Pseudocontest, day four (and five)

All hells broke loose, as it always is, when any deadline is close. It was just a matter of time. But I've managed to cure the gin hangover and finally get to work. It was mostly courage and iron will, with just a hint of wedge the wedge policy.

Couple of surveys and conversations gave me the distance I needed to finally pick which game concept to develop. And again there is a rule - when all the concepts equally suck stick to the first idea. Mostly because it's probably the simplest one. The other are just building on or building against it. But always there is the original concept hidden inside, so why bother with extra content?

White Frost (Czarist Russia + Dream Time) it is, then.

Some say it was the Czar praying on Kremlin. The other say Rasputin did it. Small group blamed Mendeleev. It does not matter now. In the February of 1917 The White Frost came and squeezed life out of the Bolsheviks and their revolution. Russia was saved. But the spring never happened. The Endless Winter, they called it. Millions died, of cold and hunger. Those who survived moved underground, growing mushroom and digging for coal, iron, gold and diamonds. For almost round hundred years. This is the night before the anniversary. The Czar, Nicolai Ivanovich, last of his line, invites all his true friends to Kremlin.

And there is more to that. Czar kills the characters right after they show up at the Kremlin. The idea is: he knows how to get rid of White Frost - travel thru Dreamlands for the heart of Frost and burn it. The only known way to Dreamlands is death. So Czar summons his friends, tell them all about the heart and Dreamlands and then, if they agree to serve, kills them.

But the trauma is too great and wipes out everything besides love for Czar and memory of dying. Two very opposing emotions. They wander in frozen Moscow, gathering clues and ideas - and finally they manage to find the Gate to Dreamland. And then the Czar shows up - demanding one more act of loyalty. The fire inside each one of the dead is the only way to burn the Gate. They must die - again and forever, to let the Czar who killed them go thru the door.

That's the basic idea.