Little King’s Story is an upcoming Wii-exclusive game from the combined development teams Cing (creators of Hotel Dusk for DS), Town Factory, and Marvelous Interactive. It will be published in the U.S. by XSEED sometime in winter of this year (2009 in Europe).
In Little King’s Story the player is a timid boy named Corobo Bred who has found a mysterious crown which gives him the power to charm people and make them follow orders. As “King of the Village”, his goal is to grow the village and make his subjects happy.
Similar to Pikmin in many ways but with a mix of Animal Crossing, each and every one of your citizens has a name, their own lives, and their own jobs. You have to be able to divide up your resources accordingly as the king and do it well. Enhancing the experience though is the fact that it’s even fun just to watch your citizens go about their lives. This is one of the charms of Little King’s Story. As far as gameplay is concerned, Corobo must order his minions to create roads and build structures, which is vital to building up your kingdom. Day will even turn to night with bright mornings, darker dusks and pitch-black midnights and your citizens will be doing different things depending on the time of day and their schedule.
Your citizens lives are also preset and have their own life cycle, so you must prepare yourself for some sad partings in the future, as there is nothing you can do to change it. You also need to be sure you know what each job’s strong points and weaknesses are before ordering them to do something. New citizens without jobs are called carefree adults. They have no jobs, but they can still fight (although not effectively, as should be obvious). You might be able to have them get a job if you satisfy certain conditions.
Give the game a look in this trailer from E3 2008.
Here is a list of jobs in the game:
Grunt Soldier
A job that is good at combat at close range. But as their names suggest, they’re grunts at the bottom. They’re not that strong so it’s pretty common for them to have trouble with certain enemies.
Regular Carpenter
A job that can do construction of buildings and roads. These crucial citizens will be the ones that build the basic environment of your kingdom. Work can be done more efficiently if you have more of them. Just as their name suggests, their skill is “regular.” Maybe you can find expert artisans somewhere.
Hardworking Peasant
A job aimed towards cultivation. They are good at digging ditches so be sure to take them with you if you find any holes during your travels.
Animal Hunter
A job good at long range combat. They will support the other people fighting in the front lines. Animal Hunters train with their bow and arrows in their free time.
The game world consists of seven other kingdoms (including “The Kingdom of the Drunks”), each with their own quirks, specialties and their own king. As you start out, the various kingdoms will taunt and challenge you, with the ultimate goal being to defeat them, which will grow your own power and allow you to take over their kingdom (and “rescue” their princess).
Ultimately, Little King’s Story combines real-time, simulation, a dose of RPG and adventure elements into a unique, Pikmin-style adventure strategy game that looks like it will fit right at home on the Wii. What with it’s simplistic Animal Crossing-style graphics and beautiful storybook-style cut-scenes.
Little King’s Story Developer Interview