Cora wakes inside Arcadia, a simulation game designed to heal traumas and mental disorders. It’s currently in the process of being shut down after one of the executives exposed the deadly game and evil practices of Minerva Biotech, leading to the arrest of the CEO and a large rescue effort that is now in full swing. Guided by Dr. Sokolov, Cora must complete her mission to find the captive player zero, return their administrative rights, and assist the kids in their great escape. But when the game is designed to protect its players, will Cora survive against Arcadia’s enemies and boss battles?
What are we doing with this project?
This is the latest project coming up. A mini-series set to premiere on a new platform coming soon. It runs at about a 2-3 hour read, with a lively, fresh new take on web comics. For the most recent updates on main content, visit the Pateron account!
CONCEPT
Cora wakes inside Arcadia, a simulation game designed to heal traumas and mental disorders. It’s currently in the process of being shut down after one of the executives exposed the deadly game and evil practices of Minerva Biotech, leading to the arrest of the CEO and a large rescue effort that is now in full swing. Guided by Dr. Sokolov, Cora must complete her mission to find the captive player zero, return their administrative rights, and assist the kids in their great escape. But when the game is designed to protect its players, will Cora survive against Arcadia’s enemies and boss battles?
INSPIRATION
Portal was big… huge actually. Those two main antagonist battles you’ll see in the story are based off GLADoS in some way or another, and I even made Cora’s colors orange and blue. Also, the walls, the bare, vapid, environment, the theme of “testing,” (Which you will see is extremely prominent-) even Wheatley hovering around and non-stop yapping in your ear and rummaging around behind the scenes like a feral mouse eating wires is what inspired Sokolov’s role as well.
The Matrix is the most mentioned, the concept of “There is no spoon” is the center of Cora’s abilities in the game. Her later design borrows from Neo (and Hatsune Miku.)
I wanted to bring home that classic dystopia feeling to honor what’s happening outside of the game and make it feel like it is- dystopian. Dystopias are one of my favorite genres, so I had a large swath of books to pull from. So the clothes and the setting are between 1984, the Matrix, and Fahrenheit 451. You also might see lots of parallel to Ready Player One. I make a couple nods to Inception as well. That episode of black mirror, “playtest” was another big one.
THEME
The boss battles are gonna be so fun. You’ll get insight into the CEO’s headspace, the grey area of all the choices leading up to the arrest, and figure out with Cora how to deal with choosing truth even when it’s hard to see. Dr. O’Connell is one of my favorite, if not, my actual favorite villains that I’ve ever written. I wanted to show an unsympathetic villain that entirely created their own demise, and tell the real story of what it really looks like to rescue people from evil. It looks more like being there for the healing and recovery from the damage and lies we destroy ourselves with after a villain’s damage is done.
CAST
You all know me and my tight casts. Here’s the main two!
OUR MAIN PROTAGONIST, CORA LEWIS.
She had the weirdest set of inspirations ever. But gosh darn it, I am falling in love with her. I’ve had various boring versions of her in other projects, but finally getting to flesh her out for leading a story has been a BLAST. Her weirdly specific vibe has always been prominent in my head- level-headed, awkward, and bouncy, one of those people that’s quiet until you get to meet them and find out they are actually really chaotic. I’ve thrown her into small projects before but I could never settle with one and it made her feel scattered and boring, but when I threw her in here, it was clear she was meant to lead this story.
Writing a 15 year old has been so much fun. So far, my protagonists are mid-twenties, carry a LOT of baggage, and are facing really dark stakes. Cora has been a really fresh, hopeful and exciting character to write. I love the opportunity I’ve gotten to write a character with a positive and deeply optimistic view on life. Her running flaws have been more along the lines of confronting evil and navigating discernment while still being her optimistic and hopeful self. Anger is almost foreign to her, so when she has to physically (and mentally) fight with the the game, and the antagonists that get in her head, writing her trying to pin down where to pin her trust as its constantly challenged has been lots of fun. It’s been a HUGE new exercise for me.
HER MENTOR, DR. SOKOLOV.
You may recognize the name, from our unfinished DND campaign we were working on- the character I played was Doctor Alexei Sokolov. (The dnd campaign ended up largely deepened and elaborated his character for this, so) Obviously a bunch changed with him. I think my favorite part about him is just the fact that mentor characters are the freakin’ best part of a story for me. I love the complexity of a grounded, experienced and honest character. I love scenes with the other characters wrestling with the steadiness of them.
His design is from a project I did in high school. Not a single thing changed. I doodle that inkblot guy all the time. Then I threw him into Arcadia and oh boy oh boy did it THRIVE. That design is the M.O.N.T.A.G. interface that Dr. Sokolov uses to guide Cora around the game, while he wears a VR headset and uses the lil guy to talk to her and see what she’s seeing and doing.
Concept Development
This project is a combo of two ideas that i have had for a LONG, LONG time. Literally, throwing in Cora brought the WHOLE thing together and FIXED what was wrong with both concepts.
Here in Existence was a time travel that involved an early version of Sokolov, and “Grace” (the super mary-sue Cora, place holding until I had decided what direction to take the character. That is the main reason that entire story kept flopping. I was 17. Bear with me.) The program INFINITI’s antagonist’s design (and name) also came from that story.
Arcadia was first a Narnia-esk story where the concept of the video game world started to take shape, and the president antagonist’s design came from. It had more structure to it, that when I took a loose version of the Here in Existence plot and popped it into the Arcadia universe, swapped “Grace” for Cora, that’s when we got exactly what you’ll all be reading when this drops.
You might have read my short “It’s Loud” before it took most my stuff off of Webtoons. (If you want to read it and haven’t, it’s still in the store here.) But that was the very original concept for Arcadia. I think the theme changed a lot from that, but we can’t forget the roots. The opening to Arcadia will be very reminiscent of the It’s Loud short.
