Here kitty, kitty, kitty

@wizardofcheeze is a very funny man. I've had this image in my head for days. Those are generic cats mind you... they don't belong to a specific ethereum game that at this time won't be mentioned... But it's clear as day!

Feeling good about what we've made

Sometimes the level of creativity of this platform just astounds me. I'm so proud of you guys. This picture may not be the world's most precious piece of art, but it's so freaking good and simple. It's like a meme. The message of the meme is that Steem Monsters is infinitely better than other crypto styled games out there. But we don't have to say it. We just have to show our T-Rex eat some kitties.

We're getting stories built, art built, I hope to see steembay integrated into the game, trading through the site get up and running and of course fighting. Before the end of the year we should be able to move out of alpha and into beta. During beta we'll have tons of tournaments. If you haven't heard yet there will definitely be tournaments that will be worth 1000 SBD.

Fighting system highlights

Yaba and I keep working on how to tweak the fighting system to be fun and fair. A few questions I've had are basically how often should a legendary and common of the same mana cost be able to fight each other and the common pull off an upset. In one of the many hours of conversations I've had about this game the group helped me decide that 90:10 was a good ratio. Meaning that if two cards 1v1ed each other and they cost the same mana and had the same basic role in the game that the legendary would win 90% of the time and common would pull off an upset 10% of the time.

We have a lot of work done on the skill and fighting system, but when we're tweaking stuff it's important to find how the crowd and people this this working.

Combat roles

In a standard RPG you have 3 roles: tank, dps, and healer. We're looking to implement this too, but we're also going to build in a 4th class called assassin. How you place monsters in the fight will matter. By default the tank is going to be the monster that you place in the first slot. Doesn't mean they have to be tanky... but it does mean that's who the other team shoots first. That then protects some of the other dudes on your team. So, in order to kill the other dudes on the team we're introducing a role called assassin. This isn't just a dps class, but one that's meant to kill the backline of the opposing party.

Can you give a sense of play?

Yeah, well the basics will be you're forming a party of adventurers. You're going to play a summoner who summons monsters. You'll arrange those monsters to build a team. it could be a balanced team. it could be specialized to do something. But essentially in your head it should go something like:

Zintar stands at the edge of the Earthen Arena. His eyes go bright white as the mana rips through him. The stadium gasps as dark laughter fills the floor. The lava whip. The huge wings. The dark cackle of his laughter. Zintar summoned the Lord of Darkness. Behind him crawled a limping undead priest seemingly pulling life from the living and feeding it's strength into the Lord of Darkness. The last monster that Zintar summons before his eyes return to normal looks like a clown... or a jester... but this is no ordinary jester. The crooked grin speaks of a touch of insanity. It's even hard to watch it walk... it has a uneven gate, and the head seems to be able to rotate more than a normal head should. The three stand ready.

Zintar is pleased. He shouts at Lyanna from across the way "The Lord of Darkness can withstand your mightiest attacks. My jester will rip you to pieces, and the priest can heal any feeble spell you happen to get through. You're doomed Lyanna... bring forth your monsters and feed them to the Lord of Darkness!"

The party

Zintar summoned a Lord of Darkness that's a powerful tank and able to dole out some good damage. He summoned an undead priest for heals on his tank, and he summoned a twisted jester to rip out some DPS. Zintar feels comfortable talking trash because he's against Green. The black team has a natural advantage vs the green team. it's like a big game of rocks paper scissors. Red is strong vs white. White is strong vs black. Black is strong vs Green. Green is strong vs blue. Blue is strong vs red.

So, Zintar's team will get a buff and his tank, dps, heal squad is gonna give a pretty good fight.

To bring this back to kitties

This is a full fledged game. This isn't just a little collectible. This game is going to keep you up at night thinking about the best combination of monsters, summoners, and items to buff them. You're going to walk through the halls of your house pretending to blast apart monsters from the other team. You're gonna win prize money from tournaments or at least walk away slowly leveling your team and watch your deck and power grow. This is a strategy game that's going to be fun regardless of whether it was steem based or blockchain based. It's going to be amazing because of those things.

Imagination

The universe teaches through contrast. So, think about yourself using Zintar to summon an undead army to crush Lyanna and her pathetic green forces. Imagine your army decimating her poor trees and nymphs.... Now think of yourself playing cryptokitties. Now imagine that you own a cat...

Steem Monsters is going to explode.