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I am trying to build a world where many video/mobile game characters will share the same space and time.

For example, our own Super Mario trying to catch pokemon and save princess from dinosaur Charizard and on the way he even uses Angry birds somewhere; while Mario's brother Luigi has been running exhaustively over Trains of Subway Surfers...

The fact is there are many different gaming worlds as well as characters. All are so overwhelmingly diverse and large in number that I am not able to properly settle and calm the things down. How to set a stage and create a world when I have lots of ideas, backgrounds, worlds and characters already but unsure to scope things. How to sort and arrange the world properly?

Can anyone guide me with the proper world-building way and methodology for the same?

Karan Desai
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    Reminds me of the time I wanted to write a massive anime crossover between a bunch of different series. I quickly gave up because the sheer number of possibilities was simply overwhelming. I wish you better luck. – F1Krazy Jul 04 '18 at 10:29
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    Despite the word worldbuilding, I understand your question more in a "how to write.." way. If this is not the case, can you modify it to be more about worldbuilding and less about writing? – L.Dutch Jul 04 '18 at 10:37
  • Sorry to sound like that - I am stuck at building the stage and world itself and I don't know how to proceed and what method to pick..It's kind of hotchpotch and that's why I have used worldbuilding-process tag whose extended description scopes my question exactly to world building. – Karan Desai Jul 04 '18 at 10:42
  • good job with the edit! – L.Dutch Jul 04 '18 at 10:53
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    I'll take it as praise :p – Karan Desai Jul 04 '18 at 11:02
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    Make sure you're not going to run into copyright issues before publication! – pojo-guy Jul 04 '18 at 11:39
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    The movie Wreck-it Ralph, 2012, explored precisely this concept of game crossovers. – user535733 Jul 04 '18 at 12:01
  • If you haven't already seen Pixels (2015 film) then you may gather some good ideas from there on cross-over behaviors. It's super cheesy but may be helpful for you. – sclarke Jul 04 '18 at 12:24
  • @user535733 And it's a good movie, win-win. I could also recommend The LEGO Movie, which has a similar concept but with bricks. – AmiralPatate Jul 04 '18 at 14:40
  • Take a look at Subspace Emissary, from Super Smash Brother's Brawl. It crosses up Pokemon, Super Mario, Super Metroid, Starfox, Kirby, and a lot of other stuff into one big thing that more or less works. – Mermaker Jul 04 '18 at 15:08
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    "How to build a world" questions are occasionally asked here. If the question is very specific they're left open. If the question is very broad they're closed. I'm afraid there are a thousand ways to do this, which is why classes in creative writing exist. – JBH Jul 04 '18 at 22:36
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    This question is being discussed on Meta: How and why is my question too broad? – Secespitus Jul 05 '18 at 09:21
  • Ready Player One the book, I don't know about the movie but the shorts suggest not, does this fairly successfully with a lot of material, most notably classic computer games, it may be worth your time to read it, but the methods may not work for you in this case. – Ash Jul 08 '18 at 15:52

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In each of these worlds there is some pretty heavy Handwavium when it comes to science, some of this is down to the use of excessive strong drugs (mushrooms and flowers that can make you throw fire or make you taller) some claim to use scientific technology like portable cages used to trap animals against their will (pokeballs) and others use simplish physics, but suggest using animals not just as cannon fodder, but as the cannon balls themselves.

While each world is unique and similar at the same time, they could in theory occupy the same world but different continents. They all have the same concept of semi-intelligent animals, whether it be talking princess-stealing turtles, animals that can solve problems and fight with near magical abilities often represented by a small yellow rat-like creature that has the power of Thor (I wonder if Pikachu could lift his hammer?) or birds able to construct and aim a giant slingshot to defeat a race of pigs that are (in some cases) capable of flight and even calculating orbital mechanics... and most of the worlds I assume you're hoping to incorporate often have humans as the protagonists.

My suggestion would be to have them evolve on different continents of the same world.

Pokemon

The total playable area of all pokemon games combined (not including Pokemon Go obviously) is smaller than Japan, as was the purpose of deisgning parts of it to reflect parts of Japan, other later games used other continents but still playable areas is not massive in the grand scheme of things.

Mario

Without meaning to sterotype, but it could be assumed that with Mario and Luigi being Italian that they could be from... well Italy, and the lack of a royal family in America suggest that Europe is more likely a continent for them.

Angry Birds

This is a harder one to pin down, but with games such as Angry Birds Rio, you could say maybe its from South America as that does have a large number of different species of birds without a large number of predators for them.

Other Games

Sonic the Hedgehog could be north America (more by the technology that you see in the worlds) or maybe China (would explain the industrial sections as well as the temple parts).

