Unprompted ideas for Underland Chronicles video games
Well, if the god damn hunger games never got a video game adaptation then underland chronicles never will either, but I can daydream about this.
First: The ones that actually engage with the themes of the story, the faithful adaptations:
The Underland Chronciles: a Telltale series:
Like it says on the tin, a classic Telltale games style story driven narrative adventure game with light slight branching based around your choices. Play as Gregor in a retelling of the five books' events, but with some choices thrown in. In the jungle do you give the shrimp and creamsauce to the kids, or do you give it to Ripred? Ripred will remember that. "Why do you walk two blocks to the laundromat, it's the same price, I checked"
[|||||||||||||| ]
Y) ...
X) the washers are bigger there?
B) Mind your own business!
A) I dunno, it's just what mom says to do
And of course, the final decision:
[||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Y) ...
X) Side with Luxa
B) Side with Ripred
A) Refuse to chose, "kill" the warrior
Disco Underland:
Disco Elysium, but set in the underland instead. A narrative RPG where your skills are not combat, but rhetoric and empathy and intellect and stuff. Navigate the tense cyclical trauma of an underland in between wars. Someone in regalia died, and it's your job to figure out who was responsible. All evidence points to a ganwer doing it, and that's what everone wants to believe. Do you tell them the truth, or tell them what they want to hear. If you prove the gnawers innocence will it matter? Perhaps a gnawer did do it, and that's the truth, but telling the truth will lead to a war. Is it worth it to lie and deny justice and closure to the family if it averts something worse? idk, there's legs there
The Underland Trail:
You and your band of diverse underland inhabitants need to get from point a to point b. Encounter random events and manage dwindling resources in an endlessly replayable Oregon Trail style game. Half way to the deadlands and oh no, your only human falls and cuts himself badly. No one else in the group has opposable thumbs. Maybe the spinners can treat him but do you want to take that risk?
Next, we have the neutral adaptations, the ones that make good use of the source material but don't really do anything with the themes
Batball Online:
A sports game where you can play whatever game they were in the middle of before Gregor shows up. Play as either a human or flyer to play different roles, party up with your bond and work together to score goals and climb the ranks against other players in ranked online lobbies. Obviously it's gonna have a detailed character creator and battle pass so you can deck out your human and bat with all manner of (tasteful) cosmetics.
[This would also work as just a mini game side mode in a different game]
Uncharted (lands):
An uncharted style modern 3rd person action adventure game. You could go full playstation exclusive and make it a blue tinted third person action game with themes of fatherhood where you can contextually climb on things. You and your bond are lost in the uncharted land and need to work together to survive. Gameplay is split between on the ground traversal/ exploration, puzzle solving, and tense flying sections. It'd be really cool if you could even play co-op with one player being the human and one player being the bat
Okay, now we've got to the unfaithful adaptations. These ones sure are underland games, and I bet they'd be super fun as well, but they definitely would be in poor taste for what is an anti-violence anti-war story. Suzanne would probably not approve...
Uncharted (Lands)... But you kill people in it:
Basically the idea from above, but with fighting mechanics and lots of combat encounters. Lots of in depth mechanics that utilize both bond's unique abilities and fighting styles. Utilize cool named combo moves like "the coiler". Stealth is interesting too, flying is fast but climbing on walls is quieter. Echo location tells you about the environment but reveals your location.... there's cool game design options there
Underland: Total War:
A 4x-ish grand strategy game in the vein of the total war series. Multiple different factions all with their own play-style, macro objectives, and available units. Engage in diplomacy, try to get unaligned factions to join your cause, and when war breaks out zoom in to intense RTS battles with hundreds of units that you can micro manage in massive subterranean three dimensional environments. Humans are great damage dealers but need light, Gnawers are deadly and easy to micro but have little in the way of tech and specialization, Flyers are mobile and great scouts but are fragile in a fight, Crawlers don't deal great damage but can hold a choke point like no one else... you get the picture. Don't even get me started on Rager Hero Units and prophecies. Play as Solovet and unlock new technology like "Fire arrows" and "The curse of the warmbloods", play as Gorger be sure to keep your overland prisoners healthy while they work on inventing guns for you, or play as Ripred and play both sides until the time is right to betray them both!
Dynasty Ragers:
Ripred tends to crack at 400 to 1? Wanna put that to the test? Play as everyone's favorite war criminal hearthrob and/or father figure as you slaughter hoards uppon hoards of enemies with his trademark spin attack in mindless hack-and-slash dynasty warriors style gameplay. Oh and of course we have to give him a dedicated emote/quip wheel. Is this what the Underland chronicles is about? Not at all! Would it be awesome? I mean yeah probably, but I'd feel really guilty playing it.
Yeah those were my ideas, thought I'd write them down. Feel free to add your own in the reblogs and the comments.
12 notes
·
View notes