of the major components we have been able to refine is the 8-Point Movement and Attack System you will see illustrated in the images below. Your characters will be able to move and attack other units in eight directions: front, back, left, right, and all the diagonals in-between. You will notice that our units are placed on a square-based grid; however this is just a placeholder for the time being while we work on a more visually appealing approach to use in the game for this 8-Point System, which is both intuitive and seamless.  

 

All of these images we are about to share with you have been taken from early playable demos that have been used to help us lay out the foundation for the game. These screens are not definitive of what the final product will look like, but represent the iterative steps we are taking in development.

 

 

Another game feature that has been worked on is the presentation and control of the in-game User Interface, keeping an eye towards intuitive controls that do not encumber the player, while maintaining a high graphic appeal. The goal is to provide you the player with the information and controls you need during your battles, without interfering with the flow, so that you have more time to focus on the fight at hand and can devise your strategy to overcome the challenges thrown your way.  

Also, we have done extensive work to the character, weapons and armor systems for the Units you create in the game. With this system, you will be provided with multiple combat styles to suit your style of play during combat. We will divulge more information about the character system with the next update, so if you have any specific questions feel free to post them on our forums for our team to review and think about.

 

Art Update

 

In our last update we introduced you to the “Knight of Knights”, the “Siege-Breaker”, Sir Vensniel L’Brasca, one of the main characters designed by Akihiko Yoshida. Along with creating the different units for the Alionne and Jheksal armies in the game, the main characters for each episode are also being crafted, including Sir Vensniel, working off of the character design sketches we receive from Mr.Yoshida. Below is a refresher image of the character design we showed of Sir Vensniel, and then following that are a few images from our artists of the game model as it begins being placed into the game world. Again, these images from the game are still in the early development stages and are not finished art, but we wanted to share this early peek with you so that you can watch as the game grows and develops.

 

 

More art, screens, story, and development information will be coming soon, so hopefully these will be enough to hold you all over for now. If you have any specific questions about the game, your pledge, or just want to join in on the conversations we have going on our forums, feel free to make an account and join us. I can usually be found lurking about and it’s always nice to see more conversations being started: Playdek Forums.

Edytowane 21 lutego 2015 przez Enkidou

[Paliodor 1 817]

Graficznie szału nie ma ale to wciąż screeny z wczesnych prac nad grą to może jeszcze wypięknieje. Ale faktycznie niezbyt im się udało przenieść styl Yoshidy do samej gry. Myślę,że jakby poszli w grafikę 2D albo cell-shading w stylu Valkyria Chronicles to wyszłoby to o wiele lepiej.

[Enkidou 300]

*bump*

 

W zeszłym tygodniu, po czterech miesiącach przerwy, pojawił się wreszcie update wyjaśniający co się dzieje z grą. Ponadto szef Playdek (developer) odbył też wczoraj AMA na Reddit. Wieści są takie sobie. W skrócie - premiera pierwszego epizodu Unsung Story planowana jest jakoś na jesień przyszłego roku (Matsuno skończył już pisać scenariusz dla pierwszych pięciu epizodów). Głównym powodem tej obsuwy są najprawdopodobniej trudności finansowe studia, które musiało zwolnić w ostatnim czasie część pracowników. Nie to było jednak najgorsze. Ludzi najbardziej rozjuszyła zapowiedź trybu PVP, który ma być integralną częścią gry na równi z kampanią fabularną, a o którym dotychczas nie było za bardzo mowy.

 

Na razie zapowiada się niestety niezły clusterfuck i mam nadzieję, że Playdek pozyska do współpracy wydawcę (o czym się mówi), bo ich samych to zadanie raczej przerasta. Liczę też na to, że Matsuno ma inne projekty w zanadrzu na wypadek gdyby Unsung Story okazało się wtopą. ;/

Edytowane 1 października 2015 przez Enkidou

[Paliodor 1 817]

Taka cisza w temacie prac nad grą niemal zawsze nie wróży niczego dobrego.Mam nadzieję,że jednak twórcy jakoś ogarną ten projekt i otrzymamy dobry tytuł bo potencjał ku temu jest.

[django 549]

No mial byc powrot jRPGow dzieki crowdfundingowi a okazuje sie, ze indyki zaczely dawac dupy (Project Phoenix tez ma spore problemy), a duze firmy znowu inwestuja w ten gatunek...

[Enkidou 300]

Playdek na razie realizuje obietnice i wrzucił materiał video z wczesnej wersji gry:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/482445197/unsung-story-tale-of-the-guardians/posts/1388550

 

Pomijając aspekty techniczne widać, że Yoshida występował raczej jako kwiatek do kożucha,tj. rysownik, których machnie kilka ilustracji i na tym poprzestanie. W tym co pokazali nie widać na razie jego ręki.

 

BTW: Korzystając z okazji chciałem poinformować, że przygotowałem tekst podsumowujący dotychczasową karierę Matsuno. Mam nadzieję, że będzie mi darowana ta reklama, ale z racji tego, że temat jest dość niszowy chciałbym trafić do możliwie jak największej liczby czytelników.

[Hela 1 962]

Final Fantasy Tactics director's Unsung Story placed on indefinite hold

 

Remember Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians, the Kickstarter dream project from Yasumi Matsuno (director of Final Fantasy Fucking Tactics, Final Fantasy XII, Tactics Ogre, and Vagrant Goddamn Story), Hitoshi Sakimoto (composer for all of the above), and Alexander O. Smith (translator for all of the above)? If just hearing the names of those games is enough to get you all twitterpated, you were the primary demographic for that crowdfunding attempt, and you might never play the finished product.

 

Playdek, the developer tasked with creating Unsung Story, has updated backers less and less since the game's announcement. There were 40 updates in 2014, eight in 2015, and one today. There were murmurs of troubled development, but Playdek always popped out of the woodwork to say "Hey! It's still happening! We promise!" Not this time. 

 

Today's update begins with an apology for the four month delay since the last update. Then Playdek drops the bomb: "We have had some development setbacks that are affecting our timeline and progress on the game, while also affecting what we need to do in the immediate future as a company." Since the previous backer update, the team lost a few key staff members. Playdek now only has "one internal team capable of working on a single project, and for the financial strength of the company we need to focus on a few products in the near term that have the ability to get to a retail release before Unsung Story is able to." 

 

This isn't a permanent goodbye. Playdek is still seeking outside development help. It can't make any promises, and "at this time [it does] not have an update as to what the new release window for development rollout will be." The launch window will be updated if any new circumstances arise. 

On the update page, most of the backers are either calling for refunds or swearing off crowdfunding entirely. Whether this project will be miraculously saved or left die remains to be seen.
http://www.destructoid.com/final-fantasy-tactics-director-s-unsung-story-placed-on-indefinite-hold-339649.phtml

 

[Enkidou 300]

Jeśli Playdek nie znajdzie kogoś do pomocy przy tej grze to albo ona nie wyjdzie w ogóle, albo wyjdzie w pożałowania godnym stanie. Ja już od jakiegoś czasu zakładam najgorsze. Welp, pozostaje nadzieja, że Matsuno robi nowego Tacticsa. ;/