After going back and forth on the original idea, I decided that I can’t get my original concept to work.  There are too many problems to solve given the time involved:

• Having come up with several different endings, none of them sit right with me.  They’re either too mean, too cliché or unachievable in terms of making the actual film.
• I want to avoid dialogue and there were a lot of things to explain in a short space.
• The unseen player doesn’t really work – he/she picked the player, but doesn’t actually control him while playing the game.  Do we need to see this player at the start and/or at the end?  Who are they?
• The bulk of the story takes place in the ‘select character’ screen which was super limiting for the story and lends itself mostly to gags with little character development.

So with all that in mind, I’m going back to the drawing board. I like the idea of a video game character and a pixel art style – that’s staying! I just need to get more from this character.  I think I actually prefer the standard video game character to the Nigel character I had spent time on.

What if I take this character and try to turn him from a non-thinking beating-up machine into a character that cares about something other than a high score?

What if a mean, self-obsessed video game character cared for someone (or something) else?

To do this I’ll need to introduce a lovable character and maybe take him out of his comfort zone.  Ideas are starting to form…