Fwah hahah ha ha hahah ha ha ha ha! Haaaa!"
- Francillo Borgus, the Purple Prince, Evil Gloating in Chapter 0
Commander Z and the Game Fellows
is an ongoing Web Serial Novel on Royal Road. As a comedy gamelit, it tells the story of Commander Zideo, a video game streamer and his dog Cormac, both of whom are drawn into a digital realm where all video games exist and their mechanics often clash.
Inspired by the notorious late 1980s video game cartoon Captain N the Game Master, the story explores what it would be like if the TV program was made in today's video game industry.
The digital world of Exe has undergone an apocalypse, and the last free city of Ludopolis stands on the brink of being overthrown by a coalition of video game Bosses. All gameworlds have been destroyed and drawn together in Genre Shards, where certain elements and characters eke out a living under the Boss Council. For this reason, each book in the series takes on a different game genre. For example, Book 1 is a "Lit Platformer" and Book 2 is planned to be a "LitRPG."
Commander Z and the Game Fellows features the following tropes:
- 1-Up: As Commander Zideo explores the mechanics of Shard Platformia, the planetoid where platformer games have all been exiled, he finds that he may have a limited number of lives to expend on his adventure... more than one, anyway.
- Boss Battle: Commander Zideo contends with video game Bosses, who are happily divvying up the remaining gameworlds in the new, post-apocalyptic world order.
- Sidekick: Uncertain of why he has been sucked into the video game world, Commander Zideo works with his optimistic RPG NPC and Battle Butler who is sworn to carry his burdens.
The web serial is full of video game references and jokes which often take the form of Lawyer-Friendly Cameo in an alternate gaming history. Games from the alternate history are marked by game release years that use nonstandard numbers. (Ex.: 19∞9)
