1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123 ^ Classic 73 spaces horizontal format. :D (NOTE: Prototype chapter, written with several things not set in stone. It is a very rough approximation of what an actual chapter for Skmcbrjklzydnim will be like without the bells, whistles, and Polish (and Swedish, while we're at it) of the real releases, starting with the intro chapter. Consider it... a bare-bones demo. Not every aspect has an expalantion provided, sorry, but it is a prototype. Some filler had to be used to cover the temporary gaps. For those of you that are old fans of the very original, don't jump to conclusions! All will be made clear whenever I bother to get things in gear after I post this up... you know, one day. Don't take it /too/ seriously.) ************************************************************************* *** PROTOTYPE CHAPTER BEGIN: The very beginning... of strange things. *** ************************************************************************* (Fancy Header) SKMCBRJKLZYDNIM --- (envision your own psychadelic, swirly purple and yellow background here) This is a story. It isn't the first, but it may be the very first that goes to this extent. It's been years since I first started it... it started everything. You'd think it's childish to think so much of it. One of my ability, my skill. Why would I throw all my precious time into a piece of fiction? "Times are different." I hear this a lot. "There are more important things." I do not disagree with this statement. What I disagree with is who dictates what's truly important. What's truly important to me is that I finish this. This is my dream. Not only will I finish this, but the world will change for it. The times are indeed different, so why does everyone want for it to be the same? I feel I can answer their question for them, all with this... ...my finest work. This story, the project, must be finished... (Fancy Header) PROLOGUE - Integration Advancement Quotient Well, you sat through the pretentious opening FMV with the lead singer blabbing about corndogs (and love, for good measure), had to format that shiny third party memory card you got for your birthday until you found out it sucked and went to go exchange it for a first party one, came home to go through the FMV again, and are now just beginning to start playing. Good for you! Just in case you're here to just glance through the very beginning and leave some sort of encouraging comment on my livejournal before getting on with the more busy and important things in your life, ---- just ctrl+f #abluhbluhbluh# (not this one, the next) ---- and say you read it anyway. You won't hurt my feelings and you'll boost my fragile ego by giving me an inaccurate but heartwarming heads up on who's actually enjoying this. :) (The scene. A dark city in the skies. Despite being over the clouds, it too is overcast in shadows. Lies. Sorrow. An uncanny divide that seperates people who should have never been. Long ago, it wasn't like this. Two people who would dare to challenge this are together at last, having faced many trials before them. With the help of two other like-minded individuals, they now prepare to save the people from their own mistake... once and for all.) Here comes your player characters. One, some guy wearing all black, including a trenchcoat, with the only thing that stands out about him is that his head is a messy mop of blue hair that hides his eyes entirely. Some of you may recognize him. Others may not really care, perhaps because they decided to take the ctrl+f shortcut. Nonetheless, he is clearly the Main Character. The other, a very attractive-looking teenage female with exaggeratedly long golden hair with piercing emerald orbs, curves in all the... ahem. Moving on. She's wearing what appears to be wearing a pendant with a yellow charm that depicts a mother cradling a child. She does not appear to be wearing very much else to hide what makes her stand out, as per the norm. TYPICAL FEMALE LEAD: How many do you see? MAIN CHARACTER: Four. TYPICAL FEMALE LEAD: Shall we dispose of them? <3 MAIN CHARACTER: We aren't out here to kill. We're out here to unite... isn't that right, Laura? TYPICAL FEMALE LEAD (now known as LAURA): Yes... you're right. As you should be! The Main Character draws two staves bladed on either