;_; I made a wall of text.......
I'm fine with most stuff that has been liked so far. I'm a little shaky on specifics of how events unfold, but for the most part I like it.
This is what I'm basing my following opinions on.
We are working in a post-apocalyptic Hyrule. The main cause is the destruction of death mountain. Such a condition creates an over-world and an underworld which are uniquely inhabited. We want very unique, dark, and strange cultures to be born through this disaster. However, we still want familiar faces and references. Our "protagonist" will be raised as a shiekah being very nimble and possessing special and magical talents.
As far as the backstory goes as Spire gave it on the last page, hmm... I think it could be reworked a little bit. But I will get to that in a bit.
Earlier it was proposed to have a more vertical like structure in the underground design. But how have you all been imagining it? For those of you have seen Star Wars 3, the location of Utapau has these massive sinkholes
http://images.wikia.com/starwars/nl/images/d/d0/Republic_troepen_arriveren_op_Utapau.png
This is how I imagine the underground would predominately exist. These massive sinkholes mostly circular or elliptic in shape would be several dozen meters across, but go miles deep. So far that getting to the top is very difficult and the sky above seems like a small dot. Our urban centers in the underground would be centered around these locations due to access to rain water coming in along with light. Between these sink wholes would be miles upon miles of underground tunnels. Now, I imagine that most of these tunnels and sinkholes would not exist until the destruction of death mountain. Old magma chambers would have been exhausted in the explosion.
Now, as spire said, people who survived the tragedy would create their homes in the underground. Specifically, around these sinkholes as I mentioned before. It seems easiest to create an underground community which can get forms of natural resources. Natural light, water, and random stuff that falls into the hole. Within the underground, I also envision communities being separated and not in easy contact with one another. This allows for easy exploration and many dangers and treasures to be found when traveling between locations. Also, with the disaster, new forms of life exist. Most in the form of monster and beasts, but some friendly, others hostile.
However, how would many of these people who live down here get supplies and things needed to live? Assuming they are flesh eaters (not rock eaters which gorons eat) from above, they are naturally accustomed to seeing with light and eating somehow. Cliched as it is, there would have to be artificial forms of light existing all over the place to allow for exploration or we could enable some form of light source which would play an integral part in the underground. Metal tools and homes would be easy enough to view due to being underground. However, food... Sources of food I can only see has being a source of underground animals which each rocks, but convert it into an edible form of food nutrient which our surviving people can live off of. This could create animal farming. Agriculture does not have to necessarily exist. Perhaps an underwater form of agriculture in underground lakes.
Anyway, going back to the backstory (pun lol). I
highly, highly, highly, agree that we go at least 2 or 3 generations of people into the future. We do not have to give it a timeline in years at all. With the passing of older generations, the experiences from the overworld before the death mountain calamity pass into legend and song. Now, our "protagonist" will be simply another underground dweller with no memory of the outside except tall tales and legend. This works perfectly for creating a unique and strange world. I suggest we give absolutely no backstory at the beginning of the game other than vague and ambiguous legends. Throughout the game, our "protagonist" will actually undercover the truth of what really happened to cause this fall. Also, nothing is ordained by divine intervention whatsoever. This is not SS where Link is given tools to test his strength and what not. Our protagonist gains what he needs to gain to overcome unique obstacles realistically. There are no save statues every 5 feet in the game nor random chests with a tool needed to complete the area you are located nearby. I think it would develop game play to find resources and tools and information scattered around. You sadly have to revisit old places to get to new locations, but I it can be done in a way better than skyward sword.
Now, my biggest complaint that we have no agreed upon yet is a freaking direction to take with this game. I mean why do we follow some random person in the underground all over the place? What is the plot direction?
I think there should be a little political slander going on with the gorons in that backstory Spire made. Nothing representative of the whole race of gorons, but our little patriarch Goron could have ulterior motives. Say he can either control this calamity somehow... I dunno... he finds some box or something random like that which can destroy the mountain. At the very least, he knows about the situation and manipulates the royal family. He gets the royal family to move the Gorons away from harm, yet events allow the other inhabitants around death mountain to remain behind. The death of the king and queen, not accidental, but deliberate. The new queen Zelda becomes an easy tool to manipulate being inexperienced as a ruler. The disaster thus unfolds and many people die, yet many will life to form the underground. Some will make it to live in the overworld. In the end, the gorons become the dominant culture in the overworld rather than the royal family of old.
Jumping ahead 2-3 generations in the underground, our protagonist wakes up. We discover a little bit about the world he is apart of. A slow start to the game no doubt, but necessary I feel to build up a sense of the place. As our hero goes exploring and doing our gameplay, he/she discovers clues and eventually the whole truth about the why these people ended underground. Thus, our hero ends up embroiled in a variety of schemes stretching into the far past which he/she feels so inclined to alter.
The only issue I have am having at the moment is deciding what deeper and darker scheme could have been at work from the distant past and plays a part in the present.
Oh, and let me say this again as my own personal little quark. We all live in a very patriarchal reality. Too many times our video games come off as mirror images of our impressions of gender roles and what not. I would really like if we could somehow minimize those types of impressions by challenging a few of those gender stereotypes we usually end up pulling off. That is why I advocated having a female protagonist in the first place. However, I do not mean for it to become some sort of sex icon as so many video games, books, movies, commercials, conversations, etc. end up creating. I guess that's one of the few character design goals I think should be aimmed for.
. The way I currently see the Hyrule Underground is that it's bustling with everything necessary to live. The fissures have created cracks in the earth large enough for light to seep through, and there are various underground lakes and rivers (ha, just typed river at the same time as David Byrne said it in Take Me to the River—I love that unaware synchronicity with music). I see an underground that's not overtly vertical like this, but predominantly vertical (as opposed to the vast horizons of the surface world). It's one of the key differentiations between the above and below; gives you a better sense of locality.