Some Kinda Saga: The Offenders

Brief Story Synopsis:

The game takes place in "Vid City", a crumbling, dystopian mega-metropolis.  The rich elite in the city peaks pacify the despondent population below with "vidz": holographic game experiences that give the players the chance to live as someone else.  The "vidz", despite how sloppy they are, are the only break from life the people of Vid City have.  

However, lately the vidz themselves have taken a dark, Orwellian turn as the "NewImprovedMinds", a group appointed by the elites to "enrich" the vidz, have instead been using them to control and dominate the populace for their own ends.  Lead by the mysterious "Master N", the "NIM" seek to plunge Vid City into a Kafkaesque nightmare of lunatic appeasement and obedience, using the vidz the populace normally enjoy as escapism.

The main character, an innocent everyday woman, runs afoul with NIM by chance and finds herself swept up with a revolutionary, and then an ever-growing ragtag band of characters by circumstance, into taking NIM on.  

Later, an "old-timer" is recruited into the party, who explains that "Vid City" was actually once just a small but beautiful tribe known as "Viddia", after their sacred tree.  The flowers of the tree allowed the people of Viddia to access "Gate", which allowed the user to free realize their true being across all possible experiences within time and space, and then take those memories home ("Like a gate...you can come and go as you wish, and the way always open").  

Unfortunately, Viddia mistakenly threw in with rich moneymen, whom transformed Viddia into Vid City, and cheapened Gate into the "hokey holographic carnivals" known as "vidz".  Now that same elite foolishly gave NIM power, which they are using to destroy Gate itself.

The endgame sees the main character and her band of heroes rise up against NIM's deadliest member, who is creating "its" own permanent-replacement for Gate: "HOLE", which as explained: "It's only one way...DOWN."

Ending: obviously the good guys win; NIM and the elites are destroyed, and Vid City crumbles, revealing Viddia reborn anew.




Overview of main elements, places, and characters:

BAD THINGS:

Vid City
Artistically it resembles dystopian stuff like Midgar from FF7 or Blade Runner's Los Angeles; piles of rundown buildings and loud, annoying ads everywhere, and people are constantly scrabbling for the city's currency, "Doridews" (a portmanteau of Doritos and Mountain Dew).  

However, by the time the game starts, thanks to NIM, there's definitely Orwellianism all over the place.  Pasted over the annoying ads (and, well, everything)  are "salutecational optimessages" from NIM, such as signs that read "YOUR ROLE MODELS" and flash pictures of celery, neutral human faces, and simply the word "US".  The citizens are forced to wear "Nod Collars", in which people must nod frequently ("microunity", explains NIM) for no real reason and never disengage the device or else be attacked by monsters and NIM's police forces.  It's basically like Blade Runner's city has been taken over by Orwell and "Brave New World".

The highest level of however is populated by the rich elite that created and run Vid City, the "Insultans".  (see below)  This golden, opulent section of Vid City, known as "Audax Adepto Abutor"  is completely at odds with the rest of it.  NIM and their police forces rule many sections below the Insultans.


The Insultans
These are minor villains in the story; they are 4 ridiculous opulent sheiks that took over Viddia and transformed it into Vid City.  Their names are:
-His Most Excellent Avarice (the greedy one)
-His Most Actively Voracious (the gluttonous one)
-His Most Maximal and Stupendous (the arrogant one)
-Fred (...this guy only repeats the line "I am Fred" and literally farts money)

As explained by one of the party members, The Insultans long ago approached Viddia after they survived a brutal war against an evil enemy, promising to help them build Viddia into a mighty city that no one could threaten.  This obviously was a mistake, as Viddia was transformed into the dystopian Vid City, and Gate cheapened into dull entertainment.  The Insultans meanwhile live a life of ridiculous luxury on the backs of the Vid City citizens as they bleed Gate dry.  

