I'm an amateur game developer and I've been working on a game where players play anthropomorphic animals in a post-apocalyptic world. Yes, I know After The Bomb is a thing and it bums me out that they're releasing a new version soon that will easily overshadow my own game. That said, I'm positive my game will be distinct, both mechanically and lore-wise.
So I'm curious if you feel oversaturated or spoiled for choice regarding apocalyptic fursona settings. Also, I can't settle on a name for the setting, so any suggestions are appreciated.
A (not so) brief description of the setting and the system follows:
Humanity wiped itself out with genetic weapons and left behind a radically altered biosphere. Zooanthropes (I'm just gonna shorten that to Zo from here on) are the various uplifted species or altered human embryos that display the traits of an animal species to varying degrees. Some almost look human (and are outcasts because of it) while others look almost identical to an old-Earth animal of some kind. The average zo is somewhere in-between, with a humanoid shape but features resembling a fox or a falcon or whatever. The last few humans have retreated permanently to self-contained bunkers under the sea, underground, or on space stations. They and their automatons are legendary monsters, while various mutant creatures make up the new ecology of Earth. Zo have had a few thousand years and the benefit of various precursor ruins, so they have built societies with a range of technology levels. The most pressing threat to the various tribes, city-states, and nations tend to be their neighbors. Cannibalism is considered by many to be the consumption of any sentient creature, regardless of phenotype; others consider all consumption of meat to be cannibalism. There are tribes and individuals that make a habit of eating other sentients but they are viewed as marauders and serial killers by civilized zos. Many zos are employed as Delvers, meaning they locate and ransack precursor structures. Many of these structures have automated defenses or are inhabited by dangerous creatures but getting inside can mean finding a cache of gen-hancers, medical devices that allow a person's genetic code to be rewritten, granting them new abilities or traits. Unfortunately, any traits that don't conform to your phenotype (essentially any that don't match your species) make you gain levels of chimaera, which can cause you to enter a frenzy or go feral. Some of these traits are completely artificial and can't be used without becoming a chimaera. The currency throughout the lands are "bits", which is a catch-all term for small manufactured objects that are useful but difficult to reproduce. This includes screws, leds, capacitors, lenses, and so on.
Rules-wise, I'm using d12s for skill checks (attacking and defending are both skills) 1 is a fumble, 2-8 failure, 9-11 success, 12 is a critical success and you only count the highest die rolled. So if you are rolling 3d12, you only need one of those to succeed. (Fumbles are very unlikely unless you make a check untrained)
There are four attributes, physicality, mentality, spirituality, and personality. In addition to determining secondary stats like HP and initiative, your scores in these attributes determine how many free skills you get of each type (skills: physical/mental/personal/spiritual) and your rank in a skill determines how many dice you get beyond the 1 you can roll untrained. So if you have melee at rank 2, you would roll 3d12 and if any of them was a 9+, you'd hit. (I believe that's around a 67% chance to hit, maybe a little higher). Also, if you're making a check untrained and rolling 1 die, you get a -1 to the roll, so you can't critically succeed and double your chance to fumble (from 8% to 16%).
What else... you create your character by assigning attribute points and choosing a phenotype, which consists of choosing a phylum, class, and subclass. These follow traditional taxonomy, so like, a dove would by phylum vertebrata, class aves, subclass dove/pigeon (ok, I know that last part isn't the taxonomic term but bleh) and as a result it would gain the resilient, beak, wings, delicate, and small traits. Would you rather be a squid? A squid is a mollusca cephalopoda with no subclass available (there are three artificial subclasses that any character can take that have a wide array of traits, let's say this one is a Dreamer). So the squid would have mucus, amphibious, venom, poison, ink, camouflage, beak, and swim traits because it's a slightly overpowered option (reflected in cost) and would also get to choose three traits from the Dreamer subclass, so how about telpathy, emotional manipulation, and healing touch. The other ariticial subclasses are Wrecker and Schemer, with combat and interpersonal traits, respectively.
Bing bang boom, that's the game in a nutshell. Seem cool?
