#AND theyre small ?? god okay i just love the idea of fairies maybe

[anqaspond]

thinking about TINKERBELL..

[tumblunni]

More progress on unnamed monster petshop game idea! Woo! Very long post and some drawings below!

* OKAY! NAME IDEAS! Monster Meadow? Monster Market? Beast Boutique? or is alliteration too lame and cheesy? how about FIEND ORCHARD that just sounds catchy even though you arent actually growing pets on trees, i just started off looking for rhyming synonyms for farm and somehow got carried away

* WAIT NO WHAT IF YOU GROW PETS ON TREES i mean, how you get the monsters isnt really a big detail after all. I was just gonna assume they breed normally like pokemon. But this game idea is vaguely inspired by monster rancher, and in that one monsters were summoned from magical tablets that get dug up like fossils. So hey! why NOT have pet trees! or at least something similar that would kinda justify the title THEN AGAIN, I mean, final fantasy doesnt have a reason to be called final fantasy, lol

* We’ve got some other names down, too! I still dont have a design for the protagonist, but they’re gonna be called Lieven. (Or possibly Lieve, which is the gender neutral equivelant) Its a german name that means ‘beloved friend’, so I think it’d fit well with our big ol hug-in-a-mug protag! And then the assistant girl is gonna be called Justine, or Justy for short. I think it fits her cos its a kinda badass superhero sidekick name, and then the full name is a rather fancy and serious one. Fits with her being lil miss grumpypants, and also the true brains behind the operation!

* We also have more of a concrete idea for the gameplay! It might work better if its not totally the same premise as monster rancher, where your only goal with breeding these pets is to make one strong enough to win a bunch of tournements. The new idea is... instead of just a farm, a pet store! Selling your monsters is more of a big thing in this game. It would give a lot more reason to raise monsters of different types, instead of just going for the highest stats. We’re thinking having multiple ‘job classes’ of customer, similar to how it works in Recettear. So, for example, a family with a young child might be looking for a monster that isnt very strong but has high obedience and a friendly personality. And you could actually lose reputation by selling them a high stats monster, cos they decide it’s too dangerous for their child and want a refund. And you might find people wanting a monster to help out in different jobs that require different stats, or a foppish rich twat who just wants something rare and doesnt care about stats at all. And people requesting specific sub-breeds of monster fusion, to give you an incentive to fill up the full list of them! (Also possibly rewards from Justy for when you hit certain total amounts of monsters?) Oh, and maybe there’d also be an aspect of having to judge whether your monsters would actually be happy at their new home. Sometimes refusing a customer is the right choice! Or you can disregard morality and sell them to the shady guy offering a higher price, who’ll probably sell them on to a butcher... But also you can keep some of your raised monsters for yourself! Its just hard to raise a really big farm without making some income to support it. We’re thinking maybe a party of max three monsters in battle would be a good balanced number.

* We also now have a rather in-depth backstory for Justy, thanks to @summon-daze! Her basic story concept is that monster raising is a sport only for the wealthy, and she’s a kid from a poor family who’s working as assistant to these wealthy toffs in order to work her way up the ladder and get her own monster career someday. But Daze gave me some more ideas of her grandma being like her secret mentor from beyond the grave! Justy always loved monsters and wanted to own one someday, but the big moment that made her determined to tear the world apart to achieve that dream was the day her grandma died. She had to see the debt collectors taking her grandma’s house, cos the family couldnt afford to keep it. And while she was desperately trying to steal as much as she could carry so she’d at least have some memories left, she stumbled upon her grandma’s secret collection of monster raising books. The thought that her grandma had also lived and died without ever being able to achieve her dreams was painful enough to fill her with righteous fury! So, now she has her grandma’s homemade diary of monster raising tips, and she’ll be able to add her own experiences to it as you play through the game. An actual incentive to get 100% completion, cos it means helping her finally finish a beloved relative’s life’s work! Oh, and I think this could also be an excuse for some extra cuteness in tutorials and stuff. Like, they’re presented in the form of pages from textbooks, with Justy’s grandma’s corrections scribbled in the margin, and lil pictures of her as a young girl used as bookmarks. By the end of the game you might be mourning grandma too! And it’d also be nice to see Justy showing you more of her work as you become closer with her, and you might even end up seeing your protagonist adding comments in the margins too. It’s our family heirloom, and you’re becoming part of the family too! :3

