RMMV Various Sci-Fi Ideas

[AcetheSuperVillain]

The Backstory:
For a while, I felt like I couldn't do a sci-fi game with MV because there aren't enough SF graphics, and not the kind that I like. But recently, I've been finding some new mods, and I'm reasonably sure I could get a full RPG to work using pre-rendered 3D graphics (which is my specialty). And that means, even though I've got a fantasy RPG in the works, I've got all these old SF ideas bouncing around in my head shouting, "hey! you could have been working on us!"

So I want to jot these ideas down in the hopes that they'll settle down a bit, and I wouldn't mind some feedback on them either. I don't even know if I'll ever get around to working on any of them, so feel free to take inspiration if you want. I'd especially like to know which ideas you think are best.



For starts, here's a look at some of the resources I have, so you can get a sense of what these games could look like. There's kind of a lot, and it's maybe irrelevant to most of you, so I'm gonna spoiler hide it:

Spoiler: Graphic Preview Stuff

Here is a YouTube of me showing off the pre-rendered graphics in RPG Maker MV: Here is the preview website for my Acheron Series anthro characters, which is what my characters would be based on: https://acheronseries3d.weebly.com/
Here is Synty's Sci-Fi City pack, which is probably my main choice for the 3D environment: https://syntystore.com/products/polygon-sci-fi-city
Here is a rare pair of SFW pics of me combining my Acheron Series characters with Synty's Sci-Fi City props: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/31152597/ --- https://www.furaffinity.net/view/31152625/

Those assets are things I already have, here are a few I'm thinking about purchasing for this kind of thing:
Guns:
I was really impressed with this pack, but it's a bit expensive: https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/military/gun/scifi-assualt-guns-mega-pack
I was more impressed with this pack, but it's even more expensive: https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/military/gun/weapon-pack-vol01-scifi-cartoon-weapon
This developer does some more affordable packs, but they are pretty similar to the low poly guns I already have with the Synty SciFi City Pack: https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/military/gun/lowpoly-pulse-guns --- https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/military/gun/lowp-f00202d8-9824-4086-ade1-b47cd2f7e800 --- https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/military/gun/scifi-gun-pack
Other Stuff:
This is a fun looking pack which also comes with a lot of robots that could be useful: https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/various/various-models/scrap-city-megapack
These are some other lots-of-stuff packs I've had my eye on:
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/interior/other/space-centre
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/...oplanet-space-station-interior-kit-game-ready
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/...ulture-lowpoly-gameready-cyberpunk-collection
http://3drt.com/store/environments/sci-fi-environments/sci-fi-techlabs-orion-construction-kit.html

My RPG combat system idea for sci-fi stuff was that each character changes their "shield" slot for a "gun" slot. Characters do not have any MP or magic skills themselves, but any guns that they equip give them a specific amount of MP (ammo) and give them a set of skills like "shoot", "aimed shot", "full auto barrage", etc. Depending on the setting, there can be more interesting guns like heat ray, freeze ray, taser, etc, that do elemental damage or cause status changes or whatever. You also have a normal melee weapon slot, and there can be some two-handed melee weapons that seal your gun-slot, or two-handed guns that seal your weapon slot. There could also be combo-weapons, gunswords or bayonets, that give you both a melee attack and MP and skills.

Broadly, some of these ideas will be more space-opera, and some will be more cyberpunk. I generally think Space Opera is more fun, and would match my Acheron Series anthro/alien races better, but it's extra tricky to make or find graphics that feel truly alien, and it's impossible to actually make a universe feel appropriately big. Cyberpunk has a simpler aesthetic and gives me permission to keep the scope more personal and get into more modern plot points like crime lords and mega-corps, which I find interesting.



- My first SF-RPG idea was basically to make Interstellaria, but with RPG battles instead of the weird RTS-platformer thing that they do. For a quick explanation, the plot is mostly irrelevant, you are given a ship, and you explore the galaxy at your own pace. You get money by exploring various sites on planets, like ancient ruins, ferocious jungles, abandoned colonies, etc. You pick up various resources from these places, from simple things like water or data, to energy crystals and petroleum. Different planets will buy these various resources at different prices, so you basically find yourself a nice comfortable trade route and make lots and lots of money, buying better guns, armor and ships.

Ship-to-ship combat is big in Interstellaria, and I don't really know how I would approach it in RPG Maker. Star Trek Online had an interesting mechanic where you could assign crew members to your bridge positions, and during ship-to-ship combat, they would give you a specific skill, like a tactical officer could give a skill that gives rapid fire phasers for a few seconds, an engineer could bolster shields, a science officer could create a mini-black-hole to slow down other ships, and so on. And I do actually have a vague idea of how to approach that in RPG Maker, I think you could make the ship a character, and the crew as equipment items, but I think switching between the people system and the ship system would be a nightmare.

