Ruminations on Hyper Juken Lore

Hi everyone!

When I was designing Hyper Juken, I pretty much put all my attention into the game, the characters being decided upon around the second third of the development cycle. As you know, each character comes with a bio, this was inspired by how card backs for toys used to have bios to tell you about them. I always knew that it would be hard to stretch myself between game design, card design and lore, but I wanted to give some idea behind the characters. A reason to like them beyond mechanics and aesthetics.

There was always a general idea of how things would go and who the major characters were, but a lot was more fluid than you'd expect. Characters always changing, D. Stinger originally being a scorpion is a notable one, but there are a few animals that just haven't found a home I'd like to do.

The thought process behind the bios was more like a fighting game; here's your premise and your characters, get at it. What more do you need? But in retrospect I think that was very ill-founded. There isn't enough meat to be much beyond "I like the design and mechanics." and I think without that, it hurt the game as a whole. Not enough content. The bio isn't enough to push the characters, they needed more.

With the development of what at the time was titled A3 Triple Threat and the still unnamed A2.5, the lore really started to become of more importance. Not only the general plot and how the Cosmic Championship belts fit into that, but how each character is used. If a character is just kind of there but has potential, such as Taichi, more thought has to be put into what can be done with them. Not everyone can be used all the time and some are going to fall to the wayside as new is introduced to keep things fresh, but rotation of characters should always be key. Same goes for main characters, they don't have to be involved in every storyline.

The general plot of the first story arc, Alpha Block, is pretty clear right now. A Plot, B Plot, C Plot and how the A and B plots dove tail at the end while keeping the window open for future stories. The real question now is, how to go about getting it out there. Articles? Web Comic? There are some major decisions to be made, but I do believe Hyper Juken benefits from the lore being pushed a lot harder. It should have always been a higher priority.

Till next time friends, thanks for reading!
-Erik