Basically anything in the Super Smash Bros games could be tied down to a different continents or countries while all theoretically existing in the same worldspace.

Continental differences

Maybe have each of the games occupy a different continent it would be possible that some animals cross continents as they do in real life, your could limit this and then have the modern age of transport bring them all together. that way each could have "evolved" separately and then only started mingling together at this much later date leading to a weird sort of conflict where the baddies for a big club to help each other while the goodies form one of their own to fight them.

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Blade Wraith
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    Very interesting take on this and well sorted stuff. Nice idea of making things segregated in the same world. I must think on it. Thanks – Karan Desai Jul 04 '18 at 10:59
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    @KaranDesai only thing i would be careful of, is having Yoshi be Charizard or something to that effect, better to keep the characters separate otherwise you have to explain why Yoshi can suddenly do everything Charizard can and that charizard is suddenly green... as there isn't a pokemon that exists that looks and acts exactly like Yoshi, Perhaps Bowser is realted to a Blastoise? but only in the same way that an emperor penguin is related to a rockhopper penguin – Blade Wraith Jul 04 '18 at 12:51
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    @BladeWraith Better yet: Blastoise/Turtonator crossbreed. – F1Krazy Jul 04 '18 at 13:15
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    @F1Krazy, i refuse to concede the existence of a Pokemon called Turtonaur. there are ONLY 151 Pokemon! – Blade Wraith Jul 04 '18 at 13:21
  • That's a good point about being careful merging characters @BladeWraith. I'll keep that in mind. – Karan Desai Jul 05 '18 at 03:41
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The first thing is to make sure that your world is coherent and can accomodate all characters you want to introduce. You need a reason for all of your characters to find them in one place and to you have to decide who the story will follow.

There are some examples you can look at to see how a cross-over can be done.

The simplest is probably Super Smash Bros., a series of videogames where the characters are from different series from Nintendo, all fighting against each other. There is a bit of story where you can basically fight with the starting characters through some battles against enemies that will be added as playable characters afterwards, but here we have a simple "world" that is often just stages that were inspired by the original worlds following one another. The focus is on the gameplay.

Another famous series is Kingdom Hearts, which is combining Final Fantasy and Disney - it's owned by Disney and published by Square Enix. Here you have a new world in which all the characters meet and a protagonist that is from neither of the original worlds. The focus is more on the story.

Therefore you first have to decide what kind of game you are creating. A first person shooter? A platformer? A brawler? A story-driven visual novel?

After that you have to define how important the world is. Is it just simple stages because the focus is on the gameplay? Or are you focussing on exploring the interactions of the different characters with one another?

Then you can decide how they should meet. Is it a new world? Do they travel through all the home-worlds? How do they travel? Is there a portal? Does a mage call them all to have a feast? Is there a gigantic intergalactic tournament? Some new character finds magic hidden in himself that allows him to go through different dimensions and now he is searching for a way home?

After that you have to think about which elements and characters fit together. Final Fantasy is story-driven. Mario is a platformer. Mario tries to safe Peach - that's about all the story he needs. Making those work together is more challenging because people who see Mario expect something different than people reading "Final Fantasy".

To take your examples: Mario is from platformer games, Pokemon is tactical battling with a bit of story. Both are present in the Smash Bros. series because fighting is normal in their universes and there is no need for big complicated story plots. Introducing Subway Surfer trains is hard. It could be a good stage, or a mini-game, but does the running-and-jumping play style really fit the fighting style of the other two? It could fit together with Mario as a platformer, but what does Pokemon have to do with this?

Once you decide what kind of game you want to create you have a basis to evaluate different franchises for their common elements and how they can relate to the game you want to build. This will allow you to see which franchises fit and which do not fit. Just taking everything famous you come across in hopes to get some publicity will likely result in a catastrophe.

Oh, and be aware of trademarks and such. Taking original characters and using them for your own product, especially from different studios together, may result in legal problems. But for this you would have to contact a lawyer.

Secespitus
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    Woah, my bad, never heard about Kingdom Hearts and Super Smash bros, Thanks a lot for such a clear and detailed walkthrough along with these notable examples. I will go and play them out too. Noted this Just taking everything famous you come across in hopes to get some publicity will likely result in a catastrophe. and yes, thanks for telling about Trademarks. – Karan Desai Jul 04 '18 at 10:48
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    @KaranDesai Just as a heads-up, the Kingdom Hearts franchise currently consists of about ten games across several different platforms, and they all contribute to the overarching storyline in some way. It may be easier (and significantly less confusing) to watch Let's Plays of them on YouTube rather than trying to track down copies of every single one. – F1Krazy Jul 04 '18 at 10:55
  • Sure -- currently I am at work :P Once reach home, will do so – Karan Desai Jul 04 '18 at 10:56