Above is the full cast of Klepto’s Tragedy Ver. 2.0!  Now that I’ve had the time to put into it, I’ve gone back into every character and touched them up to a state where I’d be pleased to see them printed on their respective character cards, or any media that they’d need to be on.  I’ve also added 3 new playable characters, which were all in the story, but not previously playable.  Over the last several months, there’s been a lot more playtesting which lead to some rather large changes and additions to the games’ structure.  The massive changes have led to a complete restructure and tune of the characters and the flow of the game in general.  It has taken about 4 months to implement and balance these changes in the design doc., which is coming to fruition through the all-new art and redesigned cards.  See below for a couple examples of how greatly things have changed!

As you can see, the Steal Index value on the Ver. 01 card is now accompanied by several other categories and an additional useage text box…to be explained at a later date of course.  The art has drastically changed, mostly due to the fact that I’m no longer on a pressed time schedule.  Expect to see a few more of these examples in the near future.

Next up is the evolution of the character cards.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the cards are now double-sided.  This was the biggest change in the game system and took a lot of work to integrate and balance.  The plethora of confusing status numbers on the top right of the cards is now gone, giving the player a lot more freedom and choice when it comes to taking their turn.  The skills have also been divided into two simple categories rather than having them all lumped together and not knowing which to use when.

The Steal Index rating for the characters has also been removed.  It created a lot of confusing during the Attack Phase, which is now the Strike Phase.  Now it is clearly defined as the Pilfer Phase, and gives the players a lot of choice regarding how they choose to Pilfer from an Adversary.

That’s it for now!  Check back later this year for a hopefully completed version 2.0 of Klepto’s Tragedy.  Between now and then I’ll be posting some Ver. 1.0 versus Ver. 2.0 changes.

I’ll leave off with the final version of the simplified story.

Here is some recent pictures of where I’m at with the game.  It is fully playable and I’ve had several playtests already that went rather well.  I’ve learned new things about each of them, especially that testing is a necessity!

To begin, an overview of everything included in the game and some shots of a playing field fully set up for game time.

Next up is all the cards and things that the players interact with the most, such as their player shelf and the referencing legends.

Lastly is a quick look at the enemy card, and this is everyone’s favorite, the mini slime

As I stated in my last post, I am only going to focus on 3 platforms: DS, PSP, PS2 and Wii.  Since I have no longer have a 360 and have yet to get a PS3 it would not be fair for me to rate games I have yet to play.  Let’s start with the DS!

DS Games played this year:

1. Dragon Quest IV  (ArtePiazza)
2. Final Fantasy IV (Matrix Software)
3. Izuna 2: Return of the Unemployed Ninja (Ninja Studio)
4. Professor Layton and the Curious Village (Level 5)
5. Shiren the Wanderer (Chunsoft)
6. Rondo of Swords (Success)
7. Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword (Team Ninja)
8. Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (Intelligent Systems)
9. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (Konami)
10. River King: Mystic Valley (Marvelous)
11. Nanostray 2 (Shin’en)
12. Etrian Odyssey II (Atlus)
13. Metal Slug 7 (SNK)
14. Summon Night: Twin Age (Flight Plan)

Best of the Pack: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (Konami)

Its no secret that I like Castlevania games. I’ve always liked them and probably always will (in 2D of course).  Ecclesia really took a new direction this year, and ended up not being just another metroid-style dungeon-romp.  The addition of the world map had me a bit confused about the design decision at first, but it soon lit my gamer heart on fire!  I was completely addicted from start to finish, and found myself humming the tunes while I wasn’t playing the game.  A great effort from Iga’s team, and I eagerly await the next installment in the series.

PSP games played this year:

1. R-Type Tactics (Irem)
2. Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (Square Enix)
3. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII  (Square Enix)
4. Patapon (SCE/WWS)
5. Wild Arms XF (MediaCreate)

Best of the Pack: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (Square Enix)

This was my main reason for purchasing a PSP back in 2005, three years later I finally get to play the system seller!  I have to admit that at first I was not engaged by the games’ mission-based story system, but after a few hours of play I decided that it worked, not only because sometimes it is easy to forget where you were headed and what goals you had when playing an RPG, but because the story was really damn good.  The music, which also at first was a bit too hardcore guitar for my tastes had me humming the tunes and listening to the OST over and over.  The ending to the game really helped to rocket it to the top of the list, however, and the CG still remains some of the best I’ve ever seen.  A really emotional ending, something we don’t get very often in games anymore.  Some developers try really hard to bring emotional attachment into the mix, but fail hard at it.

