139w ago - Senior Game Designer Sean Edwards at Krome Studios has shared some 'behind the code' details on Blade Kitten for PS3 today.

To quote: I hope to give some interesting and candid insights into the process the team went through to build the levels for Blade Kitten.

Building the World - Level Design for Blade Kitten

Initially we went through several approaches to building the levels, but with a small team we needed a method that allowed fast experimentation and changes. Rather than model large areas of the levels which would require going back into 3DS Max and re-exporting to make changes, the method chosen was to build lots of smaller objects to allow for fast changes and experimentation.

This required all the pieces to be built to very specific dimensions so that everything would snap together nicely. The final levels were assembled using those pieces in Krome's in-house level editor 'Merktools' which allowed quick iteration and real time editing of the level as the game is running!

The actual process of taking the level from concept through to completion involved several steps. First the Creative Director, Steve Stamatiadis, would conceptualize the level in a very high level "mud map" format. This map included locations for all the key story...

139w ago - Krome Studios Creative Director Steve Stamatiadis has announced today that Blade Kitten launches this week on PlayStation Network.

To quote: The game is just about to finally hit the PlayStation Network and you'll be able to try it out, buy it and enjoy it. Pretty cool, huh?

We said originally that the game would be out spring this year and technically is still is since it's just turned spring here in Australia, and it's already been a beautiful start to the season. See, we kept our word... sort of. Why did it take so long? Well we had the awesome good fortune of Atari... yes THAT Atari, picking up Blade Kitten.

Not only has that allowed us to make the game even better, but being published by Atari has a very special significance for me personally.

See back when I was about 13, I got my first computer: an Atari 400 (with all of 16K of memory, that's less than the average icon or avatar image). So as you can imagine having the Atari logo at the start of the game just makes it all that much more cooler to me. So a BIG thanks to Atari for coming on board.

It's been an exciting and challenging time bringing Blade Kitten to life from idea to comic to final game reality. Though it's been more than a few years in the making,...

140w ago - Today Krome Studios Creative Director Steve Stamatiadis has detailed some Blade Kitten PS3 updates, including his inspirations for the game.

To quote: Blade Kitten is a fantastic new side-scrolling action game for the PS3. No, seriously, it IS awesome.

I know because it's a story I've wanted to tell in game form for a great many years. So come with me and I'll give you a little behind the scenes insight as to where this game comes from.

First up, Blade Kitten is the adventures of bounty hunter Kit Ballard, a pink haired catgirl (or Felion as they're known in the universe).

She travels around with her sidekick, Skiffy a feisty alien critter that is her companion and protector, and also her floating A.I. sword known as the Darque Blade. Her current bounty leads her to a synthetic planetoid on the outskirts of civilized space. There she's ambushed by a rival and thus begin Kit's adventures in the game.

Blade Kitten was born out of the need to bring together years of unused and unfinished ideas into a cool, fun universe that I could channel my creative energy into. These ideas feature all the geeky cool stuff that I loved like anime visuals, giant robots, big swords, aliens, cool fun science fiction and a serving of fun.

This happened...

147w ago - Today Krome Studios Senior Programmer Chris Fowler has shared an update on Blade Kitten for PS3, detailing artificial intelligence and physics in a 2D world, as follows:

Working on the PlayStation 3 has been wonderful. As this was my first project on the PS3, I was apprehensive at first about the new technology and how to use it as best we could. But now, I can honestly say I am a fan of the PS3.

Early in development, Blade Kitten was both a 3D and a 2D game and you could switch between them instantly -- you'd run through a section then it would transition to 2D. It didn't take us long to fall in love with the 2D version, so we focused all our efforts on making the 2D the fun game it is today.

From the start of our project, our goal as programmers was to give the designers all the power they needed to create the game that they wanted. Ideally, a level designer controls the player's progression and experience in each area of the game (enemy placement, special events, collectables, and so on). So rather than implement a boss character's attack moves myself, I would give the designers scripting tools to implement the boss themselves.

This proved to be one of the best decisions we made. For example, the level where Kit is running...

154w ago - Today Krome Studios Producer Heidi Stapleton has detailed both levels and combat for Blade Kitten on the PS3 entertainment system, and confirmed that it will indeed be hitting PSN soon.

To quote: You may already be aware that the Blade Kitten universe existed long before the game's development team came together. In fact, the game's creator and director Steve Stamatiadis (aka "Space Captain" Steve) started the Blade Kitten comics in 2001.

It was the job of Steve and the team to elaborate on what existed in the comics, using them as a blueprint of sorts, and to translate them into environments that looked visually spectacular and made clever use of the movement system while supporting the storyline.

LEVELS

Blade Kitten is not only our first side-scrolling game, it's also our first title intended specifically for download. One of the hurdles we had to overcome, due in part to the need to adapt to a new level-building pipeline, was that our levels kept getting built larger than we originally scoped.

The levels in Blade Kitten range from claustrophobic sewer-like tunnels, to brightly-lit grassy plains that extend far off into the distance. There's...