Ruby hack: [HotM Apr. 2011] Pokemon: Super Rising Thunder!

[Pink Parka Girl]

12/25/12 - THE ALPHA IS HERE! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, GO DOWNLOAD IT!
Patch: http://www.pokecommunity.com/showpos...&postcount=509

7/26/10 - Overhauled this entire post to replace the outdated screenshots and details with some much more recent information.

The concept of "Super Rising Thunder" comes from the manga Pokémon Special, in which a certain pokémon channels energy from another, more powerful being in order to unleash the devastating attack for which this hack is named - and saves the world from the Mask of Ice in the bargain. The two key pokémon species involved, the central gimmick of channeled energy, and the idea of an icy evil are what inspired this game ^__^ Otherwise, this has nothing at all to do with Special.

Storyline

Welcome to a world with no Gyms...no Marts...no Pokémon Centers...and no Pokéballs. Once busy roads are cracked and overgrown with weeds, and cities - bustling once upon a time - lay in moldering ruins, home only to scavenging beasts and forgotten history. The residents of your little village whisper about a story - passed down to them through untold generations - detailing a series of devastating, terrible Flashes that had destroyed what was once, it is said, was Eden. The Flashes came from nowhere, the villagers say, and vaporized everything in their paths, leaving terrible sickness in their wake. Nothing that lived anywhere near the Flashes survived - including a mysterious race of creatures who were said to possess great magic.

This is the world you and your sister were born into - small, helpless, and innocent; and warned from your youngest days to never take a step from the secluded forest village where your small band of survivors huddled. You listened - after all, you were a timid child, and not willing to tempt fate - but something ached within you, all the same. Was the Earth ever really an Eden? What of the magic-wielding creatures - did they still exist? Had they ever existed? The answers the villagers gave to these questions contradicted each other - what was the truth? And was there such thing as a better life?

After a horrible tragedy, you fall into a deep sleep and have a mysterious dream - a great Lord, who dwarfs you in size and in majesty, appears before you and gives you dire news...and a miraculous gift. A terrible evil that could destroy all that remains of the world is lurking in the far frozen North - and although you are young, and although you are small, the Lord trusts in your great strength of soul to vanquish the evil - and perhaps pave the way for Eden to begin anew.

The power of "Super Rising Thunder," and the inner strength of a timid young soul - is it enough to save your crumbling world? But as brave as you are deep inside, there is one catch...

You're a Pichu.