Let me also note that I would have given this award to Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions hands down, but it is still the same game that I played on PSOne over a decade ago with a few added cutscenes to spice things up for a new graphics-hungry generation of gamers.  It still remains the last great game we’ve seen from the “dream team” (Matsuno, Yoshida and Sakimoto).

As a special note, I am still waiting for Mega Man Powered Up! 2 and Mega Man Maverick Hunter X2 Capcom!  Give Inafune the go ahead already!!!  PSP is selling like hotcakes in Japan, and with all the cash Monster Hunter 2G has racked up, there must be some coin to sink back into the community that loves games!

PS2 games played this year:

1. Yakuza 2 (Amusement Vision)
2. Shin Megami Tensei Persona 4 (Atlus)

Best of the Pack: Yakuza 2 (Amusement Vision)

The PS2 has had a slow death in the US, with a small amount of titles slowly trickling down the vine.  That doesn’t mean that the quality has been reduced at all, in fact it is quite the opposite!  Yakuza 2 is better than its’ predecessor in every way and a feat that it is running on PS2 at all!  The battle system, with zero load times is a lot smoother and feels more organic which made it A LOT more fun to go around beating up hooligans.  The gripping story, which started off with a bang, is japanese crime drama at its’ best, with xcenarios penned by famous writer Hase Seishu working with series Producer (and original story writer) Toshihiro Nagoshi is full of atmosphere and emotion.

I hope to be PS3-ready by the time Sega releases Yakuza 3 (read: NOT Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan) in the US.  Please Sega, make it happen!  You’re on a roll with Madworld/Bayonetta/Infinite Line, don’t stop rolling with those three

Wii games played this year (NOT including old VC games):

1. Mega Man 9 (Inti Creates)
2. LostWinds (Frontier Developments)

Best of the Pack: Mega Man 9 (Inti Creates)

Capcom certainly proved that they have a pair when it comes to this special VC release.  An 8-bit game in the midst of the HD-craze was exactly what I needed and furthermore WANTED.  I have massive respect for Inafune and the team at Inti Creates for going back to the days of old with my favorite game character of all time. I have to applaud Keiji Inafune for stepping in and getting back into actually designing the boss characters again.  Mega Man was a household icon when I was growing up, my brother and I anticipated each installment, our eyes glossing over the pages of previews in magazines like EGM and GameFan.  I even went so far as to write fanfiction stories, and integrated them into my creative writing assignments for English class.  To this day I still cherrish the little robot that could.  With over 20 games in the franchise, Mega Man 9 shows no signs of shortcomings.  It’s the fanboys wet dream come true!  The stage designs are clever, the music in all its’ 8-bit glory is an amazing throwback to the creativity of musicians with MIDI.  The graphics, while not necessarily the best 8-bit backgrounds I’ve ever seen were a welcomed sight in the midst of everything “Unreal”.

That concludes the gaming awards for 2008!

Pictured below from left to right we’ve got Teddy Machete, Queen Kariola, The Blobby Brigade, Poison Princess and King Anax.  I did an initial round of playtesting on Friday night which was fun and went well!  Of course there are statistics and things that definitely need tweaking but everyone who played thought it was a great first round.  As I build more terrain items, they’ll each need testing and the game overall will probably need balancing based on their individual effects.

Expect another post before the end of the year.  I’ll be posting my GOTY and honorable mentions for DS and PSP since that is mostly what I played this year.  It wouldn’t be fair to post much about the Wii or 360/PS3 since I no longer own a 360 and have yet to pick up a PS3.  Wii in general, was not home to any games that I was really wanting to play this  year besides the Wii Ware title Lost Winds and numerous VC games.

Here is also an example of what the world map is going to look like.

These 3×3 gameboard shells fit nicely together by the pegs on the outer edge.  In order to play, there will be 9 of these shells put together in any which way best fits the design for the map challenge to be played.  I designed it this way for 2 reasons.  The first is that from a single asset we can have a ton of different designs using the same blocks, like LEGO.  The second reason is that, if this ever does reach an end-user (most likely in videogame form ) it promotes user-created maps, which leads to user-created content, a much desired element for any game.

Here is a more detailed look at the pieces and how they fit into the game shells.

A few words on the choice for square tiles as well.  The main game mechanic is the steal index, an action which requires a player be behind another player.  A square seemed to be the best format for this, as a hex can be confusing as to which tile you should be standing on to consider being “behind”.