end. Mysteriously, there are triggers on both sides. Laura draws an overly ornate jewel staff. Both come from seemingly nowhere. Main Character leaps forward in a foetal position as the guards, grizzled old men with beards that aren't wearing helmets because it never did them any good before, point their overly complex-looking machineguns at Main Character. In a flash of light, wings sprout from his back... made of fried chicken wings. Nobody bats an eyelash as he dashes through three of them while yelling nonsensical things in Latin with, fortunately, plain subtitles in plain, though boring, English. Plus, oh god, the lensflares! THE LENSFLARES!! MAIN CHARACTER: SOUL BULLET! (Generic white fireball.) RISING SHOT! (Uppercut slash.) DASH AND... SOMETHING! (Generic samurai-style dash and slash.) The remaining guard looks ready to bust a cap in the Main Character's ass, up until Laura runs on up and unceremoniously kicks them in the groin instead of showing off some super-cool magic powers. Even though she's barely wearing anything on her feet and there was definitely some armor there. The two run to an embrace admist the gore as the fried chicken wings fade and the weapons disappear to nowhere. LAURA: You were amazing... as always. MAIN CHARACTER: All befitting a Dreamer. How's about some sugar? Name the Main Character whatever you want. Perhaps after yourself, perhaps after another similar character that you worship with your very being. However, with only about enough space for two letters, it's not too hard to come up with one. I'll call him "MC". LAURA: I don't think now's the time, MC... MC: Why's that? It'd be sweet, babe. LAURA: I'm afraid our friends' presence is going to sour the moment. * CORN COUNT: 1 * MC: ...What the hell was that? LAURA: What the hell was what? MC: I guess it's... nothing? Then, all of a sudden, two guys come rolling in through a weakened wall. One's a stout, balding black fellow in 3D glasses armed with a crowbar. Another is an impeccably tall and androgynous man whose choice of clothing is garish and quite... unfitting... for the setting, with very very long pink hair and maybe a little too much makeup along with a big sword that one of his pencil arms shouldn't be able to wield. The latter is from some other popular syndicated cartoon the author must have some creepy infatuation with at the moment. UNNAMED BEST BUDDY: Yooo, MC, Laura! Get a move on! POPULAR ANIME CHARACTER: Moss... rolling stones... they have nothing in common. MC: Glad you two showed up on time. Are we ready? LAURA: To our future... free of the past that once seperated us. MC: I'll take that as a "hellz yeah." You'll take control of your characters' destinies at this very point in time, deciding as to whether or not you want to march them through the open blast doors just ahead of you, or if you want to run around in circles for no readily apparent reason before you do. This is what many would call a half-assed attempt at non-linearity. When you're done pretending you aren't on a railroad of an unclear plot in its late stages, head on through for more plot details. You can open the menu if you want to check your characters out. I won't bother you with the details, but I'd like a Sampler Combo and a Chicken Fingers Platter, thanks. Oh yeah, monologue time. MC: It was many years ago... for years, they battled over the new land, unable to put aside their cultural differences. They exploited the indigenous people to their cause. It was but a pretext for a greater war down the road... ... ...in all due honesty, it had nothing to do with this. That's how I felt at the time. Yet, when I look upon the face of the beautiful Laura Selene Plotfiat, she reassures me. Everything that has happened, everything that will come to pass... it'll all be for the best. This I believe. This is why I mercilessly slaughtered the ecosystem coming this far. LUNNAMED BEST BUDDY: Whassup, man? Don't go dimmin' no screen without us! We're in this together! POPULAR ANIME CHARACTER: The rivers converge. Water continues to flow. Time cannot stand still, MC. LAURA: (With one arm around his.) Come on. We've come this far. There's no more room for doubt. MC: You're right... UNNAMED BEST BUDDY: Now shaddap! We don't wanna hafta reassure ya every three rooms, dude. MC: Shut up. Squee over the angst. Go