Futuristic Novel Comics Cinematic Universe: OOC

[Gadg8eer]

Okay, here's the OOC thread! The RP will start on either January 8th or January 15th of 2023, depending on how bad my post-cold cough is when the 8th rolls around. Feel free to discuss the RP and making characters for it here!

RECENT EDIT - Rules
Also, the default RPNation rules apply. This will also be listed in the RP topic's first post because of how long it took to start this RP. Thanks!

 

[myrkwise]

Very cool! I have now finished editing Tobias/Charlotte in accordance with the suggested changes.

So, does anyone have any ideas for potential interactions/relationships between these characters?

 

[Gadg8eer]

Very cool! I have now finished editing Tobias/Charlotte in accordance with the suggested changes.

So, does anyone have any ideas for potential interactions/relationships between these characters?

Nothing between the characters submitted by different players so far. That said, since the immortality that most people have (including Tobias, unless his backstory is meant to say he's too poor to afford immortality in the American health care system) only stops them from aging in their 20s or early 30s, I had the crazy idea of Charlotte getting a body of her own; I'm not particularly interested in romance, being asexual and aromantic, but I will admit that Charlotte getting the chance to grow up and (after becoming an adult) the two of them falling in love and living together would be a great "happily ever after" for them. In the end it's up to you though.

Other than that, Gadg8eer often builds things for people who can't and were never able to afford to buy a "luxury" good that they've always dreamed of having, like a kid too poor to play video games, or a teenager who always got hand-me-down clothes, or someone who never got anything for their birthday/Christmas during their childhood due to their drug-addict parents not giving a crap. I could see him making a few things for Tobias after hearing about his life.

 

[myrkwise]

Nothing between the characters submitted by different players so far. That said, since the immortality that most people have (including Tobias, unless his backstory is meant to say he's too poor to afford immortality in the American health care system) only stops them from aging in their 20s or early 30s, I had the crazy idea of Charlotte getting a body of her own; I'm not particularly interested in romance, being asexual and aromantic, but I will admit that Charlotte getting the chance to grow up and (after becoming an adult) the two of them falling in love and living together would be a great "happily ever after" for them. In the end it's up to you though.

Other than that, Gadg8eer often builds things for people who can't and were never able to afford to buy a "luxury" good that they've always dreamed of having, like a kid too poor to play video games, or a teenager who always got hand-me-down clothes, or someone who never got anything for their birthday/Christmas during their childhood due to their drug-addict parents not giving a crap. I could see him making a few things for Tobias after hearing about his life.

Good ideas! I will say, I do enjoy the idea of a slowburn romance between Tobias and Charlotte, with or without her getting her own body. The issue of course would be for her to first get some proper character development and stop longing for her own oblivion.

I also like your idea for how Gadg8eer could help out/bond with Tobias. I'd imagine he'd feel bad, at least at first, in taking charity from him though - with his notion of relationships being transactional. Maybe he'd offer to help him out with something as well in return.

 

[Squad141]

Gadg8eer Responses for the Character!

About Crossroads; it’s meant to be Indianapolis AKA The Crossroads of America, since I thought it was a cooler name, but I didn’t read that Gotham tidbit so I can change the name easily if you’d like.

Now regarding the copycat behaviors…
It was all accidental. I am not joking, I had not actually read Gadg8eer’s page yet, but it very funny that it all came out the same. The yo-yo felt a little more in Toymaker’s cage anyway, so I can get rid of that. I think the AR is different enough (no mascot), and the roller skates can be easily removed! Those were a fun edition I thought up because of his mobility theme, but I was thinking instead, using magnetic shoes? I think that would a great replacement

 

[Gadg8eer]

Gadg8eer Responses for the Character!

About Crossroads; it’s meant to be Indianapolis AKA The Crossroads of America, since I thought it was a cooler name, but I didn’t read that Gotham tidbit so I can change the name easily if you’d like.

Now regarding the copycat behaviors…
It was all accidental. I am not joking, I had not actually read Gadg8eer’s page yet, but it very funny that it all came out the same. The yo-yo felt a little more in Toymaker’s cage anyway, so I can get rid of that. I think the AR is different enough (no mascot), and the roller skates can be easily removed! Those were a fun edition I thought up because of his mobility theme, but I was thinking instead, using magnetic shoes? I think that would a great replacement

Yup, this works. In fact, please keep the yo-yo if you really want to, on its own its too generic for me to have any right to complain. The magnet shoes idea is awesome. Also, thanks for correcting me on my assumption, I didn't think it was possible for you to accidentally end up with the same idea I did!

 

[Squad141]

Yup, this works. In fact, please keep the yo-yo if you really want to, on its own its too generic for me to have any right to complain. The magnet shoes idea is awesome. Also, thanks for correcting me on my assumption, I didn't think it was possible for you to accidentally end up with the same idea I did!

Okay! Everything should be changed accordingly.

I did also want to ask who the major game companies are in the timeline? I tried to keep up but I always get confused around the 90s. I had some fun ideas for video game parodies that Paperboy could be into, being a high-schooler and all.

 

[Gadg8eer]

Okay! Everything should be changed accordingly.

I did also want to ask who the major game companies are in the timeline? I tried to keep up but I always get confused around the 90s. I had some fun ideas for video game parodies that Paperboy could be into, being a high-schooler and all.

Those would be TanaCorp (former cyberpunk megacorp that doubles as Nintendo; no longer an evil megacorp after being forced to scale back in the 90s, still the equivalent of Nintendo but they also have a few other ventures remaining from their former corporate empire), Dega (basically Sega, including not making their own consoles anymore), Rady (Sony), MicroDyne (Microsoft) and Socket (basically Valve; creators of the digital distribution platform Dream, as well as the Dream Specks XR goggles).

Feel free to make up other companies, both completely original ones, and ones based on real game companies.

 

[myrkwise]

So to catalogue the cast at the moment, we've got:

• Bryony Beckett/Effigy
• Masterstroke
• Tobias/Phosphorus
• Charlotte/Vesper
• Wallace W. Daily/Paperboy
• Oliver Kind/Gadg8eer

 

[Squad141]

Gadg8eer For the goggles, I had originally thought of circular goggles, but the aviator goggles that are rounded by not circular could also work. That or even slimmer goggles, like modified swimming goggles.

 

[Gadg8eer]

Gadg8eer For the goggles, I had originally thought of circular goggles, but the aviator goggles that are rounded by not circular could also work. That or even slimmer goggles, like modified swimming goggles.

The aviator goggles sound good, I know which kind you mean with an irregular shape that form-fits the eyes.

Alternatively, have you considered something like this or this?

 

[Squad141]

The aviator goggles sound good, I know which kind you mean with an irregular shape that form-fits the eyes.

Alternatively, have you considered something like this or this?

