[Discussion] What would you like to see in a Pokémon fangame?

Maruno said:

• You don't need to be able to visit all parts of a given region. This is of particular interest to those who want to use those regions in their plots rather than just including them for nostalgia cruises. I don't think any plot where you suddenly hop to a new region could cope with having that entire region thrown into it.
• You don't need to play through the regions in the same way the official games do. GS is an example of this, where you start off in Kanto in Vermillion City rather than Pallet Town, and head off in way different directions.

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These are two very good points that could help with the level balancing issues.

Also, some towns/cities may not even have to have gyms anymore.

Maruno said:

This just leaves the side-quests, which can either be shifted earlier in the game or left there to do nothing but be the "for completeness" part. Either way, once the main game is finished, there's nothing left to play for. Therefore, no post-game.

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So no PMD-style main-plot-is-really-only-a-third-of-the-whole-game-because-of-all-the-sidequests kind of deal? I would have thought that Pokémon was more conducive to that kind of thing.

You are right that one game should probably stick to one region, though. All the stuff I've been saying about the level cap is about a game whose region is so big it's the "equivalent" of two regions. And I wasn't even the one who planned it out. It's not so much about scale as it is homogeneity.

Raising the level cap just results in unrealistically-levelled wild Pokémon roaming Unova (and involves way too much balancing issues for your liking).

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I'm interested in how you figure this. What balancing issues does it actually entail? Do you have experience from actually having tried to do this before?

Also, what level is "unrealistic"? In Unova, you already have Pokémon at levels like 59 to 65 roaming the areas that are explorable immediately after the E4, even though they themselves were only at levels like 48 to 50 the first time around.

Aside from a few side-quests, the only thing you can do in official games post-game is battle other players and try to complete the local Battle Frontier.

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And in the case of Unova, try and bring your Pokémon up to speed with all the unexplored post-game regions.

RaulCortez said:

At everything Maruno said:

THANKS. That's just what i wanted to get across since Post #1.




Thing is, in the case of Pokémon, we're not talking just about moves. We're talking about visuals, the Pokémon themselves.

Let's say i like Tyranitar. I know to get Tyranitar you need to evolve your Larvitar(lvl.30), and then your Pupitar(lvl.55). But you don't like those two, I like Tyranitar. It's badass and I like it. Simple as that. I don't think the average person would wait all you're supposed to wait for them to get all the experience to evolve TWO times before you get the Pokémon you want. Imagine an Arion or even worse, a Deino case.

I agree that the plot is pivotal for a story. And for someone who's NEVER, EVER played a Pokémon game before it would be Ok, since they had no idea how quickly Pokémon gain levels or experience on official games. But to anyone who's played Pokémon before would be thinking why on earth is it taking them so much to make their Pokémon to gain levels for any reason.

Now, this is my personal opinion and view on this based on what i like and enjoy about Pokémon games. Everyone is free to add whatever they like to their games. :)

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Just as my previous post says, if you multiply exp requirements by 1.5 or 2, you aren't making the player play that long to level his or her Pokemon up. Also, who says that you will run into a Pupitar? What if wild Pokemon are around level 55 when you enter Hoenn? Why not encounter Tyranitar? Don't be afraid of originallity. Tame it.

And Maruno has a point. This isn't the "Discuss Multiple Region Idea
Thread". This thread is about different ideas that we would like to see within a fangame, to be used as a trigger for originality. It only takes one post per idea.

Officially closing the multiple region discussion....

I would like to see some type of quest system in fangames.

pkmn.master said:

Say by the end of the game, one that would most likely spand over 150 hours, you still want to play in the post game (unlikely since most RPGs don't include a post game). When you beat the game, the Pokemon availiable in that part of the game should be at equal level to yours, for obvious reasons. You can't seem to understand that the exp requirement being doubled won't take ages.

[long, boring mathematical explanation]

So how can you not see that battling 8 Pikachu, without even using the Lucky Egg, doesn't take "ages".

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It may not take "ages" to advance a single level, but when you're trying to do 40 or 50 levels at once, it can really add up. Remember that no matter how you slice it, doubling the experience requirement is going to do just that, make the game take twice as long.