The Insultans' workforces that create the vidz themselves are called "Devoids".  In Vid City, devoids are sold as "heroes" that bring vidz to the masses, when in reality the Insultans have them locked up as slave labor in a brutal factory literally beneath them known as "Crockworks".  Those devoids that defy the Insultans are punished by being forced into a "sport" known as "Cannon Ball", in where the victims are shot at by cannons of an ever-increasing size (think Airships from Mario 3).

Some time before the game begins, the Insultans sensed an uprising brewing from Vid City and enlisted NIM to "enrichen" vidz and keep the populace in line.  The clueless Insultans sensed an "elitist kinship" with themselves and NIM, but as the plot shows, this proved to be their undoing as NIM steadily seizes control of Vid City.  During the story's big mid-game climax, the Insultans realized too late they are betrayed and are sucked into and destroyed by "HOLE".  The player can later find them in the game's final dungeon, all four combined into a mutated boss character called "Money Monster", and put them out of their misery (final words from Fred: "Brother can you spare a dime?" before farting several).


NIM
Aka "NewImprovedMinds".  The Insultans empowered these fascists to help pacify and control Vid City's citizens, only for them to subvert it for themselves without the Insultans knowing.  NIM is lead by the mysterious, power-hungry "Master N".

These guys are hilariously demented, evil and Kafkaesque, using ridiculous words as "microunity" and "indenormintidiousness", and imprisoning dissenters for ludicrous crimes like "privilinsolentarian creatividious unedification" and "Class 3 Unsanctioned Affection".  Much of their dialogue is actually taken DIRECTLY from the anti-#GG clowns themselves, such as calling the heroes "rapists" and stating "they must be broken on racks" (yes, actual quotes from major anti-#GG figures/SJWs).  

Their primary goal is to subvert vidz with bland, Orwellian "empowerific smahtessages", something which the populace begins to grow to resent, so they often resort to their major tools of the trade instead, which are as follows:

Nod Collars: Officially known as "unitybands", the colloquially-named "Nod Collars" force individuals to nod their head frequently.  NIM claims that the collars are also created to prevent random encounters with monsters, which are infesting the city (this is proven true by the player at the beginning of the game).  Detaching the collar is a crime.  

Prog-Gas: This mind-control gas is frequently sprayed on the populace to keep them in line.  It has the nasty side effect of turning the victim's shadow into a monster enemy.  This is seen as a more emergency measure by NIM.

JustIce: NIMs main police force.  They look like Stormtroopers or something, only with blocks of ice for helmets.  Their main slogan is "The Cool Breeze of Relentless Equity".  They are the player's main opponents when fighting regular enemies.

Corrective: This recent invention figures into the main plot, and is the most immoral of NIM's activities.  It's a red, gooey substance that oozes around Vid City and possesses subversives a la Venom Symbiote from Spider-Man, controlling them literally like puppets and wracking their bodies with pain if they disobey.

The game's main villain is a notable NIM member; Master N's "right-hand it" as a matter-of-fact.  This character betrays Master N himself along with the Insultans and killing them both with HOLE; see below.


Master N

Master N is the mastermind behind NIM.  The character looks like your stereotypical supervillain like Shredder from TMNT, only with a pig-shaped helmet that covers all of his features.  Master N is revealed later in the game to be just a talking pig in a mecha-suit underneath the helmet, cape, and armor.  

He spends much of the early game as the ubervillain, showing up to look badass and ordering his followers around.  It's revealed that unlike NIM's diehard faithful, Master N knows full well that NIM are idiots, and is using them as much as he can to gain power.  However, he himself ironically is being used by his "right-hand it", Sharko, whom betrays him along with the Insultans during the game's mid-game climax.  After revealing Master N's true pig form, Sharko disembowels him and kicks his remains into HOLE.  In the final dungeon, Master N's remains can be spotted roasting on a spit.

Before the mid-game climax, you can talk with an NPC that hints that Master N may actually be the character "Napoleon" from the book Animal Farm, having escaped to Vid City somehow via a portal before founding NIM.