Since originally, I thought I'd never have the assets to do a Sci-Fi adventure, I came up with a fantasy version of this idea. Instead of space, you are on the planet Sky, a giant gas planet full of floating islands. You are in some equivalent of the Age of Sale, and people are setting out in ships to explore new territory, create lucrative trade deals, and of course, some seek to engage in piracy. In this world, magic is allowed. Most characters use the equipment system I explained before, but there are rare "Sorcerers" who can use magic naturally. (If you've ever played Ar Tonelico, I'm imagining that they function similar to their Hymnomancers) If I wanted to do this in space, I think it'd be like a Jedi or psychic character.

My original idea was that the "world" is randomized,planets or sky islands are in random positions. I figure I can get away with this by making a planet or island a single event on the world map and randomizing their positions. Then each planet or island event is a transfer portal that takes you to a pre-made location. But this means I'd also need a novel way to set level-appropriate challenges for the players, and I feel like maybe I should just stop making things so complicated for myself.

A final little point of interest I could add to this are factions. I'm thinking the world has 3 major factions that are constantly at each others' throats: Pirates, Ninjas and Cops. Pirates hate Ninjas because they're all honorable and don't like money, Cops hate Pirates because they brake the law, and Ninjas because they assassinate people and steal stuff. Siding with the appropriate faction can give you access to specific missions, equipment and characters, but seals off interactions with the others. You can also try to go neutral and just ignore them.



- Another thought is an RPG version of a top-down shooter I wanted to make at one time. I called the project "Deus Vault", the idea is that various alien races are ruled by their alien gods and are in an un-ending holy war against the other races and their heathen gods. (Deus Vault was the "slogan" of the original Crusades. It means "God Wills" or "God Wants It".) This is kind of a Warhammer 40k vibe. These races would be sci-fi versions of the Acheron Series fantasy races, so the Kitsune race would worship Inari or Daji, Krakens would worship Jormungand, Raptors would worship Quetzalcoatl, Orcs would worship Orcus, etc. At the beginning of the game you would pick your race and begin the holy war to wipe out the others. Different races would specialize in different equipment, like Kitsune could have more heat-rays, Krakens have more freeze-rays, Raptors have razor-beams, etc.

This is a spoiler, but I do want feedback, so...

Spoiler: Plot/Ending

When you start the game, the gods are very distant, you're not sure whether they are real, or just an excuse that these aliens have made up to continue their endless war. But as you and your squadron become more successful and famous, your god starts to smile upon you and grants miracles to you. Eventually you're given the power to perform miracles yourself (i.e. use magic) and meet your god in person (possibly the power to summon your god in battle, or maybe a servant or image of your god). Once you've proven worthy, your god sends you on a quest to retrieve the Holy Grail, an ancient artifact that was lost ages ago. After finding it, the other gods will know that you have it and send bigger armies to steal it from you.

After bringing the Holy Grail back to your god, your heroes are awarded immortality or whatever, and it cuts to the god getting some alone time with the Holy Grail. The god says, "yes... yes! As I thought, this brings back the memories. I can see it all again..." There's a flashback to a modern-age medical lab and a bunch of lab-animals in cages that correspond to the gods of this world, a fox (Inari/Daji), fish (Jormungand), snake (or bird?) (Quetzalcoatl) and pig (Orcus). Each one has a name-tag on their cage with their god-name and the phrase "God Project". A friendly human scientist walks in and begins talking to the animals. "Hello everyone. I hope you slept well. Today is the big day." He holds up a syringe, which you recognize as the artifact you've been seeking. "This is the Holy Grail of our research. With this, you four will be the first to experience a new reality." He injects the gods with the "Holy Grail". "I know it hurts now, but thanks to you, we will be able bring forward a brighter future."

Your god wonders to itself, "That was how it all started. We were all there. There was no enmity between us then, no violence. When did it start? Do the others remember? Do the others think these same thoughts? Would they listen? Would they answer? Or would we only keep on fighting? Perhaps this is just our unavoidable destiny. Then so be it. Deus Vault."

I love this little story. The problem is, it requires making gods, and their pre-god forms, which would be a pain in the ass. Maybe less of a pain if I could get away with doing it in 2D instead of 3D, but still, this is a limiter on how many factions I could actually add to this game.

As far as gameplay, it was originally meant to be an arcade twin-stick shooter, so I'm still thinking of it in terms of randomized missions and maybe some arcade features like perma-death (probably perma-death for individual characters, not losing the entire game). I know there are some mods that allow you to add "generic" characters to your party (like Pokemon or Final Fantasy Tactics style) which I might use.

I think people would probably want to be able to build teams with multiple races, so there might be a way to capture, convert or brainwash other races into your team. There might be mercenaries too, which would allow me to add races that don't have a specific god of their own. There could also be a pirate faction, a group of godless heathens who work together and oppose the holy empires, maybe they have a political cause or maybe they're just trying to stay alive in a dangerous universe.



- There's also a Detective Story I've been working on in bits and pieces for a while. This one is more story based. It's about a private investigator who used to be a US Army Dragoon (a version of the real-life mounted infantry kind, not the various fantasy versions of them)(I was thinking that they road on hoverbikes or drove in trucks or something, which is why the main character is a good driver, but then I don't know why that would matter in an RPG). She fought in some future equivalent of WWII against an enemy state (possibly Russia, possibly a Mega-Corporation) who used "brain-chips" to enslave their population. She now lives in Miami, and when she realizes that crime is on the rise and brain-chips are suddenly surfacing here in the homeland, she becomes a Private Investigator so that she can do what she can to stop it. She thought about joining the Police, but feels like it's too close, but not close enough to being in the Army. The uniforms and the hierarchy make it too easy to switch back into "kill or be killed" mode. She decides to work as a PI to keep the experience at arms length. She helps the Police whenever she can, but takes on civil cases when she needs the cash.