on, do it. Just clean up after yourself and I won't tell anyone. I promise! Bask in the continued pretense of non-linearity by running circles around the narrow room full of bookshelves you can't read for additional useless plot info, you sad soul. (If you do try to read them, MC will comment that they're in a language he doesn't understand. You will receive a polite pop-up ad for a foreign language correspondence course. Decline with equal politeness.) Now, if you head up a ways you'll come across an FMV where four more soldiers MC and Laura blew through come up to storm you. This time they're wearing helmets, which necessitates the following dialogue. ELITE SOLDIER PERSON: Halt! We won't allow you to reach the almighty lord Thefibess W'noth Twodocontapot!! POPULAR ANIME CHARACTER: I shall force those who stand in my way to reconsider their brand of shampoo! UNNAMED BEST BUDDY: Gonna @#%! some !%@%#!% in @!%!@% and !%@!@%!!! MC: ...That's his name? LAURA: Honey, snap out of it! The fate of all rest on our shoulders now! Don't second guess the nature of our enemy! MC: Right... sure... no sweat! ELITE SOLDIER PERSON: There is no fate! Only fools that overstep the natural order of things! (Battle swirl.) UNNAMED BEST BUDDY: (Gets motion sickness, throws up all over PAC.) Welcome to your very first battle of Skmcbrjklzydnim! IT's a neat real time system where everybody moves around in free time. Check out the (SYSTEM TIDBIT I STOLE FROM RECENT CONSOLE RPG AT THE TIME)! Also, remember that it's just like (REALLY OLD RPG NOBODY BUT ME LIKED AND IF I DIDN'T BRING IT UP THEY'D THINK IT WAS AN ORIGINAL IDEA), not to mention (THINGS I THINK ARE NEAT AND ARE A SELF-PERCEIVED SIGN THAT I AM AN AWESOME GAME DESIGNER), so remember to press the (NON-ALPHANUMERIC) button. Notice you have three gauges: HP (health), YP (technique gauge), and BP (magic gauge). No, we don't know what 'YP' or 'BP' mean. These will be important in a minute, as well as the background color of your character's stats window. The short of it is that everyone has a favorite crayon color and are more inclined to beat the crap out of those who pick the color directly opposite of it, than those who pick colors closer to themselves. MC is Violet, which represents Prose. Laura is the direct opposite, Yellow, which represents Pictures. Unnamed Best Buddy is Blue-Green, the color of Chauvinism. Finally, Popular Anime Character is Red-Violet, the color of Fruits. Now, for the battle itself. The soldiers, even though they are elite and have many more years of combat experience than these guys, are complete pushovers. MC is definitely the most user-friendly fighter character with his twin... staff things with triggers. The game calls them GunSwallows. Anyway, if you mash the buttons during his techniques where he flashes, he'll gain extra damage. Laura is a so-so fighter, but can still beat up a soldier in one-on-one melee combat; keep her aside on healing in case they actually hurt you. Unnamed Best Buddy isn't a great fighter himself and has no spells or useful techniques, but he'll be able to hold his own. Finally, Popular Anime Character is very useful due to the wide range of his sword, but he's slow and misses quite a bit. All the soldiers can do is minimal HP damage, so you're fine. (Bored yet?) MC: I'll defeat as many as it takes to achieve our goal! LAURA: It's not just our goal, MC... it's yours, too. You promised that. MC: I did? UNNAMED BEST BUDDY: Whassup, man? You forget a promise to your woman?! MC: No, no I did not. POPULAR ANIME CHARACTER: I have never known a dog to tell the truth. MC: I'm no dog. I'm... out on a mission. We're finishing it today. LAURA: We'll be with you the whole way, MC. MC: ...Thanks. UNNAMED BEST BUDDY: God@!