Sharko

Sharko is the game's true villain.  At first just seen as Master N's "right-hand it", and a master scientist, Sharko is revealed to be the "pure-evil" archetype that is manipulating even the manipulators for its own ends.  Sharko represents the hateful nihilism that motivates many of the SJW's and anti-#GG crowd.  Its notable for using frequently the catchphrases "What artistic beauty." and "I'm hungry."

Sharko's character design is an androgynous intellectual wearing a mask made out of sharkskin.  There is no hint as to Sharko's gender or actual name or anything, and even Sharko refers to "itself" as only "it".  Only Sharko's hateful eyes are visible beneath the sharkskin mask, the rest is covered by gloves and clothing.  

Sharko's origins can be found by the player in optional sidequests.  It's revealed that Sharko's parents, living outside of Vid City, sold their child's "soul, heart, face, time, faith, and 'why'" for wealth and prestige.  This left Sharko an "empty shell", so empty that it was carried away by the winds and wound up traveling the world as a catatonic doll.  Sharko's catatonic adventures carried it to the ocean, where it wound up trapped on a raft surrounded by sharks, when at which point Sharko inexplicably came to life and killed one of the sharks, wearing its face as a mask ("I'm hungry").  The sharks came to worship Sharko as a god, and later Sharko would arrive at Vid City, working for NIM.

In the game, the player slowly learns that Sharko is pretty much completely evil, including even being a cannibal ("I'm hungry"), and killing off fellow NIMmers that suspect it of treachery.  It's also the "evil scientist" archetype, responsible for creating many horrors, including the monsters infesting Vid City (requiring the use of the "Nod Collars") and the "Corrective" goo that is slowly taking over the city.  The Corrective, the player learns, is actually being used by Sharko to create "HOLE", using the misery of the people infected by Corrective.   HOLE, as mentioned earlier, is an anti-force to the benevolent Gate, one that would transform Gate into a nightmarish realm of Sharko's design of which there is no escape.  

Sharko obviously becomes the game's final boss, where you enter the final dungeon (a giant HOLE in the sky threatening to swallow up Vid City), traveling "upwards" through the dungeon until the camera flips over in an epic way so that you are now traveling "downwards" to reach the eventual bottom.  During the final boss fight, Sharko claims that "HOLE has no bottom" and the battle travels further and further downward...until after the player wins the fight, Sharko and the player find themselves back where they started in Vid City.  In other words, traveling so far down, they pointlessly ended up back where they started.  This results in an "ouroboros effect" that engulfs and destroys HOLE and Sharko with it, ending the game (final words: "At least I'm no longer hungry...")



Other notable NIMmers
There's more, I just haven't thought of them yet. :)  They make up the major boss battles in the game.


Powerful Eon:
Powerful Eon, or "P. Eon", was appointed by NIM to manage vidz production and change them to become propaganda tools for NIM under her "smahtistic vision".  She is extremely dense and her vidz are notoriously awful, such as Instructions and her follow-up, Instructions 2: More Instructions.    She's a lampooning of the stupidities and arrogances of the indie gaming scene.  Nevertheless, "fasicounappreciators" that detract NIM vidz can expect a visit from JustIce.  Powerful Eon later stumbles onto Sharko's plan to use Corrective to create HOLE and dumbly tries to extort it; instead, Sharko eats her alive along with her fans in their own dining room.  Later, Sharko comments that even its resulting turds from that meal "somehow even smell stupid".


Farcy Darcy:
A weasely man whom manages NIM's Prog-Gas operations.  Farcy Darcy uses absolutely nasty rhetoric (much of it taken from real-life anti-#GG vitriol) to describe the good guys.  He's just a loathsome, obnoxious character, representative of elitist anti-#GG hatred, and the player will happily take him down in the first major victory for the good guys in the game, at Farcy Darcy's Prog-Gas Plant.  After the boss battle there, the plant explodes and Farcy is covered in Prog-Gas, rendering him hypnotized to any suggestion.  He will ask the player "What will you have me do, master?", after which the player can choose "Nothing." or "Go f*ck yourself."   If you choose "Nothing", Farcy will become a catatonic vegetable for the rest of the game; all of his dialogue is replaced with "..." and he makes no actions during cutscenes.  If you choose "Go f*ck yourself", Farcy will shove a NIM statuette up his rectum, hinted at during a related newscast.  ("...major rectal damage, apparently self-inflicted!  We'll have more updates...")  After this, Farcy will spend the rest of the game mostly trying to avoid shoving more objects up his rectum.  Either way, he makes a cameo in the game's final dungeon, and his final fate is unknown.