Brain chips are microcomputers that can interface with a living brain. They can be potentially benevolent, but many ne'er-do-wells use them to influence the mind like hard drugs, and rogue states have used them to turn people into zombie slaves and super soldiers. They can also be hacked, like a modern computer, so then even an innocuous or benevolent brain chip can become seriously dangerous. Brain chips are illegal throughout the USA, but still researched so that the military and law enforcement can counter them, and some people still dream of a completely "safe" version of the brain-chip.

One day, our hero gets a message from a company whistle-blower that the Technocracy Corporation has a business relationship with the Mafia. The whistleblower doesn't want to bring this information to the cops, since she thinks the cops might be in on it. She pays our PI hero to go to a location where TC employees and the mafia (and cops?) are going to meet, and take photographic evidence, which the whistleblower can take to higher authorities or the media or whatever. While on the job, things go crazy, and the PI meets an FBI ninja who was also here to spy on TC and the mafia. The ninja wants to know how this PI knew about the meeting, and after learning wants to get the whistleblower into protective FBI custody so she can testify to Technocracy's involvement with the Mafia.

The FBI Ninja was a US Army Ninja who served in The War as well. As a Ninja, she saw a lot of the enemy's brain-chip abuses against its citizens up close, and is especially bothered by the thought of brain-chips being used back on home soil. After the war, she was scouted by the FBI, and joined their anti-mafia task force.

I sort of know where I want the plot to go after that, but I don't have a concrete story for it yet. Another character I want is a Police Cadet. She is too young to have fought in The War, but she used to live on a farm in Florida and remembers everyone working hard to provide supplies for the war effort. She has always been good with guns, and got top marks for gunmanship in the police academy. She joins the Police so that she can use her gift to do good in the world. As a fresh cadet, she is not part of the inner circle of police that is involved with Technocracy and the mafia.

I have a few ideas for more characters, but I think it would be better to just focus on these three.

The problem with this idea is that it's a fun story, but not really a game idea. In the present form, it might be more of a visual novel with occasional combat. I was thinking that it might be interesting to do this as a Strategy RPG. Then the missions could be done in strategy mode. I love strategy RPGs, but I'm not familiar enough with the system to know what it would be like. I'm especially not sure if it would work with the larger 3D pre-render graphics.

Alternate plan is to make a game about the brain-chip war instead.



- A fun, newer idea I had was to do a Cyberpunk Lovecraftian Film Noir RPG. I'd do Lovecraftian character archetypes, with Lovecraftian otherworldly horrors lurking in the shadows of society, set in a Cyberpunk future, with a Film Noir scope to the adventures. Instead of saving the world, they're solving a murder or committing a heist or something.

Lovecraft Character archetypes:
The Detective, a skeptical, practical type who doesn't believe in this weird crap, but also, they've seen so much of this world that nothing seems impossible.
The Sensitive, an artistic type who is especially sensitive to the great beyond and the strange psychic powers at work. This one is quick to believe in the unspeakable truths that linger beneath reality, but also sees the beauty in things, not just the horror.
The Scientist, a person of study and research. They see the unspeakable horrors not just as terrible secrets, but new scientific fields that can be cataloged and tested.
The Explorer, another scientific type, but who has the unscratchable itch to go out into the world and see its great mysteries with their own eyes. They might not be scientific, per se, but just a sort of jet-setter who uses scientific advancement as an excuse to feed their wanderlust.
The Normal guy, a completely average character who is thrown into the world of spooky scary mind breaking cosmic horrors and is left with nothing but questions too hideous to ponder.

There could also be some Film Noir archetypes, which I'd have to think about more for a complete list, but off the top of my head:
The Dame, a great gal who stands by her sweetheart, no matter what trouble he gets into.
The Killer Lady, a power hungry woman in a man's world who has learned to play by the rules to get what she wants.
The Crooked Cop, a cop who's seen too much for too long, and is willing to do anything for a way out.
The Inside Man, a cop or PI or murder writer who has studied so many crimes that they think they've figured out how to pull one off themselves.
The Detective, but we did that already.
The Writer, a writer of murder mysteries who suddenly gets thrown into a murder situation themself.
The Journalist, a reporter who will go through anything to get the perfect scoop and let the people see the truth.

I've read the complete collection of HP Lovecraft's stories, but not a lot of the later Lovecraft-style stories, and based on what I hear, I think there are differences. My favorite Lovecraft premises are generally the Pre-Adamite civilizations. Things far, far older than humanity, possibly older than Earth itself. For a Lovecraft Film Noir fusion, there are some cool tales of cults and secret societies (sometimes having something to do with Pre-Adamite civilizations) which I think would make more sense as a starting place. You start with this secret society committing crimes, then realize that they're into some spooky stuff, then realize that the spooky stuff is more real than you dared to think.