#%! you're doin' it again, yo. You'll head up a very tall staircase next. With each rotation you'll climb higher and higher above the mess below, towards an even greater terror. You'll fight more and more soldiers along the way, too. Some of them will wear old British military uniforms from colonial times. Others, French. Yet others, proper garb of the Algonquin, Huron, and Iroquois Native Americans. Pay this no mind... really! When you get to the top where you'll run into a couple of fluffy beds and an odd object of potential plot value. MC: Tonight... we finish this! LAURA: Yes... but then it will be the beginning of the rest of our lives. UNNAMED BEST BUDDY: C'mon, bro, we can do it. We've all got tha reason! POPULAR ANIME CHARACTER: We have no time to invest in trivialities and gain interest on memories... The best part about this is if you use the beds, the party will take a nap and recover their status. They'll repeat the dialogue when you attempt to approach the rotted velvet carpet heading up to the inner sanctum of their most hated foe. Repeat this for as many times as you find hilarious, but by now I'm pretty tired of the empty symbolism, so I'm moving on... oh, fine, scroll back a little if you /want/, but jeez, it's not like I have all day to write these things. The save point is, of all things, a corndog stand. It's always closed for business, but you can save your game by standing in line and taking a number. This will trigger another scene of much angst and important background information without the proper context to make sense of at this point in time. LAURA: It's closed, MC... MC: I know. POPULAR ANIME CHARACTER: Surely, there are more refined... refreshments... to choose from in this dystopic blight. MC: There's something about this. I never understood, myself. These... snacks. I have an unfulfilled desire. LAURA: But you'll get plenty of that. <3 MC: NO! That's... not it! UNNAMED BEST BUDDY: Whassup?! MC: ... POPULAR ANIME CHARACTER: Destiny claims otherwise... MC. LAURA: MC... please. You're the one last hope. MC: What about all of us? We could enjoy corndogs together. UNNAMED BEST BUDDY: Maaan, shaddup. Get a grip, yo! Priorities! Priorities, maaan! Where are they?! MC: ...They are straight ahead. UNAMED BEST BUDDY: Damn straight, yo. LAURA: Let's not wait another minute. The divide has lasted one too long... OK. Well, are you done with that indulgent diologue? I know I am! Well, this is the final showdown, I guess. You're already level 60-something to begin with, and as such you don't need any additional preparations to fight against what you're about to. It'll probably be suitably epic. Open the door and bust on through FMV style! (MC busts open the door with a strong kick.) POPULAR ANIME CHARACTER: At long last! I shall avenge my lover... UNNAMED BEST BUDDY: You've gone too far, mother!#%#@. LAURA: We fight a noble purpose... to be rid of what separates us! MC: Through the power of the people you've victimized for so long... (MC lowers his guard as he looks onward. His party members still have their guard up.) MC: Okay, what the hell?! (What MC sees is none other than Captain Louis Coulon De Viller, of the Battle of the Great Meadows from July 3, 1754. He is choking a bitch. George Washington, to be exact. George's soldiers are all hanging off of flagpoles bearing the French flag with wedgies. This /was/ where a surrender was being negotiated.) CAPTAIN DE VILLER: <> GEORRGE WASHINGTON: Urk--!! Gkkk... gaaaaah!! (MC's allies don't miss a beat as they rush forth and beat their way through the powerful men under Captain De Viller. MC simply stands there, staring, followed by monologuing.) MC: This was what haunted me. But why? None of this seems right! Not in any sense of the way this has been presented. It feels natural that it's led up to this, but... this... has no relevance! This has nothing to do with our quest! (Laura walks up to MC and gives him a good, hard slap after tossing aside a beaten up French soldier.) LAURA: It has /everything/ to do with this, MC! Everything... (She then kisses him. Time stands still. The scene rotates around this one event that, even though he seems to get this every ten minutes anyway, this rouses him to draw his dual GunSwallows and bear the fried chicken wings again, flying in the air towards the angry military leader.) MC: For the good of all people! LAURA: Yes... for the good of all people. (BOSS SWIRL! Unnamed Best Buddy and Popular Anime Character throw up all over George Washington from motion sickness before it goes to the boss window.) *** BOSS FIGHT: A Vengeance Seeking French Captain of the French and Indian War CAPTAIN LOUIS COULON DE VILLER (Yellow-Orange) Lv: 66 HP: 325,000 BP: 70,000 YP: 160,000 4x FRENCH COLONIAL SOLDIER (Yellow-Orange) Your very first boss fight is an easy one. Cap'n Louis is pretty tough, but so are you, and there's four of