[unknown female]: 
Haven't figured out this one, but she runs JustIce, and is obssessed with "destroying" NIM's enemies.  Her obsession with the good guys ends up turning her into a sort-of Wil E. Coyote figure.


Deuce Bagger:
This guy is basically the wacky Ultros/Gilgamesh-style goofball villain of the game.  He's not an official member of NIM, but instead a bounty hunter, whom NIM hires to defeat the good guys, to no avail as he mostly just humiliates himself.  He's a pompous, arrogant "hero" in white knight armor, with long blonde hair and hilariously chiseled chin, and obviously a parody of internet "white knights".  As the Ultros/Gilgamesh villain, Deuce shows up here and there out of nowhere for an epic, off-the-wall boss fight, with each one becoming more and more ludicrous.  Like often with these types of villains, the player gives Deuce a final asskicking just before the mid-game climax, after which he has a cameo or two here and there.




GOOD THINGS:
Here we go into the recruitable party characters.  Keep in mind that the original design of their abilities was intended for a Broforce/Spelunky kind of game with Secret of Mana-style JRPG elements, however, we can change it to whichever kind of gameplay we want (including something like Mana or Isaac).
   
The Broforce + Mana game is that you are in a 2D platformer setting where you can break through walls, use guns and melee weapons, jump and wall jump, but there are also JRPG elements such as equips, stats, spells, magic points, HP and XP, towns, dungeons, and special moves.   XP works differently in this game however, as it is instead basically a currency you can use to buy more moves, spells, and stat increases in the menu screens (rather than the grindfest that it was in older JRPGs, in where if you kill enough monsters, you can't be touched no matter how you play and there's no need to develop strategies). 


The good guys are collectively known as The Offenders, a riff on "The Avengers".

THE OFFENDERS (playable characters)


B
Class: Revolutionary 

"B" is the actual name of this character, who is a parody reference to "V for Vendetta".  His class is "Revolutionary".  He's not the main character of the game, but one of the earliest recruitable party members and the easiest to show as an example of gameplay.  B represents real-life victims of the anti-#GG's smear campaigns and online bullying.

B appears much like the V character, but with a different mask.  He wears a red-themed trenchcoat and hat that make him resemble more the Liam Neeson character "Dark Man".  It is unknown what "B" stands for as not even the decidely-insane B himself is sure; he cites it differently every time, including "Bastard", "Bouncy", "Banned", "Boundless", "Breathe", and "Bubble Butt".

B was actually originally a member of NIM himself, until he was accused of "criminal misspeak".  During the incident, while eating pizza at a NIM meeting, B proclaimed "Hey-hey, love cheese!", which was misheard as "Baby, lick deez."  This single misunderstanding ruined B's life as he was immediately arrested and imprisoned in a reeducation camp.  While in the camp, Sharko used B as a test subject for the then-new prototype version of "Corrective", which permanently scarred B's face and mind.  B would later escape from the camp to become a revolutionary.

As a result of the prototype Corrective, B became very bad-ass, but also somewhat insane, with a split personality that haunts him and attacks himself with hate and scorn, even digitally; there are scenes were B reads hate mail and death threats from...himself.  The entire left-side of his body is scarred with red tissue as a result of the Corrective, necessitating the mask and trenchcoat.  He enters a delusional panic whenever he is around Corrective, and indeed, the player will see hallucinations and extra cutscenes if he/she plays as B while around areas covered in Corrective. 