Features
-Traditional RPG styled action. As you travel across the ravaged land, you will encounter others who will join your party and provide their own unique skills. There are wild pokémon known as "Flash-born" - half-mad descendants of those pokémon near blast range who managed to survive and reproduce - but none of them can be caught.
-A post-apocalyptic setting. Nuclear bombs from eons past have turned human settlements into crumbling wastelands, and patches of land dead and barren of any life. The surviving forests, grasslands and plains have grown as well as they could wild and unrestrained by the hand of man
-A new storyline. Super Rising Thunder! is driven by its plot - which can get very dark - and its characters. Along your journey, you will encounter a variety of pokémon, both recruitable and NPCs - from a mad Absol who delivers prophecies in gibberish and a Stantler obsessed with collecting human trash; to a strange one-eyed Pikachu with wildly messy fur who cannot speak or understand what you say but is clearly not one of the Flash-born and an Alakazam whom knows much more than he lets on; to a blind, crippled Minun and the little girl Rattata he looks after and a Shiny Flygon who's been trapped in a pokéball for generations and has to come to the realization that his Trainer is dead...to the world itself, filled with untold mysteries, waiting for you to explore it and uncover just what lead to its current state...
-New Map layouts. Towns have a focus on "natural" mapping, rather than the square Nintendo-style maps. Routes, caves, and other related areas have been replaced with what's best described as a hybrid of a PMD style dungeon and a Zelda-style temple - they have the layout of a PMD dungeon, but (most) include puzzles beyond being simply a maze that will require you to use your head to get through them. "Mini-dungeons" - small areas on the overworld map (yes, this game has one you can walk about on ) - have no puzzles beyond a maze, and are simply there for you to fight stuff and collect items.
-No Trainers in the traditional sense. Dungeons, as well as mini-dungeons, have "trap squares," one kind of which triggers a "Flash-born swarm" - a group of random Pokemon that you must fight in order to progress. Some of these traps are avoidable, while others are right in the path of where you need to go and must be tripped in order to advance. Other than these swarms, there are also "Boss" Pokémon which are somewhat like Gym Leaders, in that they need to be defeated to progress, and unlock access to using HMs in dungeons. There are also Pokemon that are not Flash-born that you can battle, which use Trainer Battle scripts and have customized movesets and things like that, but you generally find them during storyline progression, and not randomly waiting around for you to pass '
-No HMs or TMs, and few man-made items (not counting human trash that appears onscreen but isn't an "item"). There are no Marts - the way to get items is to find them in dungeons, or to rely on a team member's Pickup ability. This doesn't mean that there's nothing but Berries, however - items that are man-made in the original games have been renamed into organic objects and can be picked up. Besides the very occasional "inn," there is no other way to heal or restore PP, so it behooves you to explore dungeons and mini-dungeons thoroughly in order to find as many items as you can. You'll need them!
-Naturally learned HMs. HMs are naturally learned by various recruitable party members - in fact, every party member that has an HM in their moveset will already know it when they're recruited. Since HMs are a required part of the moveset (you'd be an SOL if you were to somehow forget an HM move, after all! XD ), they have been changed a bit to make them actual worthwhile moves you'd WANT to keep on your team.
-Stat/moveset adjustment. Party member stats have been changed quite a lot from the stats a Pokémon of that species would normally have (they don't evolve, so it was needed!). For example, the player character has very high special attack and high speed, but average defenses and below average HP and Attack. Another member is well rounded, while one is more of a tank, while one is a glass cannon, while one is a speedy but frail "white mage," and so on. Team members can learn moves that are not part of normal level up - for example, the player character learns "SuperThunder," a powerful Electric attack that draws from Raikou's power reserve as well as your own. Most of the moves learned by party members are legitimate in some way, though others have been added to the moveset to allow them to fit within a role better (for example - the speedy "white mage" doesn't naturally learn moves like Heal Bell in normal Pokémon gameplay, but because it fits with her character, she can learn it here XD ).
-Greater difficulty curve. You and your team-mates might have high stats - but this still shouldn't be a cakewalk. Wild Pokémon have gotten a little tougher, too - and the Bosses are just as tough as you, if not tougher Pokemon Centers don't exist (not counting a few Murkorw who hang around particularly dangerous areas and offer to "protect you and let you rest" in return for lots of glittery rocks), meaning items are very important indeed.
-New scripts. Of course! XD
-New palettes and tilesets.
-New music. The game uses a lot of music from early Final Fantasy games (FFII in particualr because it's my favorite XD ), becasue the MIDIs are plentiful and it seems to fit with the game's "mood." Battle music at the moment is still Pokemon themed, but I may change this. I don't know yet '
-New sprites. Lots of PMD overworlds! Also, the vast majority of Pokémon battle sprites have been replaced with revamps from previous generations, Fire Red/Leaf Green/Emerald sprites (it's probably about 85% Emerald sprites). Recruitable Pokemon and major NPCs have unique sprites, both in battle and on the overworld - for example, you're different from all other Pichu in that you wear a scarf upon your ear.

Characters
You. Mjolnir. Violet. Vann. Fortune. Perri. Guinevere. Russa. Sorro. Freya. Tek.
Electric Type. Electric Type. Normal Type. Electric Type. Ground/Dragon Type. Electric Type. Water/Ground Type. Grass type. Water Type. Normal/Flying Type. Normal Type.
Eleven souls, eleven lives bonded together...

Aspen. Ozymandias. Chronos. Ouroboros.
Electric Type. Psychic Type. Normal Type. Dark Type.
The First. The Linking. The Last. The Circle Unbroken...

Argo. Cragclaw. Hufsa. Kif. And others like them...
Bosses, the lot of em!

Videos

First part of the game's intro.

Screenshots


I'm using the PMD sprite for Pichu as you can see; the HGSS overworld sprites are smaller and don't allow for as much detail ' And when I like to add little quirks to the looks of the NPCs and recruitable characters, bigger is better =P


A screenshot that simply shows the inside of a "drey," or leaf nest. Thank you, Secret Base tileset, for making my life easier XD This isn't PMD, though I may use sprites from it - there are no man-made, or close enough to man-made, objects within most normal dreys - it's simply a nest of leaves and some bush things XD I try to keep the anthropomorphism here closer to the levels seen in novels like Watership Down - while the characters may be sapient and humanlike in some ways, they're still animals in many others. Even the most intelligent member of your party - Mjolnir the Raichu, who likes to think he's so clever and who claims to have Magicians on his family tree - can't count past five, for example =P