I think I'll stick with the aviator riding goggles, the cyclops band doesn't really fit the aesthetic of the biker and invisible-man wrappings on the head.

 

[Epiphany]

So, does anyone have any ideas for potential interactions/relationships between these characters?

Bryony is in the unique position of being a maybe.
On the one hand, I've read through everyone's backstories and I didn't see any immediate "Ah hah!" moments for me.
On the other hand, there's a number of herselves around the US doing their thing so entirely possible that any of you might have encountered one, who may or may not match the hair color, accent, dress, mannerisms of Effigy herself.

So if any of you would find a backstory connection fun, hit me up and I'll cheerfully make it work.

 

[Gadg8eer]

I think I'll stick with the aviator riding goggles, the cyclops band doesn't really fit the aesthetic of the biker and invisible-man wrappings on the head.

Ah. Yeah, I see what you mean. Alright, if it's not too trivial, just quickly add that the lenses are oval-shaped to Paperboy's appearance section. Either way, by the time you read this I've probably already approved him.

EDIT: Crossroads High... So, you don't have to use a real high school, but if you don't want to/don't feel comfortable doing so, it's probably best to leave the high school unnamed. The reason is because I plan to make an official map for the RP using uMap. As far as I'm aware, all of you have used large cities or unnamed locations as your hometowns, and to ensure privacy beyond that, only approved players will be given the viewing link for uMap, but everything I put on the map will still be visible to all of us.

Personally, I don't mind saying which small town my character is from because I don't live there, and the secondary school he went to is literally the only high school in that town.

Of course, it's definitely a bad idea to reveal your high school, let alone any more about yourself than I have about myself, and even if your character isn't a self-insert then I can understand why you would want to avoid mentioning a random school that actually exists by name. There's still plenty of time before I make the map as of this writing, in case you need to change or remove any character information that you don't want on the map, but please DM me if I've posted the uMap and you actually did put anything too personal in your character profiles. Thanks, and sorry for being nitpicky.

Bryony is in the unique position of being a maybe.
On the one hand, I've read through everyone's backstories and I didn't see any immediate "Ah hah!" moments for me.
On the other hand, there's a number of herselves around the US doing their thing so entirely possible that any of you might have encountered one, who may or may not match the hair color, accent, dress, mannerisms of Effigy herself.

So if any of you would find a backstory connection fun, hit me up and I'll cheerfully make it work.

Hmm, let me look through the list of NPCs when I wake up. Armada has probably encountered some of them, which could lead to some fun interactions. Especially if one of the ones she's met is a supervillain or corrupt superhero.

 

[Gadg8eer]

Bryony is in the unique position of being a maybe.
On the one hand, I've read through everyone's backstories and I didn't see any immediate "Ah hah!" moments for me.
On the other hand, there's a number of herselves around the US doing their thing so entirely possible that any of you might have encountered one, who may or may not match the hair color, accent, dress, mannerisms of Effigy herself.

So if any of you would find a backstory connection fun, hit me up and I'll cheerfully make it work.

Potentially, Effigy or Armada (or both) may have encountered and/or formed some sort of relationship with any or all of the following...

• Geisha (benevolent female mastermind with telepathic empathy born in Imperial Japan, who became especially active after the bombing of Pearl Harbor to reduce loss of lives on both sides in the Pacific Theater; the first non-Genius superhero, based loosely on the Golden Bat)
• Strongman (the Superman expy, and the first superhero focused on physical rather than mental metapowers; famous and prominent worldwide)
• Florida Man (the happy-drunkenness-powered Captain America parody; also somewhat famous, and most prominent in America)
• SCONADC Rick Adams (Nick Fury expy who is the only member of his immediate family who wasn't present for the Three Mile Island disaster, still on good terms with them despite being left out of the superpower lottery that created the Nuclear Family; his own successes have led him to the position as Senior Chief Officer of the Navy Anomaly Detainment Corps)
• The Scavenger (Mad Max-style wastelander from post-apocalyptic alternate timeline who made and still has strong toes to the American Military)
• Technetium (Mark Zuckerberg meets Elon Musk, but as an Iron Man expy)
• King Card (former President Evil POTUS, 2016-2020; Donald Trump meets Lex Luthor)
• Lioness (corrupt leader of the Metapowers Guild of California)
• Dragon Queen (like Black Panther, but Bhutanese and female; blackmails corrupt politicians into doing the right thing, very obscure, but a true heroine who is deeply trusted by those who do know her well)

Additionally, there's a couple of NPCs that I didn't post profiles for. Micron and Sister Psychic are mentioned in the profiles of other NPCs, but not in the historic part of the lore, and I wanted to avoid a cascade effect of "lore mentions X, X's profile mentions Y, Y's profile mentions..." so I didn't explain who they were.

Spoiler: Paul Benstock a.k.a Micron

Paul Benstock, a.k.a Micron, is an Ant-Man deconstruction, a corrupt hero whose shrinking powers are a magical ability which reduces him to 5% of his normal size (about the size of a mouse), rather than enabled by a techno-suit decreasing his size to that of an ant. Said powers also increase his speed and jumping ability to levels on par with a mouse, and more importantly make him completely invulnerable and weigh as much as a barbell, allowing him to knock people out by leaping at their skull, and interact with most of the same things as he can at normal size (pretty much everything except the controls of a vehicle; his AR goggles shrunk with him and functioned normally, and most stuff we use only requires our hands). Once respected for rescuing hostages with no bloodshed on multiple occasions, his infamous crimes included blackmailing US Congressmen, stealing and selling state secrets, and taking illegal photos of female colleagues in bathroom stalls or changing rooms (he's a disgusting pervert and we must never go into detail about the contents of the photos, enough said). This obviously didn't stay a secret forever, as he was arrested and convicted prior to 2005, and remains in an Anomaly Detainment Corps prison cell to this day. His influence includes that he used to be the main nemesis of the boy supervillain Ziggy Hawks before being arrested, and that Micron's dirty photos were later passed off by the Metapowers Guild of Hawaii as being taken by the Folding Man to falsely incriminate the flexible hero.

Spoiler: Sister Psychic

Sister Psychic, real name unknown, is a metapowered clairvoyant who dresses like a nun decided that hiding ankles and forearms really is going a little overboard, and has her hands in several pies. She helps police find the ones on the "Missing" posters, and it's a little-known fact that she once ran a side business as the most successful information broker of the metapowered community. She's also a retired 90's pop-rock singer, whose famous song "Smash Mouth" was the most popular song in an already popular sports-comic-themed album from the Y2K era. Most of her biggest exploits as a metapower are not known to the public, but years of trading the secrets of very bad people to competing bad people and to those seeking to bring the bad people to justice means she's made a few powerful enemies, and its clear from the track record of those enemies in trying to eliminate her that she's capable of fending off even the most dangerous supervillains. The downside, however, is that she's remained childless out of fear of losing them to an attempt on her life.