you! His grunts get wiped out in one shot by MC, so worry not about their clever ambushes against your careless lack of preparation. All enemies here can only do HP damage. Captain Louis will not sit back and pelt at you with a rifle. No, he'll roll up his sleeves, walk on up to you, and choke you for considerable HP damage. He's pretty quick of foot, but he has a very low hit rate. Get MC and PAC all up in his grill. PAC has much longer reach and that will help keep him off, but he will get choked much more often if he misses, so beware. Unnamed Best Buddy is more or less useless here, so just have him on standby for an occasional whack or two. Note the colors; Laura and Louis are very close in their color, so they won't do so much damage against one another. This is very helpful because Laura's your main healer for when things /do/ go south. On the other hand, MC and Louis do a lot of damage to one another as they're almost direct opposites, so he should be your main fighter. You can damage BP and YP, but none of your guys have any skills that are particularly /good/ for this purpose, so whittle down that HP with MC combos. When his HP gets low, Captain Louis will grab George Washington and use him like a pair of nunchucks. THIS IS DEADLY. The game will also then instruct you about a tactic in which you guard while waiting for him to stop showing off his skills with a battered British blunt instrument. You will then proceed to never use this tactic throughout the game ever again, making it a very pointless tutorial. You should eventually come out on top. If anybody falls, Laura can revive them. Just make sure Laura herself doesn't die, although the lowered damage against her makes it very easy. *** BOSS FIGHT ^^^^ (When the fight ends, everything melts away. It's bright. MC is all alone... save for shadows in the distance.) MC: I gave it my all. Everything we fought for... or was it all I fought for? I don't quite understand. Is this... the fruit of our efforts? (In the very distance, two large figures are escorting a smaller one away. It is blurry. Very difficult to tell who's who here.) MC: Hey?! Guys! GUYS!! (MC gives chase.) MC: That guy whose name I can never remember!! That person with the sword... Laura!! Where are you?! (A door closes. It's silent.) MC: ...That's how it's supposed to end?! (Everything fades to white for a while. If you pause it on the right frame you'll see a polar bear eating vanilla ice cream in a blizzard. What seems like thirty seconds later, MC stands there again in real time. Angry. He crouches down and punches the floor. There is no ripple, nor an echo.) MC: NEVER! I'M ACTUALLY GETTING QUITE BORED OF ANGSTING, THANK YOU!! NOW WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW?! (He breathes heavily. He takes both GunSwallows and points them towards the floor.) MC: ...Heheheh. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!! The irony! Is that how it was the whole time?! I can't accept this... I won't! (He leaps high into the air, into a foetal position. His hair grows out into a gray color, his eyes turning into a luminous violet color, his fried chicken wings expanding once more before he bursts forward into the floor. He breaks his nose and returns to normal, dropping his weapons to the side.) MC: ...Grrkkgkgkkrkhkrkrkggh!!!! .... ,,,, ?!?! What... did I say? (The view pulls back. Blue lines form. A red margin runs down the left side as someone writes in cursive, hastily.) Maybe knowing what was coming in the end changed what I originally envisioned... ...but because of it, it meant a lot more. This deviation was necessary for my project. The *Intergration Advancement Quotient*. I've put all of myself into this, in ways many would reject... ...but this is my dream! I'll be the one to see it come to life! ************************************************************************* **PROTOTYPE CHAPTER END - the final product will be somewhat different.** ************************************************************************* Hope you brought a parachute, it's a long fall from that suspensful cliffhanger of which may never even be resolved! Such is the typical fate of an IAQ. Stay tuned for Skmcbrjklzydnim... coming to you definitely a ways after January 5th 2006! (Maybe by the end of the month? Who knows.) #abluhbluhbluh#