* I’ve already shown my idea for the Dark type ghost bunnies, but my friend @summon-daze helped me think up a cool idea for an npc member of that species! (Also theyre named Geists now) Your assistant Justy would have a big ornery scruffy sabertooth eldeerly geist with a bad temper, who’s like the grumpliest tutorial ever. This was her grandma’s secret beloved monster pet, and it vowed to protect Justy after its owner passed away. So she’s kind to the lil girl but hates everything and everyone else. She’s more of a wild monster that just happens to help out every now and again, so you cant cheat and take her to contests instead of raising your own. But maybe she could be a bonus boss! Also, Justy continues to be The Most Badass Sidekick Ever, cos she can actually carry around this massive hellbeast! I’m imagining poor protagonist being crushed cos it fell asleep on their foot, and then Justy just casually deadlifts it like a marshmallow. And probably also bench presses the sofa on the way out.

* The Light type would be little floating halos with wings. A very nonhumanoid type of angel monster! And I have a bunch of ideas about cool animations for the halos interlocking and rotating like gears! Each monster would be two halos, one with the wings and one with eyes, and then a glowy sphere in the middle thats like their heart. And they could fight by throwing their own independant parts at enemies and grinding them between the gears, and also I think maybe they can open portals in the centre and do some limited teleportation and/or shoot lazers...? MANY IDEAS!

I was also thinking that they can summon a pure light hologram silhouette thing from out of their portals, and they choose to make this spirit look humanoid as a sign of admiration for their owners. The halo form would be their default form tho, the spirit would only pop out during some attack animations and when it’s being cute on the farm. Look, mama! Just like you!

* I’m still working on a kind of ambiguous idea right now. it was originally intended to be a rock type cat, but the crystals looked more like ice and it somehow turned into a grandpa dragon along the way...

* Another idea i had was that the Fire type monster could be a small humanoid fairy with a sword for a tail. Spirits of the forge! They’d have a big lock around their neck and the flavour text would be that they’re primordial flame spirits who were sealed into this cute form by the gods for their mischief. So they’d most commonly have grumpy grandpa type personalities, and be all warriorlike, and get super pissed that everyone just finds it adorable!

And maybe there could be a secret sidequest to unchain them and get a new monster type? But they’re shy about their master maybe not liking them anymore now they’ve stopped being cute. YOU ARE STILL CUTE, LIL BUDDY!!! :( I’m not sure yet what the unsealed super form would be, maybe a more typical super buff lizardman genie thing? or maybe just a completely nonhumanoid dragon of doom

* I’m thinking of a whole bunch of names for them but really I cant decide! First impulse is just to call them Pixies or something, but that makes me think of the weird sexy monsters in Monster Rancher, lol Then I was thinking maybe just name them to reference a fire god- Maybe Vulcanus, Agni or Ogun? i know its kind of a trope in rpgs to have random enemies named after everyone from every mythology, even when its just a random shout out and they dont even look similar. But I don’t know if people from these religions find it insensitive? Then another thought was maybe ‘Maohs’. Like, a comically overblown evil overlord name for these adorable lil things! And maoh just literally is the japanese word for that story archetype, its not any specific mythological character. So it could be a cute reference to real life mythos without turning any actual major deity into a monster design.

* Another idea that summon-daze helped me with was a strange dog thingie that might be either water or grass? The idea is that its just a big goofy nose and tongue attatched to a giant puff of either grass or seaweed. (Depending on what element I decide to go for.) So its ambiguous whether this actually is a dog thats just covered in heavy fur, or if its a sentient hedge that just happens to have a doglike face. Either way, its huggable!

* Also i wanna have a mantis monster of some sort!! or another monster with mantis style arms. Mantises are just unfairly underappreciated cuties!