{"id":23334,"date":"2023-11-27T14:02:15","date_gmt":"2023-11-27T05:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=23334"},"modified":"2023-11-27T14:02:53","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T05:02:53","slug":"20231127-23334","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/interviews\/20231127-23334\/","title":{"rendered":"The developer of Vivid Knight talks about the upcoming sequel Vivid World, promising new story elements, revamped party-building and more\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Japan-based game developer Asobism announced their upcoming title Vivid World<\/strong> on September 11. Vivid World is a follow-up title to the hit strategy game Vivid Knight, planned for release in 2024 for the PC (Steam).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had the opportunity to interview Toru Nakamura, the director of Vivid World, and hear all about the success of Vivid Knight (which was apparently somewhat of a \u201chappy accident\u201d) and the upcoming sequel’s new game system and fascinating new features.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vivid Knight \u2013 the experiment that outperformed<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u2500\u2500To start things of, please introduce yourself.<\/strong>\u00a0
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Nakamura: <\/strong>I\u2019m Toru Nakamura, game designer and director of Asobism. I started my career predominantly in programming, and I\u2019ve been involved in titles such as Dragon League X, Dragon Poker and the Sengoku League series in this capacity.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When I was first offered to do game directing, I was hesitant as I didn\u2019t consider myself skilled enough for the role yet. As a result, I decided to leave Asobism for a year and gain some directing experience at my friend\u2019s company. Then, after being invited to work as a director at Asobism again, I rejoined the company and worked on Castle & Dragon for three years.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it was time to come up with a new project, I decided to switch from the live service model and do a one-purchase title, and this is how Vivid Knight came to be. We had come quite far in the development of Vivid Knight as a buy-to-play mobile game, but we then decided to be more ambitious and give a Steam version a try. In the end, we made the almost-complete mobile game compatible with the PC in half a year. There were lots of ups and downs, but the release went smoothly in the end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2500\u2500If you don\u2019t mind sharing, how did Vivid Knight perform in terms of sales?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nakamura: <\/strong>It sold a total of about 140,000 copies across all platforms. Interestingly, even though Japanese users made up 50% of total sales, if we look at Steam alone, Japanese users made up only 2% of the demographic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2500\u2500<\/strong>How was the success of Vivid Knight received in your company\uff1f<\/strong> 
 
Nakamura: <\/strong>It was an experimental title, so we went into it with a limited number of staff and a humble budget. Honestly, nobody had grand expectations of it, but it ended up being really well received by players and achieving solid sales. I feel like the title is now regarded within the company as an important milestone for Asobism\u2019s future growth in the market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2500\u2500<\/strong>What was the scale of development?<\/strong> 
 
Nakamura: <\/strong>It was just three members of our company working on the game. But since our rule is not to release anything half-baked, we compensated by having a long development period and taking our time with the game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2500\u2500<\/strong>Looking back on the game, what do you think you did well? Are there any points you think could have been better?<\/strong> 
 
Nakamura:<\/strong> 
I think the mechanic of symbols being stored after you upgrade a unit was very successful. This system allows you to see how far you can go in fortifying your party by using Keen (the in-game currency) to upgrade your units. The system also makes you think carefully about what units you\u2019re going to pick from treasure chests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the negatives, there were two main things that players were unhappy about \u2013 one is the element of unlocking new units. We made it so that you can gradually unlock new units through repeated runs of the game, but when the pool of units grows too large, it becomes difficult to upgrade them, so a lot of players told us they found this counterproductive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other issue was the high degree of randomness \u2013 from activating skills to obtaining Gems, Vivid Knight has a lot of randomized elements, and in some cases, people felt the presence of RNG too strongly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, I do believe that a certain dose of randomness works towards the game\u2019s appeal, so for our next game, I plan to leave in the elements that worked well, while working on the parts people felt were impacted by randomness too severely, especially Gems and skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2500\u2500Does the announcement of the sequel, Vivid World, mean that there will be no further updates for Vivid Night?<\/strong>\u00a0
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Nakamura: <\/strong>Yes, I\u2019m afraid the development team has already broken up, with the main programmer moving onto another upcoming title called ShapeHero Factory. This makes any bigger updates to the game unlikely. However, through Vivid Knight, we learned that digital releases allow users to purchase our game long after the initial release, so for Vivid World, we will very likely be doing additional development and updates long after it releases.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new aesthetic for a new player base<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u2500\u2500Was the production of Vivid World decided after the Vivid Night team was dissolved?<\/strong>\u00a0
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Nakamura: <\/strong>Yes, we chose a convenient timing to part ways when our main programmer entered talks of directing a new title. But even after we dissolved the team, the game kept selling, which is why we got the idea of making a sequel. The project first started taking shape around September last year, as I recall.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2500\u2500<\/strong>What is the scale of development for Vivid World?<\/strong> 
 
Nakamura: <\/strong>The team for Vivid Night had just a director, one programmer and one designer, but for Vivid World, we\u2019ve expanded our team to eight members. We now have a director, planner, two programmers, and four designers, which is 2 to 3 times more. We\u2019re especially focused on graphics this time around, and we’re working on making the game a lot more visually rich. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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