Open Question #1: Narrative

First off, would like to extend a thank you to jason yankowski, who keeps reminding me I'm taking myself too seriously.

In that vein, this game cannot take itself seriously. Whatever I do for narrative, I gotta keep it simple and light. No complicated backstory. No racial tension and history and wars and no. This is not one of your novels. This is a game made in 7 weeks based off cloning pokemon. Stop thinking so hard.

Stop thinking so hard. 

Aight, so. What do I have so far:

• Creatures are muta
• 
  

You know what I need to do this with other people. BBL.


ok i am back


Here we go

• Name: Oh man I am so bad at naming things it's unbelievable.
• Setting
• Place
• A world similar to our own, but not in any specified current-world setting
• Scale is not global, not large
• Kind of a microcosm of a modern-day country, distilled into individual elements.
• Time
• The relatively near future, perhaps where we might be right now if we had fewer morals running around getting in the way of science.
• Atmosphere
• A bright, happy, civilized world with a somewhat brutal history of blood sports, the feel I am going for is that of elephant in the room.
• Inspiration: "Fido", a movie set in the 1950s where families keep dead relative zombies as pets. 
• Absurd in its disregard for commonly accepted morals and virtues - basically, poking fun at the implications behind games like pokemon and dragon quest monsters.
• Light hearted and humorous skin with an undercurrent of weird and kind of fucked up. Mocks self and common video game tropes, especially jrpg tropes.
• Characters
• You
• Age: 12 year old
• Gender: Pronoun chosen by player at game start.
• Personality: None, this is a jrpg clone.
• Your Family:
• Mom - Single mom, ostensibly does nothing but sit in the kitchen all day and watch TV. Always asking you for money. May or may not be a gadget junkie.
• Dad - Who knows? You certainly don't, and your mom won't tell you. You suspect it might be because she doesn't know <s>which one it could be</s>.
• Older Sibling - Your half brother. Kind of a douche bag. Had a different dad, a dandy who dabbles in politics and spoils Sibling rotten in order to keep him/her out of your hair. Comes back to troll you repeatedly.
• Plot
• History
• Colosseum-style combat experienced a sort of renaissance roughly a hundred or two years ago.
• After human vs human and human vs animal combat was banned as illegal, animal vs animal fighting increased in popularity.
• Gov't tried to ban, but like Prohibition, it didn't last long. Ban replaced by extremely strict rules for where fights may be held, and the format of fights.
• Also like Prohibition, it set the framework for a multitude of underground organizations who profited off of circumventing law.
• Use of drugs to augment animals begins to become prevalent.
• Major breakthroughs in regeneration and reconstruction allow damaged and even dead creatures to be brought back to life and health, most of the time.
• Drugs and enhancements continue to 1-up each other - the government legalizes the process in order to tax it and try and regulate it.
• Genetic engineering enters the mix.

• Creatures begin to be bred specifically for malleability and trainability. These traits are artificially fabricated and begin to spread like wildfire as a means of subduing potentially dangerous creatures.

• Modern Day
• Creature fighting is a widespread and widely accepted hobby, but the barrier for entry is high. Years of genetic fuckery have made creatures wildly unstable, and many escaped or renegade creatures have mingled and interbred with the wildlife to produce all sorts of weird wild creatures.
• While it's possible to purchase powerful, high quality creatures, they are expensive. Many poor kids simply catch and train their own, at personal risk.
• Creature fighting is seen as a widespread way for lower-income lower-social-class citizens to make it big, though the risks are huge and very few actually make it.
• You, the player, care about
• Money.
• You're 12 years old, congratulations! You're now legally allowed to participate in creature fights. Which is great because your mom is broke and if you want to go to college, you'd best get started now! 
• Lucky for you, your mom knows a guy who recently came into possession of a few very high quality creatures... you can even have one, for a price! I would feel bad extorting money from a 12 year old, so how about we play a game?
• Etc.
  
• Goals
• Immediate: Survival, paying back the money you owe.
• Short term: get out of whatever situation you're in.
• Long term: gain admittance to a formal sponsored team - essentially, go pro.