However, the other party members, especially main character Cassandra Chai, help him recover through the course of the game, including freeing himself of both the Corrective inside him and the dark split personality created by it.
Another note: It's hinted that "B" may actually come from Sharko's catchphrase "What artistic beauty.", spoken during B's time as a test subject.  He officially designates "B" as meaning "Blessed" by the game's final chapter.

Class synopsis: 
B is the "Revolutionary" class.  He can use all the equip types, including guns, melee, and armor in the game, save of course for class exclusives.  As the Revolutionary, he can also exclusively use "trap" items such as Land Mines, Sentry Guns, Laser Tripwires, and more.  He also has the Riot Ability, which allows him to use the Corrective in his body to transform into a red monster of some kind, a la Vincent Valentine from FF7.  Riot can be charged up by delivering damage (or through other variants, such as "damage received"), then activated when the meter is full.



Cassandra Chai
Class: Gaiamancer

Cassandra is the main character of this game.  She is the first playable character and at first just an ordinary woman living in Vid City that through fate becomes a hero.  She is revealed early on to actually be a "Gaiamancer", someone who's soul is strong enough to literally change the world around her.  She represents #NotYourShield and was inspired by CameraLady.

At the start of the game, the player learns about this oppressive world through Cassandra's eyes, including propaganda vidz and NIM's "projustittacks".  However, at one point she suddenly finds courage to tell off JustIce thugs, after which, her Nod Collar shatters, rendering her a fugitive.  She meets up first with Viv (see below), then B, and then through more and more events a band of heroes join up to take down NIM.   During these events, it's discovered that she has a special connection to Gate that makes her a "Gaiamancer", which explains why her Nod Collar shattered and her powers manifested ("Looks like I'm fighting for me...even if I won't!").

The connection to Gate is revealed that a lost portion of her being (her "why") was once taken away, only to escape to Gate and nurture itself into a being that gives her strength.  The two eventually merge together again near the endgame, making the cycle complete.  In the current story draft, Cassandra and B sacrifice themselves together to stop HOLE and save Gate during the game's ending  ("We're both our shields.  OK?"  "Sounds good. :)".


Class synopsis: 
Cassandra is the "Gaiamancer" class.  It means she can literally convert chunks of the destructible environment around her into things like floating swords, armor, mecha, projectiles, clones, etc., along with the occasional buffs for allies.  The various "Gaiagear" objects have their own strength and HP values, meaning that they break down after a while and will require her to harness more from the environment.  Her abilities are bad-ass but she suffers otherwise from a slight lack of equips, especially armor and guns, and unlike B is probably not noob-friendly (which is fine by me).



Viv
Class: Mage

Yes, Viv is our reference to Vivian James.  I believe the Vivian James character is trademarked by TFYC, so either we would need permission or would have to make a homage of some kind.  For now, we are assuming we are using Vivian James.

Viv is the first recruitable character, becoming Cassandra's partner and essentially Virgil to Cassandra's (and the player's) Dante in the Inferno.  Together they discover Cassandra's Gaiamancer power early on, with Viv urging her on to "bring all the fuckers down with it".  

Viv in this game has a British accent ("Hard times soon for these NIMrods, yea lovies?")  and smokes frequently ("Don't fucking lecture me on my enjoying a slow-motion seppuku, ya tit.").  She has lots of quotes from famous philosophers and revolutionaries such as Voltaire, Descartes, Jefferson, and more, and her philosophy in choosing to fight NIM is acerbically simple ("If you see nasties bobbing about in a toilet, do you not flush it?")  In her background, Viv is the "roguiest of rogue mages", belonging to a guild of mages that ultimately betray her to side with NIM out of self-preservation. 


Class synopsis: 
Viv is the "Mage" class (as she explains: "A witch that needs no fucking broom nor cauldron.").  She's basically the magic user, with traditional "white" buff/heal magic ("ROFL") and black offense/debuff magic ("GTFO").  Her spells are references to both classic game spells and internet memes, such as "Trolleto" (Trollface + Meteo).  For a magic user, she has a lot of HP and defense, and her spells are powerful especially against bosses, but she suffers from a lack of offensive equips and, unlike most of the other characters, requires MP for her spells, meaning that without items to restore MP, she can be left useless.