And twice as long is a long time in terms of Pokémon battles. How long do you think it takes to actually battle eight Pikachu? When's the last time you had a Pokémon battle that was over in under 30 seconds?

If there is no post-game, there is no problem, as you've said, as most battles will be plot-related. But why limit a developer's choices? What's wrong with a post-game?

Anyway, since we've decided to close up that topic, I'd like to see more people playing with different mechanics.

It may not be canon, and it may not come off well, but I would really like to see people try and take the training in a new direction completely, even in a direction that would violate most people's sense of Pokémon.

If the official creators can do it (I remember one of the game devs saying, "we want Gen.5 to be a 'Is this really Pokémon?' generation."), why can't fangame makers? The original formula may "work", but it will only "work" for so long.

Dragonite Ernston said:

It may not take "ages" to advance a single level, but when you're trying to do 40 or 50 levels at once, it can really add up. Remember that no matter how you slice it, doubling the experience requirement is going to do just that, make the game take twice as long.

And twice as long is a long time in terms of Pokémon battles. How long do you think it takes to actually battle eight Pikachu? When's the last time you had a Pokémon battle that was over in under 30 seconds?

If there is no post-game, there is no problem, as you've said, as most battles will be plot-related. But why limit a developer's choices? What's wrong with a post-game?

Anyway, since we've decided to close up that topic, I'd like to see more people playing with different mechanics.

It may not be canon, and it may not come off well, but I would really like to see people try and take the training in a new direction completely, even in a direction that would violate most people's sense of Pokémon.

If the official creators can do it (I remember one of the game devs saying, "we want Gen.5 to be a 'Is this really Pokémon?' generation."), why can't fangame makers? The original formula may "work", but it will only "work" for so long. (Now, really?)

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Here you are restarting something that has already ended. You aren't limiting anything. Being a developer myself, I can tell that after developing a five-region game, developers don't plan on going any further, and neither do the players. Say if Pokémon battles only consisted of two options when Red and Blue came out: attack and run. If the player attacks, then the match ends if the opposing fighter's HP hits 0, no animations or anything. Not even pictures of characters. Now pretend that Gold and Silver came out, revealing that you now have states other than attack and hp, and battles have animations for moves. Would you complain that the game will take forever because of this innovation? Probably by what you have said so far. If Pokémon originally came out requiring more exp than what it did, you wouldn't say anything. Actually, the exp formula has changed in Black and White. I can name several games that involve leveling up to gain more power taking hours to do so, and still having many fans. And, you can't stop original innovation. There is no point were you draw the line when you are developing a Pokémon fan game, since Pokémon was designed as a simplistic idea-go around and collect and train creatures. The main developer himself stated this. You consider a fan game a Pokémon one when it still holds this idea.


Anyway... Back to the topic.

pkmn.master said:

And, you can't stop original innovation. There is no point were you draw the line when you are developing a Pokémon fan game, since Pokémon was designed as a simplistic idea-go around and collect and train creatures. The main developer himself stated this. You consider a fan game a Pokémon one when it still holds this idea.

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I'm not trying to stop it, I'm trying to start it. Too many fan games don't do any original innovation, as you said before.

Something i just recently saw, that's not really about the games themselves, but the way they're presented.

If you're going to make me want to download and play your game, you should introduce me to it with an engaging storyline that i can find interesting enough. Saying things like:

"So um yeah your 12 and your a pokeman trainer and your going to be catching pokeman on this new region thats really cool and misteryous buuut theres like a bad team the team particle that wants yer pekaman"

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Gah. It hurts to write like that.

Don't do that. Please, don't. Develop a story, a fanfic if you will before resuming it, make it consistant and give it some logic in itself, so that people will read it and not cringe at it. Explain a bit of the storyline, show just enough so people wants to know more about it.

Also, don't present your game when you only have like two or three maps done, not a single original sprite (in case you need them), and not even a decent presentation scheme. People who sees the topic for the first time and finds such a scenario, will most likely won't be visiting again (unless they want to laugh histerically at your fail).

