Story Idea Pitch, everyone else was doing it.... Options

[Alt_Jack]

So I had this idea for a long time, and wanted to see if it had any grounds for a game. I'll let the main character describe the situation:

I suppose that I should start from the beginning....There are these things, these creatures, called
Pocket Monsters or \"Pokemon. Magic creatures with all kinds of crazy powers. One day someone got
the bright idea that we should start capturing them in little tiny balls called Pokeballs to turn them
into pets. And we did. We raised them, bred them, and even created giant arenas where we would battle
them against each other in tournaments. Some people, though, didn't like that idea; they thought that
Pokemon should be free and not have to fight or be kept in little tiny balls. So they went to a criminal organization known as Team Rocket with plans for a what they told them was a "Pokemon Mind-Control Device". It took a while and probably cost them a pretty penny, but they managed to build it. Except it wasn't a mind control device at all, something that their leader didn't clue into until it was too late. It turns out that
the machine was actually a giant EMP, programmed specifically to disrupt the energy that Pokeball
relied on to capture and contain Pokemon. ...So that was it. Silph Co., which was the largest supplier and manufacturer of Pokeballs went bankrupt overnight. I hear they make billiard balls now. But, there's a new piece of technology that's all the rage these days: they call it a firearm or a gun. Whatever. What's really disturbing is that they say some people are starting to evolve just like Pokemon and gain strange powers. It's a little hard to believe, but look at things now. As for the Pokemon themselves, it apparently never
occured to the people who built the machine that it might have a negative effect on Pokemon as well
since they naturally possess and energy similar to the kind that Pokeballs used. A lot of Pokemon
died as a result and whole species went extinct overnight. Needless to say, the group, known as the
People Liberating Oppressed Pokemon or PLOP for short. There's a bit of chagrin about the group name, but when you trick a mass criminal organization into destroying trillions of dollars in technology and killing millions of innocent creatures "PLOP" just doesn't seem nasty enough.

Yeah, I know, post-apocolypitic Pokemon game. The mass-extinction scenario provides a handy explaination as to why all 9 million Pokemon aren't in the game, and the mutation explains why certain folks can use magic.

The main character
He's a bartender and former Silph Co. employee whose dad owns a tauros farm up north. Losing his job really didn't do much for his character, so he's not your usual gung-ho Trainer. He was originally one of the testers of pokeballs, so he's very skilled with throwing weapons.

The friend
His first appearance involves eagerly showing up for ladies' night, so you can kind of guess his character. His parents run one of the largest firearm companies on the planet, so naturally he's going be skilled in gunplay. His uncle Is (or was) Giovanni, the leader of the now-disbandedTeam Rocket, so he's got a bit of a vendetta.

[u]the girl[u]
The one with the "special powers" that the Friend meets after ladies' night is cancelled due to severe property damage. She's introduced to the main character early on, but she doesn't have a full array of magic; there are 5 different "versions", and you're randomly assigned one of them for the rest of the game.

System: RMVX Ace (thought I'd give it a try)

So, feedback, anyone?

[Sparrowsmith]

Take the emphasis off of the little tiny balls. It's kind of pointing out the ridiculous concept of pokemon, and makes the rest of the plot seems sillier. It wasn't until I got to the mass extinctions and apocalypse scenario that I started taking it seriously again.
Honestly, apocalypse pokemon sounds pretty cool, I'd like to see it anyway.
As for those little balls, try offering an explanation similar to what you did later on in the introduction
"a negative effect on Pokemon as well
since they naturally possess and energy similar to the kind that Pokeballs used."
You say that the pokemon and pokeballs exist using a certain energy. So don't say 'little tiny balls' earlier in the introduction when you've got a much better description later.

I'm interested to see where this goes. Do you have anything else you can divulge about the plot and/or characters?

[Alt_Jack]

Take the emphasis off of the little tiny balls. It's kind of pointing out the ridiculous concept of pokemon, and makes the rest of the plot seems sillier. It wasn't until I got to the mass extinctions and apocalypse scenario that I started taking it seriously again.
Honestly, apocalypse pokemon sounds pretty cool, I'd like to see it anyway.
As for those little balls, try offering an explanation similar to what you did later on in the introduction
"a negative effect on Pokemon as well
since they naturally possess and energy similar to the kind that Pokeballs used."
You say that the pokemon and pokeballs exist using a certain energy. So don't say 'little tiny balls' earlier in the introduction when you've got a much better description later.
I'm interested to see where this goes. Do you have anything else you can divulge about the plot and/or characters?

They aren't really that big of a plot element; it's just explaining why you can't capture them and why they're running all over the place. There's more of a philosophical/social undertone to it. You go from visiting your dad on his tauros farm where everything's a-ok to battling gangs of mankeys who've abandoned their trainers and now bust up local businesses looking for food. It's kind of a Jurrasic Park-esque scenario; the control systems have failed and the creatures can run free, so now what do we do? We can't capture them, but we can kill them, so should we? We had no problem battling them to the death for sport.
I remember there was this one episode of the old show when the Pokemon got seperated from Ash and Co. You saw the Pokemon's personalities emerge and it was like "oh yeah, I forgot they were characters, too". You see stories about bears wandering around suburbia and it's like "what if that was an aggron? Now what do we do? " So you're kind of put into that scenario.

This post has been edited by Alt_Jack: Mar 30 2012, 12:18 PM

[X-M-O]

I don't know, all the "big business collaboration with Team Rocket" seems rather hyped, but that part of the story becomes... the history that leads you to the current story. I think if you went the route of "pokémon have evolved in such a way that they can't be confined to pokéballs any more", that you could continue to evolve that mystery and how it correlates with the sudden evolution of humans gaining similar powers as pokémon.
Because, unlike the "it happened once" scenario with Team Rocket, the idea that pokémon have evolved to become their own masters is a much more interesting idea (to me anyway).
We've all heard about Team Rocket and some doomsday plans or whatever, but an "EMP incident" might not affect every area everywhere, so you'd have loopholes and such. But if you were to take it to the route I've mentioned (an evolution where humans are also evolving for some strange reason) you can begin to have scientists in the game trying to discover what is happening to effect humans and pokémon alike in order to cause them to evolve in these ways.
An example reason for the "sudden evolution" scenario could involve a Deoxys pokémon accidentally crashing into the planet and dying, thus allowing its DNA to travel across the planet and influence evolution directly (just as a random idea for the reason behind the sudden evolution).
Of course, you could come up with any idea to be the cause of the sudden evolution, but I think that idea works better than the Team Rocket (does it again) EMP deal. =\

[Sparrowsmith]

I'd have to agree with XMO actually. The EMP angle is somewhat farfetched. There are better alternatives.