The success of Recettear and Moonlighter show there's a market for subversions of the genre and I'm here for it.
Just spitballing but what if the faeries' actions wear down the boss's defenses over time. Also they can loot the chosen kid's body for stuff to pass on to the next one.
The kids have psychological profiles. Most of them are dicks who have done something to deserve their fate but you can get a random roll of a kid who is a shining moral beacon, and that run gets to take advantage of his +25 Power of Friendship or whatever. (He probably still dies, but you can make a lot of progress that way.)
Oh! And what if the faeries can affect the quality of kids they're getting? Something like a PR campaign they can run in "our world" where, if their quest is whispered into the right circles, they can get a kid who's more studious or works out more, or something. They get better at this over time, which is important because towards the endgame you actually need a pure Chosen One to achieve the win state, and the only way to pull that off is good marketing.
EDIT: to add that after the first run, the game over screen lingers on a shot of the kid's corpse on the ground. After the second run, the new kid's corpse is added on top of the first kid. This continues throughout the entire save file until you win; by the end it should be a sizeable pyramid of dead chosen ones.
That's a similar concept to a game called Trillion God of Destruction, in which you need to train waifus fighters to defeat a monster with 1 trillion HP. Chipping away his HP each attempt, but killing the girl in the process.
Would be an awesome game if it wasn't for the anime bullshit.
Thank you for the ideas, i might really start to work on that from time to time.
I was thinking in having the faeries follow the player so as new weapons and armor are found the faeries may give different random options at the start of each run. Also have the player earn something like mana crystals instead of money so the upgrades would be done by the faeries magic.
I really like the idea of having different kinds of kids, it reminds me of rogue legacy, but i like more to have then with a more generic base so as the runs goes the game becomes more and more tailored to the player and his play style.
Having the faeries loot the body of the dead kids would be a great way to have the player recover a portion of the loot from each run, i could totally add a animation for this everytime the player dies.
As for the dead pyramid it could work as a window at the starting area where the corpses would be disposed, so after a couple of runs you would notice the pile getting bigger and bigger until it covers the entiry window.
Just to give credit where credit is due, I'm actually running this as a Changling campaign, using the old WoD rules from the 90s. The players are a Motely who work at an Irish Pub owned by their Sidhe patron, who dies unexpectedly and leaves them the pub, which is also a Freehold. It turns out it's in massive debt in the mortal world and faces various supernatural challenges as well.
I'm encouraging my players to make argumentative and annoying characters and to try to resolve problems with sitcom solutions, rather than combat or conflict.
I wanted to come back and tell you, because I never would have thought of it without you.
Makes me think of my thoughts on seeing the first few episodes of Attack on Titan.
spoiler
Never finished it but it probably would have been a more interesting story if they just let the main character up to that point die. Not sure where the story would have gone but it would have been fun finding out.
UnLunDun by Neil Gaiman has a similar idea. There's a Chosen One, great heroine, and her plucky sidekick. The heroine gets sidelined and it's up to the sidekick to actually save the day.
Highly recommend The Wandering Inn. I'm k book 3 out of 11 and it's purely amazing! I'm listening to the audiobook version and it's a different voice actor for every character.
I've been binging the audiobooks since I started them in December. I thought it was just a standalone novel, not realizing I signed up for an epic length series. I'm in book 10 now and am going to be depressed when I have to wait for the next release. The narrator really does a phenomenal job with the broad cast of characters of various races.
I'm starting book 3 soon and I'm already sad that there's 11 books because I know I'm going to blow past these books. It's so great and the voice actor is beyond amazing!