Hi I’m Steve Stamatiadis; you may know me as Creative Director and the guy behind some of our biggest titles like TY the Tasmanian Tiger series and the PS2 and PSP versions of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. I’m also the creator and director of Krome Studios’ new game, Blade Kitten, a brand new hi-def, high-action PS3 game coming to the PlayStation Network in the Spring.
I’m sure all of you often get asked “WTF is a Blade Kitten?” I know I do all the time.
No?
Then I guess I should tell you the tale of a catgirl, her sword and a blobby alien critter thing.
A sordid past.
Sometime in the latter part of the 20th Century I was working on a bunch of ideas for comics and games. I’d start reusing elements that I thought were really cool, like alien species, characters, mecha, weapons, until eventually realizing I was creating a universe that they all shared. Then around 2001 – not long after we had started work on TY the Tasmanian Tiger — I found I had three different ideas that each had elements I liked but none had ALL the elements I wanted. One was too cartoony (a super powered anime schoolgirl), the other was too serious (Space Gladiators with guns) and the third was an aborted game project (a 60s stealth thief). What to do? Take all the best bits out and mix them all together into a series that I could have fun working on. Problem solved.
So project “Kit-10” was born. It was a story about a female bounty hunter that had 10 different robot sidekicks to help her. One of the robots was a blade, the rest were just a bunch of dumb gimmicks that quickly fell by the wayside. But the cute girl with the big sword stuck and the title “Blade Kitten” came soon after. I was after something that was descriptive and rolled off the tongue like “Gun Ballet” but minus the gun… and the dancing. For me it harkens back to the era of comics, movies and games from when I was a kid; “Star Wars”, “Spider Man”, “Speed Racer”, “Space Invaders” – you have a fair idea what you’re in for. The “sounds-dumb-the-first-time-you-hear-them” kind of names that get stuck in your head. It was almost called “Blade Kitty” instead but that just sounded way too cutesy.
Why is she a Kitty?
Kit Ballard – I really wanted to make sure the stories screamed fantasy science fiction the first time you see them. The main character had to be some sort of alien, but not the bumpy forehead kind or the too weird to relate to kind. That’s why I decided on a cat girl (or Felion, as they’re known in the comic’s universe) because they’re still relatively normal looking, but you get odd ears on their head, right where everyone notices and you also get a cool tail bonus! Her hair is bright pink so that it stands out and echoes her vivacious attitude. We don’t get enough of that in games – things are usually “too beige” and grim. Most importantly, she’s a woman because its way, way cooler to see a girl beating up giant robots than it is to see a bald space marine beating up on robots. And so Kit Ballard, the Blade Kitten was born.
As to her “pet” Skiffy – I wanted to give Kit some kind of cute mascot sidekick so that there’s always someone for her to interact with. Space is a big place and if you’ve ever done any travelling, you know it’s always more fun to have someone with you to talk about your shared experiences. Again to emphasize the science fiction aspect, the mascot had to be some kind of alien, also something that looked cute and cuddly when you glance at it, but when you get up close, it’s actually kind of icky. So Skiffy is a bunch of nice comforting shapes with odd proportions, like a giant head with far-apart eyes.
The Blade – As they say on the internets: “Big sword is big.” It also free floats and has enough AI to be about as smart and aggressive as a pit bull. It’s there to be the tough edge to Kit’s character, the bite to her bark – wait, that’s a dog metaphor. Oops! Why does it float? Why not? We’ve had over 30 years of “laser swords,” so we felt it was time to bring on the free floating smart blades!
The game that was a comic that was going to be a game.
I always knew that I wanted to make a game out of the Blade Kitten stories when I started, but as we’d just found out, it’s really hard to launch a new game series. My cunning plan was to have something to back it up. I figured that comics would be a good way to build up the universe and show off the key features to potential game publishers later on. A webcomic turned out to be the path of least resistance to getting the story in front of people. And so I started the weekly job of writing and drawing a webcomic to sell a game. You can view it here.
The comic was well received and ended up giving me a hundred-plus pages of comics, which meant hundreds of designs for world building when it came time to start the game. Ironically, I ended up telling a brand new part of the story for the game – one that adds to the mythos and fills in extra details in the comic storyline. That way you get some big surprises.
Over the years, we’ve tried to start a Blade Kitten game project at Krome a few times, but as fate would have it, we were victims of our own success when bigger projects kept popping up. First in 2002, when TY the Tasmanian Tiger did well enough to spawn a sequel, then another. The second time we stopped because we had the opportunity to work on a cool Star Wars project. With that successfully completed, we decided to return to original game creation and to develop and publish Blade Kitten ourselves. Something big and bright like the comic and also really fun and accessible – so we took the path of a classic action side-scroller with the addition of all the cool HD bells and whistles we could add. It’s been a really amazing ride working with a cool team to bring at all together and finally see years of imagination and effort finally become a real game.
