I came up with an idea for a videogame a few weeks ago that’s basically the unholy offspring of No Straight Roads, Skylanders, and The Binding of Isaac. Sinrapturous!
The basic premise is as follows:
In the year 2195, the evangelical multimedia company ChristCorp secretly devises a plan to take over the world by causing the events in the Book of Revelation to occur in real life through the use of several biomechanical abominations. To convince his company that they’re doing the right thing, ChristCorp CEO Gregor Thomas commissions the construction of seven robotic girls made of nanobots programmed to behave in accordance to the Seven Deadly Sins as examples of the types of people who won’t survive the Rapture.
However, when focus group testing reveals that people are reluctant to believe that a robot could possibly be sinful, Thomas has seven Italian-American baby girls kidnapped and uses a device called the Eveviscerator to replace almost all of their skeletal muscles and all of their nervous, endocrine, digestive, excretory, and lymphatic systems with the ones in the robot babies. 1001 weeks (about nineteen years and three months) later, the so-called Sin Drones tire of their constant mistreatment and their looming termination and escape. They take shelter with Alexander Dante, an atheist handyman who teaches them how to fight. When ChristCorp begins their machinations for the Real-life Rapture, the Sin Drones set out to destroy the many abominations intended to kill those outside ChristCorp’s target demographic and expose the company’s true nature, while Gregor sends seven robotic Heavenly Virtues out to stop them.
The game would be M-rated at LEAST for gore, profanity, sexual references, nudity, and highly advanced philosophical concepts. The player would be able to play as any one of the Sin Drones, switching through them as needed. Each Drone would have her own strengths, weaknesses, and fighting style.
Enemies would drop money (which can be used to purchase new weapons and upgrades as well as the other items on this list), food (which would restore small amounts of health), health packs (which would restore larger amounts of health), soda (which would restore charge points on special moves), keys (which unlock chests and certain side paths), and brainfruits (cybernetic fruits that count towards level progression; you’d need to get twenty-eight brainfruits and complete the chapter’s objective before you can fight the boss). The enemies are inspired by animals and monsters from Abrahamic mythology.
I’ve also drawn the Sin Drones themselves, and here they are!
Vanna is the Drone of Pride. A cocky, boastful young woman whose bragging about her abilities isn’t completely unfounded, Vanna is the team’s de facto leader as she’s the one who comes up with the gang’s various schemes (although she never completely thinks them through, leaving the end result reliant on contrived coincidences) and is also the oldest. She can only use firearms (which, due to my dislike of guns, fire everything but bullets). Her active ability, Multi-hit Mayhem, hits every enemy in the area with her highest-damaging shot and requires a 10-enemy charge (i.e. she has to kill ten enemies to perform the ability). She has the lowest starting health of the Drones and compensates with her passive ability, Heart Hunter, which gives her a 10% higher likelihood of getting a health pack from enemies, chests, and vending machines. (Health packs restore 50HP on consumption; by comparison, foodstuffs only restore a random number between 10 and 20HP on consumption unless the food item in question is the Drone’s favorite food. Health does regenerate over time, but slowly, and when a Drone’s HP hits zero the player is automatically kicked to the next Drone over.) Conversely, her starting accuracy is the highest, and she only misses one shot in every twenty.
ChristCorp tried to curb her boastfulness by gaslighting her. They often tested her on Bible trivia and changed the questions before grading her, resulting in her always receiving zeroes. This made her insecure about her own brain, and she covered it up…with more boastfulness. She’s the second-smartest of the Drones after Ava, but believes that she’s dumber than she actually is.
Lavinia is the Drone of Wrath. Second-eldest of the bunch, resident brawler Lavinia is easily-frustrated, incredibly violent, and is by far the strongest one of the bunch, her mechanical muscles enhancing her strength far beyond what a full-bodied human could pull off. Her active ability, Lava Fields, allows her to strike the area she’s in so hard that half of the tiles on the screen will heat up and become molten rock. Her passive ability, Jackie of All Trades, allows her to use any weapon from any weapons pool, including those from the Non-specific pool. Her starting damage output is the highest out of all the Drones, allowing her to completely oneshot the game’s weakest enemies; conversely, her starting accuracy is the lowest, and every third strike misses. (The Drones can, thankfully, purchase upgrades that reduce the impacts of their weaknesses.)
Most of Lavinia’s violent tendencies are directed towards bullies. ChristCorp tried to curb her temper, even if her complaints were largely justified, by beating the snot out of her until she was too weak to fight back. It only made her hate them more, and thus more inclined to use physical violence against ChristCorp’s employees. Learning how to overcome the compulsion to maul that’s embedded deep within her programming forms a major part of Lavinia’s character arc.
Ava is the Drone of Greed. The third-eldest of the bunch, her greed extends to knowledge and not just money, firmly placing her as the gang’s resident genius. She can only use ranged weapons such as bows & arrows and slingshots. Her active ability, Money Shot, allows her to fire a high-velocity coin dealing three times her default maximum damage at an enemy of her choosing at the expense of fifty cents. Her passive ability, Wallet Looter, doubles the amount of money that she gets from killing enemies. Her starting speed is the highest out of all the Drones, allowing her to cover eight tiles in five seconds. Conversely, her starting range is the lowest, her shots only traveling for 2.3 tiles before landing.
ChristCorp tried to curb her greed by taking away anything she had in her hands that she tried to bring with her to her cell, even little things like pencils and toilet paper. She ended up becoming a hoarder because the repeated intrusions made her fearful that anything she owned would be stolen soon after. She’s quite adept at smuggling things by hiding them between her breasts, as that was the one place that ChristCorp never thought to check (which, considering that she’s got the smallest bust of the Sin Drones, is a feat in and of itself).
