As I mentioned before, I’ve had an interest in game design for quite a few years. Chimera’s Wrath is based on a game that I thought up during my time in college, except I called it Escape Moreau’s Island, after the classic novel, Isle of Doctor Moreau. (Which is in the public domain, so I could even call it that if I wanted!) The object of the game was to get off the island by exploring the board and finding the supplies needed to repair a helicopter or construct a raft. Players could attack and sabotage each other to impede their progress. The main mechanic of the game was transforming parts of your body into different species. You begin as one of the late doctor’s experiments, an anthropomorphic animal with certain abilities. As you change body parts, you gain different abilities, but also certain weaknesses, as well as “instincts”. Under certain conditions, your instincts might be triggered, which cause you to temporarily lose control. For example, if you have the parts of an aquatic species, you might feel compelled to move towards the nearest source of water. If you have the parts belonging to a predatory animal, you might be driven to hunt and attack the nearest player, even if that’s not where you wanted to go. And so on.

The game was never fully fleshed out, and I had to set it aside, along with my other game design ideas, in order to focus on my day job and my comic. But while writing this chapter, I decided to bring this old idea I had into the story world to give it a “second life” if you will, and pay homage to an earlier interest of mine.