Yesterday, we discovered that Disney was developing a Kingdom Hearts title for iOS and Android in 2013 called Kingdom Hearts: Fragmented Keys, which has since been cancelled. Today, we've found out via Philip Cruden's LinkedIn page that the company Go For Launch Productions, also known as GFL Animation Studios, were in charge of creating locations and character designs for Disney Interactive's upcoming Kingdom Hearts online game between September 2011 and March 2013.
The official website for GFL Animation Studios has two pages about their work for Disney Interactive and Kingdom Hearts, and these pages contain a huge amount of information, as well as over 100 pieces of concept art for the cancelled title. The two pages are titled "Disney Kingdom Hearts" and "Kingdom Hearts App Game", and together seem to show a very rough, initial concept for GFL's vision of Disney Interactive's Kingdom Hearts game.
The game was to have "several Kingdom Hearts heroes" (these seem to be original characters) transported to Disney worlds through a Grand Central like station, where they would join forces with the heroes of those worlds in battle arenas to defeat their enemies. These worlds included ones based on Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Snow White, Wreck It Ralph, Frozen, Lilo and Stitch, Star Wars, Tron and Tangled, all represented in the concept art for the game. An original town was also created called "New Town". All concept art can be seen below, originally sourced from the GFL Animation Studios website.
- Alice in Wonderland concept art
It is unclear if all of these worlds made it past the concept/design stage that GFL Animation Studios were working on, but it is clear that Disney Interactive were working with GFL on this concept art for their upcoming Kingdom Hearts app, and that game designers and Disney executives from both the United States and Japan were all involved.
Here are the full descriptions for the concept art:
The concepts for this game was to have several Kingdom Hearts heroes transported to the worlds of our favorite Disney Characters. Traveling through a Grand Central like station our heroes could visit any Disney world of their choosing and join forces with the heroes of those worlds to defeat their enemies. Below is a collection of concept and game play design work. We also created “World Tour” video that introduced the Kingdom Hearts characters to the Disney worlds and culminated in a game play simulation battle on the rooftops of Peter Pan’s London, England. The video formed a large part of a video presentation given to Disney US and Disney Japan executives.
Go For Launch Productions, in association with CgMations in Ireland, designed numerous characters and sets for Disney’s new Kingdom Hearts game. The concept was simple; bring the beloved Kingdom Hearts’ characters into the iconic worlds of Disney. The characters of Wreck It Ralph, Frozen, Lilo and Stitch, Star Wars, Tron, Tangled and more, were all to do battle with the Kingdom Hearts heroes against epic foes! On this project we re-imagined the classic Disney worlds as game play battle arenas and worked with the game designers to create fun and challenging game play scenarios.
[Here] is a selection of concept and game play design work.
Update: We've got twenty more concept art images showing battles on London rooftops, most likely from Neverland. You can view them here. Thanks go to KH13 member Roxasman1231 for the tip.
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