What Out of Copyright Characters Would You Like To See A Game About?

[alias_sqbr]

There's a bunch of otome about out of copyright characters: all the Alice in Wonderland influenced games, Code Realise about various 19th Century European characters like Frankenstein, Ozmafia about fairytale characters etc.

But there's a whole bunch who never get to be sexy bishonen (/bishoujo/whatever the non binary term is)

A while ago I had fun pondering Australian examples on my blog, including The Jolly Swagman, The Man From Snowy River, and The Magic Pudding.

So who are some obscure or unusual out of copyright characters fictional characters you'd enjoy seeing in a dating sim/otome game? Extra points if they're not from the UK or US.

Copyright law is a mess, but anything from around 1920 or earlier is a fair bet.

Comments

[scytale]

...it's UK, but I will admit that my first thought was "JUST LET ME ROMANCE (OR BE) GAWAIN". My inner nine-year-old demands it. Gosh, just give me the game where I can go around being a knight and roleplaying chivalry and romancing all the knights and ladies. o.o

Kay would be the tsundere who is struggling with feeling out of place and inferior to his brother; Galahad Would Never Romance Anyone (except of course he would); one of the Orkney brothers is struggling with massive inferiority and taking it out on everyone (Agravaine?); romancing Gareth feels weird because you'd feel like you're just breaking him up with Lancelot; Mordred is the angsty secret character who needs to be talked out of destroying everything, and also inevitably my favorite.

Lynet would be very tsundere as well; Guinevere and Morgan...could go any way, really, considering all the ways she's portrayed. Nimue would be...hmm, magical and ambitious, maybe, if we want to go with the Merlin story?

(ETA: Expanding on the women a bit, and being more than a little self-indulgent -- I think Lynet's arc would be about feeling very trapped and having to depend on knights, when she just wants to save her cousin herself. Morgan's arc should be about digging into the Dark Secrets of Camelot. And Ragnell and Elaine would probably feature!)

I also thought of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but I'll admit I don't know much about it -- lots of compelling characters who would make good routes, and I feel like it would do the war/tragedy/different side things that the Sengoku games do.

A Decameron inspired game might be fun, though I'm not sure that's about the characters and more about the meta of romancing people who are telling stories.

[waterscroll]

Shakespeare is full of public domain bishonen.

In particular, I think Midsummer Night's Dream could work really well. Maybe you could play as Puck and decide which pairs to match up using love potions? Or play as any of the characters, and based on who you end up with all the other pairings also shift?

Or Twelfth Night, you could play as Viola and end up with either Orsnio or Olivia or possibly there could be routes with other characters as well.

I'd also love to see more historical otome that give different perspectives on historical conflicts and where you can date historical characters. I typed out and deleted a bunch that I'd like to see in particular, because really very many could work, especially those where you have historical records that tell multiple sides of the story. But to continue the Shakespeare theme, I think Richard the Third could be interesting, and Richard could be a terrible villain or a misunderstood woobie depending on your choices.

[caramarie]

I am pretty sure there have been games involving Norse mythology before, but now I'm thinking of how the gods give Skadi a choice of husbands (in order to appease her for killing her dad) and she has to pick them by their feet ... the point at which you have to choose your route is built into it! And maybe some of the other options work out better than the canon, where they just can't stand where the other lives :p