I've had a weird and incredibly silly idea for months now that in @j-h-cubedman 's Snowblind au, the player views the game as some kind of RTS. This doesn't really make any sense at all, but I thought it was funny so I made some really bad concept art for it.
I feel like you can tell which part I enjoyed drawing the most.
Anyway, it would be a top down grid (based on GBA Advanced Wars in this example) with terrain information like temperature, structure yields, and POWER bonuses. Speaking of POWER, the most important stat would be the Thorned Heir's POWER over the ice wastes, which is based on their Authority (how much the denizens of the wastes perceive them to be a proper ruler for one reason or another), Faith (how much religious fervor the denizens of the waste revere the Thorned Heir's court with [mostly relevant for the cathedral]), and Fear (this one's self-explanatory). There's also other stats like Rebellion, which is how much trouble Dess, Susie and co. are causing the player (the stat would change from snowflakes to flames as the rebellion ramps up); as well as various resources like how many snowblinded lightners and loyal darkners you have, building materials (maybe) and food (whether or not darkners actually need to eat is unclear to me). You've probably also noticed Miss Blizzle in that screenshot as well.
I was wondering who would be the tutorial NPC to teach the player the ins and outs of the sudden switch to a completely different style of game, and I landed on Miss Mizzle for some reason. Then I saw the opportunity for a pun and now it's Miss Blizzle, as well as the Blizzles (though Miss Mizzle is canonically... preoccupied. Though I did first think of this concept well before that was revealed).
I think Blizzles are either darkners that are native to the frozen wastes, as in they only exist because of the player's actions, or they'd be native to a theoretical Holiday Manor dark world. Either way, they *love* ice and snow for hopefully obvious reasons. They've also probably never existed in a non-snowy area, so to them this is all business as usual. Together, this means they would probably be some of the most fiercely loyal darkners in the entire game as they genuinely LIKE IT like this (I also like to imagine some of them disguise themselves as frozen mizzles before ambushing people). However, I think it'd be interesting if as more and more lightners and darkners are united against the player, Miss Blizzle becomes increasingly unhelpful and sarcastic towards the player... and then the player would probably command Noelle to freeze them (yes Noelle can freeze ice elementals, she's built different like that). I don't know, maybe that doesn't happen and she's loyal to the end. Either way would still be interesting to me.
Oh yeah. I also came up with a second UI screen.
This is where you'd view and upgrade the commanders of your armies and stuff (The Duchess might not be part of the Thorned Heir's court, but she has her own zone. I'd say she earns this spot). Notice how there's no way to back out of this menu. Graphic design is my passion. Also, you've probably noticed that I couldn't find a picture of Asgore that wasn't a silhouette, so I just didn't bother. As for minions; while I'm not sure who The Duchess or Toriel's minions would be, Asriel's are probably the Mikes and Tasque Manager (iirc she's in the mikes' new boss comic anyway), and Noelle's are probably Ramb and any other castle staff (possibly including Miss Blizzle).