Also, typos. Typos all over the dialogues. Come one naw guise.

PD: I completely understand there's a Beginner's showcase to receive critique and help with these things, but i'd like to think there's a limit in between having a starting point so that you can receive help and a complete utter mess no one even knows how to understand in order to help you develop it.

I personally think that is possible to have a game with 10 regions (O__o) if you done it correctly. People need to be less absolute, there are several possibilities that aren't discovered yet.

Maruno said:

The vast majority of games only need one region. RB, RS, DP and BW all have one region, and people like them just fine. GS has two regions, but Kanto is very much tacked-on and is on par with other games' post-E4 content rather than being "the second half of the adventure".

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Several people dislike the new pokémon games for several reasons, this is one.

Maruno said:

No, seriously, one region. Your masterpiece is probably too long and convoluted, and would be a better game if you had the sensibility to boil it down. It also means it's less work to do, which means a higher chance of it being completed. Only very exceptional games can be long enough to consider the existence of the level cap (which is just one of the many related issues). Swallow your pride - your game is probably not one of these exceptions.

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Yes, but this is more about the people incompetence. In 5 years of Essentials first release I can't believe about the lack of completed games. If the people have more competence and the ability to make teams and pass the project to several people, a 5/10 years project is possible.

Maruno said:

My main concern, which people never seem to address, is what they would actually do with their multiple regions and how they'd seamlessly link them together. If the only reason the player is jetting off to Hoenn is "because Prof. Oak suggested it", then you should throw away anything you've written after that point - it's not part of the same game. Nostalgia cruise games inevitably involve recreating the official games almost word for word (i.e. start off in the starting towns, with/without your previous Pokémon, progress in the same way through the regions, blah blah blah). No. Bad. And don't come to me saying you have some twists planned - deep down you know why you added the extra region, and if that reason is "I wanted it, and I'll find a way to work it in somehow" then that's a bad reason and you should feel bad. You should do what the game needs, and it never needs someone throwing in extra regions for nostalgia's sake.

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I agree, but I don't think that a good game that have multiples regions is impossible.

Maruno said:

If you're particularly stubborn and still want your 5(/6/7/8) regions in your game, then you'll need to start thinking about that level cap and the related issues (level-up move-learning, evolutions, power escalation, etc.). There have been several proposals in this thread on how to fix this, and they're all rubbish. Raising the level cap just results in unrealistically-levelled wild Pokémon roaming Unova (and involves way too much balancing issues for your liking); halving the Exp gain per battle just makes it twice as hard to level up at the beginning of the game (which is off-putting, and still has balancing issues); and starting a new region afresh with no old Pokémon is the same thing as starting a brand new different game (in which case, make them different games, duh).

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I don't agree. Half the exp gain may be a nice solution.

Maruno said:

The official games match the Pokémon growth (fairly) well to their pace. By the end of the game your Pokémon have grown into pretty much their final form with their final moveset (levelling them up to the cap is academic when nothing else about them is going to change). Some are easier to get to that state, some are harder. The point is that Pokémon and the game both reach the end at around the same point. Adding multiple regions suddenly doubles the length of the plot, while the Pokémon are still geared around a 1-region growth rate. This is why the aforementioned level cap and related issues exist.

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Suddenly doubles? Only if you recreates the entire region and put higher level for trainers and wild pokémon.

Maruno said:

I've been assuming here that there is no such thing as post-game in these fangames, and with good reason. Aside from a few side-quests, the only thing you can do in official games post-game is battle other players and try to complete the local Battle Frontier. These are negated by the fact that PvP isn't available in Essentials, and very few people are going to bother trying to get bragging rights in a fangame's knock-offs of the official games' Frontiers, because to do so is pointless. This just leaves the side-quests, which can either be shifted earlier in the game or left there to do nothing but be the "for completeness" part. Either way, once the main game is finished, there's nothing left to play for. Therefore, no post-game.

