Blade Kitten Interview

08 Sep 2010 at 15:26:53 by James Chalmers

Okay first things first tell us about the story of Blade Kitten.

The game is about an earlier point in our heroine Kit Ballard's career as a bounty hunter. She's headed to a planetoid called "Hollow Wish" to track down her latest target when one of her rivals, Justice Kreel, sabotages her efforts by destroying Kit's ship and stealing her bounty hunting licence. Kit has to retrieve the licence from Justice and continue to track down her prey. Along the way Kit uncovers a plot that involves the local inhabitants of the planet and of course she has to try and save the day.

How many different attacks can we expect to use in Blade Kitten?

There's about a dozen different ways to attack enemies. There's a standard swing which you can target 360 degrees, a ranged attack, sliding, perch throws, critical hits and impales. These are all really simple to pull off and instead of the usual button combo style attacks Blade Kitten is more about positioning yourself in the right spot to dispatch your enemies.

Will we be able to upgrade Kit Ballard's attacks as we progress through the story?

You will be able to upgrade blades in the game and each one has its own signature style attacks and abilities. You have access to ALL of Kit's attacks from the start, we just don't tell you what all of them are so you can explore the controls and find some of the secret attacks.

Tell us about the rideable Alien Mount Noot, will we have special attacks or are the levels get from point A to point B without being attacked?

The Noot features a cool dash move which gives you a burst of speed as well as a wicked head butt attack. It's particularly useful against some of the unfortunate enemies that we've lined up specifically for you to smash you way through.

With the addition of Kit's sidekick Skiffy can we expect to see co-op play either locally or online? If not is it something that could be added through DLC in the future?

No there's no co-op. It is something we've discussed at great length and we've got some plans for future co-op with Skiffy or other characters.

Talking about DLC is this something you are considering for post-launch?

We have plans for Episode 2 in that we've already done a lot of work on it. It's sort of an expansion pack that completes the story. Around the time that releases, we also plan on having some DLC costume packs to further customize Kit.

There has been 19 levels confirmed for the game, what type of locations can we expect to see or will they all be based around the same environment?

The locations in Hollow Wish that Kit explores change through the course of the game both in terms of location and the impact key events in the story have on the environment. We also do some clever tricks to keep the player moving in directions they wouldn’t expect – I’ll let players discover that for themselves though.

With the multiple paths to explore will we be rewarded with different outcomes for each level depending on what path we decide to take?

Story wise, no.

Loot wise - most definitely! What better reward is there than treasure that lets you buy cool stuff like more blades or unlocking extra costumes? Only pizza could be better than loot...maybe.

How does the “scramble style” movement work within the game? Will certain paths only be accessible using this feature?

Scramble style movement relates to Kit's ability to seamlessly traverse any surface. Climbing walls and ceilings is as easy as running along flat ground. The trick is that players are so accustomed to just running along the ground that if you play like that you'll miss out on a lot of cool loot.

What hidden collectables can we expect to see within the game? New skins for Kit? Further levels? Challenge modes?

Episode 1 features 3 unlockable skins for Kit on top of the six or so you can buy by collecting the game's currency, Hex. One of the skins will be popular with fans of some of Krome's classic games - wink, wink.

Will the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC versions be any different to each other? Is there anything you needed to change or remove due to the difference in platforms?

The games are almost exactly the same visually and content wise. Xbox will feature leaderboards and achievements, PS3 features Trophies and the PC version has some mouse and keyboard control schemes added for those without a joypad.

Recently we've seen Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Punchers Impact's Lucha Fury and now Blade Kitten, do you believe the side-scrolling cartoon art style games are receiving a revival? Do you worry that so many titles in such a short time could saturate the market?

Well Blade Kitten is an entirely different kind of sidescroller from those but that said I'm really happy that we're getting a bunch of cool retro style games and I think there's plenty of room for them to all co-exist. Face it, we haven't had any decent amount of sidescrollers for nearly ten years.

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