So the basic idea for Panache's story is to emphasize microscopic conflicts over a macroscopic conflict. What I mean by this, is that all the story focus will be in solving or correcting internal conflicts and personality flaws. I assume that would make you think of a game about Cloud being in constant angst.

Xiaoai takes the steed of main character while the player will control both Pan and her. What I'm attempting is a way to tell the story using both of their points of view to embellish on the setting and plot without having to go all boring omniscient. Xiaoai is a fairly young private investigator in Shanghai. She inherited her mentor's firm after a disappearance a year ago. Her mentor really has no impact on the story, it's all about his absence.

In trying to make her not annoying, I'm thinking her personality will be a balance between trying to be earnest and selfish. So she'll seem polite to people at first, but with people she knows well, her nice nature will vary. She'll be a pretty complex character with a myriad of different reactions in character interaction, to best portray her problem of identity. It's a bit cliched with her conflict so I'm really relying on how I write it. hhhhh

To contrast with Xiaoai, Pan's own conflicts will be more shielded. He'll appear as more of a Mary Sue, but slowly the layers will peel revealing a pretty broken interior. The two will basically act as foils to each other. I'm thinking that duality will also be a major theme in the story. Contrasting Xiaoai's job as a private investigator with the police, Pan's life as a nomadic street fighter with a touch of Zen and Xiaoai's materialistic life in a room filled with Star Wars and hip hop memorabilia, and a whole slew of other things.

The macroscopic conflict will be that Shanghai has been in urban decay in the last few years as the crime rate steadily increases. The city has been in a rush to complete a number of projects to boost itself back into the premier financial center of China. However, a string of mass murders alarm the police. In the weeks that follow, murders and theft have skyrocketed, and the police is overextended. Not enough for the government to intervene, the police begin to commission work from various freelance experts, including Xiaoai. It appears that the rising crime is at the fault of a growing number of eccentric criminals popping up in the city. All these appearances are too much to be a coincidence.

Later, Xiaoai finds that these criminals aren't even human or flesh. They are not fueled by desire and there appears to be no motives, not even sick enjoyment. The strength of one can overpower a SWAT team. Mysteriously, the only person who can deal with this menace is a drifter named Pan whose appearances always stir up a curious feeling of nostalgia in Xiaoai.

It really seems like the microscopic conflicts aren't as emphasized as the macroscopic conflict in this, but all the microscopic conflicts are weaved in a way that they all connect. The macroscopic conflict will sometimes just appear to be completely unrelated to the character conflicts. The antagonist himself will have absolutely no connections to the characters. There won't be any conflicts about Pan being similar to the antagonist with his mindset or whatever crap. Instead the story will be completely devoted to character development. Character development is essentially the plot. The macroscopic conflict is basically a setting for the actors of the play.

The game itself will be strictly linear. The player alternates between the beat-em-up brawling of Pan and the adventure investigations of Xiaoai. Of course, to keep things coherent, elements from both will cross over to each other. In addition, a number of quests will be available to the player that are accepted and done within the same segment usually.

I basically want the game to have a story that's a supernatural police procedural told from the point of a private investigator with an emphasis on character development plot threads and not a main conflict.

I just wrote this because I have nothing to do.