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TOTALLY DISAGREE. There many thing to do after completing the game ignoring PVP like the deprecated main reason: Gotta catch'em all! In official games I spend a huge time completing the Pokédex/Contest/Underground/Battle things/Pokéradar, etc... The part about Battle Frontier in fangames it's just your personal opinion, many people like theses locations.

I talked with several players that beat my game (that doesn't have multiples regions) and, thanks to post-game, some players surpassed the 150 hours mark.

Maruno said:

Here are some random ideas I've had about using multiple regions. Their usabilities may vary; I'm just mentioning them regardless of how well they would actually work.

• All regions don't need to be the same size. Those islands in FRLG were smaller than Kanto, for instance (well, they felt smaller).
• You don't need to be able to visit all parts of a given region. This is of particular interest to those who want to use those regions in their plots rather than just including them for nostalgia cruises. I don't think any plot where you suddenly hop to a new region could cope with having that entire region thrown into it.
• You could move back and forth between regions at will, rather than be stuck in a strict linear progression. Puzzles and plot could jump around between the regions. Regions separated by large distances may have some fridge logic to answer to (particularly if the plot becomes ostensibly time-urgent), and people may question why you need two regions when you could use one.
• You don't need to play through the regions in the same way the official games do. GS is an example of this, where you start off in Kanto in Vermillion City rather than Pallet Town, and head off in way different directions.
• Regions don't need to depict different areas in the same world. How about different layers of existence (world/Shadow Realm/Aether), or parallel realities, or different time periods of the same location?

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I agree with these things. You can also make a region with only few places (around 5) accessibles. Example: A Kanto region that have only the area between Pallet and Pewter, plus some things like the area up to Cerulean cave and Digglet Cave surroundings. Using this tip you can make a 4 region game with cost of one!

RaulCortez said:

Thing is, in the case of Pokémon, we're not talking just about moves. We're talking about visuals, the Pokémon themselves.

Let's say i like Tyranitar. I know to get Tyranitar you need to evolve your Larvitar(lvl.30), and then your Pupitar(lvl.55). But you don't like those two, I like Tyranitar. It's badass and I like it. Simple as that. I don't think the average person would wait all you're supposed to wait for them to get all the experience to evolve TWO times before you get the Pokémon you want. Imagine an Arion or even worse, a Deino case.

I agree that the plot is pivotal for a story. And for someone who's NEVER, EVER played a Pokémon game before it would be Ok, since they had no idea how quickly Pokémon gain levels or experience on official games. But to anyone who's played Pokémon before would be thinking why on earth is it taking them so much to make their Pokémon to gain levels for any reason. And why compare them with official games? It's the canon. You're making a fan game using characters out from a franchise, not a completely new game with new monsters. It's obvious people will compare because they're expecting new experiences while keeping the main foundations of that franchise.

Now, this is my personal opinion and view on this based on what i like and enjoy about Pokémon games. Everyone is free to add whatever they like to their games. :)

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In my game I made a item to make some pokémon like Deino evolve earlier.

Putting EXP gain by half isn't too noticeable like in theory and isn't too hard to accustom. You can also make several things to fix this problem like (only a example) multiplies all levels and gains (with a little fix on exp formula and other things) by ten, so Dragonair evolve in level 550 XD.

desbrina said:

The graphics can use a lot as well. Lightning yellow graphics folder is 170MB, though 110MB of that is animated battlers (just Kanto and evos, all animated is 420MB)

It would be close, probably closer to 60MB than 50MB. Lightning yellow is missing the kanto league still, and its data alone is 10MB, the audio is 110 MB

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I totally forget about the animated battlers, this only counts because of thousands and thousands of sprites. Without counting forms/gender differences there are 4 sprites (backers and shinies) for every 649 pokémon, or 2596 sprites. If you use animated battles these numbers goes insanely high for every sprite. I suggest to people use them scaled in 1:1 and make the Essentials to double the scale for saving a good space. Remember also to don't use bitmap format.

