Super Battle Kiddo Experience!

So. Kiddos.

I started working on and almost finishing that stat redux right before the Game Jam, when I was invited into a team and decided "why not, it's just two weeks." It soon was three weeks during which I worked on our project, finished my share and nothing got released. Welp. Kind of put a damper on my gam mak drive.

I look at Kiddos, and I feel like the cast is still fun, the basic battle engine is fine, the skills (with some tweaking after testers played it) are useful enough, and the cutscenes are pretty fun and/or develop the kiddos nicely. However, there are few major flaws.

>The stats were fixed, but the equipment sucks. The funny descriptions are good, but the equipment is boring and the progression makes little sense. This partially has to do with the town pacing of the game, where three towns are opened up at almost exactly the same time.

>The towns I would want are really frustrating and time-consuming to make, with little gameplay benefit. I'm very happy with what I DO have, but the idea of making another 4-5 towns throughout the rest of the game makes me want to barf a little. I'm just not a fan of the traditional RPG town, and I don't know why I insisted on making them for this project.

>The HECSS (basically, the chained encounter system) adds almost no gameplay benefit and instead is a bit confusing and just adds near-pointless difficulty. I wanted something along the lines of Puzzle & Dragons or Tower of Saviors, where a "stage" features ~7 battles including mooks, minibosses, and a gimmicky boss at the end. The HECSS doesn't flow nearly as well, and the lore surrounding it is weak and (you'll notice that this is a theme) adds nothing to the game as a whole.

>It's too damn long. I wanted the game as a whole to be about five hours long -- the first third of the game is five hours long instead. I don't like slow games very much, neither making them nor playing them. I beat all 100 hours of FFXII and DQVIII each when I was in high school. I enjoyed them, but I don't really want that intense an experience anymore (Dragon Age: Inquisition notwithstanding (suck it, LockeZ)).

What am I gonna do with Kiddos, then? I don't really enjoy working on it anymore, at least not this iteration. I like the kiddos themselves, and I don't want to trash the general engine. The menus and shops and battle HUD are fine. I also don't want to NOT show off what currently exists, because I think plenty of people would enjoy it.

So: in the next day or so I'll finish touching up the balance, probably leaning on the (relatively) easier side of things because the original tester version was a kick in the genitals. That way everybody can play what's there, I won't feel like it's a total waste, and I can rework the bits I like into a better game. I refuse to keep working on something I don't enjoy.

Kiddos ain't dead, but it'll be resurrected in a new way. Same characters, same happy-go-lucky feel, same battle engine... new setting and gameplay flow.

I adore that little kid in the ghost costume.

I made Epic Monster Dungeon Explore! 2 over four years ago now. I replayed it today, and I don't think it's a GOOD game but I do think it's a fun little time-waster. I can beat it in ~forty minutes, all the while cringing and smiling about the same amount of times each. Turning that fun little time-waster into a bigger, more fleshed-out game though? That's some Ba'al-level witchcraft.

I find it amusing that I built EMDE!2 in a little over four hours, but a single dungeon in SBKE10k! can take a full day or two of my attention to map, set up, and balance. (If that sounds short to you: my maps are small, and I work in a high school. It's winter break currently, so I have all day.) At the same time, SBKE10k! is most definitely a spiritual successor in just about every way. In this blog post, I want to break down exactly what I am and am not trying to bring over.

This game is nothing like Saga Mara Talon.
I'm never going to mention that horrid screw-up of a game again, so please just ignore this line. Thanks.

This game is still fast-paced, turn-based and deadly.
The way I've been describing SBKE10k! is "kill or be killed." There are enemies to learn, priorities to determine, and KOs to deal with. This is especially important because the HECSS means battles are done in chains! Even bosses might have a handful of battles chained before then that you have to fight through in succession. So, while the idea of "deadly, fast, turn-based combat" is still the overall goal, SBKE10k! might actually be the far more difficult game. But! There are no game overs. You'll have to limp back to the (free) inn to recuperate, yet you cannot lose progress like you can in EMDE!2. I'm considering this a fair compromise, since...

No, seriously, this game is deadly.
Even if you're doing well, even if you have solid equipment, even if you have perfect plans, SBKE10k! is not a nice game. This is a bit different from EMDE!2, which had enemies that were either too simple to matter or enemies that were very expensive or impossible to out-manuever (see: MOUSIEs). As such, the difficulty can be chalked up to just numbers or bad luck. Sorry, but SBKE10k! is actively conspiring against you. Pesky fairies will inflict Silence on your mages. Stalker demons will prey on targets with low Barrier (magic defense). These are things that you can fight against, because...

In SBKE10k!, you have far more options.
Between equipment customization and free party swaps in battle, there are a lot more options in this game than BONENECKLACE or BLUEAMULET. Pesky fairies inflict Silence on your mages? Okay, swap out Carmilla and Myra for Padrick and Wish. Or cast Soul Gem on Myra to raise her ailment resistance. Or equip items that increase your Silence resistance and/or Focus stat. Stalker demons prey on low-Barrier characters? Swap out Vaunea and Terra for Carmilla and Leon. Use Cover or Guard Boost to lower damage taken. Wear equipment that resists Deep damage. Or, just kill the Stalkers before they can act with a blast of Storm damage. You have options.

The game isn't CAPSLOCK, except for EVILGOD.
I actually coded an option to make all text in ALL CAPS (with MssrLouisCyphre's help), but it wasn't playing nicely with some help text or bios in the party select screen, so I've cut the feature for now. Sorry. I'm using a chunky font that hopefully invokes that same charm! Please note, however, that EVILGOD is always in caps, because that's his name. EVILGOD.


No, not Ebildog..

It's still a comedic game, but with more of a narrative -- and not just the same jokes.
SBKE10k! has a story that's a little bit more fleshed-out than just "Leon and Myra have to fight EVILGOD." I mean, that's the gist of it, but consider this a sequel. Well, a prequel. Uh... just play it when it comes out, I can't really explain its relation. Anyway, while I'll probably reuse "THERE IS NO STOPPING ME FROM STOPPING YOU" and have already planned Czarina's oblivion-fisty return, this game is its own type of humor. EMDE!2 relied on the unexpected, such as SWEETUMS turning into DRAGONLORD or fighting powerful globs of FECALMATTER. SBKE10k! is more an exploration of the various kiddos and how they interact. As such, the comedy stems from their chats and how they react to the various challenges the game throws at them.

This game is still non-linear, but the beginning is tighter.
Where EMDE!2 oddly had the same amount of options at every tier of power, SBKE10k! follows a bit more of a, uh...



That pattern. X-axis is overall party power (roughly the same as playing time), Y-axis is amount of content to choose from. Basically, if you want to know how non-linear this game is, it's "a bunch of rtp trees."

It's Myra, not Mara.
This isn't Shin Megami Tensei.