{"id":49471,"date":"2025-06-27T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T15:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=49471"},"modified":"2025-06-27T00:17:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T15:17:00","slug":"fantasy-life-i-the-girl-who-steals-time-owes-its-success-to-critical-game-design-changes-made-only-1-year-before-launch-level-5-ceo-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/fantasy-life-i-the-girl-who-steals-time-owes-its-success-to-critical-game-design-changes-made-only-1-year-before-launch-level-5-ceo-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time owes its success to critical game design changes made only 1 year before launch, Level-5 CEO says\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Following several delays, Level-5 released the slow-life simulator RPG<strong> Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time<\/strong> on May 21. The game has sold over 1 million copies worldwide in only three weeks following its launch, amassing glowing reviews on <a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/2993780\/FANTASY_LIFE_i_The_Girl_Who_Steals_Time\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steam<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.metacritic.com\/game\/fantasy-life-i-the-girl-who-steals-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Metacritic<\/a>. But Level-5 CEO and Fantasy Life i producer Akihiro Hino says that a big part of the game\u2019s positive reception is due to crucial changes the development team started implementing only a year ago.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a special talk show hosted by <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/zAKdDS6N0SE?feature=shared\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Denfaminicogamer Channel<\/a>, Hino says that at one point during development, Fantasy Life i\u2019s gameplay felt very \u201csuffocating,\u201d in a way that would make you want to put down your controller very quickly. He describes the initial approach as \u201ctrying to extend playtime at the expense of making things stressful,\u201d especially in terms of player movement being limited. As a result, his team decided that the only way to fix things was to \u201cpractically remake\u201d the whole game.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\u3072\u308d\u3086\u304d\u00d7\u30ec\u30d9\u30eb\u30d5\u30a1\u30a4\u30d6\u65e5\u91ce\u6643\u535a\u6c0f\u00d7\u30b9\u30af\u30a6\u30a7\u30a2\u30fb\u30a8\u30cb\u30c3\u30af\u30b9\u5409\u7530\u76f4\u6a39\u6c0f\u304c\u8ee2\u8077\u30b2\u30fc\u306b\u3064\u3044\u3066\u8a9e\u308a\u5408\u3063\u3066\u307f\u305f\u3010\u30d5\u30a1\u30f3\u30bf\u30b8\u30fc\u30e9\u30a4\u30d5\uff49\u767a\u58f2\u8a18\u5ff5\u7279\u5225\u5bfe\u8ac7\u3011\" width=\"1160\" height=\"653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zAKdDS6N0SE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of the specific issues Hino highlights are the map and movement. Until a year ago, Fantasy Life i did not have an open-world map at all, it had a \u201csmall map,\u201d and it did not allow you to parkour across the terrain, climb cliffs and the like. \u201cIt felt narrow and constricted, as if you were trapped in the game\u2019s space,\u201d Hino comments.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To resolve these issues, the development team implemented an open-world map layout and \u201cthoroughly removed anything that made the game feel stressful.\u201d The latter especially refers to movement and travel. As an example, Hino cites Fantasy Life i&#8217;s fast travel feature that lets you warp to the nearest work bench after changing lives. Impressively, Hino\u2019s team managed to create the open world map in only two months, by creating a system that helped them turn 2D artwork into 3D terrain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1392\" height=\"777\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1392px) 100vw, 1392px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20250124-49471-001.jpg\" alt=\"Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time\" class=\"wp-image-49473\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20250124-49471-001.jpg 1392w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20250124-49471-001-380x212.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20250124-49471-001-768x429.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn the final version of the game, you can chop a tree, climb up somewhere high, chop a three while you\u2019re up there, climb back down, run around \u2013 and just performing these simple actions feels good and comfortable,\u201d Hino explains, suggesting that a big part of Fantasy Life i&#8217;s success in today\u2019s gaming climate is the level of comfort it offers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On a related note, Hino has previously commented that Fantasy Life i\u2019s delays and mid-development overhaul also had to do with Keiji Inafune\u2019s departure from Level-5. Inafune was initially the producer of the title, but <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/kenji-inafunes-silent-departure-from-level-5-last-year-complicated-the-development-of-fantasy-life-ceo-reveals\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">after he left the company mid-2024, Hino had to take over the project<\/a> and steer it in a new direction amidst negative reception from in-house testers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time<\/strong> is out now for PC (Steam), PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time went through a complete overhaul mid-2024 that drastically improved playability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":49472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-49471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-development","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49471"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49476,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49471\/revisions\/49476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}