Hottie McHotsauce
Class: Pirate

Hottie McHotsauce is a buxom attractive pirate captain that roams Vid City with her crew of pirate neckbeards.  She was originally a star vidz player until censorship from NIM brought her career low.   She represents both the futility of censoring art and the arrogance in trying to do so in the first place.

Hottie was originally the most popular player in a popular vidz known as "Pirate Booty!!", along with her crew of strapping pirates.  However, NIM shuts down Pirate Booty!!, revealing that her "strapping pirate crew" are actually neckbeards fans, however, Hottie is actually of the same beauty outside of the vid.  A confused JustIce arrests her anyway "for like hacking...somehow?". Undaunted, Hottie tries to resurrect Pirate Booty!! underground, only to be caught by JustIce again and again.  During the final instance, JustIce tragically kills Hottie's studly boyfriend, Chesty McCutie.   This pushes Hottie over the edge and she becomes a real-life pirate with her neckbeard crew, to avenge Chesty and also to continue role-playing (to much confusion) as a fake pirate.  In other words, all NIM's censorship accomplished was to destroy lives and make a fake pirate a real one.

Hottie is the fourth character to be recruited, running into the party frequently until finally joining them out of circumstance.  She is the hotheaded comic-relief of the party and turns the "cheesecake" stereotype the anti-#GG people seem to reflexively hate on its head.  She frequently argues with the group such as  "You guys need to fuckin' plunder more, dammit", and clashes comically clashes often with Viv and B.  She comes into her own later in the game and becomes a loyal ally.  At the end of the game, she is finally able, through Gate, to enjoy Pirate Booty!! in peace, where she reunites with the memory of her beloved Chesty.


Class synopsis: 
Hottie is the "Pirate" class.  She can use all melee and gun weapons in the game, and even better than the Revolutionary, as she is capable of Trick Shots at the cost of extra ammo (such as ricochet bullets, spread rocket fire, etc.)  She can also Plunder enemies for money and, in the case of bosses, rare items.  She can also summon her Pirate Neckbeards to use as meat shields and decoys.  Her drawback is that she has weaker armor equips than other characters and lower HP.



Smooth E
Class: Ninja

Smooth E is an African-American ninja.  He resembles Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden, only with a sharp-as-hell three piece suit.  He is normally a ninja-for-hire but joins with The Offenders out of principle.  He's inspired by the character Shadow from FF6 and represents the outside professionals that joined #GamerGate such as Nero, Christine Sommers, and Adam Baldwin.  The "E" stands for "Eesu", the Japanese romanji for "Ace" (エース)

Smooth E is the fifth character recruited.  After making a few cameos here and there, he formally encounters the Offenders as they are pursued by JustIce and NIM, now all officially Level 1 Terrorists.  JustIce tries to hire him on the spot, but to their shock, he has the Offenders outbid them by offering *less*.  If the player pays Smooth E, he will later literally sneak the money back into the player's menu screen (he can be briefly spotted sneaking away from the player's money counter).  This running gag is repeated several times.

Smooth E helps to organize the team and teach them life lessons such as "Keep ya head up.  Always."  and "You can't fight back while lying down."   NIM tries to retaliate against him by bringing up a dark tragedy from his past (echoing real-life smear campaigns), but the Offenders rally to him.  Smooth E thanks them for their aid, promising at the endgame instead of a paycheck, a "bet" with Cassandra on whether or not they can win against Sharko.  At the game's end, you can briefly check the menu screen to see that he did not take any money, but instead leaves flowers and a note stating "I just meant 'respect'. ;)"


Class synopsis: 
Smooth E is the "Ninja" class.  He cannot use guns and mostly only can use character-specific armor and melee, such as katanas.  As a Ninja, he has a double jump and can climb walls and ceilings (the other characters only have a wall jump).  He has various Strike abilities such as dash attacks, Izuna Drop, and other attacks you see in ninja games.  He also has Ninpo, which works like Viv's offensive spells save that they reference #GamerGate pros such as Nero's Flame and Adam Bomb.  All around, he is extremely useful, however, he is almost strictly a close range fighter (Ninpo requires MP) and can be harder to use for newbies.  