- I play a game called RimWorld, a survival building game where you crash land on an alien planet on the Rim (a Rim World) (get it?). You can grow various crops in your colony, including Smokeleaf, which is basically cannabis. And there's a mod for RimWorld called Smokeleaf Industry, which allows you make all sorts of kinda real life materials out of the cannabis plant, hemp fabric for clothes, hemp flour and milk for food, hempcrete for construction, hempoline for fuel, cannabidiol for medicine, and various other stuff.

Basically, you can run your entire colony on just hemp. And that got me thinking, why not? Imagine a future where a Mega-Corporation decides to build a space-program and sends its colonists out into the great void of space with a single super-crop capable of meeting all their needs. Glorious hemp.

I don't have any particular political agenda to push with this plant, but the idea strikes me as fertile ground for comedy. Maybe the mega corporation sending hemp into space is a pot-producing corporation on Earth that made so much money that it bought out a space exploration (asteroid mining?) company, and is now sending its groaning teetotaler astronauts into space on the condition that they take as much weed as they can fit into their cargo pods. Or maybe it's the other way around, the space exploration company is using the all hemp mission to trick stoners into being guinea pigs for their near-suicidal colonial missions.

As an alternate idea, maybe it's a post apocalyptic world or dystopian future where hemp is the only plant that hasn't gone extinct.

Realistically, I think that to use hemp to make all these various materials, you'd actually different breeds (strains?) of hemp plant optimized for that specific purpose, especially if it's in the future and genetic manipulation is more plausible than space flight. This could be a fun game mechanic where you can unlock new strains as the game progresses to fine-tune your colony to your needs or style of play.

But this is all basically a survival game, and I don't know if I want to try that in RPG Maker. I think it might be too different and too complicated, especially when I am also combining it with the 3D graphics. However, I am fairly confident that I could do a decent item crafting or synthesis system, so this might be more Atelier Iris than RimWorld.

I was also thinking that since there's a decent chance I'd get in trouble for making a game about hemp, I might as well go all the way and make this an NSFW nudity game. I don't think stoners are especially randy, so I don't know how that would work though.


- The Awakening: Special individuals around the world have begun to develop supernatural powers. The existence of these powers could change the course of history. A secret society has been created to find and help these individuals, and to discovery the secret of why the world is suddenly undergoing The Awakening.

So yeah, people around the world start developing various forms of psychic powers and you and your crew try to find them and help them, or stop them if they're using the powers for evil. The secret society is also trying to figure out why this is going on, and decide if The Awakening can be stopped or should be stopped. It's generally thought that The Awakening of supernatural powers throughout the world would result in total chaos, but the society is also trying to test drive the possibility that people can be properly trained to function in civilized society even if they are Awakened. (i.e, that becoming Awakened doesn't turn people into super villains, that power need not lead to corruption)

Part of the game is finding Psychic Dungeons which are inside Psychic Artifacts. Your heroes can also travel inside the minds of people who are in the process of Awakening(in the form of a psychic dungeon), and try to untangle their thoughts and lead them to inner peace or being good instead of evil. I thought this was a cool idea to make dungeons look like whatever graphics I have on hand.

I'm not sure if these are super powers, exactly, I'm thinking that something more like magic or psionics would fit better. One thought is that The Awakening is entirely psychic, Awakened powers don't actually do anything physical, but they can enter Psychic Dungeons and sense other Awakened people and influence their process of Awakening. Possibly, the Awakened are awakening to a higher level of reality, everything we experience normally is just the dream. In this version, I was thinking it might be fun to have all the characters be human in the Normal World, but transform into Acheron Series Anthro characters when they use their Awakening powers to enter a Psychic Dungeon. But if the Awakening continues, everyone will be able to enter everyone else's thoughts, and that could get messy.

The secret reason for The Awakening is that a primordial psychic entity, The Sleeper, has begun to stir from its million year slumber and as it awakens, its psychic energy is spilling out into the minds of human beings. (*cough* Cthulhu *cough*) Possibly, the world itself is just the dream of the Sleeper, and all humanity are its thought, scattered in sleep, but connected into a single mind once it awakens. Thus the Awakened are people who represent the thoughts that are transitioning from Dream state to Awake state first. They are connected to each other because they are the parts that are becoming whole.

This is cool, but doesn't really have anything to do with Sci-Fi stuff, now that I think of it.

 

[TheKeeper]

Really love a lot of your ideas. My first favorite is the Awakening idea: I love stories that involve psionics in one way or another, and I love your idea that maybe we're all just the thoughts of some being who's been asleep this whole time. It's a really cool plot twist.

The brainchip story really intrigues me. It sounds like a game that may be light on battles, and heavy on investigation and discovery, and that's okay. Not every game made with RPG maker has to be a straight-up RPG. When you said it's more suited to a visual-novel style of format, I immediately thought of an rpg maker game called Nina Aquila, Legal Eagle, which adopts a similar form of storytelling. It's doable, and it's fun, and I'd totally play it!