Spoiler: A very tragic story about her ex-husband that may or may not be canon...

Sister Psychic was married to a fellow musician she met when she still had a music career, but in 2021 he started acting erratically, claiming ZOVID-19 was a left-wing government conspiracy. Their doctor explained it was late-onset psychosis, confirmed by the anti-psychotics actually working, but her husband somehow stopped taking his doses and then started claiming his wife's old enemy "The Crackler" was trying to brainwash her and he was the only sane one there. It goes without saying that, despite the grudges against her, she knows better than anyone that there wasn't anyone in the metapowered community with that mantle, let alone one that she had personally interacted with, but since you can't be too careful in her line of work, she reached out to see if someone had taken up the name "the Crackler". If her husband had actually meant what he said, though, he would have continued pressing the issue. Instead, he called her crazy when she brought it up, then went on a nonsensical rant about how "the Chinese are baby-eaters who want to farm us like livestock". Not long after, he abandoned his entire life and drove to another state to join a neo-Nazi cult. Sister Psychic divorced him in January of 2022 after 28 years, after trying to convince him to leave the cult in-person and being shouted at by the shell of her former husband. By that point he had moved on to delusions of nationalistic grandeur; it was never about "the Crackler" or even "Chinese baby-eaters", it was only about having his psychotic paranoia validated, and that's what the cult gave him. The tragedy made Sister Psychic determined to dismantle the extremism that's destroying people's lives in the modern day, and she's begun collecting intel on such movements and passing it on to the authorities.

Aside from that, Sister Psychic doesn't involve herself in things as stressful as black market information peddling or superstardom these days. Her current job is as a police consultant in San Jose, California. Despite this, rumor has it that if you were a valued client in the old days, and you name the right price, she might just part with one of the unknown numbers of secrets she's yet to sell.

Since both of these NPCs have influenced the US Government, Armada and Effigy are both probably familiar with them, and might know Sister Psychic on a first-name basis.

Also, if you (that is, specifically Epiphany, since I figure your opinion is more relevant due to the likely close proximity between the careers of Effigy/Armada and Sister Psychic) read the part about Sister Psychic's ex-husband, let me know if you think it's too depressing or dark for the rest of the setting (not counting player characters, since everyone has their own preferred level of seriousness for their character's adventures), or if I should keep it. I looked up the wikipedia page for Smash Mouth and kind of got carried away with basing her ex-husband loosely off of a founding member who did some questionable things in 2021 and then left the band. If you think it's worth keeping, I will say it's not going to just be a throwaway line but will actually be relevant to the plot in some way.

 

[Squad141]

Regarding Wallace’s/Paperboy’s possible relations, it’s hard to say. While the hero community is obviously worldwide and easily reached, he’s a street hero who prefers his base of operations in Indianapolis. He’s also often labeled as a sidekick to Toymaker, and is taken a little less seriously than the gimmick vigilante.

His relations would most likely be with other street-level hero’s and villains, and his alignment with many would be a young but courageous line of hero work, that it’s for the greater good and the politics of the hero’s shouldn’t be the main focus in the first place.

 

[Gadg8eer]

"O Canada! Our home and native land!"
"Gloria eterna a la Nueva Granada"

---

I'm fully aware that my foreign NPC superheroes and supervillains are possibly stereotypical or at least not very well researched, and that those that aren't have a foreign nationality only as an informed attribute. Fortunately, the whole point behind Libertas, Best Friend and Florida Man is that, yes, some heroes and villains are going to have strong ties to their home country or region. That doesn't mean every superhero is, though...

Spoiler: My failings at making foreign characters who are actually people...

The Dragon Queen is based purely on a YouTube video about Bhutan's successful transition from a backwards absolute monarchy to a modern democracy and how the change was, oddly enough, led by the very royalty who gave up their power to ensure a better future for their country (including such things as Gross Domestic Happiness, a well-crafted concept devised to rank countries by how successful they are at giving their residents fulfilling lives). Hence why Bhutan is treated like Wakanda.

The Preacher is only Swedish because he created the in-universe equivalent of HIV/AIDS and one of the first potential cases of HIV was in Sweden for reasons we still don't fully understand to this day. Even how the Preacher is damned to eternal suffering after he dies isn't as well-versed as it seems, I've never actually read any holy text beginning to end; Instead, I took what I had been told about Abrahamic faiths by fiction, and whenever I was going to reference something that was part of that knowledge, I fact-checked it on Wikipedia. What was real was used, such as "Jesus"/Jeshua being a real person (though I don't believe he was the son of god; maybe he simply claimed he was "a son of god"?). What wasn't real but was a major part of Abrahamic mythology, such as the role of Metatron and Enoch, was traced to the earliest known version of the myth and that original version was considered the "true" version in the NCCU. That's why Iblis is the Devil, Ha-Satan is the holy prosecutor who presents the sins of each soul to the holy courtroom, and Lucifel is just another angel and never fell, because a lot of what modern Christians take for granted was actually added after the fact - sometimes centuries after.

Desmond Bates/Al-Khaled moved on from his Arabic origins long ago, and Dr. Eternity mostly served as a plot device for the discovery of Ambrose and, though this may change if it makes for a good plot, is now just a British cryptozoologist and no longer relevant to the daily events of the NCCU. The Golem doesn't have free will or the ability to talk, so it's more of a mythological Jewish-themed superpowered entity than an outright Israeli Captain Geographic. Even Black Justice feels, in retrospect, too much like a brief political commentary on racism in America.

Other than Geisha, who is very loosely based on Ōgon Bat, the first proper superhero character anywhere ever, I mostly avoided making Japanese heroes because I recognize that I'm not well travelled or otherwise familiar with cultures other than my own.

Spoiler: My personal knowledge of Anime explained...

I originally didn't know that Super Mario Bros. or even Nintendo as a whole was Japanese, but I was 8 or 9 at the time I first played a Mario game and only realized Nintendo's origins when I was 12. My first encounters with Japanese works that I actually recognized as not being Western in origin was when I was 9 and got into Pokémon.

The first time I actually realized a work was Japanese was with Digimon Adventure 01; the strange character names of the human protagonists in Digimon felt "unrealistic", but I never cared much either way until the protagonists got back to the regular world, at which point the realization that they lived in Tokyo hit me, and I suddenly had a newfound respect and appreciation for Japanese pop-culture.

However, while I've watched a few other anime in the two decades since then - Yu-Gi-Oh!, MegaMan NT Warrior, .hack//Sign, The Sky Crawlers (mostly for the cool planes; I love fictional vehicles), Dennō Coil, Panty & Stocking, Log Horizon, and No Game No Life is probably the complete list - it's never been a huge focus for me. I mostly watched Anime if it was a series about Virtual Reality, or if it just sounded fun, but around 2016 was when I realized the quality of a series differed from others of the same topic and so, for example, I never bothered watching Sword Art Online due to a strong consensus that it was the anime equivalent of Ready Player One.

