well, here is soem details, and also, the project is not neccessarily "grimdark", but more mature in themes (MATURE as in detailed, complex storytelling, not as in blood and gore), kinda like satAM, only with realistic, earthed designs:
history of the musjroom kingdom adnd arrival of the brothers:
in an alternate dimension, a nuclear crisis ended or mutated life in the year 1500. since then, it was split into two parts: the mushroom kingdom, a place where a magnetic field around the planet causes coins, metal boxes and such to float, all fungal lifeform has evolved (some mushrooms have grown to huge sizes, some has mutated to give the eater enomerous ablities/allergies) and hum,an kind has evolved to "toads". on the other side, all hell breaks loose, as the turtles have evolved into the "koopas sapiens", a human-like, ferocious creature. their king, bowser, is a more developed kind of koopa, mixed with alligator and some human genes, with a scale-skin disorder, an alligator jaw, turtle shell and red, demonic hair. he also has bones spliicing through his skin (a la spikes, claws and such) and needs metal rods and some metal pieces spliceed into his body/skin to suport his massive size.
in 1982, bowser invades and succesfully conquers the mushroom kingdom. he tries several times to send his minions to our earth with no avail, and in 1983, he finally sucseeds. two years later, a big group of his monsters arrive in the NY sewer system and freak out some homeless people in the street... and bowse catches the runaway princess of the MK, peach.
the city hall is concerned about the sitouaion, and hires mario bros. plumbing, some small, not too good business which is also the only one who agreed to do this. as they get closer and closer to the problem, they are attacked by koopas and then washed down a green pipe after the sewers are suddenly fludded.
they, of course arrive in the mushroom kingdom, in a small toads village which is attacked by koopa armies. the mario bros. and defeat them with ease, suprised by their ability to jump very high and their new strengh. discover about some of the gravity issues and that the mushroom kingdom's plants can give them abilities (like having fire abilities from harvesting a special kind of smoke made from a rare flower). they decide to fight back bowser after seeing how he ravaged the kingdom, and continue on to their journey (with a traumatized toad as a companion). thus, they becime the super mario bros.! later on, they fight some of his crew like lakitus and hammer bros., and finally bowser of course.
warp pipes:
here is the regular warp-pipe system, which can also be used for transportation. there are the warpholes, which may look like pipes, but are portals who simply "pop up" in random places, in here, the sewer system. they are rafts between time, space and DIMENSION (loud ahem ahem), and have a weirder hue and carvings (maybe carvings of 8-bit sprites?). they are experimented by bowser and kamek, and are pretty much untracable. they also cause random floods and such.
items:
fire flower:
A. a flammable flower which can release easily flammable gas out of the petal. can be harvested by smoking/eating it. it inflames a small layer of skin, from where the gas gets out and with a lighter or any kind of fire at hand, your ahnd becomes a powerful flamethrower, thoguh a painful way to use the flower. i think it would be used only at the bowser fight, though...
A. a device made by proffesor edwin gadd as a mini-flamethrower, and used this certain flower for fuel. uses the gas and has a mini-lighter built on the side of it. much more limited than the more natural use of the flower and less effective, but not painful and easier.
super mushroom: mutated mushrooms that cause allergy-like syndromes like swelling and then gets to the blood-stream,mutates the DNA and creates a physical transformation that can be reversed by goomba poison/poison mushroom spores.
starman: JEFF BRIDGES! (lol). it resembles slightly a star not on porpuse, but it doesn't efficiently needs to be star-shaped. the thing is, it can be a rock which somehow absorbed a quantity of radioation and became a powerful energy source/emblem which neutralize the nerve ends, give a strike of adrenalin, enhances the user and ETC.
enemies:
-goombas: evolved mushrooms, they are carnivore parasites who feed on dead bodies. they are pretty much of an annoying pest, and they are common in most of the kingdom. the fungi-like appearance is their use of camouflage, and they are known for having black, eyebrow-like scales above their eyes.
-koopas: like the movie, humanoid creatured developed from turtles (not dinos), only they are much more animalistic, less intellegent and of course, resemble a turtle much, MUCH more.
-pirahna plants: evolved carnivore plants, as simple as it gets. acts and looks like a regular carnivore plant, only much bigger and much more... hungry :evil:...
-para-troopers: genetically engineered koopas who had wings mounted to their back. very elite and more intellegent koopas.
-cheeps: evolved pirahna fish. they mostly fight eachother, but are ferocious and can kill in seconds. they are also very easy to kill, but allmost endlessly spawn.
-bloopers: extremley dangerous evolved squids. shoot acid, have extended claws at the end of each tentacle, and are the most dangerous species in the waters.
-big bertha: a very protective kind of evolved grouper mixed with pirahna genes, they will stop at nothing to protect their babies. if you enter their territory-your'e as good as dead.
-shyguys: a secret clan of deformed humans gone mad, they perform mysterious rituals and almost never get off nor their gas masks or robes. very dangerous, as they are armed with rifles, guns, submachineguns, an array of knifes and snifit masks, gas masks with a rifle attached to it.
this is pretty much most of what we came up with. i'm working on the actual story and finding the balance between light and dark...
