History is written by winners, and tells the tales of heroes. But where there are winners, there are losers, and wars are not won by heroes alone. Behind the veil of history, there are countless stories that lie forgotten. Reliving these hidden tales is the concept behind the Unsung Story.

Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians presents an epic sweep of history through the eyes of the ones that make it, but are overlooked by the passing of time. It presents a fundamental twist on the hero’s story, as it immerses gamers through the experiences of those lashed to the great wheel of history!

Playdek originally joined forces with master designer Yasumi Matsuno to develop a series of mobile games based on Matsuno’s creative vision. The overwhelming fan response to its partnership with the legendary designer encouraged Playdek to turn to Kickstarter to help it raise $600,000 to develop the game across multiple platforms, deepen the content and add to its creative “dream” team.

Playdek has a Kickstarter campaign going looking for $600,000 to finish development of Unsung Story. With a a little over a day to go, the developer is 40k short of its goal.

In Unsung Story, classes are spread across three game play types that allow for unique party construction:

• Warrior types that are geared for attacking and defending 
• Mage types that use magic for attacking, healing and buffing 
• Monster types that excel in the use of specialized attacks

With this perspective in mind, the system is then made up of five primary class types:

This is a class connection map that shows the options for leveling characters across class types and professions.

• ATTACKER: These are front line fighters that emphasize attack power. They fight with long swords, massive axes, spears, and maces, for example.
• DEFENDER: These are front line fighters that emphasize defense. They are equipped with a shields and other defensive equipment, and will protect their party from enemy attacks.
• MAGE: These are magic-users that wield offensive and support magic, including the ability to strengthen a party’s attack abilities.
• HEALER: These are magic-users that wield defensive and healing magic, and can strengthen a party’s defensive position.
• TAMER: These are characters that command mythical beasts and monsters. The tamed monsters can be used for both offensive and defensive purposes.  

All of these class types have a Profession, which are a cultural/intellectual/craft alignment, and each profession has an affiliation bonus with another profession.

A unit’s primary class type and sub-class is determined by the type of weapon equipped, and by using various weapon types, a player’s character can gain XP in any class level this way. Units will be able to freely switch between classes that align with certain professions, as each weapon will belong to one of the primary classes and any experience points earned will be applied to levels for that class.

These branches show various class types aligned to certain professions.

For example, equipping two different Defender weapons, the Knight’s short sword or the Hoplite’s short spear, will both earn experience points toward the Defender primary class level.

What makes the sub-class different is that their special skills in battle will vary between subs. Though they will still have different character stats, they will have unique skills available to their sub-class type to use in battle. This is also key to class development because the skills a unit can learn when leveling up depend on its sub-class at the time.

Essentially, the system allows you to shape a unit’s development by choosing which sub-class it is, and in turn what skills it learns, thus giving each character its own identity.

A Tamer Class putting a dragon under his control.

The following answers are replies to questions about the last game play update from Mr. Matsuno.

Q: “Both your Primary class and your subclass are determined by the weapon you have equipped. Your subclass is what determines your stats, what abilities you can use as well as what abilities you learn when you level up. Matsuno states you can switch freely between classes by equipping different weapons but it's unclear whether Matsuno is referring to Primary class, subclass or both."

A: Sorry for the confusion, let me explain the class change system using a unit whose current primary class is “Defender” as an example.

The weapon this Defender unit is wielding determines its subclass. If it wields a short sword, it’s a Knight. If it wields a short spear, it’s a Hoplite.

In both cases, it remains a Defender, and XP gained either as a Knight or a Hoplite count toward its Defender level (which in turn acts as its Knight level when it’s a Knight and its Hoplite level when it’s a Hoplite.)

Should this same unit wield a staff of healing instead, its primary class would become Healer and its subclass would become Cleric.

Q: “If weapons determine the class, then how will I know which classes I will learn from weapons? Will certain skills be blocked off depending on the weapons I use?"

A: Help text for each weapon will make its associated class clear. Once you’ve learned a skill, you keep that skill, even if you change class. However, some skills will be fairly specialized, meaning you won’t be able to use those skills unless you’re wielding the right kind of weapon.

Q: “One major complaint about this system is that it's difficult to learn all the abilities you want. For example, there may be two subclasses within the same Primary class that learn ability at level 5. When you get to level 5 in your Primary class and learn the level 5 ability of your subclass, the OTHER level 5 ability becomes lost to you forever since you can't level up to level 5 twice. It's possible there may be a method to reset your level to go back and get abilities you missed but this would be repetitive and time-consuming."

A: We’re definitely planning to have a way to do this in the game.