First I'd like to point this out... FL, the pic in your sig looks like a wild battle in Ragefire Chasm in World of Warcraft. (Not making fun :) )

So here's a bit of my backstory when it came to playing Pokemon. When I first played pokemon, I was 12 years old (back in 1999, ole Pokemon Blue on the Gameboy). I didn't play it much for the storyline, but rather for the puzzles and just to level my pokemon, evolve them, teach them new moves, and catch them all. When I played first played Gold and Silver (translated Japanese versions, heh), I played for the same reason. The old pokemon games didn't have much of a storyline. It was just pretty much "10 year old boy with a primary color for a name gets pokemon from old guy, and goes out and earns badges with team rocket trying to do nefarious things that kind of getting in your way... no biggie! Here though we'll throw in a city that has to do with dead pokemon and eerie music.. ooOOOoOoooOOoo". Pokemon has ALWAYS been like that, and after Gold and Silver, it got old. I could barely play Ruby/Sapphire, and never even touched the first 4 gen games (besides Heart Gold and Soul Silver, just for updated graphics and nostalgic reasons, however the whole tie in with the primary legendary bird of that game was fantastic).

Then along came Pokemon Black and White... hmm.. a PETA group for pokemon? A darker storyline? A few cinematics?? This might seem interesting! Well.. to my surprise, I played it, beat it, and I THOROUGHLY enjoyed it. Now the only reason why I would like to play Black and White 2 (at all) is for the end-game (post-game) world tournament. All original trainers, gym leaders, champions, etc etc with their teams using strategic movesets and items. Looks fun, and a little challenging. Might take an ounce of planning.

I've read through all these posts and have kind of changed my mind on a "Pokemon with all regions" game. It would be really big, and to tie everything together, while (if you want to go for it) keeping it true to the official games can be real challenging... Possible, but very difficult.

All in all, a fangame HAS to be original, never done before. How about starting back in the ancient times of the pokemon universe... before pokeballs, before pokemon storage computers, and you had to either leave your pokemon with a caretaker that doesn't level your pokemon, or build your own pokemon farm or breeding facility? Maybe the game could make up a way to explain why a trainer can only have 6 pokemon on them at one time, not just because it's "the rules" or "it's for strategic and balancing reasons." Puhhhleeease. Since pokemon has a bit of mysticism in it, have the game be more about the mystic side of it. Something along those lines would be definitely new. Also, instead of fighting an evil organization, your quest actually involves joining a group later on in the game to take down an evil dictator of your people, and one that uses pokemon for nefarious means (like team rocket, but a much bigger scale, with more influence).

if you want to have more then one region in game i think its best to have it revolve around a more in-depth story. i agree that if its because oak says so... don't do it.

maybe have one region as your main setting for gyms ect then have an airport in each region and as you travel to sertin areas in your main region it unlocks other areas in the other regions that way you have access to that regions Pokémon. for example you start in pallet town you then pass the first gym that badge unlocks access to the other regions but only say the first town and city ect that way it keeps it level efficient. and gives you a bit of freedom on were to go ect.then you could do side missions in delivering mail to people across different regions . this way it also makes it a little different from the main games.

More original stories instead of the standard "you're ten years old and receive your pokemon from the professor"

Darkroman said:

Maybe the game could make up a way to explain why a trainer can only have 6 pokemon on them at one time, not just because it's "the rules" or "it's for strategic and balancing reasons." Puhhhleeease.

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The game designer and mathematician in me says, if you want to test this rule, why not try creating a game where the trainer is not limited to six? How about, say, seven.

With the caveat, of course, that the game is still balanced based upon a team of six.

To be honest since I'm a HUGE fan of the anime my dream game would be having that story-line in each region he's completed so far. And not only does this game consist of you playing as Ash but also the people he traveled with or even his rivals! Playing as characters like Misty until she's a gym leader, Brock to the end of Sinnoh, Gary until he's a researcher, and so on.. Kind of got that idea inspired by games like Sonic Adventure and stuff. I think that would be an extremely great game. It wouldn't happen, but hey I can dream can't I? haha. I also wouldn't mind the same thing involving the manga. Just saying. I mean come on Dragon Ball Z can get 15+ games released with the same story-line (I'm a fan and all but come on!) but the Pokemon Anime can't get 1?! Ridiculous!

