It’s not unheard of to see a game change its engine in the middle of development. For some reason or another, the original choice just didn’t work out. Unfortunately, I’ve seen this happen all too often in the hundreds of titles that I’ve backed on Kickstarter. In the case of A Song for Viggo, their decision to use Unity didn’t work out quite as planned.
In the latest update for A Song for Viggo, Simon Karlsson announced they are moving development to a dedicated adventure game platform. They’re now using Visionaire Studio to finish it, a decision I’m sure they didn’t take lightly. One major reason cited is Unity not working well with what they’ve intended.
The good news is this hopefully means A Song for Viggo will speed through development. It sounds like most of the work done has been in developing assets and the actual programming was minimal. Unfortunately, this also means that the 3D look of papercraft will be relegated to a 2D platform. Flattening what basically amounts to advanced origami work is going to lose a lot of the depth originally intended.
How this all works out remains to be seen. It’s hard to visualize how this change in engine impacts the overall feel of the game. Without seeing A Song for Viggo in action in Visionaire Studio, I can’t make any judgment call regarding the quality. That said, I’m sure there won’t be a big loss in the original vision.