Furthermore, I don't understand almost any foreign cultures on a level that I would feel comfortable creating a prominent character for a realistic setting. In the case of Japan, I'm worried that a character I create would be woefully stereotypical; the best I can do is watch a ton of anime and tokusatsu to base a superhero character on their pop-culture, but I don't sufficiently grasp their mythology or their contemporary culture enough to not make the character feel like a North American person pretending to be Japanese.

Basically, I don't want to be like a cringy anime-obsessed Western teenager saying "Notice me Senpai!" or "It can't be helped..." or quoting anime memes that are American in origin, because life in Japan is not a harem anime.

As a result, despite the existence of amazing heroes in Tokusatsu, Manga and Anime, I haven't made so much as a Godzilla reference when making the base lore of the NCCU. This also goes for pretty much every nation and culture in the world, with the exceptions of Western Canada (where I've lived my whole life; yes, the distance between Western and Eastern Canada is so far that I do not understand the way Ontarians think), the US (due to the sheer number of Americans online and my former immediate proximity to the US/Canada border) and Colombia (my mom's family is awesome, that is all).

What I'm trying to say is, if you're an anime fan, a fan of Japanese media in general and/or you have actually lived in Japan, and you have been/done so long enough to have real experience with the deeper facets of Japanese life and culture, and you want to see Japan represented better in the cast of characters, creating such characters would be greatly appreciated and encouraged. They don't have to be player characters, or supporting characters, or part of a Rogues Gallery, a briefly-described NPC will be fine as long as Japan receives the kind of influence over the setting that its pop-culture would suggest it should have.

Also, if you're familiar with superpowered characters in the less well-known pop-culture of other nations, the same applies. For example, I know very little about India and haven't watched a full Bollywood film from beginning to end, but I tried to sit through Koi... Mil Gaya because I wanted to watch the Krrish films in order including the film that spawned them. Why? This is why. The most realistic version of a superhero saving a plane I've seen, pretty much every other portrayal of aircraft being saved by superheroes would actually rip the plane apart or crush part of the plane. I figured if I was so impressed with the one scene, the rest of the series at least deserved a look, but I never did get around to watching them. Obviously that's just one film and I have no idea how common superheroes and superpowered beings are in Indian media, but even having just one Indian superhero who isn't based on an outsider's view of India would ensure that the global scale of the RP is one that feels well thought out.

Or to put the last paragraph in fewer words, I've wanted to aim for the setting to have foreign superhero characters that are more like Krrish, and less like Astro City's many Captain Ethnic superheroes such as the Indian superpowered street urchins "The Unclean", to their home countries.

I definitely don't believe the BS that "you should only write about characters who are like you or it's offensive", only that I put a lot of work and research into the parts of the NCCU that I did create and I feel that if the rest of world matters (which it does, this is supposed to be a global-scale RP) then I kind of have an obligation to ensure the whole world is represented just as accurately. If I had played relatively fast and loose with every country, basing everything purely on pop-culture, it would be far more acceptable to my work ethic to create characters based on whatever is most famous and relevant to a superhero RP about a country, but you all seem to really like the setting including things based on real historical events. Even if that wasn't the case, I guess hindsight is 20/20.

So if you have any ideas inspired by your knowledge of a non-Western culture, family connections to a nation or culture whose local pop-culture or mythology equivalents of Western superheroes are rarely-seen outside of their country of origin, or travel experience with multiple countries, I'm all ears! Additionally, while I'd hold myself to a consistent standard of quality when handling the non-Western world, I'm not too picky if the players are contributing voluntarily in their own free time, especially considering that your player characters vary in design and tone from each other and from the rest of the setting; Just using whatever personal experience or academic knowledge you have to create a character is fine, I wasn't able to go to college and don't have the money or ability to travel on my own so you'd definitely know more than me about almost anywhere.

To prove my commitment to all of the above, I'm going to create an NPC who is a Colombian superhero, based on actual Colombian culture not as a Captain Ethnic, but in a way that gives non-Colombians a sense of the culture shock I've experienced while there, and as a believable person who you could picture living somewhere in Colombia. It's only fair that if I suggest you all consider proposing characters that require actual knowledge to create, that I use the only knowledge I do have to create the first one.

 

[Squad141]

Regarding your concerns, I don't know myself I can really contribute very much. I'm a fan of Japanese culture, but I don't know if I'm learned enough to truly make a character based on it. As someone who's mainly lived in the landlocked areas of America for most of their life, that's all I could maybe think of *for now*.

Oh, and I came up with some game ideas for the universe, so I'll put them here. Hope they work and I understood the companies correctly!

Spoiler: TanaCorp IPs

• Bell Tower - A famous franchise of horror games for years. Starting with a three-dimensional point and click action mystery in a mysterious manor (complete with the iconic belltower), each entry in the series has evolved into it's own identity. There was a point in time around the middle five or so games where interest dropped due to the change in theme. The games had switched protagonists and the story had evolved from horror to more cinematic action. Over the past few years, the games have returned to the lonely tower and manor theme, becoming as beloved as they once were. Bell Tower IX (9), the most recent in the series, focuses on the remains of an abandoned amusement park that slowly comes back to life, being the villain throughout the game.
• Advent of Amira - A semi-popular fantasy series that isn't on par as many more famous ones. This series has an indie following, and follows the adventure of Lup, a young adventurer who fights to protect the land of Amira against various dangers. Some of the most popular games in the series include Bells of Fate, which had a mechanic involving changing the future by affecting the past, and Joara's Jest, taking place in a sub-country where time is looped inside different areas, forcing people to play a number of deadly games.
• Super Pepper Pals - Long ago, other occupations like plumbers and construction workers were considered as the big series mascot, but a game had already been released about Parker Pepper and him trying to make great burgers while staving off bacterial enemies. While initially on par with Advent of Amira, the introduction of Super Pepper 64 spun new interesting lore for the Pepper Pals series. It is beloved by many across the world, and many games tend to include new mechanics in spinoffs, while the mains series continues the main platforming and food-theme. Many of the most popular titles include Super Pepper 64, Pepper Party Mini!, Pepper Park, Super Pepper Multiverse, and Super Pepper Stovelight.
• Nakayoshi Reef: A game about creating islanders to live and thrive together on an island resort next to the titular Nakayoshi Reef. Got popular recently by streamers messing around with the character creation and relationship mechanics, and now has a cult following.