TheAgentBrandon said:

To be honest since I'm a HUGE fan of the anime my dream game would be having that story-line in each region he's completed so far. And not only does this game consist of you playing as Ash but also the people he traveled with or even his rivals! Playing as characters like Misty until she's a gym leader, Brock to the end of Sinnoh, Gary until he's a researcher, and so on.. Kind of got that idea inspired by games like Sonic Adventure and stuff. I think that would be an extremely great game. It wouldn't happen, but hey I can dream can't I? haha. I also wouldn't mind the same thing involving the manga. Just saying. I mean come on Dragon Ball Z can get 15+ games released with the same story-line (I'm a fan and all but come on!) but the Pokemon Anime can't get 1?! Ridiculous!

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Well, there's Pokemon Yellow... That being said, while Dragonball is an anime first and the games are based on that anime, the Pokemon anime is based on the games... so a game of the anime would be, well, a game based on an anime based on a game. Not that they haven't done that with the TCG (which makes it a game based on a game based on a game...).

I think there's a few fangames kicking around based on the anime's plot. I've seen a FireRed ROM hack, anyway.

Personally, In my fan Game. I would like to replace all of the HMs with Key Items, and Make all TMs reusable like in the 5th Generation games.^^ lol

I'd like to see Pokéballs replaced by ApriBalls. Players have to collect the Apricorns themselves and hand them over to craftspeople who make them into Balls for a fee.

The ApriBalls have different functions and aren't differentiated by power (so Fast Ball, Lure Ball instead of Great Ball, Ultra Ball).

This Fan game element should take place in a Poképast.

I almost agree with DOA_Hitomi, but would take it further; remove HMs and implement Key Skills that the player picks up over the game, some of which are only usable with a compatible Pokémon in the team (Teleport, Fly). Players get the Skills from Skill Tutors. And I'd remove TMs entirely and replace them with Move Tutors that cover áll teachable moves (for a price).

Multiple regions are needless, raising the level cap is unnecessary and would be more hassle than its worth. Even two regions is too much for most stories, simply fleshing out a single region enough will do a much better job of providing a fun experience with a proper flow.

hmmm..... I'm gonna put my dollar (I have more than two-cents here XD ) in here.


Being a developer of a fangame, and having played multiple fangames of Pokemon and other games, I totally agree with the person who said don't be too ambitious. In Gen0 we're only going to have two regions (you can explore the Orange Islands), and that is going to be very hard to pull off correctly by itself. Making 5 regions would be hell.

However, it very well could be done. There's a couple key-points people are totally looking over and not bringing up.

1.) The level-cap increase.
People are saying this would be problematic due to levels learned and evolutions. This can be solved in two ways. One, if you're increasing the level cap from 100 to 200 (or 300. 500 would be farrrrr too much), that doubles the levels, or triples it. Then you would simply double or triple the evolution requirements and the move-learning requirements.

Secondly, evolutions. Not -one- person here, that I've seen, has commented on the evolution dynamic of these games. Pokemon is generally centered around 1-2 evolutions at -max-. What if you were to give pokemon 3 evolutions, or even 4? Every pokemon could have the "baby" version, then the normal basic 1st and 2nd evolution, but then maybe even a third. (Pichu, Pikachu, Raichu, Fulchu-fulgor, latin for lightning, idk lol))

This would add a new level of growth and playability. Scale down the stats some, make it balanced, and you have a ton of more content for working with your pokemon.

Also, cross-breeding.


2.) The general flow of the games

Maruno touched on this slightly, I believe. I think someone else did as well. Multiple regions could easily be done (not the amount of work needed, but the balance part) by just changing how the flow of the game works.

In normal games, you start off in home-town and (mostly) linearly travel through and collect your badges. In GS's case, once you defeat the elite four, you move on to the next region collect those badges and get that Elite four.

