a world of warriors
I really love ninjas.
I also really love fighting games.
Ryu Hayabusa. Shinobi. Strider. Ninja Gaiden. Mortal Kombat. Street Fighter. Soul Calibur.
These iconic names and iconic games are at the center of some of my favorite action fantasy experiences from my time growing up in Nigeria… experiences I still hold dear even today. Amazing memories, but I honestly spent more time daydreaming about most of these games than I ever spent playing them.
My family had a comfortable life in Nigeria, but due to an erratic electrical system (NEPA - the National Electric Power Authority - which “took light” more than it ever gave it) we didn’t always have power where we lived. We had a generator that only got switched on during weekends, so my brothers and I would race home from school to play our NES from the moment we threw our school bags on the floor up until bedtime on Sunday night, and then wait impatiently for next weekend to roll around. I can still hear the NES MIDI game track echoing through our family room whenever Ryu suffered an untimely death at the hands of Jaquio, the pixelated villain from the first Ninja Gaiden game I ever played. To me, Ryu was a ninja long before he ever became a street fighter.
Not that Street Fighter didn’t have its time to shine. Before my family made the big move to start a new chapter of our lives in the United States, all those years without consistent electrical power motivated me to become a master of creating my own non-electrical fantasy content. By age 15, I had already become an accomplished author of my own set of young adult mystery novels (I read a lot of Famous Five and Nancy Drew, and imitated their writing styles accordingly), epic graphic novels starring my own league of made-up super heroes (my brothers and I read a lot of DC comic books, my favorites of which were Checkmate and Teen Titans), ridiculously action packed adventures starring Mario and Luigi (I loved Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World), and to top it all off, my very own fully functioning (non-electrical) Street Fighter 2 board game. It was a dice driven game, with a tactile, physically hand-adjusted life meter that depleted the health of my fighters in real time, and a Super Move list to help each playable character end their fighting round in style. The dice game fully constructed and hand-painted by yours truly. My brothers still tease me today about the missed business opportunity that board game was.
Once we settled down in the US, power outages were no longer an issue, and my brothers and I quickly made up for years of lost fighting game time. Primal Rage and Killer Instinct were conquered first, quickly followed by Virtua Fighter, Street Fighter Third Strike, and, just before my college years began… Tekken. I’d always loved ninjas growing up, but Tekken 3 sent me down a whole new path of obsession. The path of mastery.
I still remember watching competitors play Tekken 3 at my college arcade, and seeing Lei Wulong switch from his regular fighting stance into a special fighting stance. I had no idea Lei had more than one fighting stance at his disposal, so when he switched into his Snake stance, I was transfixed, and as soon as he defeated his opponent using his striking Snake Fists, I was hooked. I decided to buy my first ever fighting game strategy guide… just so I could learn everything about Lei’s 5-style martial arts technique. I was amazed that a character who was clearly a rip-off of Jackie Chan could have so much depth of mastery. Decades have now gone by since I first saw Lei switch fighting stances, and I still enjoy playing as him today. Tekken’s mythology is pulpy at best, but it didn’t matter to me how shallow Lei’s backstory was, because I got to know him like he was an old friend just from trying to master him. My brothers and I would eventually move on to Soul Calibur 2 on the Nintendo Gamecube, and, soon after that, to Smash Brothers, but my love for ninjas, for warriors named Ryu, and for Lei Wulong never went away.
Ninjas, Ryu, and Lei Wulong. The feeling I get from playing as them is hard to describe, but is so integral to this world-building journey I’m on. Yes, I definitely hope my crazy world will have a sense of grandeur and a healthy dose of darkness to it, but the truth is I have always wanted a space for all the fighters living in my head to roam around, defeating arch-enemies - and each other - on their lifelong path to self-mastery. All those years daydreaming about games, and then all those years playing games, gave me the motivation to not only master a world of warriors, but create warriors of my own, many of whom have only existed in the form of rough sketches, shallow backstories, and vague character descriptions, at best.
And now, all these warriors will finally have a world to call their own:
The World So Far
Some of the warriors will become traveling monks who eat dragon coal and desire to uncover the secrets of ages past.
Others will be Nubian shamans who specialize in hunting dark entities and sending them back to the depths from where they came.
Others still will wield weapons that require magic, or that don’t use magic at all, or are gifts, or are curses, or are a little bit of both.
I’m excited to flesh out all these backstories, figure out which parts of the world will be the stage for their battles, then flesh out the super moves, fatalities, and other techniques they are going to master as they fight for survival on Įrē. It will be a world full of warriors… and all that that implies.
Oh. And there will be ninjas.
Lots and LOTS of ninjas.
Other Thoughts:
Some of my favorite warriors have little to no dialogue beyond the popular catchphrases they are defined by (“Hadoken!” “Shoryuken!” “No escape… mine!”). I wonder what catchphrases these existing characters will have? Just something else to add to the dream list I guess…
