Crack!
The sound of shattering glass cut through the apartment. Luke's eyebrow twitched. He saved the finished proposal and walked out of the room, heart already sinking.
Eevee was mid-chase with its own Substitute, darting across the couch, knocking every glass on the coffee table to the floor in the process.
"It can have this much fun just fighting itself?" Luke muttered, swallowing hard.
Eevee finally tackled its double to the ground, the Substitute dissolving into scattered white light. It raised its head proudly — then, catching Luke's expression, took stock of the actual damage: shattered glass everywhere, a torn couch cushion, and the "Miracle Healer, Master of Women's Health" banner knocked flat on the floor.
"Vee!" Eevee scratched its head, sheepish.
Cleaning it up wasn't the real problem — that could wait for Haunter. The furniture damage, though, would eventually need paying out to the landlord whenever they moved out.
Luke sighed, practically hearing his wallet shrink in real time. Really need to get this money-making plan off the ground.
Stream income was solid, sure, but two months in, his total savings still sat under $14,000. YouTube revenue stayed limited too, since Luke had never taken sponsorships or signed with a network. Once Plants vs. Zombies actually launched, though, supporting himself and two Pokémon would stop being a constant math problem.
He scooped Eevee up out of the glass debris mid-escape attempt.
"You're not hurt, are you?"
"Vee..." it blinked up at him, dark-eyed.
"Good. That's all that matters." Luke exhaled, relieved, giving its head a rub. "You know people worry about you when you pull stuff like this, right?"
Eevee had already braced for a scolding, curled defensively — but got nothing beyond the head-rub, and blinked in genuine surprise.
"Vee?"
"We'll just wait for Haunter to clean up. Nothing cuts that thing anyway."
Satisfied with his own logic, Luke nodded. Eevee's tail gave a small wag, a faint smile tugging at its mouth, tiny fangs peeking through.
"Vee!"
______________________________
Luke sent Daniel the proposal along with a call to walk him through the concept.
"WAIT. You want me to make a GAME?" Daniel's voice cracked with disbelief. "Is my hairline not already suffering enough?"
Luke laughed. "We're a team, aren't we? And I'm not asking for free — $2,900 for the summer, that's a fair rate, right?"
"...Where do I even start tomorrow."
Even as a Metro City University student, Daniel's typical internship pay barely cleared $700. Working under Luke meant closer to $1,400 a month — genuinely solid money.
"Remote work's fine. I'll send you the base framework. It's a tower-defense game."
A tower-defense game? Daniel stared at the message, baffled. Is this actually going anywhere, or is Brother Luke just burning cash for fun?
Realistically, with off-the-shelf game editors floating around dev forums, even someone three months into self-taught programming could slap together a basic tower-defense clone. Skeptical of Luke's actual coding chops, Daniel opened the project file anyway.
The sheer density of code staring back at him made his scalp prickle.
"...Wait, did Brother Luke actually write all of this himself?"
"This is almost as clean as MY work?!"
The deeper he scrolled, the colder his hands got. Handsomer than me, more hair than me, fine. Now you're coming for my one remaining advantage — actual programming skill?
Daniel was practically tearing up. "Brother Luke, you're unbelievable."
"Eh, it's alright," Luke said, smiling. "Let's get this done in one summer."
Daniel touched his own thinning hairline, hand trembling slightly — then reconsidered. Already behind everyone else anyway. All I've got left to burn is my own stamina.
He gritted his teeth. "Screw it. Working myself into the ground it is. I'm in."
______________________________
First order of business: naming the game. After some back and forth, they landed on keeping it simple — Plants vs. Zombies, straightforward and immediately recognizable, similar in spirit to that biochem-themed FPS Luke had played with Cynthia earlier.
Building on the original concept, Daniel pitched a few additions of his own.
"Even as a tower-defense game, I think there should still be a capture mechanic somewhere in there," he said. "Like — clear a stage, and Poké Balls become single-use items letting you catch an enemy Pokémon. Rack up enough medals, unlock Grass-types for free, throw in capture cutscenes, that kind of thing."
Luke nodded. "Capturing's fine. Actual raising mechanics, though, not necessary — this is still fundamentally a tower-defense game at its core."
Daniel laughed. "Once it goes mobile later, THAT'S when the raising mechanics come in, right?" He rubbed his hands together. "Drop $15, evolve your Bellsprout instantly. Drop $150, Ferrothorn's permanently unlocked. Drop $1,400, and—" he coughed, cutting himself off.
Luke raised an eyebrow. Good lord. Piplup Corp's loss, not recruiting this guy.
"Steam release?"
"Yeah — PC version first, keep the maps simple to start, expand with paid DLC down the line."
The original Plants vs. Zombies had run on a genuinely minimal map roster — Garden, Night, Roof, Pool, just four total in the first game — but the depth had always come from plant selection and combos, not map variety. Their reskinned version, Pokémon vs. Zombies, would layer in a full "move" system per Pokémon on top of the usual number tweaks: Bellsprout's Razor Leaf, Carnivine's Swallow, Oddish's Sweet Scent. On the Night map, Morelull's Moonlight would function as the primary light source; Amoonguss's spores and Budew's Attract could carry sleep and infatuation effects, respectively.
On the enemy side: Beedrill would fly clean over front-row units unless an Exeggutor was in place to intercept it, and its Fury Attack — hitting randomly 2 to 5 times — would inject a genuine luck element that'd test players hard.
In a very real sense, the game doubled as passive move-set education.
By the time the second draft of the proposal came together, Daniel sat back, struck by a single realization.
Learning through play. Beyond just memorizing movesets, players would organically start absorbing type matchups too. Beyond giving more people a taste of what made the Pokémon world genuinely compelling, this thing had a real shot at nudging some of them toward actually becoming Trainers.
Is THIS Brother Luke's actual endgame here?
Daniel's eyes widened. "...Wow. Brother Luke's really operating on a whole different level of vision here."
Newly motivated, he threw himself back into development with renewed energy. For art assets, he suggested reaching out directly to a Smeargle over at the art academy — cheaper than commissioning original work.
Luke blinked. Even Pokémon are taking creative jobs these days, huh. Then again, it tracked — plenty of major companies already ran Porygon in place of human coders. If he ever scaled this into a real studio down the line, running a Porygon for development on top of an Electivire for the power bill sounded almost too efficient to pass up.
"Alright, I'll leave the art side to you, then."
"Don't mention it," Daniel said, waving him off. "Don't worry — hairline sacrifices and all, I'm getting this done for you."