Treeeeeeeeeeees XD


On a related note, the pokémon in this game tend to have a jargon all of their own. With little understanding of humans and human things, they have to try and find their own explanations for the world around them. "Flash-born" are the descendants (lacking in sapience and filled with violence) of those Pokemon close to blast-range who managed to survive and reproduce - the game's version of Wild Pokemon, basically. Some other phrases you'll see as you play include "Bad Places" - areas where the nukes went off that still tainted with radiation; "Magicians" - which are, of course, our own species, whose ways as spoken of in legends certainly seem like magic; "People" - the Pokemon's term to describe themselves - "Blackrivers" - the Pokemon's efforts to explain asphalt road surfaces - and "Crumbles" - abandoned human houses, whose bizarre nature of being part wood and part stone defies the poor animals' abilities to explain them. There's plenty more jargon, but that's all we see so far


Pirca, about to make that poor Wurmple wish it had never gotten out of bed that morning XD "SuperThunder" uses Volt Tackle's animation (since it's a move no pokemon in Ruby can legally learn, it was a natural to be made into our Pichu hero's signature move), but is a different sort of move altogether - with no recoil and having a chance of paralysis. It is no stronger than plain old Thunder; but its spot-on accuracy and lack of drawbacks truly makes it super indeed XD It's not perfect though - to keep the game from being too easy due to a super-powerful move being a central gimmick of gameplay, Bosses and tough "Trainer" types tend to have lovely Special Defense, and Ground types and others that shrug off Electricity like to come out and play amid the Pidgeys and others XD Sweeping everything with the Fighter isn't what I want the game to be about, after all '

Credits:
Tiles: Saurav, Kyledove, WesleyFG, Game Freak, myself
Sprites: Chunsoft, Game Freak, modded and recolored by me
Palettes: The palettes generally come from the tiles, with some tweaks by me, so proper credit for the majority of the palettes should be extended to Saurav, Kyledove, WesleyFG and Game Freak itself. '

Support:

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[Tropical Sunlight]

Now that HGSS have been released, why don't you use those sprites?
They can be found on the spriters' resource website.
The maps look absolutely great!
How did you make 2 different palleted trees?
Also, I miss playing as a Pokemon since Rescue Rangers.

I really wish you the best of luck!

[Pink Parka Girl]

Originally Posted by Colorful Summer

Now that HGSS have been released, why don't you use those sprites?

When I first started making this hack, I thought about waiting for HGSS to come out to use those sprites instead...but now that I've seen HGSS' sprites, I realize I like the PMD sprites better simply because they're larger and more detailed. I can customize and personalize the NPC and recruits' sprites easier that way - I was looking at Pichu's overworlds from HGSS and realized it might be a bit of a space crunch to put a scarf on his ear and make it look good

Thanks for the map feedback! As for the trees, I simply used two pallettes to have a range of 30 different greens and browns - one pallette was made mainly of light greens and one was made mainly of dark greens. Real forests don't have trees of all one color, so I thought it would look better this way

[Co500]

this looks really good ! keep it up

[Aurajade]

Good luck in this.
It's been age's since I played hack as Pokemon from.... I think... Rescue ranger's.
Equal to that!

[Ash493]

So this hack has already started to progress huh?
Good luck with it and decrease the size of the image
They're kinda too big

[mervyn797]

this hacks great. we're a pokemon! YAY!

[BlitŻ]

I like the creativity you have put into your hack. Overall, the palettes and tiles give the feeling of a pokemon world. I also liked with what you did, what I believe there called "dreys"? But one thing that does throw me off I'd that i think you expect to change the normal grass tile yeah? I would think you would do that with changing from one land to another, but that would be messy due to the fact that the wld pokemon grass animation has a sprite and pallete, that you can change, but to only one or two different ones.

But overalll on that subject, it's up to you.

I like the video you posted, but the music the goes with the second prat when you wake up is hard to believe that it's really part of the game.

Fake hacks or theft will not be tolerated.
The hacks you post must not contain any fake information. The images must be screenshots taken in an emulator of your choice, and should not be edited in any form.

I'm just saying this might be indirectly related to you, since you used a video instead of a screeny and just used real music instead of pokemon music .

Your maps are okay, but that's just in my opinion. I like the natural mapping style better than a nintendo mapping style, and if that's what you're aiming for, then you should place trees, grass, etc. more sporadically throughout the area

As for a imaging program better than paint, you can download graphics gale, just search it from google, or you can try to crack one of the adbe photoshop versions. I'm sure that there is some guide or somerhing on the internet that you could crack it with. Or you know, you can just buy it

[Curt_09]

The storyline and details of this hack are simply amazing.
I like the PMD OW's, and the mix of new tiles works well in my opinion.
Good luck with this, it should develop into something great.
(I was wondering what happened to Jersey Quest, glad to know it's still going to come someday.)