Champ
Class: Monk

Champ is an older man that resembles a cross between a neckbeard nerd and, say, Gouken from Street Fighter, or the prisoner from Metal Slug that fires Hadokens at enemies.  He is balding with a greying beard, and has a belly, but otherwise has extremely buff arms and legs, with nerd glasses (real nerd glasses) and a bad-ass kung-fu expression.  His clothing is just shorts, a wifebeater, and crusty Birkenstocks.  He provides a lot of backstory on life in Viddia before it became Vid City.  He represents older gamers (like me) disgusted by both the issues raised in #GamerGate and what the industry has become in general.  His name is a reference to the arcade classic "Karate Champ".

Champ appears often as a prominent NPC until he is eventually goaded into the party by Cassandra.  He was once a member of the Viddia tribe, having run away from home and finding himself there.  Under the tutelage of the tribe leaders Father Shiggy and Mother Berta, a young Champ learns about the Viddia Tree and Gate, and how Gate allows the soul to journey through all possible experiences within time and space, freeing it from where it is trapped normally.  Through Shiggy and Berta, he becomes especially masterful with Gate, able to create worlds and lifetimes within it for his fellow tribe.  

The tribe eventually comes under seige from a pair of villains named "J&J" (a reference to Joe Lieberman and Jack Thompson).  Though defeated, J&J try to nuke the Viddia Tree, only for Shiggy and Berta to sacrifice themselves to merge with the tree, saving the tribe (Cassandra and B do this themselves at the end of the game).  Later, the Insultans appear to offer "their services" to make the tribe mighty.  Against Champ's warnings, the tribe throw in with the Insultans, with Champ too despondent at losing his mentors to stop them, and in a time-lapse sequence, you can see Viddia transform into Vid City, while Champ withers away to an older curmudgeon.  After hearing this story, Cassandra and several other events spur him to join the party for "One last continue."

Champ frequently breaks the fourth wall, much to the characters' confusion, and he seems to be the only character to know that he's in a videogame.  When he is first met, if the player asks him "Why are you in a bad mood?" he'll answer "I've been stuck at the stupid dungeon for days now, that's why."  He cracks that the term vidz "Sounds like freakin' porn; the writers weren't even trying".  He reacts to Master N with "This guy is a douche, where's Captain N?", and at the endgame, he'll actually count the amount of times the player got a game over ("Even though we all died [x] times, we still got this far..."  "??? We never died...?"  "Trust me, we got like [x] game overs.  Next time, don't forget to buff and heal, pls."  It's hinted that his close ties to Gate allows him to realize that they are all in a videogame.


Class synopsis: 
Champ is the "Monk" class.  Typical of this class in JRPGs, he uses his fists/kung-fu, has high stat levels and requires minimal upkeep as far as equips go.  Unlike Smooth E however, he has longer range and more options with various Street Fighter/DBZ moves like a Kamehameha-style move and i-frame abusing grabs such as Train Suplex.  His attacks can also destroy much of the environment around him more easily than any other character save for Cassandra.



Devette Lyra 
Class: Enforcer

Devette is a former Devoid-turned "Enforcer"; someone transformed into a killing machine by the Insultans to enforce their devoid slave labor.  She looks like your typical anime bad-ass, maybe fantasy-ish or cyber-ish, I dunno.  She represents the struggle devs have in the gaming industry with censorship, corporatism, and poor quality of life.  She also represents a phenomena I see with devs in the modern industry that grow to hate their profession.

She begins the game as a villain, assigned by the Insultans as a mindless weapon to aid NIM in destroying the Offenders.  However, the Offenders free her from captivity.  The player can give her the option to live her life in peace or recruit her; if the player lets her live her life in peace, she may join the party soon anyway if the player made the right decisions during the game.  Thus, as of this time she's optional, that can be changed at any time however.