Spoiler: Socket/Dream Games

• Ooky's House of Spooks - An exploration game where the player explores the forever-changing houses of Ooky, a sad ghost who wishes people would stop being scared of him. Shows influence of several other horror franchises through the various monster/chase segments in the Main House.
• Cattycorner - A horror game following a colorblind man being haunted by Cattycorner, a creature that lives in the corner of your eye and the corner rooms. Deals with ideas of loss and guilt among peers, friends, and family.
• The Down-Dim - A multiplayer game of occult missions where players are teenagers plagued by fainting spells during the day, but solving various puzzles and mysteries by night while avoiding the adults who are controlled by mysterious forces in their sleep.
• Astrowritt - A game about an astronaut exploring the various human planets and stations in the cosmos, creating things with his special matter creator. An indie puzzle game with a large modding community.
• Sculptures - A game that scans the players nearby surroundings, building the map based on them. Any humanoid statues or mannequins nearby become the main enemies, calling reinforcements and slowly approaching the player in this survival horror experience.
• The Mark of Oxin - A small series of games that made many of the RPG fantasy tropes, including characters, locations, arcs, and plot twists. The story follows Alex and his gang of pals as they are stuck in the middle of a war between Heaven and Hell.
• BMOD (Barry's Modding of Dreamworks) - A freeform application using a simple engine with fun physics engines, BMOD is incredibly popular for it's ability to be modded by nearly anyone, as well as having an incredible screening committee to keep unsafe content out of the fun and reactive community.

Spoiler: Tick.to & Games

Tick.to is a popular online forum and meet-up place where many indie developers publish their games, which have become popular themselves due to the recent uptick in the indie scene.

• Page of Staves - An incredibly genre-defining game series that started in the early pixel graphics, and now has some of the most breathtaking graphics. The story follows the aforementioned Page of Staves on various adventures. The original game was a simple combat game with a system based on collecting and using cards in a deck. Over time the story has evolved, flushing out the five kingdoms, each of which are based on a suit in a Tarot Deck + the Major Arcana.
• Apple Quest XV - The most recent in a comfy RPG line of abstract exploration and adventure games. You play as an apple going on adventures in their lovely world populated by strange entitles and curious creatures.
• Steel Breath - An underwater horror game where players are trapped in the Steel Breath, their ship and prison. Creatures lurk outside in the Eternal Sea, and missions are sent in from the surface.
• Case of the Masquerade Massacre - A simple but endearing mystery game where the player must interview the guests at a masquerade ball to determine who killed the host. The case is generated differently each time for replayability.

Spoiler: Microdyne Games

• Geysergirl & Riverguy - A platforming adventure about an elemental duo trying to save various artifacts from crumbling ruins before they are destroyed.
• Theatre - A surrealist horror game where the player is trapped in a Theater and loops through every event leading up to actually seeing the movie.
• Mystery City - An open-world mystery game where you play as a detective in the comedic noir Mystery City Downtown. There are rumors that the second official game (since many consider Mystery City: The Phone Call to be a side-story) may be releasing this year.
• Minceraft - A creative adventure sandbox game on the open sea, related by the Swedish developer Knot. Nostalgic for several people because of it's rise to fame during ZOVID.
• Warlock404 - A somewhat-old MMORPG where players become warlock students in a fantasy realm mixed with aesthetics of old internet culture. Has a cult following, but the developers have gone silent about any updates for decades.
• Pale Luna: A mystery of a game. You play as Wander, a protagonist. Wander has 'the gold' and wishes to bury it somewhere, but nobody has ever found the correct spot where Wander thinks to bury whatever 'the gold' is. Many have speculated that 'the gold' is a real treasure that will be revealed when the game is beaten, while others believe that Wander is some urban legend or killer, and 'the gold' is an analogy for his dark experiences.

 

[Gadg8eer]

Regarding your concerns, I don't know myself I can really contribute very much. I'm a fan of Japanese culture, but I don't know if I'm learned enough to truly make a character based on it. As someone who's mainly lived in the landlocked areas of America for most of their life, that's all I could maybe think of *for now*.

Well, not necessarily based on it; creating a character based on a culture just creates a "Captain Ethnic"-type character. I definitely could have worded it better, so hopefully the following explains what I'm going for...

Basically, the character's superhero alias and powers would be clearly inspired by Japanese media with superpowered characters. However, their civilian secret identity would just be an ordinary person, by Japanese standards. What would make their civilian life interesting and realistic is that any culture shock that a North American or European who has never watched Anime or Tokusatsu would experience from actually going to Japan, would be visible if you wrote a short story about a single day in the character's life, both in realistic terms and in "superhero world" terms.

Spoiler: For example?

For example, the character from Colombia would be treated a bit differently as a hero than in North America. Their whole family might know their superhero alias, since in Colombia families are extremely close and usually include extended family.

Crime is more prevalent in Colombia, but it's still a mostly-developed nation that's rapidly closing the gap with North American and European nations, believe it or not, so the biggest differences are not in what technology and public services are available but how the technology is implemented and how you're expected to use those public services.

The Colombian equivalent of the national guard are usually pulling double-duty by looking for terrorists and organized crime and reporting any lesser crimes to the police, and during Christmas they also blast Christmas music while airborne because, if you're spending Big $$$ on aircraft maintenance, hourly wages and helicopter fuel in a country that rarely has the Big $$$ to spend, might as well do more with less and add some festive fun that only costs Small $. So as you can see, the things a Colombian superhero would deal with and consider normal are drastically different than an American superhero.

They'll probably read the sports comics (see the lore about sports and supers) that depict soccer/football, especially FIFA, since IRL football is extremely popular in Colombia; I've noticed that it's equivalent to how, here in Canada, practically everyone is obsessed with Hockey (strangely, I and my immediate family are a rare exception to this) during winter, except Colombia is tropical so the weather needed for playing soccer/football exists year-round. The fervor for Hockey and Football in Canada and Colombia respectively is so prevalent that only the most hardcore American sports fans match them, but here and in Colombia that's almost everyone.

In a world where professional sports are just a comic book fantasy, but "fictional" athletes are as famous as the Avengers are IRL, comics about soccer/football - the most popular sport IRL - are translated into almost every language and Spanish is among the least remarkable of languages to get a translation due to how many people speak it. Those comics are more like graphic novels in size, except even thicker, and while I can't say the same for every country that has a huge football fanbase, most Colombians and probably most people from a Central or South American nation would absolutely talk about and make weird theories about the most recent entries in the series all year round in the NCCU, if my cousins are a reliable measure of things.

Yeah, I won't drag on any longer, but those examples are the kind of thing I had in mind when asking if anyone wanted to make foreign NPCs; comparing and contrasting cultures - as they actually are - in designing the character. For the unnamed Colombian hero, that's a more accepting family, more powerful and strict local authorities that nevertheless have a sense of joyfulness, more dangerous criminals with more ruthless methods and saner goals whose campyness is toned down from "Doctor Doom" to "movie villain based on Pablo Escobar", and a different set of hobbies and interests they'd be likely to pick up than you would see in Canada or the US.

