Claudius Caesar
That 90's Boy
When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth...
Best of all, you fine forum members can have the honors of being the very first ones to participate in this epic project of mine! Not only am I posting this work here first, but you guys will get the latest updates before anyone else will.
Do any of you folks remember those old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books from way back when you were a kid? They were very popular in the 1980's and 1990's, and they continued to make them into the early 2000's.
Hell, they're still making books with that similar format to this day if you know where to look. Also, there was that Dark Mirror show on Netflix which was basically a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book but in movie format. (I never saw it, but I did hear about it)
Well, this is a fan fiction variant of "Choose Your Own Adventure" and here's how it works...
Each chapter will end with a series of decisions that the readers can make. It can be a simple choice or it can be a major decision, but each choice will have an affect on the direction of the story and ultimately how it ends.
As the readers of the story, you can post which choice you want to take and whichever choice is the most commonly picked will be the one that is decided for the next chapter.
Updates will be done at a minimum of at least once a week, with more updates in the same week possible depending on the activity of the readers, the more quickly we get votes for choices, the more likely I'm going to make multiple story updates in the same week.
The in-game mechanics will be solved in a manner similar to tabletop role-playing games (think Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, or the World of Darkness games) but the system itself will only really be a concern to me as the writer. All you have to do is read the chapters and cast your votes!
Basically, events reliant on probability such as combat or evasion can be decided by an online dice roller or random number generator, with modifiers taken into account based on the character's abilities and other variables. Again, don't worry too much about that part as a reader.
Now, as for the setting....
If you haven't already figured it out by now, the story is a Zombie Apocalypse AU heavily inspired by the zombie films of the late great George A. Romero, specifically Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), and Day of the Dead (1985) and the setting is a fictionalized version of the Eastern United States in a late 20th Century that never truly was.
The specific year for the story is 19XX and that essentially means "after Woodstock but before 9/11", so anywhere from 1969-2001 and as such, the world of 19XX freely blends fashions, technologies, and pop culture from the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's.
In this setting, the United States is in the beginning phases of a zombie outbreak caused by a mysterious virus known as Project Crimson and while the country hasn't been completely overrun yet, cracks are beginning to appear and things are getting more and more out of control each passing day, and Congress has even declared full martial law across the entire United States, including Alaska, Hawaii, and the territories of Puerto Rico and Guam.
In addition to the growing threat of zombies, there are also human enemies and environmental hazards to deal with in this open-ended survival horror story. So keep that in mind....
The main protagonist is one of the survivors and in true campy fan fiction form, is also a character from one of the Final Fantasy games that we all know and love. Each character also has a Job, which gives a glimpse into what they were up to before the outbreak began as well as determine what items they start the game off with.
There are five Jobs, and each one corresponds to a specific Final Fantasy character. The Job names are listed in bold, with the corresponding character in parentheses. Since this is an AU, they will not have any magical or supernatural abilities in this story.
Thug (Squall Leonhart)
Biker (Noctis Lucis Caelum)
Ninja (Yuffie Kisaragi)
Cop (Rinoa Heartilly)
Soldier (Cloud Strife)
But before we kick off the story proper, I will let you guys make two major choices to start the story off...so be sure to start posting your choice right away!
Decision 1: What Job Should The Main Character Have?
A. Thug
B. Biker
C. Ninja
D. Cop
E. Soldier
Decision 2: What Difficulty Level Are We Playing On?
A. Kawaii Mode-"Can I Play Daddy?" (Easy difficulty)
B. Shonen Mode-"Hey, not too rough!" (Medium difficulty)
C. Seinen Mode-"Bring 'em on!" (Hard difficulty)
D. Guro Mode-"I Am Death Incarnate!" (Dante Must Die difficulty)
If you are interested in an interactive fan fiction project like this, be sure to respond with your picks for Decisions 1 and 2 right away!