What's stopping you from making a Morrowind style game? You could pick a region and you would have a starting point in each one to get you going. You could then have access to the entire region, with very little inhibiting your travels. Some regions could have level 50 pokemon a few towns away from lv 5s, and some could have level 80s near where you'd find 30's. If you're increasing the cap it actually lends to help with this dynamic.
With this it would actually kind of force you to travel to -other- regions before fully exploring the one you're on so you can find Pokemon to match your levels.

3.) Starting Fresh
If you go with my aforementioned Morrowind style Pokemon game, you can use a portion of this to your advantage. Let's say the Pokemon world is a little more customs-related.
An elite four certificate would be kind of like a visa. Before you beat the elite four, let's say you can only take like 3 pokemon with you to another region. Maybe they don't want different species into their region (each region does have it's own set of pokemon. Maybe Unova doesn't want Pikachu breeding with their pokemon) Or even better yet, some regions prohibit Pokemon of certain levels, genders, types(fire water etc) or just the fact that the pokemon couldn't be held in their system, so you can't deposit any from another region into their PCs.

This would make you strategically place your team more. If you start in Kanto, you have a team of six and go to Sinnoh, you can't deposit your Charizard Tangela Vaporeon or whatever in Sinnoh's PC so you only take a few with. Maybe the Elite Four certificate could have technology embedded in it where it brings the system up-to-date with your pokemon. Have it work along-side your pokedex so the PCs from different regions can deposit your Pokemon.


This would make it less of

start in this region, power up, move on
go to this region, continue to power up, move on
etc.

It would make you travel more, put more strategy in your teams, etc.

Also, what if there are criminal organizations which succeed in stealing your Pokemon? let's say you keep all of your pokemon in the PC, and they manage to attack that center, they could steal your pokemon. they could run to another region so you have to go there to find them.

Use the story to take you to new regions, and not complete it fully before moving on.

I think this could easily fix that issue. Granted, it would be a HORRIBLE amount of work, but it would be doable.


I'm with most on saying 1-2 regions would be doable.

Without trading or battling, we at Gen0 are going to focus on end-game content more and making the story itself harder. We want the story itself to take you to into the 80s or so for levels without an extreme amount of grinding.

But yeah. That's my thoughts on the all-region thing.





What I want to see in a fan-game is thought and dedication. Like they were saying earlier, if you're making a full fakemon game, don't make super pokemon all over. Give it a good progression. Make more story involved, don't be lazy with the mapping(I hate how all the trees are symmetrical) and keep the players in mind more than your initial kid-at-a-toy-store's desires.

alot of action i think there should be alot more like pokemon black that was a good game

Ooookaay, having read the whole thread, mostly laughing at people for various reasons (mostly stupidity and stubborness...) and thinking about how I used to play Pokémon, comparing it with the types of games I play nowadays, I think it's my turn to post, eh?

Most important thing first: some kind of replay-value. If you have a split story line, and even different beginnings to choose from, you're already good to go. I'm not speeking of choosing a starter here, it's more like having the player answer the question "As who do you want to play?" more precisely than "A girl (if even possible)?". Take Dragon Age: Origins as an example: you can not only make your character look the way you want - which also is NOT what I'm talking about here - you choose a race (human, elve, or dwarve), a class (warrior, rogue or mage), and depending on that, you may choose from 1-3 different so-called origins (there's six in total, by the way). Let's say you - like me in my first playthrough - picked the elven rogue; You could the choose whether to start as an elf in the slums or as a so-called 'Dalish elf', basically an exiled elf, living in the forest, in piece with both nature and his clan (it's less clicheé than that, I'm just trying to have you guys understand it).
Let's try to apply this principle to the Pokémon franchise! Assuming you make the player pick a trainer class or something, you could - depending on the class they picked - offer a couple of different introductions to the story. And this is just one possibility, you could also add some kind of random factor, like in the Megaman Battle Network series (I only played the 4th one, but c'mon), even though this might put off some players. Split story lines and decision-based sidequests are other, more common means of adding a replay value. Unlocking higher difficulty-levels or other bonus-features might as well be interesting.
This one - also inspired by Dragon Age - is less practicable for Pokémon games, but I'll put it down anyways: Assuming the player only has a limited amount of... let's just call it "time" for now ...to get to know the important characters, they might want to know about the others, playing the game again, just to get that done. On my first run of DA:O, I played with the party of Alistair, Morrigan, Leliana, like anyone else would have done on the first run. Heck, I even killed Wynne before she joined the party, just not to piss Morrigan off, since I was trying to achieve a romance with her... anyway: I used Oghren a bit, because he's funny, but on my second run (female, human mage btw. ) I tried Oghren, Sten and Zevran. That also was pretty awesome.