The hemp idea sounds pretty fun. I'm really into Stardew Valley, right now, and I'm even working with someone (who's currently into My Time At Portia) to make a farming game with RPG Maker. So the idea of a game where you farm a supercrop to form the basis for other building materials sounds super fun to me. I'd definitely play it!

 

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Really love a lot of your ideas. ...

Thanks for the feedback.

If you like the dream idea, I don't feel like I can fully take credit for that. It's sort of a twist on Link's Awakening and Star Ocean 3 (which is sort of spoilers, I guess, but those games are old enough that I feel like it's okay). Also since I mentioned him quite a bit already, my buddy, HP Lovecraft, besides doing horror stories, he also made a bunch of "dream fantasy" stories, which you might like, if you enjoy that kind of thing, and like I said, the general idea is more or less what happens in Call of Cthulhu. A lot of his stuff is public domain, so you can read it online.

I'm glad you liked it, since I was worried that The Awakening sounded too derived. I didn't mention this before because it's irrelevant, but the original idea of The Awakening was that it's set in the 1800s and there's a multi-national cast of characters that are all based on badger-like animals. This version was actually called The Gift, psionic users called The Gifted. I don't want to say it's steam punk, because steam punk is usually set in London or New York, and I wanted to explore more of the world wide cluster fudge of wars and conflicts that occurred in the 1800s.

America: Raccoon: A gunslinger raised on the frontier. She lost her parents at a young age, but fends for herself using the survival skills her parents taught her and her Gift which allows her to control the trajectory of bullets.

International Waters: Rat: Born on a ship at sea, lived on boats her whole life, she is part of a mercenary crew who occasionally engages in piracy or privateering. (Possibly, she is among the last of the Barbary Corsairs, or a descendant of the Barbary Corsairs)

Germany: Eurasian Badger: A knight who dreams of setting the world back to a time of honor and chivalry, and sees The Gift as a way to do it. He builds himself a powered armor knight suit with a sword that channels electricity.

South Africa: Honey Badger: A Zulu prince fighting to keep his empire free from British rule. Against the superior firepower, the Zulu are outmatched, but the prince's Gift might turn the tide in his favor. (alternatively Xhosa, as the Anglo-Xhosa wars lasted from 1779-1879)

Chinese Australian: Red Panda: Born in Australia to Chinese immigrants who fled from the violent Taiping Rebellion. She and her parents are part of a Triad Society, who mostly acts to help new Chinese immigrants settle in Australia, but as anti-Chinese sentiments rise, they start to lose respect for the government and operate outside the law. (Alternatively, she is a Chinese-American immigrant, but there's already an American character; Alternatively, she's a Chinese Malaysian immigrant fleeing the Punti-Hakka clan wars, but both Punti and Hakka immigrants arrive in Malaysia, and the clan wars continue)

Chile: Culpeo: A veteran of the Pacific War. He lost his arm in the war and had it replaced with a mechanical one. Now, he is a mercenary fighting in other South American conflicts.

Japan: Tanuki: A descendant of a traditional ninja family who now serves the modernized Meiji government. Like his country, he struggles to hold onto tradition while embracing progress.

Anatolia/Egypt: Jackal: An ancient sorceress that had been sealed away in a tomb for thousands of years. She is unwittingly awakened by modern explorers and unleashed upon the world. She is surprised both by new technology and the number of new sorcerers (The Gifted) and decides to take things in stride and explore the new world for a while. (The obvious origin is Egypt, and I love Egyptology, but Anatolia (Turkey) also has some insanely old and cool ruins that don't get the attention they deserve)

And I realized that what I have here is more of a VS Fighting game plot or world-building. I did think that maybe it could work as an RPG where you start with an NPC who is trying to find and recruit as many of The Gifted as he can before his rival recruits them into his Take Over the World society. So you pick 4 characters at the beginning of the game, and the 4 you don't get around to become badguys.

The Gifted was a fun idea, but it's just not the kind of thing I could ever complete on my own. In particular, world-wide 1800s environments or tilesets would just be impossible to find and too much to make myself. That's why I figured that recycling the basic premise as a cyberpunk psionic setting might work, but I think I'd need to rework the character backstories.



For one thing, I don't think the world-hopping thing would be feasible. I'd need enough environments to make all the places in the world feel different, and I don't think I'll have enough to do that. If they're all from the same city, then there should be some explanation as to why this city is the focal point of The Awakening, although maybe there isn't, it's just where a random place in the world where reality is unraveling. Or maybe this city is the most populated and all the thoughts in one place is what is triggering it. Or maybe The Awakening is a world-wide phenomenon and we're just focusing on this particular city.

Can I translate the original ideas into new characters?

(Like I said before, I'd probably use humans that transform into Anthro fantasy races, but for now I'm going to use the original animal names just to reference the original idea)

For the raccoon, maybe she's still an orphan with a gift for shooting. Maybe she's from out of town, either the secret society came to bring her to the city or she was drawn to the city by The Sleeper's call.

The rat I guess could still be a sea merchant family, as the big city probably has a harbor. Could also be something more sci-fi like an airship or spaceship.

