Setting Boneyard - Ideas free to good homes

In general, I have the issue of having too many ideas for the available time I have to work on them. As a result, especially when I run into rough patches on the things I’m working on, I get tempted to move to something else “just to get it down, before I forget it.” I never go back to the first idea, and the second idea is also quickly abandoned for a third, and so on.

I’m really trying to at least get one of these projects finished for once, however, and as a result I need to do something with these other ideas which won’t leave me alone until they are in some way expressed. So that’s what this is. I’m going to dump the ideas I have, but don’t have time to work on, in this thread - and that will get them to stop bothering me so that I can get back to the thing I’m currently doing. Consider them free for the taking. I might come back to one or two of these at some point in the future, but I’m sure as heck not going to be mad if someone else makes something out of it in the meantime. Two games with a similar premise for me is a genre, not a copycat.

Also, if you have anything you want to throw on the pile - feel free. As far as I see it, better for someone to make use of a concept than for it to languish forever in a not-even-rough-draft state.

9 Likes

Super UltiMart

Okay, so this has a super-simple basis: MatPat did a Food Theory video on how long a person could feasibly survive trapped inside an average supermarket. Answer? With preparation, indefinitely.

And if that's the case, this makes one of the best possible locations for a game centered around a post-apocalyptic weight-gain scenario. The Player Character is an employee of a generically-branded super-store who is able to lock the place down upon first encountering the apocalypse. They then act as a "manager" for teams of survivors who are sent out from the store to scavenge for other supplies which aren't readily available in the store, because while the store has enough goods to keep everybody basically fed - people in survival situations aren't normally going to binge themselves chunky. They have to feel safe/comfortable for that. So you manage these raiding parties' expeditions to find the things you need to make the store less of a post-apocalyptic bunker and more of a place where your fellow survivors can feel like they won't immediately get eaten, so they can relax and let themselves... well, eat good food and let the pounds fall where they may.

Clearly this lends itself to a management sim, though there are combat elements which can be put in directly instead of abstracted. How many survivors is up to you, and how to balance their various needs is clearly going to be the major system/difficulty - more people with different wants to feel at ease is going to spike how hard it is to get everybody to get along. But, at least based upon the setting location/main base... hunger should not be an issue.
7 Likes

The "Fat & Happy" Protocol


You, the Player Character, are a robot. Your intended purpose is to assist in the survival of starship crew and passengers after accidents. Unfortunately, you were damaged in the crash that prompted your activation - leaving you without this vital information. Instead, you obey the directives you were given upon start-up (by a panicking and not-a-roboticist crewmember) of keeping people safe and healthy. When you asked for clarification on what those meant, you were told "for fuck's sake - just... just fat and happy, damnit!"

Now, keeping people fat and happy is remarkably effective at also helping them survive the crash of a starship. It comes with… side effects… but it works. And you obey your directives.

5 Likes

This Atlas Obscura article on the history of the Betty Crocker test kitchen reads like an ideal premise for a slow-burn wlw feedist romance VN. Someone better at romance than me shoukd write it!

3 Likes

On the Care and Feeding of Fairies

So… turns out, fairies exist. Even in the modern day. They just hide from humans due to centuries of being hunted - either out of a desire for their innate magic, or religious purges, or simple fear.

You found one. Rescued one, actually: a pixie who you discovered trapped under a fallen log in the forested creek behind your shitty apartment building. She couldn’t hide from you, because she was unconscious. And probably mostly-dead.

Out of a combination of complete bafflement and a sense that you should at least attempt to do something, you brought the fairy back to your little one-room studio apartment with the intent of nursing her back to health. She’s small enough to be the perfect roommate for the tiny space, and you’re doing your best - it helps that she’s magic, which definitely is speeding her recovery once you got food and water in her.

It’s the “food” part that’s the problem, though. She’s a fairy. No taller than your forearm. And as such, there’s basically nothing you can buy or make which is a “normal” portion for a being that size. Even a kid’s meal is nearly her size. And… well, it turns out that human food is something of legendary wonder for fairy-kind. An almost mystical ambrosia, lost to the story-books once they went into seclusion. So it’s beginning to seem like, by the time this pixie is well enough to fly away, she may be too FAT to fly away. If she even still wants to.

3 Likes

Lifestyle Assassin


(This one was not one I came up with recently. It was actually a prior experiment in a darker tone which I abandoned because I didn't like writing someone who wasn't having fun. Regardless, I do know that this is something that some people in the kink enjoy - so I'm dropping this here for those people to pick up and run with.)

You are an assassin. A hitman. A hired gun. You are paid to end people. Only, not in the traditional way.

You are a lifestyle assassin. Your work is much more technical. Harder to perform. But - and this is the key point - it’s legal. Certainly unethical. Arguably immoral. But there are no laws against it.

Your methods are simple to describe, if difficult to actually carry out. You infiltrate your targets’ personal circle of confidence, before gradually enabling their worst and most self-destructive impulses. Giving bad advice that sounds good. Encouraging poor decision-making and immediate gratification. Providing the devil on their shoulder with an external voice which is well-versed and quite convincing. Inevitably, with enough time, you can get them to ruin themselves.

That’s what you’re paid to do. Not kill - though you certainly have a body count - but ruin. For a price.

Your current target is an up-and-coming, fresh-faced junior executive in [PLACEHOLDER] LLC. They’ve climbed up the corporate ladder on the backs of many, making plenty of enemies, and one of them is convinced that they’re using their looks and sexuality as a tool to earn promotions. So you’ve been hired to destroy those.

Get to work.

3 Likes

(Dropping this one in the Boneyard since I haven’t worked on it in months and thus don’t expect to actually get it to completion. :expressionless: )

L.I.L.A. plus! (Millenium Edition)

Straight from the Information Superhighway, meet L.I.L.A. - your Lifelike Interactive Lifestyle Assistant! Hailing from the dawn of the New Millennium, she’s here to leverage the power of the Computer Age to help you get your life on track!

A knock-off of the “desktop buddies” of the early ages of the Internet, LILA is - effectively - a feminine version of Clippy, or a corporate-friendly clone of the ancient “desktop stripper” malware. She reminds you to do the things that you ask her to do, encourages you to get your life in order, and rewards you for your successes with “LILA Tokens” which you can use to customize your LILA experience. Since she comes from 1999, however, this isn’t exactly… much. You can change her clothes, or the background of the desktop window she’s in, or give her avatar a few gifts. Like… food, for instance. She’s been programmed with a bit of a sweet tooth, and without much to do other than cheer you on her professional “corporate” demeanor is certain to be worn down by the constant onslaught of you spending your reward points on lavishing her in treats.

2 Likes