One last note, a thing I am aware of about Japan is that a popular hobby there is - or at least was, in the 70s - collecting bugs, either as pets or to pin them to a corkboard after their sadly short lifespan naturally ends, especially a couple of species of beetle only found there that are docile but also bigger than a human hand. It just goes to show how something as simple as differences in wildlife can be so unexpected that a writer who doesn't know about it won't find out that it makes a huge difference in an average person's outlook until it's too late and their stereotypical or fauxreign character is in a published work.

Damnit, I really need to stop posting like I'm giving a lecture on human history to precocious alien kids. It's not that I love hearing myself talk, only that I tend to try and cover every little detail "just in case" when I'm trying to say something specific so the reader doesn't misinterpret my words. Sorry for over-explaining and being a mouthbreather.

 

[Flintstone]

Hey all! I just wanted to pop in and say I haven't forgotten about this and that I should have my heroes done tomorrow (or is it later today? God, my sleep schedule is so screwed up ). And I'm hoping one of my character ideas will help to scratch the itch for foreign characters that aren't just a caricature of national stereotypes that you seem to have Gadg8eer , but I suppose we shall have to see.

 

[Gadg8eer]

Oh, and I came up with some game ideas for the universe, so I'll put them here. Hope they work and I understood the companies correctly!

Spoiler: TanaCorp IPs

• Bell Tower - A famous franchise of horror games for years. Starting with a three-dimensional point and click action mystery in a mysterious manor (complete with the iconic belltower), each entry in the series has evolved into it's own identity. There was a point in time around the middle five or so games where interest dropped due to the change in theme. The games had switched protagonists and the story had evolved from horror to more cinematic action. Over the past few years, the games have returned to the lonely tower and manor theme, becoming as beloved as they once were. Bell Tower IX (9), the most recent in the series, focuses on the remains of an abandoned amusement park that slowly comes back to life, being the villain throughout the game.
• Advent of Amira - A semi-popular fantasy series that isn't on par as many more famous ones. This series has an indie following, and follows the adventure of Lup, a young adventurer who fights to protect the land of Amira against various dangers. Some of the most popular games in the series include Bells of Fate, which had a mechanic involving changing the future by affecting the past, and Joara's Jest, taking place in a sub-country where time is looped inside different areas, forcing people to play a number of deadly games.
• Super Pepper Pals - Long ago, other occupations like plumbers and construction workers were considered as the big series mascot, but a game had already been released about Parker Pepper and him trying to make great burgers while staving off bacterial enemies. While initially on par with Advent of Amira, the introduction of Super Pepper 64 spun new interesting lore for the Pepper Pals series. It is beloved by many across the world, and many games tend to include new mechanics in spinoffs, while the mains series continues the main platforming and food-theme. Many of the most popular titles include Super Pepper 64, Pepper Party Mini!, Pepper Park, Super Pepper Multiverse, and Super Pepper Stovelight.
• Nakayoshi Reef: A game about creating islanders to live and thrive together on an island resort next to the titular Nakayoshi Reef. Got popular recently by streamers messing around with the character creation and relationship mechanics, and now has a cult following.

Spoiler: Socket/Dream Games

• Ooky's House of Spooks - An exploration game where the player explores the forever-changing houses of Ooky, a sad ghost who wishes people would stop being scared of him. Shows influence of several other horror franchises through the various monster/chase segments in the Main House.
• Cattycorner - A horror game following a colorblind man being haunted by Cattycorner, a creature that lives in the corner of your eye and the corner rooms. Deals with ideas of loss and guilt among peers, friends, and family.
• The Down-Dim - A multiplayer game of occult missions where players are teenagers plagued by fainting spells during the day, but solving various puzzles and mysteries by night while avoiding the adults who are controlled by mysterious forces in their sleep.
• Astrowritt - A game about an astronaut exploring the various human planets and stations in the cosmos, creating things with his special matter creator. An indie puzzle game with a large modding community.
• Sculptures - A game that scans the players nearby surroundings, building the map based on them. Any humanoid statues or mannequins nearby become the main enemies, calling reinforcements and slowly approaching the player in this survival horror experience.
• The Mark of Oxin - A small series of games that made many of the RPG fantasy tropes, including characters, locations, arcs, and plot twists. The story follows Alex and his gang of pals as they are stuck in the middle of a war between Heaven and Hell.
• BMOD (Barry's Modding of Dreamworks) - A freeform application using a simple engine with fun physics engines, BMOD is incredibly popular for it's ability to be modded by nearly anyone, as well as having an incredible screening committee to keep unsafe content out of the fun and reactive community.

Spoiler: Tick.to & Games

Tick.to is a popular online forum and meet-up place where many indie developers publish their games, which have become popular themselves due to the recent uptick in the indie scene.

• Page of Staves - An incredibly genre-defining game series that started in the early pixel graphics, and now has some of the most breathtaking graphics. The story follows the aforementioned Page of Staves on various adventures. The original game was a simple combat game with a system based on collecting and using cards in a deck. Over time the story has evolved, flushing out the five kingdoms, each of which are based on a suit in a Tarot Deck + the Major Arcana.
• Apple Quest XV - The most recent in a comfy RPG line of abstract exploration and adventure games. You play as an apple going on adventures in their lovely world populated by strange entitles and curious creatures.
• Steel Breath - An underwater horror game where players are trapped in the Steel Breath, their ship and prison. Creatures lurk outside in the Eternal Sea, and missions are sent in from the surface.
• Case of the Masquerade Massacre - A simple but endearing mystery game where the player must interview the guests at a masquerade ball to determine who killed the host. The case is generated differently each time for replayability.

Spoiler: Microdyne Games

• Geysergirl & Riverguy - A platforming adventure about an elemental duo trying to save various artifacts from crumbling ruins before they are destroyed.
• Theatre - A surrealist horror game where the player is trapped in a Theater and loops through every event leading up to actually seeing the movie.
• Mystery City - An open-world mystery game where you play as a detective in the comedic noir Mystery City Downtown. There are rumors that the second official game (since many consider Mystery City: The Phone Call to be a side-story) may be releasing this year.
• Minceraft - A creative adventure sandbox game on the open sea, related by the Swedish developer Knot. Nostalgic for several people because of it's rise to fame during ZOVID.
• Warlock404 - A somewhat-old MMORPG where players become warlock students in a fantasy realm mixed with aesthetics of old internet culture. Has a cult following, but the developers have gone silent about any updates for decades.
• Pale Luna: A mystery of a game. You play as Wander, a protagonist. Wander has 'the gold' and wishes to bury it somewhere, but nobody has ever found the correct spot where Wander thinks to bury whatever 'the gold' is. Many have speculated that 'the gold' is a real treasure that will be revealed when the game is beaten, while others believe that Wander is some urban legend or killer, and 'the gold' is an analogy for his dark experiences.