The badger could be similar, a guy who wants the world to return to chivalry and honor, but I think he'd come across as way weirder in a sci-fi setting. Perhaps he's some kind of martial artist who uses a sword or staff to defend himself against street crime. His Awakened power allows him to dodge bullets and he wants to share this knowledge with the world. As a martial artist, he thinks that he can teach this to others, but he and the secret society don't actually understand how people become Awakened.

For the honey badger, I don't think a British invasion would make sense, but it could be some kind of gang war, or it could be a mega corporation that's trying to bulldoze his neighborhood or something. The other gang or the Mega-corp could have him outgunned but his Awakened powers allow him to fight back.

The red panda could just be a modern day (or futuristic) triad.

The culpeo could be a veteran of some unspecific war. Maybe he was depressed after losing his arm, disappointed with the original prosthetic and started tinkering with mechanical arts to build himself a super robot arm, not initially realizing that it's just a focal point for his Awakened powers. Or maybe when he transforms, he has some kind of super arm. Actually, he might be an excuse to use the Hydra.

I don't know about the Meiji Ninja. Seems to me that if Ninjas have survived to cyberpunk times, they're already used to adapting themselves to new technology and paradigm shifts, so that aspect of a conflicted character wouldn't be relevant in this version. Maybe it's more like a modern day "government ninja".

For the jackal sorceress, I think that can stay the same. Maybe her mummy has been transported to the city's museum, where they realize that she's still alive.

 

[TheKeeper]

I like the idea of the honey badger facing off against a mega corporation to keep his neighborhood alive. It still has the feel of outsiders invading his home, but using a very modern context to it that makes more sense.

 

[AcetheSuperVillain]

I just remembered a few more concepts.

- Vertical City. A friend of mine once said that Final Fantasy 7 is overrated because it's new and interesting during the first part of the game, in Midgar, but once you leave, it mostly defaults to being a run-of-the-mill RPG. And although I like FF7 anyways, I think he had a point, and it made want to make an all-Midgar RPG. I especially liked the idea of Midgar's Plate, so I wanted to extrapolate on a similar system with multiple districts based on height.

This is mainly a world-building idea that could exist on top of or alongside the other ideas so far.

Default layer is the slums. Close to the bottom, can't see the sky. This is where people with no money end up. Police supervision is minimal, so criminals and vigilantes rule.

Second layer above this is a middle class kind of district with factories and shops and normal people. It's not terrible, but still shrouded in city pollution and the shadows of the largest skyscrapers.

Above this is the skyway. The tops of the tallest buildings hang in the clouds and flying clouds and airships. This is a sparkling clean sci-fi utopia where the richest and luckiest citizens forget about the plight of those below.

For a really sci-fi city, the layer above the skyway is the starway. A space-elevator connects the city to orbital facilities. The richest citizens of the vertical city are the ones who make their livings in interplanetary trade, and they keep their luxuriant offices close to the action in orbit.

For some non-wealth related districts,

The Green Space. This is a section of the city responsible for growing plants, for both food and clean air. Depending on the setting (or district), it might be simple algae vats or whole forests. Real life big cities have some interesting approaches to Green Space, like NYC's Greenway or the gardens of Shanghai Tower.

For a Macross style touch, there could be a military district. I'm a big fan of Macross DYRL and Macross 7. If you've never seen it, in vanilla Macross, a giant spaceship accidentally scoops up a city and keeps it onboard as a space colony, and in Macross 7 a generation later, they decide to do this on purpose. So there's both a civilian city for the normal people and crisp clean spartan bunkers for the military folks who are actually keeping the ship afloat (so to speak) and fighting off aliens.

Another Macrossy district would be the bowels of the ship or some other kind of mechanical bowels. These are big empty areas, or areas of machinery that are supposed to be closed off, but might be breached into accidentally or snuck into by devious characters. In one of the early episodes of Macross, Hikaru/Rick and Minmei crashland in an abandoned section of the ship and have to survive for a week or so before they're rescued.

Sewage system. For a sci-fi megacity, there obviously needs to be a lot of water flowing around, and if there are skyscrapers reaching all the way into orbit, the sewage system needs to reach all the way up as well.

Ancient ruins. For a fantasy touch, or a certain kind of sci-fi, the city could be built on top of an ancient system of ruins, or the ruins of an older city like Old New York in Futurama. I liked the idea of a fantasy world that has grown up into a sci-fi world. This high tech mega city was built on top of an old medieval city that was itself built on top of a dangerous dungeon full of monsters. After hundreds of years, the old dungeon has been forgotten, but the monsters are still there. Or, the lowest levels of the city are still full of the descendants of adventurers who made their fortunes on dungeoneering and still live as they have for hundreds of years.

China-town. A lot of cyberpunk likes to have China-town areas, and I enjoy the aesthetic. In a sci-fi context, this could also be something like Alien-town or Cyborg-town.

Hyper Mall. A mega city needs mega shopping. A gigantic mall beyond mortal comprehension. Although, from a modern perspective, it seems like malls are going to be replaced by online shopping and 3D printing.



- City Escape.

"Hey, old man! What's with this green thing?"
"Don't touch it. That's called a 'plant'. They used to grow all over the place, but now there's hardly any left."

