So I started out the first blog post showing the earliest iterations of the look for the Germans.
After reaching a “close final” on the previous sketch 3, I asked Doug to sharpen the sketch up some more, giving us the following.
To celebrate the launch of the Leviathans Online Kickstarter, we’ve decided to more fully embrace the nature of Creative Commons and release the entire Gazetteer as it appears in the Core Box Set as a free PDF.
We believe the tabletop game is so much fun and the contents such a great value, we’ve no problem letting people electronically dive into the full universe. Swim around, find all the universe has to offer and then check out the game!
We’ll likely be releasing more of the materials like this in the near future.
See ya next duty shift!
Randall
Leviathans Online is a steampunkesque 3d tactical game with singe-player campaigns and multiplayer features for the tablet, PC, and possibly mobile platforms. Leviathans Online simulates combat between warships that have taken to the air in an alternate history 1910. Will you captain your fleet for king and country, expanding your nation’s power and becoming legend? Or will you fall from the sky, forgotten?
You will determine the outcome!
Leviathans Online: Monsters In The Sky is now live on Kickstarter! Visit the official page now to become a part of the journey:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/642736004/leviathans-online-monsters-in…
“I love board games, and I believe Leviathans is an excellent game that would provide new, exciting experiences on a digital platform. I look forward to working with Catalyst Game Labs and expanding the Leviathans universe,” said Lance Priebe, Chief Creative Development Officer at Hyper Hippo Productions. “It is with great excitement that we announce the launch of Leviathans Online: Monsters In The Sky on Kickstarter!”
Making Leviathans into a video game allows the brand to reach a much larger audience and adds a deeper community experience through features such as single-player campaigns & multiplayer modes that are not present with the physical version. We can now provide this passionate community with the opportunity to dive into the immersive Leviathans Online game and make it their own.
It’s been a long, long times since I’ve been able to generate a blog post about art development…can’t tell you how awesome it is to have reached this place to start down this path again.
Germans. Digging back into my old, old files, I see that the very first concept sketch for what the German leviathans would look like was received from Doug Chaffee on April 8th, 2008. Wow…
The excitement following the announcement by Catalyst Game Labs and Hyper Hippo Productions for the coming launch of Leviathans Online is growing each day! However, to take into account some fantastic, additional options we want to provide to the community right out of the gate, the launch of the Kickstarter has been adjusted slightly to Monday, December 3rd.
Look for more details soon!
SSSSSSSSSSSSWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!
Wew…got that off my chest. I was in the middle of getting out the announcement to a pile of people/sites, as well as playtesting a card game, and so I didn’t get a chance to update here until now…but in case you’ve not yet seen it, check out the full announcement:
Catalyst and Hyper Hippo Productions to develop Leviathans Online
Right out of the gate, to allay fears , this in no way shape or form means we’re going to not concentrate on the table top game. The board game comes first for Catalyst and we are as committed as ever to prepping for a second printing as well as starting to roll out the Italian and German Faction Boxes, Captain’s Box, and more.
Instead, just as with BattleTech and Shadowrun, we see Leviathans as a fantastic universe that people will want to visit in a myriad ways, from the table top to computer games, toys to comics, animated webisodes to novels: the sky is the limit.
I wasn’t just blowing the proverbial smoke in the announcement about how much Lance Priebe and his team love Leviathans. Not only are they playing it constantly at their offices, but Lance (along with Ted from his team) attended Board Game Geek Con with me this last weekend. In addition to talking endlessly about all the possibilities for Leviathans, but after the exhibit hall closed every night, we played big games with almost twenty ships on the board, giving them a chance to experience the game at a whole other level.
Despite the thumping of the first night, they read the rules again, discussed tactics and came back again and by the third night they were giving my team a good run for our money…considering how many computer games I see where you can tell those involved lack that type of passion, it leaves me super excited for what the future holds.
And wait until you see what they’re going to allow as part of the Kickstarter…the community is going to be able to do amazing things for tailoring the Leviathans Online experience to their desires…
Look for November 28th and the launch of the Kickstarter!
See ya next duty shift!
Randall
As I covered in previous blogs here and here, I’ve been developing, with Rob DeHoff, A Guide To Tactics for becoming a better player of Leviathans.
I could probably talk some more about its development, but I’ll let the PDF speak for itself…feel free to grab it here (you can also find it on the Download‘s page)!
As mentioned in the PDF itself, by all means…if you think a tactic suggested here isn’t working, let us know and why…or if you’ve found an effective tactic that’s not mentioned, again, would love to hear about it!
See ya next duty shift!
Randall
Often I feel like a broken record as this is my third year attending and running Leviathans games…but man I love that con. Friendly people, nice atmosphere, lots of gaming enthusiasm…and of course, customs, costumes costumes….
Bryn and I have been running games the last three years, but this year we really brought it up a step, not only running on Sunday, but we brought in more demo agents so we could run more and we sold games at the show for the first time (only our games that would fit in a “steampunk” vibe).
We fully doubled the number of games we ran from last year and we might have even tripled it. Saturday from 10AM until 11PM we had at least one game running the entire time and often three different games were running.
Course the few breathing spots we did get Bryn and I were playtesting the newly tweaked Italian ships against the Germans…for the first time the Italians won in our playtests!
Thought I’d share some photos of the con.
Amanda and Shelly staffing our sales area (thanks guys!). Read the rest of this entry »
Almost a year ago I blogged about the design work I’d been doing on the Italians. The Ship Card that came out of that block of stats looked like the following (please note that we don’t have final illustrations for the Italians yet, hence why the British D-class is used here…):
By Blaine Lee Pardoe
Thirty days later…
Aviation Board of Inquiry
La Borget Field
France
He was prepared for that question. “Perhaps. But I relied on my training, and I was correct. The British limped away in two badly damaged ships, and now they file protests with the Prime Minister, whining like little girls about the defeat I handed them. Yes, there may have been more experienced officers on the ship–but as you have already heard, the only one that came to me wanted to run and hide.”
“Your actions could be called reckless.” Read the rest of this entry »
Over Togo's head the Zed flag was burning. The pride of the Japanese fleet, the battleship Mikasa, his Mikasa, was sinking. His aide tried to pull him toward the lifeboats, but Togo stopped and looked up. He saw the battered Russian leviathan claw its way into the blue sky. And at that moment Admiral Togo Heihachiro knew that Japan would not rule the east, after all. And one more thing. It was not the age of the gun.
It was the age of the sky.