My Assessments

Bell Tower, Advent of Amira, Nakayoshi Reef, Ooky's House of Spooks, The Down-Dim, Astrowritt, Sculptures, The Mark of Oxin, Page of Staves, Apple Quest XV, Steel Breath, Case of the Masquerade Massacre, Theatre, and Mystery City are all perfect.

Super Pepper Pals would be fine if not for the titles "Multiverse" and "Stovelight". I dunno, they just feel cringy to me. If it's okay with you, I'll use the "Super Mariachi Sisters" idea I was going to use for the NCCU? That idea was only left out because of how ridiculously long the history of the NCCU became, especially by mentioning popular VR games from the Bronze and Dark Ages of Metapowers.

Cattycorner's description mentions "corner rooms" for some reason. Did you mean "corners of rooms" like I'm thinking, or was it a reference to an analogue horror series as MisterEightySix suspects?

BMOD is fine as a concept, but keep in mind that it would have come into existence when GMod was made IRL, except in the NCCU the Metaverse came into existence when the internet did IRL. So if BMOD is just GMod, it serves no purpose because more advanced versions of games like GMod and Second Life already existed in the NCCU earlier than IRL. Don't get rid of it, but GMod is equivalent to what the NCCU calls a VR node except it's built using a popular game engine as the codebase and it's not VR. Can you find a way to make BMOD into something like that? Maybe it's based off of a once-popular VR open world game engine, and BMOD is used to create limited-access virtual worlds the size of a game like GTA V or Breath of the Wild?

Geysergirl & Riverguy's title feels weird, but the description is perfect. How about "Liquette & Guyser"?

Minceraft... Glad the description is more like Age of Water than Minecraft, that title doesn't really feel like a real game title. With that being the case, how about "WaterCraft"?

Warlock404 is like vaporwave Wizard 101, I love it. Only problem is that vaporwave is still an early 2010s thing in the NCCU. I'd like to make it feel like it was a contemporary (made in the late 90s or early 00s) example of the Old Web aesthetic, but in VR, and have it be one of the things that vaporwave was based on in the Metapowers universe, but I actually don't have any really good ideas for a better name. It's not that Warlock404 would be an especially bad name if it was VR Wizard 101, it's that when you add the early web theming the term "tech wizard" comes to mind and thus "wizard" fits a lot better than "warlock". The best that comes to mind is just "Wizardry404", but that feels slightly lazy on my part.

Pale Luna... Is it an actual game or an urban legend of a game? Either is fine, but if it's the former, the protagonist's name has some implications for me that you wouldn't have been able to forsee. Wander Over Yonder is one of my favorite cartoons, and it's lighthearted and optimistic. The resulting crash in my mind between Wander, the friendly protagonist of the cartoon, and the idea of Pale Luna's protagonist Wander possibly being something much darker is giving me such mixed signals that I'm not sure how to react. Can you provide more info about what you were going for with Pale Luna?

 

[Squad141]

My Assessments

Bell Tower, Advent of Amira, Nakayoshi Reef, Ooky's House of Spooks, The Down-Dim, Astrowritt, Sculptures, The Mark of Oxin, Page of Staves, Apple Quest XV, Steel Breath, Case of the Masquerade Massacre, Theatre, and Mystery City are all perfect.

Super Pepper Pals would be fine if not for the titles "Multiverse" and "Stovelight". I dunno, they just feel cringy to me. If it's okay with you, I'll use the "Super Mariachi Sisters" idea I was going to use for the NCCU? That idea was only left out because of how ridiculously long the history of the NCCU became, especially by mentioning popular VR games from the Bronze and Dark Ages of Metapowers.

Cattycorner's description mentions "corner rooms" for some reason. Did you mean "corners of rooms" like I'm thinking, or was it a reference to an analogue horror series as MisterEightySix suspects?

BMOD is fine as a concept, but keep in mind that it would have come into existence when GMod was made IRL, except in the NCCU the Metaverse came into existence when the internet did IRL. So if BMOD is just GMod, it serves no purpose because more advanced versions of games like GMod and Second Life already existed in the NCCU earlier than IRL. Don't get rid of it, but GMod is equivalent to what the NCCU calls a VR node except it's built using a popular game engine as the codebase and it's not VR. Can you find a way to make BMOD into something like that? Maybe it's based off of a once-popular VR open world game engine, and BMOD is used to create limited-access virtual worlds the size of a game like GTA V or Breath of the Wild?

Geysergirl & Riverguy's title feels weird, but the description is perfect. How about "Liquette & Guyser"?

Minceraft... Glad the description is more like Age of Water than Minecraft, that title doesn't really feel like a real game title. With that being the case, how about "WaterCraft"?

Warlock404 is like vaporwave Wizard 101, I love it. Only problem is that vaporwave is still an early 2010s thing in the NCCU. I'd like to make it feel like it was a contemporary (made in the late 90s or early 00s) example of the Old Web aesthetic, but in VR, and have it be one of the things that vaporwave was based on in the Metapowers universe, but I actually don't have any really good ideas for a better name. It's not that Warlock404 would be an especially bad name if it was VR Wizard 101, it's that when you add the early web theming the term "tech wizard" comes to mind and thus "wizard" fits a lot better than "warlock". The best that comes to mind is just "Wizardry404", but that feels slightly lazy on my part.

Pale Luna... Is it an actual game or an urban legend of a game? Either is fine, but if it's the former, the protagonist's name has some implications for me that you wouldn't have been able to forsee. Wander Over Yonder is one of my favorite cartoons, and it's lighthearted and optimistic. The resulting crash in my mind between Wander, the friendly protagonist of the cartoon, and the idea of Pale Luna's protagonist Wander possibly being something much darker is giving me such mixed signals that I'm not sure how to react. Can you provide more info about what you were going for with Pale Luna?

Thanks for the feedback! I'm still trying to learn the ins and outs of everything so it's all helpful in the end.

Super Pepper Pals: I hadn't realized we already had a Mario expy! SPP was a what-if if Burgertime was the big franchise. Multiverse and Stovelight were just names meant to mirror Galaxy and Sunshine, so I see what you mean there. Go ahead with SMS!

Cattycorner: It was actually meant to be a play of the horror of liminal spaces, like places you could only see if you cross your eyes.

BMOD: I think I may have misworded what I meant, since what you described is exactly what I was going for. Hope that helps.

G&R: I completely agree that the name was clunky. I was trying to make parallels to the old flash game Fireboy and Watergirl but couldn't think of any fun names. Your name sounds better anywho.

Minceraft: I was actually just thinking that maybe Moonraft might work better? Since the moon influences the ocean and all that.

Warlock404: I wish I could think of a better but alas, I'm coming up empty. I'm glad you liked the idea though, and I suppose Wizz404 or Wizard404 could still work, since it could be referencing Startup Wizard programs that help install software.

