A Rakes Progress - Rakeman Jr



I've carried on with my idea of having A Rakes Progress taking place inside a video game, and I've got the basic plot and structure down, along with designs for both Tom and Sarah.
The basic plot I have now is that Tom has inherited his dads fame and fortune with the release of Rakeman Jr, a successor to the recently discontinued Rakeman.
The game consists of Rakeman Jr, fighting leaves with a rake and saving Sarah from an evil tree called 'The Big Oak'.
Tom isn't fond of the idea of spending his life raking leaves for peoples amusement, and the fact he's already rich from his inheritance made him question why he should continue being the hero, and during a day of gaming, a new character appears, calling herself Shadow, she tells Tom that wallowing in the game isn't worth it, and that a world of self-indulgence lies beyond the game walls, so Tom leaves the hero role and heads into a nearby video game town with his new found riches, ready to flaunt and spend.
He does it all, buy tacky clothing, throw money at poorer video game characters, intimidate other game heroes in drunken brawls, have some 'fun' at video game whore houses and so forth.
Eventually, the game is threatened with shutdown, and whilst Sarah and the Big Oak has been promised salvation into the next game in the series, Tom was facing termination, and when the bug finders try to strip him of his status, Sarah uses her accumulated riches to pay them off for a few days, but it's too late, Tom is losing his hero status and slowly, his mind.
In an act of disparity, Tom comes to an agreement with an old hag named Babaturk, who's a villain of another video game, Piccolo-Zappdee. (A fake game, Babaturk is actually Shadow in disguise.)
In return for a cut of the riches, Tom would defeat the hag and reclaim his hero status.
This plan would've never worked, Tom was only a hero for defeating the Big Oak, but some of the people were suckers, and paid into Tom's scheme, but not at the rate of his old  role.
His downfall came when he refused to pay Babaturk her share, so she confronts Tom at a gambling house, saying if he wins a simple game of cards, she'll leave the Rakeman alone, but if she wins, she'll strip Tom of his money and reduce him to a glitchy mess.
The game is rigged, and Tom undoubtedly loses.
To further torture him, the hag transforms into Shadow, and surrounds Tom with pleading NPCs, all wanting him to help them, but under the pressure, Tom's code breaks and he becomes nothing more than a broken glitch in the code.
The bug handlers apprehend him, and put him in a 'Madhouse' for failed game heroes and glitches.
Sarah approaches the madhouse, still not giving up on Tom, but the bug handlers warn her that contact with him would break her code too, so teary-eyed, Sarah bids farewell to the broken Tom and goes, leaving a broken Tom glitching and shouting.
Years later, Sarah is in a new game called Rakeman 3, with a new Rakeman as the hero who loves his job, but as Sarah monologues about the moral of the story, her visions pans to the Great Oak, who now has a new partner in crime.
A dememnted, unrecognisable Tom Rakewell stands above the tree, cackling and completley insane and repurposed for villainy.


My Design for Tom 'Rakeman Jr' Rakewell.
I've based him on the character of King Candy from Wreck-It Ralph.



                      My design for Sarah Young.   I've based her on the character of Princess Peach from the Super Mario franchise.



Coloured versions oof the two characters.
I designed Sarah's dress to be graceful and elegent, whereas Tom's is supposed to be an eyesore and pretty tacky.