itch.io

About the difficulty relating thing, one thing that I've learned about story telling from the vast amounts of time I've obsessively observed and examined the topic, is that understanding a concept does not require a 1-1 comparison. So long as you can explain the point of view of the characters, and show how such a concept works in action, it can simply be a new perspective.

For example, I've recently been revisiting an old cartoon series I once stumbled across through pure luck thanks to my family not having cable for a period of time; on a cartoon-focused-satellite-network-channel called Qubo, I watched a series known as "Sitting Ducks", which actually debuted on Cartoon Network back in 2002. Nowadays you can find the series on the Internet Archive.

More importantly, Sitting Ducks' main setting was two towns on opposite sides of a pond, Duck Town and Swampville, home of majority Ducks and Alligators, respectively. With the setting, the series' main plot was about how, between two towns with unmistakable hostility towards each other (if you've seen other media with a predator and prey dynamic, especially Beastars, you can guess why), a duck and an alligator have a run-in which leads to an unlikely friendship that goes throughout the series.

And there's probably few people on here who are unaware of Beastars, a manga most notable for starring anthropomorphic characters and having the predator/prey dynamic (or carnivore/herbivore, in this case) be a serious front and center topic, which debuted in 2016. How Beastars tackled the theme of predator/prey was not only through the romance (ex. Legoshi and Haru, Louis and Juno), but also through various lenses that gave obvious parallels to real world issues, such as sexism, racism, criminal issues (drug usage, murders, corpse black markets...), even some coming of age themes.

Why I bring up Beastars in comparison to Sitting Ducks is down to either series' approach to the topic of predator/prey relationships: Beastars made direct parallels to real world issues, while Sitting Ducks treated the issue of a predator being friends with the prey as its own separate thing.

With Beastars, this approach actually became a detriment as the implications of equating desire for meat to sexuality, actually brought up questions for various audiences who pointed out the issue in that "a desire to literally eat your partner" is actually not that equatable, as there are serious risks to consider and work through.

It may seem like I'm glazing a children's show with Sitting Ducks, but it not only handled the whole "carnivorous predator and pond-omnivorous-prey being friends" in a somewhat organic way by having different episodes address the cold fact that such a relationship had obvious difficulties that required active consideration, there were also several little details in the series that quietly reminded you that these were actual sapient animals, not just humans in animal skinsuits; multiple times, when it came to food for the duck characters, one thing that stands out is how the food looks like something that might be appetizing for humans, but it often uses ingredients that real-world ducks would love but humans would absolutely gag at (flies as a side, actual grasshoppers in foods, "fried tadpole buttocks"...), as well as various tasks and actions that would be influenced by their physiology.

I still keep remembering this one scene where three of the side characters are doing what looks to be taking out the trash, and in a way they are, but what they're disposing of isn't your typical waste, it's actually their molted feathers. Deepening this would be how they have a discussion during this scene as to why they have to separate the down feathers from the flight feathers, since they all go to the same disposal plant. One of the other characters says to just do it as they can't afford another ticket.

The TL:DR version is: if you want your audience to understand a concept, it can pay to not have direct parallels for what you're trying to convey . A series that tried to rely on real world parallels just ended up confusing its audience, while one that simply just asked those questions of such difficulties but provided its own answers probably handled it better by allowing it to be an explored plot per episode. In short, build your concept in bits and parts.

For the idea of a society wide nursery, you admittedly could take some inspiration from historical or media examples, like from where the name "kindergarten" originated from: I believe it came from viking cultures, but it basically was an actual practice for families to leave their children in a collective building. Not for life, of course, but it was obviously a practice that inspired today's kindergarten's. There's also a more morbid historical practice how, in the medieval times, families who didn't want their children could just drop them off at monasteries. Heck, even the nunneries of then were just for nobles to get rid of troublesome daughters, so there's a reason why sexy nuns can be an archetype sometimes (the troublesome daughters were sometimes caught sleeping around - which isn't a good thing in a society without paternity tests - or STI medication).

In trying to explain the nurseries to your audience, maybe ask yourself questions about them - imagine a tiny assistant that's always asking "why".

Like, how do the nurseries become staffed? What's the security around potentially the future of the settlement? How are the kids' living arrangements organized? What happens when nefarious figures manage to infiltrate? How would family visits be arranged? Better yet, how did such a concept come into existence in the first place?

I know it may sound like a lot, but letting these questions bounce around your head can really help with constructing the idea in way that conveys to your audience "while this wouldn't be good thing in our culture, for them it's a necessity born from fear".

Heck, that even could help sell the idea of "this is not a world you would want to let any kid wander anywhere in".

Edit: Actually, I just thought of an idea: why not create a quest where the player rescues a child NPC from some enemies and decides to escort them to one of these nurseries? Done right, it could be a good way to demonstrate why it's not a simple case of "just bring the kid along, what's the worst that could happen" as well as provide a reason why the player would be entering a nursery for the first time. You could even explore all the different dynamics other kids might go through via the NPC dialogues. Basically, explore both the bad and good sides of a nursery by having the kids either talk about their family relationships, their state of care, even their plans for the future.

Maybe have one kid who has no idea what their parents look like, one who's eagerly awaiting their next visit, or one kid who doesn't have parents but does have a brother they keep in contact with.

Or on the future plans side, one could discuss that they want to just leave ASAP, another could be enamored by the player's less lewd adventures and wish to be just like them, and a third would probably want... to be an accountant.

Ah, apologies, there's just so much story potential when you wonder.