By drawing only one spiritual facet of a killed (not merely deceased) mortal back into their cadaver, trapping it there and infusing the decaying flesh and bone with an unholy power, the user of this power can create a walking corpse (“Zombie”) that will fight on their behalf. This helpless, miserable creature must do as its master commands, and no matter how far the rest of its soul journeys into the Far Realms beyond death, part of the dead mortal’s essence must suffer whatever ravages are visited upon its abandoned husk.

Used primarily for combat, the power to Subjugate Dead mortals could theoretically be put to other uses, nearly all of them unsavory and terrible. There are many things a body can be puppeteered into doing with this power—theft, murder, appearing as a decoy, or worse.

Screenshot Monday! (slightly late)


“The San Cipriano Police Department is a real and vital presence in the streets of the city, though how much help they are in the face of the supernatural—and how much they know about its existence—is a matter of conjecture. The word among the undead is that the police of the city try to keep an uneasy, unwritten truce with “the weird stuff,” and that corruption of many and various kinds is rampant among the officers of the law.”

Here are a few shots from the Washington Fields (Lower Slums) police office and jail, which will be one of the social hubs your player graduates to after completing The Lash and the Cathedral of Eternal Veneration.

Developer Journal: Badges

We’re in a huge push for Alpha 2 right now, and we’ve been fairly tight lipped.  Most of that is because we’re trying hard for an end of summer deadline, and that’s involved pouring our maximum energy into coding, design, and world building.

I wanted to take a moment out to talk about a smaller feature that’s going in as part of the next big update: Badges.

Badges aren’t a major system, but they provide several nice design benefits.

#1  Guide player experience.  This is important, because modern games do a lot of “hand holding,” and a sandbox environment can be overwhelming for some.  The badges are a nice, non-quest way of checking on what you should be doing next.  

#2  Organize social hub progression.  One of our goals is to make non combat characters as important as combat characters in Shadow’s Kiss.  One major aspect of that is that you are tracked on how you are progressing through each major social zone (The Nightfall Club, Club Vamp, The Lash, etc.). Badges give us an additional set of requirements in addition to bribing, befriending, bullying, or romancing NPCs as you progress.

#3  Player titles.  In the tradition of City of Heroes, many badges grant you either:

A)  A title in front of your name, such as “Lord”

B)  A nickname in the middle of your name, such as “Danger” (Austin “Danger” Powers).

C)  A title after your name, or sobriquet if you will (Vlad Dracula, “Slayer Scourge”).

Here are a few screenshots from the badges system.

For screenshots, we’re excited to be finally putting the finishing touches on the Nightfall Club, and adding two of its story vampires: Zorina and Talescourt.  We’ll release more information on them soon, but here are some glimpses…

Here’s a glimpse into one of San Cipriano’s casinos, part of the primary “Logan Quest” that should take your character through her first ten levels.  We’re excited to be working on multiple casino zones: the adventure zone pictured, the Mammoth Casino social hub, and the Casino Lair from the Kickstarter.

Screenshot Monday!

We’ve been showing a lot of zones, so we wanted to give you a peek into game systems.

Shadow’s Kiss is a skill based system, which means you can undertake any ability in the game, but your character’s success in that is related to her trained skills.  Skills are primarily trained offline: you select a skill for passive training, and you gain experience while you’re logged out. When you log back in, you learn how much skill xp you’ve gained and if the skill has improved.

Improving skills unlocks new powers that can be purchased.

Cave Lair Announcement

Shadow’s Kiss Patreon backers at the Nightrun level ($30) for the month of February will be receiving the CAVERN LAIR.  Nestled safely in one of the many limestone caves underneath San Cipriano, this lair provides a secure location for your coffin, eventual crafting stations, and an ally to train you in SWORD INSPIRATIONS.


http://www.patreon.com/shadowskiss

Screenshot Monday!

Shadow’s Kiss has a new Macro Zone coming online: the Grand River Cemetery East.  Rivaling the other great necropoli of America (such as Colma, California), the Grand River Cemetery is a vast city of the dead.  

“There is no other place on Earth quite like the vast burial site of Grand River Cemetery. It reminds visitors of the graveyard town of Colma, California, the large cemeteries of Paris and New Orleans, and of the necropolises of Egypt. Beginning with a single cemetery in the early 19th century, GRC expanded and took over several small settlements and neighborhoods over the course of more than 100 years, pushing out the living and replacing them with the resting places of the dead—from the majestic crypts and mausoleums of the wealthy, to paupers’ graves with nothing but an old wooden cross and bones wrapped in rotten winding-cloth, just about any kind of interment can be found here.”

The Grand River Cemetery will actually be multiple large zones, but this one is significant because it will be the destination for the first of the vampire destiny quests: the Verdilak!