To give an example of this, here is an item card, along with a player card just as some quick examples of what you can expect in the game:

So let’s tackle the Character Card first.  Each character has the following stats: health, attack, defense, travel, steal index attack and steal index defense.  Along with these stats, each character has a set of one-time use abilities that make use of their stats and one persistent ability which can be used as many times as the player likes.  Each Character also comes with their unique starting equipment consisting of a weapon and an item, both which can be stolen away and used against them.  The limit of one-time-use skills is an effort to force the players to engage in what the game is all about: stealing!  I mean, what fun is a strategy game where every mission is “defeat the opponent”?

So there you have it, the overview of the game so far…

Unfortunately from this point on, I regret that I will have to spend considerably less time working on this boardgame, as the realities of life are beginning to set in hard and I will need to turn my attention back towards focusing on making new environment art to keep my skills up to date with the workforce (so I can get back into it).

This does not mean that I will stop working on Klepto’s Story, as it has a very soft spot in my heart now with all that I’ve poured into it, and I will take it to completion – but I won’t be finishing it for the holidays this year.  Stay tuned early next year for another update (and hopefully a job update too!)

One mini hot slime coming right up!

The most difficult and important step during the “actual” phase of puting the stuff together is the cutout.  It is the most important because how precise the cuts are determines how well the overall shape ends up fitting together.  The can be a time-consuming process, but after a bit of practice it gets much easier.

After the cuts are made, its time to glue this badass together with brushable super glue.  Its quick, its solid, and its a real bitch to get off your fingers.  That been said, it is the most effective way I’ve found of holding these things together.  Glue stick and liquid glue was terrible and soaked through the paper as well!

with a few sections folded and glued together things are looking like so:

Folded and ready to brush!

Once you get going, the brushing goes quite fast.  From start to finish gluing this little guy together took about 5 minutes.  Now that may seem like quite a while, but it’s not as easy as it might look to accomplish.

All the pieces prepared

finally, you just glue the big pieces together which is the easiest part of it all.  Here is our little game figure in the flesh!  er…in the paper.

uhoh, that far eyeball does kinda look like a boob from this angle!

Lastly, a couple shots of the slime-type group of monsters to show.

The whole family is here!

There are hot slimes, which can inflict heat status, water slimes to inflict wet status, and of course, everyone’s favorite golden oldie the green slime which inflicts…you guess it, poison status!  He’s a bit of a bastard actually, because poison absolutely ruins your movement…an essential asset for this game.

Giddeyup!

The big pink slime is a Carry Slime, which can hold any other player piece on its back.  It can be used for travel and to avoid otherwise harmful terrain, as well as give your attackers one less open side for stealing.  We’ll get to all of that soon enough!

First, a bit about the game’s story and how the world of the game came to being:

In an ancient world, thievery and sin run rampant.  Thieves are everywhere.  One king happened upon an incredibly discovery, a rip in the fabric of space and time.  King Anax decided to take control of it as a means to repair the world.

With the help Klepto, a famous magician of the time, they succeeded in coming up with a plan to remove these sinful creatures from the world.  Klepto created a dust of transformation that transfografied each of them into whatever was in their hearts.  It was a way that would punish them with what was reflected in their hearts, and magnify their sinful desires so much so, that it would consume their entire mind and spirit.

King Anax and Klepto banished them to whatever was on the other side of what became known as “The Mirror.”

Peace finally came to the land and everything was calm…until the King’s wife, Queen Kariola was found guilty of adultery.  She was spared the pain of transformation, but not from banishment.  The magician Klepto chose instead to magnify the lust in her heart before sending her through The Mirror.  The King Anax could only watch – lest he contradict his own law.  He was devastated and saddened, so much so, that he took it upon himself to find a way to bring her back.  He installed a second magician, Deuteros to work a “back door” into the underworld so that she might be able to escape her fate.  Not all went well however, as Klepto discovered their plan and conspired against The King!  During Deuteros’s attempt at looking into the other side of The Mirror, something went worng and sent out a shockwave, destroying the vials of dust that Klepto was holding.  The rip in the fabric of time began to suck them in like a vacuum, and they were all sucked into it.

The King, his wife and the two magicians were all separated through travel, and each wakes up remembering little about their past, and feeling enveloped in their magnified dreams and desires.  All the darkest secrets of their hearts brought to the surface, it was back to primal instinct, survival and rule.

Each character must overcome many obstacles not only represented by other players, but also the environment, and an array of items as well as traps.  The main gameplay mechanic around this strange but familiar world is a steal index system, where everything that exists in the world is scaled against the system and represented by a value.  This value must be attained or exceeded by the player in order to successfully steal the object it represents.  The main goal of the game is to find the “key” item and take it to the goal point, which is represented by a celestial gate – where the player can leave the dimension and win the game!