One Final Playtest & Update

Hey all!

As of today, I have finished my very quick playtest of Story Mode. It went well! Very well actually, the game was absurdly easy [that's the point!]. So easy in fact that I added another mode.

Here's the breakdown: Untold Story has 4 difficulty modes.

Standard Mode -- The game plays as it was designed. This is what the game is balanaced around, so it should be fairly balanced gameplay wise.

Hard Mode -- Limits party to 3 during battles. This lowers the amount of actions you have during a turn, and lowers the amount of targets as well. No other changes are made. Players must effectively use the actions they do have to best overcome the odds.

Story Mode -- Triples the Strength/Defense/Prowess/Resolve stat, decreases damage taken by 25%, grants HP, SP, and Energy regen [outside of battle as well], and doubles EXP earned. Basically, you beat things easily, take less damage, constantly restore, and get stronger faster. My playtest of this mode required basically no thought at all to beat enemies. It could still provide some challenge for new players who aren't as comfortable with the system, but by and large it is very simple.

Beginner Mode -- Reduces damage taken by 25% and gain 1.5x the EXP. My story mode playtest was too easy. And during it, I wanted to add a mode that allowed players to have an easier time, but still needed to think about how to handle battles. Thus Beginner Mode was born. With the damage reduction and increased EXP, players will have much greater survivabilty, but will not be grossly overpowered. This allows newer players to still get the strategy down of combat with much less risk and death involved. I think it is a great addition. 

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For reference, in my Story Mode playtest, I

• Never equipped anything other than the default equippment and changed a few weapons
• Did none of the friend conversations
• Did bare minimum of sidequests [only what I needed to for testing]
• Skipped most optional battles in required dungeons

And I still had barely any issues. I did get a KO here and there, but it was effortlessly managed and I was right back on track. It was important to me that Story Mode is easy but not impossible to lose. I still want people to engage with the game. 

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Now, what is left?

One final 100% playthrough of Standard Mode. 

And fixing all the issues that I find with that. 

And then we're done. 

November 2025

That's my goal. No exact date yet, but before the end of Novemeber, Untold Story will be TOLD.

Thank you, everyone!