It has also been an amazing amount of hard work on the part of the whole team. But that’s a whole different story, one I’ll share with you guys in my next post. In the meantime, please enjoy these screens we’ve captured just for the awesome community here on the PlayStation.Blog, and take a look at our trailer. Blade Kitten will be hitting PSN in the spring, which is just right around the corner!
This game is a first day buy for me.
I really like the art direction and have been itching for a good sidescroller!
Can’t wait :D
love it…instant buy :) any idea on how much it’ll cost?
Watched the trailer on GT, graphics are really well done. I hope this turns out well! It looks pretty sweet so far.
Please let there be a seduce button. :D
agreed 1st day buy. Bring it on
You said I rdo all the time. (Pointingout the typo).
Game looks good though.
Oh my god, a catgirl with a giant sword fighting space marines. HOUR 1 PURCHASE FOR ME.
Hey great, another game not on disc I won’t buy.
Come on Sony, you can do better than this.
looks good
It’s very intriguing, but the fact that it’s in 2D bothers me… Though I do understand why it is. I would say I’m very interested, but not sold, I would need more info or a demo to decide… But you have certainly caught my attention.
I can hear the furry fanboys purring already.
I must say, from the trailer, this does look pretty cool.
I may have overlooked the answer to this, but is this a PSN exclusive, or will it be hitting XBLA as well?
(゚⊿゚)
ლ(╹◡╹ლ)
Bring on the 2D/ 2.5D Platformers!
Can’t wait for Blade Kitten,MegaMan 10 and Sonic 4.
Also we need more games like this.
Also it does seem to me that it’s a tad bit lazy for her to so rarely hold the blade, almost like no one wanted to do the animations for it…
Also again, I saw a picture recently of this on a blog, it showed the cat thing gnawing on flesh, so what is the estimated rating of the game? Teen range? M range?
Seems it might be more fitting for a M rating, the stile I mean, seems to fit it more :P
DAY ONE MAINLY FOR MY WIFE! WHO KNOWS I MIGHT LIKE IT TOO!!
I’m not at all ashamed to admit I really really really want this game and it’s totally a day 1 purchase.
I heard it’s gonna be 1/2 off on April Fool’s Day omg
AN ACTION-SIDE-SCROLLER!? That’s the friggin’ thing that’s been frigging missing from my frigging XMB! You have no idea how often I’ve gone in there, looking for a dose of action, only to find puzzles, shooters and numerous other non-action things. Clearly, you’ve been struck by this same gap- you have my thanks for filling it! =)
in an age of never-ending shooters, this game is really a sight for sore eyes. GOW3 + CatGirl, March hols will be AWESOME :)
This looks pretty interesting…
Can’t wait to hear and see more from this game!!
I saw your preview of the game on G4 on Thursday and thought it looked fun, I thought it was only for that other console that shall not be named lol, glad to see it on the PS3, consider it SOLD!!! 8)
Man does this look like a great sidescroller or what… Can’t wait for this to come out… Little hint kitties that come in demo form will sell faster…
Not sure how I feel about the game yet but damn it has style. I
I always welcome another sidescroller. Just make sure to price it right (as in $10 instead of $15) and you may have something!
Will there be a demo?
seen it on gttv looks pretty good!
Looks pretty awesome
So how huge is the file size for this game anyways? Voiced cutscenes et all?
The first few paragraphs of the post and the title made me groan and dismiss it pretty much instantly, but then I decided to watch the trailer anyway.
Sure glad I did. Game looks like it could be awesome. Definitely going to keep up to date with this one.
Congratulations on the trailer for Blade Kitten. Blade Kitten looks really nice.
Is there any chance of a return to TY the Tasmanian Tiger. I would love to see what could be done with the series on the PSP or as a downloadable game.
Blade Kitten looks interesting… Can you please tell me how much this game is going to be? With all these games that are coming out, I am running low on money.
I Want !!!!
Looks Frking Sweet
Good XD day one
Strange… But interesting!
looks like a great PSN game will be keeping an eye on it
OMG day one buy. you guys will get a sale from me no doubt about it. Thank you for giving us a Platformer too , these games need to stay alive.
Wow, this game looks rather exciting and the visuals are outstanding. from the looks of all that action in the trailer, im assuming this is gonna be a full game with a Platinum (ala Trine) correct?
It looks good but I bet you will ruin it with a 15 dollar price tag and it being super short.
I just read the comics on your site, good stuff, can’t wait to see where it goes!!! 8)
Price is going to be everything here. The game looks like it has a lot of potential, but this recent trend of $15 games pushes them outside the realm of impulse buys. Please have sense enough not to do that to yourself.
All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku-Nuku Gaiden.
Love the artstyle. I’m buying this.
Please tell me that you guys are going to rethink that music because that’s a really terrible song. The way that the acoustic strings are treated are just really unpleasant, especially if its something that you have to hear on loop for an entire level or something.
Catgirl Vs Giant Robots, what man could say no to that?
@Steve Stamatiadis
is Blade Kitten a PSN exclusive or is it
coming to other consoles????????
Yup PSN Exclusive.