The idea here is that you are a group of young people who was born in a city that is completely closed off. No one remembers why and no one knows the way out, apparently the place wasn't built with any exits. Some young people casually decide to try and find a way out, and hilarity ensues.

This was actually the first thing I made to try out RPG Maker MV. I didn't get very far with the idea, and I don't have the file anymore. I don't think I ever thought through the plot, why their city was locked up or how they finally get out. The obvious thing is that they're in some kind of fall-out shelter and the world outside has been ravaged by nuclear horrors. Or they might be on a generational space colony ship that somehow forgot to mention this to its passengers. Maybe the colonists were abducted or forced to leave Earth.



- Super Defense Force. A long time ago, I made a Flash beat 'em up game called Super Defense Force. The original idea was that it would be like Super Smash Bros, but with characters from all my favorite properties and not just Nintendo. To avoid the copyright thing, and because I actually like to design characters myself, these would all be parody characters. So it's not Cloud Strife, it's just someguy with a big sword. And from there, it turned into these multi-sourced archetype characters, so the big sword guy is mix of Cloud, Ragna, Ike, Ichigo, Nightmare, etc. characters. (Wow, I feel old all of a sudden) And in the end, it became this list of D&D or WoW style jobclasses, but cooler. Originally for a beat 'em up or action RPG, but I think it would work in MV as well.

This list has grown and shrunk over the ages, but here's the most recent list I wrote down. Someone suggested that I give each character 2 weapon choices, and I enjoyed that because it gave me a chance to include whackier things. Since MV has 3 animation styles, swing, thrust and missile, I might make that 3, but I'd have to think about it for some classes.

AstroCaptain: An old school Buck Rogers space captain with a laser pistol, jet pack, beam blade, etc. There's a lot of fan art of female astronauts riding rockets like horses, so I thought that might be fun as a second option. This was actually sort of a joke character.

Cyborg/Android: The original idea was a cross between Megaman and Kos-Mos. A megaman/samus style gun-arm for primary weapon and a drill-arm for secondary. There's all sorts of robot weapons that could be a third weapon.

Desperado: A gunslinger character, either a retro cowboy kind or the modern Matrix kind. (Feeling old again) I also have Dante and Noel Vermillion in my ideas folder. The Desperado mainly wields dual pistols, but shotguns or machine guns or stuff like that could be their secondary weapon (there are other gun-users, so I don't know who gets what). A bayonet or gun-blade weapon could also be fun.

Detective: I think the original idea was an inspector gadget type. Maybe a more serious police armament with night stick and riot shield too.

Eldritch: A sort of sci-fi way to say "wizard". I was thinking more of the sorcery types, Raven or Starfire from Teen Titans, Ariel from Thundarr, Skeletor, etc. Main moveset would be holding hands above head and glowy stuff shoots out, but there could also be a staff set, and I liked the idea of conjuring giant magical hands.

Esper: A psionic user. In an RPG setting, I think they'd use more status changes and healing and stuff, while the Eldritch is more of a blaster. I always had a hard time figuring out what a psychic character should look like, my idea folder is full of Pokemon trainers and Absolutely Lovely Children. In addition to waving their arms around and making things happen, other ideas for psychic weapons or move sets include a big razor wheel with no handles, or an array of floating swords or daggers.

Fencer: A more elegant swordsman like Ky Kiske or Marth, or the classic female swordsman like Utena, She-Ra, Cutie Honey or Sophitia. Alternate weapon is the snake-sword.

Fighter: A mecha-musume character. There'd probably be planes, tanks and ships versions as the multiple weapons, although it might be something simpler like big gun, little gun and missile launcher.

Heavy/Juggernaut: The classic action genre trope of just a big guy, like Juggernaut, Potemkin, Zangief, Kongol etc. The trick to this is that there's an extra wrinkle involved in the animation process if the character changes size, so this might be an armored character instead of a large character. Default weapon is just powerful fists, secondary is a ball and chain, third could be a big hammer or club.

Kungfu-ist/Kickster: In the different versions of Super Defense Force, this was originally a female kick-heavy martial artist class, like Chun-li, Shampoo or Kuradoberi Jam. But it could also be a gender neutral chinese martial arts fighting style. Frankly, it's up in the air. Primary weapon was kicks, secondary was razor fans, and possibly shampoo's kungfu hammers.

Mad Scientist: Labcoat, goggles, raygun. In the brawler game version, the idea was that it's a multi-format beam gun, which can do heat ray or freeze ray or battering-ram ray, or whatever. Other weapon ideas include a giant mechanical arm or doc-oct tentacles.

MagiKid/Majokko: Originally just Magical Girls, but if it's supposed to be a gender neutral jobclass, I thought maybe the boys could be a Harrypotter type character. Although I do think male magical girl drawings are funny. Main weapon was a magical staff, secondary weapon was to be a magical hammer and magical roller-blades/ice-skates (which I'm not sure why I associate that with magical girls, but Sakura and Suburu had skates), and maybe like a cupid arrow could be the third.