Next on my agenda: A moving, hooking and all in all interesting story line. This also involves interesting characters; Even though DA's story wasn't all that creative, it was inscenated almost perfectly. The characters, most of them ready to meet death, had me shaking during the final dialogues, the boss fight got my heart beating like hell and the bad guy really made me hate him, want to kick his FKN ass and yes, rip his head off - something not many games (except for Bulletstorm, maybe) have achieved.

3rd: Getting rid of random encounters. I know, it's one of the most essential things people mentally connect with Pokémon, but let's face it: it pisses almost all the players off in one way or another. Some kind of randomness and reaccessibility (is that an actual word? o.O) to the battles might not be so bad, not allowing the player to "clear" an area, however, just makes me sick.

Finally: Huge worlds not worth exploring. If the player is not rewarded with a cool item, funny dialogue, or at least a beautiful view, they will just get upset and stop 'experiencing' the world you created for him. They will simply start 'skipping through it' on the fastest routes, avoid any unnecessary backtracking and so on. What good is a large world to explore if there isn't even a reason to do so? One way to handle this is to get rid of the Routes as they are in the Pokémon games by implementing a world map where the player can choose where to travel to. Depending on what road they travel on, you can still have some form of random encounter (those shouldn't be like REs in the Pokémon games, rather like a 'on the road'-map, with an event the player might do once, or something like that).

Well, I think that's pretty much all I can think of right now. To sum it up: I don't like to be annoyed by a game, I want to be entertained. The line is very fine, yet graduent.

Out Of The Box

I So Agree On The Fact That We Should Get Ourselves Out Of The Cliche Story Of,

'Hey, I'm a 10 year-old, getting my new pokemon, going on a never-ending journey to defeat all gyms within the region, thwart an evil organization along the way while I'm at it, and defeat the Pokemon League Champion, all the while keeping ahead of my local rival. '


I would really like to just have more friends in the game, really :P

Cause I Find that our main character is always lonely with his 6 in-hand pokemon, going on the journey alone. Not that I want the Hero's mom to tag along or anything like that XD , but What I'm saying is, more of friends who happens to be able to help us. Say, a friend who is a pokemon ranger. They can help in battles and probably, you wouldn't need to battle all the time.



#1 Hopeless Boss Fights
I wonder if anyone has ever tried putting in one of those 'Must lose' battles.
Whereby, you must lose, and they normally let it happen at the start of the story, like getting pummeled right away and losing. That one would be a shocker for sure, and would add to the angst much needed in our O-so too happy, pokemon world. Normally that happens at the beginning of the game, cause you're a low level and all that, and they put a level 100 right in front of you, with Awesome stats, just to get you to surrender the first try.....

We're always winning everyone we meet in the game,

(except unless you get beaten in a battle by a stronger trainer, but technically that all depends on whether if you're lazy or not to train your pokemon, and even if you do lose after training them, you can always save back and the battle loss would have been long forgotten.....)

That we seem to forget the whole thrill of actually losing and actually have the world be put into dire danger for once, cause we as the heroes are always saving the day. So it's nice to lose for a change, but not meaninglessly of course, make it touching and I'll probably fall for your game XD


#2 Different Goals Or Main Plot
Yeah, we're all clear on the fact that everyone is alright with being a 10-year-old who saves the day, EVERYDAY. But I'm sure no one would complain if someone changed destiny, and decided that we should be doing something else instead of being the strongest pokemon trainer in the world. Most people should be thrilled to try the game. More rivals would heat things up too in my opinion, Lol~ Cause One ain't enough ahaha~ Maybe you can be the villain instead XD