Development Blog. - Closed test 1.5.0 - New Casino

This post introduces five casino games that, for now, run only inside Developer Mode: VS Metal, Chocobo Forest, Round the Blocks, Dig, Chocobo! and Memory Block. Each one is a casino game from the Fortune Street (Itadaki Street) series, rebuilt to fit Epoch Street's rules (2 to 8 players, teams and online play).

Where they stand

• All five are playable in Developer Mode only. Developer Mode can't be switched on in the release or test builds, so you can't play them yet. The online servers also leave these five out
• They join the casino's "All" pool only in Developer Mode, too
• There's no release date yet. Think of this post as a look at what we're working on

VS Metal: catch them before they run

The player who lands fights a pack of metal monsters. You never take damage, but they run away fast.

• How many show up, and which kinds, depends on your Lv. At Lv1 it's one Metal Slime; at Lv2, one or two, with Liquid Metal Slimes mixed in; at Lv3 and up, one to three, with Metal King Slimes too
• Defeating one pays 30G×Lv (Metal Slime), 50G×Lv (Liquid Metal Slime) or 100G×Lv (Metal King Slime). Their HP is 3, 6 and 15
• There are four skills: Metal Slash (rarely misses, 2-3 damage), Falcon Slash (two quick blows, sometimes a critical), Hatchet Man (all or nothing, big damage) and Vital Strike (lands it and the foe falls at once)
• A fight lasts at most three rounds. Each round they're more likely to flee, and in round three they all run. The trick is matching the skill to the foe
• There's a "VS Metal" row in the individual rule settings. Under Modern, CPUs choose their skills more carefully (they look at the foe's HP, and play close to the best move). Legacy is unchanged

Chocobo Forest: three forks in the road

You ride a Chocobo down a forest path and through three forks.

• At forks 1 and 2 you go left or right. One way is a dead end, where you get a consolation prize (10G×Lv at fork 1, 30G×Lv at fork 2) and the game ends. There's no way to tell which side is the dead end when you choose
• Make it to fork 3 and you pick one of three paths. At the far end of each is 100G×Lv, a Dokodemo Card, or Lv shares in every area, and you see it as you run up the path
• The Chocobo sets off the moment you press a direction. The forest is one tall picture, and the screen scrolls to follow the Chocobo

Round the Blocks: line up a 3×3 grid of cubes

Nine cubes in a 3×3 grid spin, and the faces they stop on are checked along eight lines (three across, three down, two diagonals).

• Each line pays: Cherries 50G×Lv, Dokodemo Card 1 card, Stock (5×Lv shares of the priciest stock), Warp (to any square, once no matter how many lines) and 7
• The result is set when the game starts; when you stop the cubes doesn't change it
• Which faces come up depends on the lander's situation (early game, leading, normal, or last and far behind). When you're last and far behind, 7s line up more often
• The individual rule setting "Round the Blocks" sets the 7 line's payout: Present pays 500G×Lv, Modern 250G×Lv. New matches start on Modern
• The payout table works like the slot machine's: the winning rows light up

Dig, Chocobo!: dig up the buried treasure

Your Chocobo digs for four treasures buried in a field. They're drawn from four kinds of gold (Lv×10 to 50G) and the Dokodemo Card (under Sphere Battle, up to one Sphere can be among them). There are two ways to play.

• Modern: a 7×7 grid where moving one square or digging each costs a move, up to 10 moves. Nothing is buried in the cross through the middle (the 4th row and column); there's one treasure in each corner section. The Chocobo reacts when a treasure is on your square or right next to it (up, down, left or right). Bumping a wall or digging a square you've already dug costs nothing. The smallest gold find is raised to Lv×20G
• Legacy: about 15 seconds of real time, like the original. You run around a 10×10 field, with the Chocobo speeding up and turning, and dig as you go
• Offline, new matches start on Legacy. Online play is always Modern, so everyone's timing stays the same
• CPUs dig in both forms, better the stronger they are

Memory Block: pick one and hit it

Six prizes go into blocks, the blocks get mixed up, and you pick just one. Your piece walks under it, jumps, and hits it from below to knock the prize out.

• Legacy prizes: a 1-Up Mushroom (all your shops +10%), stock (10 shares of the priciest stock), two coins (10G×Lv each), a Dokodemo Card and a Poison Mushroom (all your shops −5%)
• Modern prizes: six out of seven (the Poison Mushroom is always in). The plain coins are replaced by coin blocks ("1 or 10" and "1 to 8": you keep hitting until no more coins come out, Lv×10G per coin) and the Super Mushroom (one shop of your choice +20%) is new
• In the mixing animation the blocks gather in the middle, spin around stacked together, and all fly back to their places at once. But the prizes are dealt evenly, with no link to the animation, so following them with your eyes won't help. Whichever block you pick, the Poison Mushroom is a 1-in-6 chance
• When a 1-Up or Poison Mushroom moves your shop prices, the board shows it the same way as the chance card that raises your own shop prices

Streamer Mode changes some names and pictures

In VS Metal, Chocobo Forest, Dig, Chocobo! and Memory Block, some names and pictures switch to Epoch Street's own when Streamer Mode is on in the settings (VS Metal becomes "Fleeing Banks", for example, and the Chocobo becomes "Kotori"). Only what's shown on screen changes, so players with and without Streamer Mode at the same table are playing exactly the same game.

Closing

With every one of these games, we're keeping what made the original fun while making sure they play the same however many people join, online or off. We'll let you know when they're ready to play. If you notice anything about the casinos, send it from "Game review / bug report" on the mode-select screen.

Epoch Street is an unofficial fan game inspired by Fortune Street (Itadaki Street). It is not affiliated with Square Enix, Nintendo or their affiliates. The names of games, characters and items in this post are trademarks of their respective owners.