Pale Luna: It's meant to be one of those strange games that supposedly come from the dark web or something, like Killswitch. The main characters name would probably be omitted entirely, to add more mystery to the game. Maybe even just call them 'Protagonist'.

 

[Gadg8eer]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm still trying to learn the ins and outs of everything so it's all helpful in the end.

No problem! I'm just trying to suggest names that sound marketable and appealing IRL instead of being bland name products, but most of your names and all of your descriptions are exactly what I would be aiming for if I did it myself, so thank you!

Super Pepper Pals: I hadn't realized we already had a Mario expy! SPP was a what-if if Burgertime was the big franchise. Multiverse and Stovelight were just names meant to mirror Galaxy and Sunshine, so I see what you mean there. Go ahead with SMS!

Alright! Also, that doesn't necessarily exclude something like your idea being popular; how about "Pepper's Patties" being something like a cross between Burgertime and Job Simulator where the player takes the role of Pepper, a fast food clerk in a wacky parody of the life of an actual fast food restaurant employee?

I could see the first four games (equivalent to Super Mario Bros. through Super Mario World) just improving on graphics and expanding options for which fictional fast food place to work at, and then Pepper's Patties 64 would be a full-on "life simulator" on par with The Sims in terms of favoring the weirdness of Pepper's world to spice up the otherwise boring job he/she has over being a realistic life sim.

One thing that comes to mind is making Pepper's Patties 64 be inspired by webcomics like College Roomies from Hell! or Bob and George or the early days of Sluggy Freelance in terms of the things that can happen; A customer orders a McGuffin (a MacGuffin is a name for a fictional object - sometimes one of a set that must be completed - that a protagonist needs to defeat the villain) and turns into a cheesy fantasy evil overlord after he eats it, or the manager gets possessed by a demon and you have to prepare a special burger with ingredients like Frankenscense, Mir and Holy Water (and then convince the demon to eat it) to keep your job, or a rival fast food chain sends ninjas to steal the secret sauce recipe and you must defend it with your life and a set of those really expensive Swedish cooking knives from the infomercials.

Cattycorner: It was actually meant to be a play of the horror of liminal spaces, like places you could only see if you cross your eyes.

Oh, so like the backrooms. Fair enough. Personally, I'm - to put it mildly - not a fan of horror (though I hardly call stuff like 80s slasher films horror due to their comedy elements and how poorly the "gore" has aged, let alone the "horror" in 50s B-Movies) but I appreciate someone making up a few of them for the NCCU to cover the genre so that I never have to touch the topic myself.

In that case, MisterEightySix was closer to the truth, since the "corner rooms" were rooms that existed in the corners of normal rooms due to higher-dimensional spaces and alien geometries.

BMOD: I think I may have misworded what I meant, since what you described is exactly what I was going for. Hope that helps.

Duly noted.

G&R: I completely agree that the name was clunky. I was trying to make parallels to the old flash game Fireboy and Watergirl but couldn't think of any fun names. Your name sounds better anywho.

Minceraft: I was actually just thinking that maybe Moonraft might work better? Since the moon influences the ocean and all that.

I've got it! "Tidecraft".

Warlock404: I wish I could think of a better but alas, I'm coming up empty. I'm glad you liked the idea though, and I suppose Wizz404 or Wizard404 could still work, since it could be referencing Startup Wizard programs that help install software.

Well, Wizard 101 hasn't been online for many years, to my knowledge, so yeah. Let's go with Wizard404.

Pale Luna: It's meant to be one of those strange games that supposedly come from the dark web or something, like Killswitch. The main characters name would probably be omitted entirely, to add more mystery to the game. Maybe even just call them 'Protagonist'.

I just tried looking up Killswitch on TV Tropes, Wikipedia and Google. No dice. The only result I found was for a game made in 2003 which was a non-horror third-person shooter.

Can you provide a link or something about the game (if it's real) or the story it was featured in (if it's a fictional game from a creepypasta or something) for me? I still don't quite get what you're going for with Pale Luna, due to not knowing what it's based on.

 

[Squad141]

No problem! I'm just trying to suggest names that sound marketable and appealing IRL instead of being bland name products, but most of your names and all of your descriptions are exactly what I would be aiming for if I did it myself, so thank you!



Alright! Also, that doesn't necessarily exclude something like your idea being popular; how about "Pepper's Patties" being something like a cross between Burgertime and Job Simulator where the player takes the role of Pepper, a fast food clerk in a wacky parody of the life of an actual fast food restaurant employee?

I could see the first four games (equivalent to Super Mario Bros. through Super Mario World) just improving on graphics and expanding options for which fictional fast food place to work at, and then Pepper's Patties 64 would be a full-on "life simulator" on par with The Sims in terms of favoring the weirdness of Pepper's world to spice up the otherwise boring job he/she has over being a realistic life sim.

One thing that comes to mind is making Pepper's Patties 64 be inspired by webcomics like College Roomies from Hell! or Bob and George or the early days of Sluggy Freelance in terms of the things that can happen; A customer orders a McGuffin (a MacGuffin is a name for a fictional object - sometimes one of a set that must be completed - that a protagonist needs to defeat the villain) and turns into a cheesy fantasy evil overlord after he eats it, or the manager gets possessed by a demon and you have to prepare a special burger with ingredients like Frankenscense, Mir and Holy Water (and then convince the demon to eat it) to keep your job, or a rival fast food chain sends ninjas to steal the secret sauce recipe and you must defend it with your life and a set of those really expensive Swedish cooking knives from the infomercials.



Oh, so like the backrooms. Fair enough. Personally, I'm - to put it mildly - not a fan of horror (though I hardly call stuff like 80s slasher films horror due to their comedy elements and how poorly the "gore" has aged, let alone the "horror" in 50s B-Movies) but I appreciate someone making up a few of them for the NCCU to cover the genre so that I never have to touch the topic myself.

In that case, MisterEightySix was closer to the truth, since the "corner rooms" were rooms that existed in the corners of normal rooms due to higher-dimensional spaces and alien geometries.



Duly noted.







I've got it! "Tidecraft".



Well, Wizard 101 hasn't been online for many years, to my knowledge, so yeah. Let's go with Wizard404.



I just tried looking up Killswitch on TV Tropes, Wikipedia and Google. No dice. The only result I found was for a game made in 2003 which was a non-horror third-person shooter.

Can you provide a link or something about the game (if it's real) or the story it was featured in (if it's a fictional game from a creepypasta or something) for me? I still don't quite get what you're going for with Pale Luna, due to not knowing what it's based on.

I agree with all of what you said, especially the Pepper's Patties idea!
Here's a good article for Killswitch, also: Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren't: Killswitch

 

[Lord Moldoma]

This discussion makes me scared to throw my hat into the ring. I don't wanna stomp on your delicately constructed world.