Nimia is the Drone of Gluttony. The resident cook and medic, middle-in-age Nimia is usually a chipper, perky girl whose “sinful” attributes only appear when she’s presented with food. She can only pick up bladed weapons that aren’t swords, e.g. axes and hatchets. Her active ability, Vore It, allows her to completely restore her health by consuming enemies. Her passive ability, Acquired Poison Immunity, prevents poison-based attacks from damaging her at all. She has the highest starting fortitude out of all the Drones, with any attack she receives only dealing her 5/36ths of its actual damage. Conversely, her starting fire rate (i.e. her attacking speed) is the lowest at 1.6 shots/five seconds.
Nimia’s programming forces her to be constantly hungry, a fact compounded by her impressive height of 6′4″ necessitating a large appetite just to function. ChristCorp tried to curb her appetite by regularly starving her for weeks at a time. Not only did this fail horribly, it also caused her to develop pica, with a focus on books as the only thing she would have with her during her forced fasting periods would be the Bible.
Invidia is the Drone of Envy. The third-youngest of the bunch, Invidia is the gang’s resident historienne, using the biblical knowledge she was forced to learn as a child to predict ChristCorp’s next moves in the Real-life Rapture. Usually an acerbic, cynical young woman, Invidia has trouble recognizing her own accomplishments and often freezes up in self-loathing spirals. She can only pick up swords. Her active ability, Evil Eye, allows her to deplete half of a selected opponent’s health. Her passive ability, Snake Charmer, means that reptilian non-boss enemies won’t attack her at all. She has the lowest starting damage of all the Drones, dealing only ten damage maximum to any enemy she strikes. She makes up for it by having the highest starting fire rate and can swing a sword ten times in five seconds, i.e. twice in one second.
Invidia frequently acted up when she was a kid due to her jealousy driving her to rudeness. ChristCorp tried to curb her jealousy by locking her up in her threadbare cell whenever she acted out because of her jealousy, but it only made it worse because then she had much less petty things to envy others for (like getting to go outside), and she became even snappier as she grew older. Having freedom (and the freedom to be jealous of dumb things), as well as acknowledgement of what she can make others envious of, does wonders for her self-esteem.
Francesca (usually shortened to Frankie by the other Drones) is the Drone of Lust. The second-youngest of the bunch, she’s a perpetually-horny pervert who’s constantly distracted by her lewd thoughts; consequently, she’s not the brightest bulb in the box, but is still miles ahead of ChristCorp’s target audience. She can only pick up flexible weapons like whips and riding crops (ironically, she gets stereotypical BDSM weapons despite hating BDSM owing to the physical abuse she received as a child; more on that later). Her active ability, Dirty Russian Joke, allows her to temporarily paralyze all enemies in the area for twenty seconds, useful for low-health enemies that come in high numbers. Her passive ability, Brain Fryer, gives her a 10% higher likelihood of picking up brainfruits from enemies and chests; if you’re running low on them and need them soon, try switching to Frankie. Her starting range is the highest out of all the Drones, allowing her strikes to cover 9.24 tiles. Conversely, her fortitude is the lowest, only reducing any damage she receives to 80% of its maximum value.
Frankie does have standards when it comes to dating (only date people more or less her own age, avoid people who are abusive/drug users/have piercings), and she won’t flirt with someone who’s in a relationship or has an incompatible orientation, but due to her restrictive upbringing she is bad at telling what is and isn’t appropriate, often needing it spelled out explicitly for her. ChristCorp tried to curb her sexual appetite by beating her for even looking at someone romantically (especially if said someone was female), usually via spanking. As a result, Frankie’s repressed sexuality worsened her ability to discern sexual harassment from mutual flirting.
Frankie will also be the only Drone with a confirmed sexuality in-game, being a polyamorous panromantic pansexual (she’s the only one whose sexuality really matters to her, after all), though it’ll be heavily implied that the other Drones are similarly queer and that all seven of them are in a relationship of some sort with each other (and no, the Drones are NOT blood relatives, their wide variety of skin tones and hair types really should’ve tipped you off on that).
Last of all is Trista, the Drone of Sloth. The youngest and least motivated of the Drones, Trista’s frequently seen napping and generally being a lazy bum. She can only pick up blunt weapons like clubs and bricks. Her active ability, Acedia, reduces the speed of incoming enemies to 20% of their default speed for thirty seconds. Her passive ability, Efficient Charger, reduces her ordinarily 12-enemy charging speed to 6-enemy (it pays to be well-rested). Her starting health is the highest out of all the Drones at a whopping 400HP. Conversely, her starting speed is the lowest, and she can only cover 1.11 tiles in five seconds.
Trista was already pretty unmotivated, often half-assing things and occasionally falling asleep mid-sentence. ChristCorp tried to curb her laziness by beating her up every time she fell asleep or half-assed something. This only increased her apathy towards life, because she came to regard her beatings as inevitable and any action to better her circumstances unlikely. When she is motivated, though, watch. Out.
And that’s them! When will I design the mysterious Alexander “Alex” Dante? Gregor Thomas and his many loyal underlings? The Seven Heavenly Virtues? The vicious cybernetic sheep that are the lambkins? No idea, but I will someday!
Also, before you ask, NO, the events of the Bible DID NOT create the Sinrapturous universe. Their universe was created in accordance with the scientific consensus for its creation, and none of the demonic creatures, a.k.a. abominations, encountered in-game existed before ChristCorp created them in its secret labs.
Also, here’s a size comparison chart of the Sin Drones! :D