Martialist: The Goku, Ryu, Tifa, Terry Bogard, and so on, fists-and-magic kind of fighter. Main weapon is fists and hadoukens, secondary is staff, third might be tonfas, or something weird like gun knuckles.

Medic: Essentially, a cute nurse or handsome doctor type. Possibly like a sci-fi field medic (StarCraft is the only one I can think of, WarHammer40k might do it too). I thought this might be sort of a joke character, fighting with giant syringes and scalpels and reflex hammers.

Ninja: You know. I made a huge list of Ninja weapons/movesets at one time, enough to do a whole Ninja game or Ninja-vs-Pirates game.

Pirate: Yup, them too. Also came up with a big list of piratey weapons/movesets.

PsychKnight: My word for Jedi. Part of the parody idea is that their lightsabers are not technology but psychic projects, so they think their blades into being. Thus their psych-sabers can fly around a bit or grow and shrink (which would be fun in a brawler game, but probably useless in an RPG). Alternate PsychKnight weapons are probably Darth Maul and Kylo Ren style sabers, but possibly something more interesting.

Reaper: Sort of hard to explain, like an Anime scythe-user or shinigami type. Possibly like a shadow-mage or necromancer type. Alt weapons could be a chainsaw and monster arm (thinking like Nightmare's arm, Sessho-Maru's dragon arm, the DxD thing, I feel like this is a thing that happens a lot in anime).

Rider: Another sort of joke character, they ride a motorcycle and use it as a weapon. Alt weapons could be hover-board and roller blades. There's an awesome online brawler game called GetAmped2, where you can use hoverboards and rollerblades as weapons, and it's one of my favorite things ever. If it works like a normal MV animation where they only show their weapon when they attack, I don't know if a motorcycle would work. So it might be board, blades and a pogo-stick or unicycle or something. Not sure what the kids do extreme sports on these days.

Rocker: Guitar fighter. Like I-No from Guilty Gear, I can't think of anyone else, but I assume they're out there. Doing guitar moves and shooting sound waves. Alt weapon is a microphone stand, and maybe drumsticks.

Sentai: Power Ranger. Main weapon is those sword-gun things that they always have. Not sure what else. Honestly, this one is a low priority because there's enough other characters and I don't think of sentai as having their own thing, other than giant robots, which is probably not okay.

Spy: James Bond, Kim Possible, Erin E-surrance, Ada Wong, Spy Fox, Sterling Archer, etc. Primary weapon is a gun-umbrella, secondary is gun-briefcase, because who hasn't thought about it, honestly? Not sure what a third would be. Maybe a throwing hat, like Odd-Job's.

Trooper: Like a sci-fi armored combat soldier, Space Marines, Storm Troopers, Samus, Master Chief, etc. Main weapon is probably some kind of military plasma-auto-rifle thing, maybe more of a bayonet thing, secondary weapon is probably flame-throwers, I have this idea in my head of space soldiers blasting alien bug hives with flames. Not sure about a third, like I said before, there's a lot of gun-characters, so I'm not sure who gets what.

Vigilante: i.e. Super Hero. Weapon idea was a super-cape and a shield like Capt. America's. My thought was that this is a defensive, tanking jobclass.

Warlord: An eastern warrior, probably more Dyansty Warriors than samurai, but it's technically sci-fi, so anything goes. I feel like there's a certain sci-fi or at least super-hero trope of modern high tech guys accidentally reviving some ancient warrior who's been sealed away that totally pwns them all with old school weapons and magic martial arts. Main weapon is a pole-arm, glaive or pronged spear, secondary would be a dadao or katana or other two-handed saber, third would be tiger hooks.

Zambator: My word for giant-sword-wielder, based on the word Zambato. However, I don't know if that name works if they can change their weapon to something else. I had two thoughts for weapons. One is that they cover the Final Fantasy Playstation line up with Cloud's Buster Sword, Squall's Gunblade and Zidane's Thief Sword. Other thought is that they have different giant weapons, like giant hammers and giant spears.



So I have this great big list, and I'm still not really sure what to do with it. I could do like a Final Fantasy Tactics thing where there's a few main characters and a bunch of generic jobclass soldiers, but I'm way into these anthro characters now, and I'd want to do a race-class combination system (again, like D&D or WoW). It's so hard to go back to humans when you've been hanging around with kitsunes and dragons and stuff. But then that's tricky to do in 2D RPG Maker. My 3D models can easily swap outfits, so I could easily enough just render all the race-class combinations, but that's like 20+ classes and I have 30+ races, so that would be a huge amount of graphics. Even if I shortened it to like 8 classes and 8 races, that's 64 race-class combinations x2 again for male and female. So even though I love race-class combination games, it makes the most sense in RPG Maker to just do unique characters, as the program was designed for. Still, I think this is a good road-map for designing sci-fi characters.

Like the vertical city, the SDF class list isn't a game idea on its own, but something I could add to one of the other ideas.

 

[TheKeeper]

You have a lot of great ideas for a sci-fi game. Can't wait to see which you decide to go with, first. I'm definitely hoping you go through with either The Awakening or The Brainchip stories. Both really have my eye, and I'd totally play either one of those games.