Devette originally bought into the propaganda that devoids live a life of luxury and glory, only to find out too late that the life of a devoid is slave labor.  Devette eventually kills one of her slave drivers, which spurs the Insultans to transform  her into an "Enforcer" designed to eliminate rogue devoids.  Cassandra's and Champ eventually help her reconnect with her creativity via Gate, freeing her from control.

At the end of the game, Devette helps the deceased Unknown create the long lost viddia experience he literally died trying to make (see Pawlie, below).


Class synopsis: 
Champ is the "Enforcer" class.  She has access to all equips, even a few that are character specific.  She can Reprogram enemies into things like allies or timebombs, or even Reprogram her allies or herself with temporary abilities such as infinite jumps, super-speed, etc.  In addition, she can use Develop to cause effects that attack the code of the game itself (i.e. in a break-the-fourth-wall way), such as causing the enemies to all drop healing items or allies to resurrect after dying in a "glitch".



Pawlie the Dancing Cat
Class: Mascot

Pawlie is the final character, and resembles a mascot character from the 90's, like Sonic or Aero the Acrobat (in his case, a cute cat in a Saturday Night Fever outfit).  Like Devette, at this time he's optional, but that can change.   He represents the creativeness that still exists in gaming despite the influences on the industry as of late.

Pawlie is actually a fictional creation of an unnamed vidmaker (known only as  “Unknown” within our dev team).  Unknown is determined to make his “vid masterpiece”, Pawlie the Dancing Cat, a vid about a heroic cat in a dancing outfit that defeats his enemies by dancing (a sort of dancer-version of Sonic the Hedgehog).  Unknown approaches the Insultans with his vision, but they merely enslave him into Crockworks along with Devette.  There, Unknown continues to slave away until he someday sees his vision of Pawlie come to life.  Working in Crockworks eventually leaves him scarred and lame, and ultimately the Insultans forget who he is and use him instead for Cannon Ball.  

After escaping Cannon Ball, Unknown continues his quest to make a great vid for Pawlie but finds himself hunted by NIM for “privilinsolentarian creatividious unedification”.  Nevertheless, Unknown refuses to give up on his quest to see a Pawlie vid created until he literally tires himself to near-death and collapses, entering a permanent coma.  While Unknown is comatose, Pawlie himself  comes to life as on his own, a living figment borne out of a deep connection to the effects of Gate (in this case, Unknown’ dream of seeing Pawlie made someday).  The fictional Pawlie ironically not only becomes real, but a caretaker to his own comatose creator.

Pawlie will randomly appear in battles, aiding the player, until eventually fading away (due to Unknown's coma).  He eventually rescue's the player's party at one point, introducing them to Unknown and his situtation.  In an optional sidequest, the player can aid Pawlie in saving Unknown only to always see him die at the end.  Pawlie finds himself still living on, finding that restoring Viddia and seeing Unknown's dreams through, along with the power of Gate, allows him to "keep dancing even when the music stops!"  

At the end of the game, Pawlie helps the party survive HOLE's initial collapse and disappears at last with Viddia restored.  Devette and Champ finish Unknown's masterpiece for him, allowing Pawlie to return again.  Unknown's spirit can be seen enjoying the viddia from the audience seats.


Class synopsis: 
Pawlie is the "Mascot" class.  He's an extremely strange character to use, I don't think I've seen something quite like him.  The player can select a "Dance", which sends out an aura from Paulie that will buff allies or debuff enemies (depending on which Dance is used).  During a Dance, Pawlie will call out button combinations as "steps", which can not only be used to increase the size and power of the aura, but even "Segue" into other Dances to stack up multiple effects.  Using Dance carefully, the player can transform Pawlie into a walking zone of overbuff/overdebuff.  In addition, he has basic attack moves (called "Serve"), but his main focus is Dance.  In fact, Pawlie otherwise has minimal equips (only character-specific ones), and really relies on Dance to be effective.