[Pink Parka Girl]

Well, here's what's up with the music in the video - in the video's description (but I forgot to mention here - thanks for pointing it out to me, Fan King!), I mentioned that the sound lagged like crazy in the second part of the video and it was driving me...well...crazy ' So I muted the laggy sound and replaced it with some instrumental music so there wouldn't be silence or an infuriating lag. No misrepresentation was intended at all ' Sorry!

They're kinda too big

Sorry about those big images! My normal computer is not currently online since I've just moved to another house, and the only image software editing program I have access to on this particular computer is Paint, where my efforts to resize the images just resulted not in a shrunken image...but parts of it chopped off. ' I remember that you said my images were too big last time and tried to make the more recent screenshots (that I took on my other computer and shrunk down on Photoshop) smaller, but if they're still too large, I'll fix that in later posts

But one thing that does throw me off I'd that i think you expect to change the normal grass tile yeah?

Changing the grass tiles is something I hadn't really thought of, but I could certainly try - I've used Tile Molester to change animations before (in Jersey Quest); all I would need are some free grass tiles in multiple stages of the animation (or an idea in my head of some grass tiles I could design on my own ' ). It's something I'll think about once the game's scripts and plotting have progressed more

I like the natural mapping style better than a nintendo mapping style, and if that's what you're aiming for, then you should place trees, grass, etc. more sporadically throughout the area

Thanks for the feedback! Since this is supposed to be a forest area your character is in in these screenshots, the trees are thick to give that illusion, but once you get out past the forest sporadic trees spotting the landscape is certainly something I'll try and do As for grass, I could fix up that first route (and later ones) to be less dominated by tall grass and so it looks like more of a random pattern. Thanks!

To everyone, thanks for your feedback and compliments! I hope to have new screenshots showing the next town area (and parts of a developing plot) soon I haven't sprited many of the Pokemon yet, so sprites of humans are currently standing in simply for testing scripts, but I don't want to take screenshots of the game looking like that - but as more sprites and scripts are finished, I hope to post up new goodies soon Unlike Jersey Quest, my other hack, this game is already taking much faster to complete since it's not so hung up on sidequests or alternate paths and is instead just trying to tell a straightforward story XD So it shouldn't be too long of a wait for new information!

[Crimson Stardust]

This looks interesting..the story is kinda cool..the first post was kinda too clogged up makng it hard to read the thread[i know it is not relating to your hack]..xD..anyway,the map seems empty to me..it been awhile since i am excited for this kind of hack since rescue rangers[i think this is what it is called]..xD

[BlitŻ]

To make my grass animation idea a bit clearer, i mean to say that there is to strings of graphics that the game uses for the grass animation . There's the really tall grass and the regular grass for both ruby and fire red, and some others, in which they both have there own string. In theory you can have up to five different landscapes with there own grass animation

[destinedjagold]

Originally Posted by Aurajade

Good luck in this.
It's been age's since I played hack as Pokemon from.... I think... Rescue ranger's.
Equal to that!

I doubt that...
For me, I think this hack is even better than my Rescue Rangers.

Anyways, the story is very awesomely nice! I like the screenshots as well, but could ya decrease the size a bit?
Graphics are nice as well. They're making my eyes very calm.

Pichu is cute as well, with it's cute ribbon on it's ear. <3

Hey, I am really looking forward for this hack, so I wish you the best for this hack project~

[Neo-Wolf]

Wow! I liked PMD.. and now this. Superb!

[Ash493]

Lol SuperThunder xD
Nice move xD Does it have same animation as Thunder?
So if I got that spoiler right... then those guys will be your partners am I right?

[Ben.]

Super rising thunder? maybe just rising thunder sounds less childish?
Anyway best of luck with this hack

[Pink Parka Girl]

Originally Posted by ~BZuma

Super rising thunder? maybe just rising thunder sounds less childish?
Anyway best of luck with this hack

Well, about the title, I do call it Rising Thunder for short. ' But "Super Rising Thunder" is the term used within Pokemon Special for this particular move (a superpowered blast of electricity powered by Raikou's energy) - blame Gold, not me. XD

Anyway, about the move SuperThunder (RisingThunder didn't fit, and Super Rising Thunder certainly wouldn't have ' ) - it uses Volt Tackle's animation, since regular Thunder is still learned by various other Pokemon. As Volt Tackle is basically a "null" move in Ruby (nothing can use it except for a Metronomer), it was natural to be adapted for my purposes.

And yes, the Pokemon mentioned behind the cut are partners who will join you - they're not the only ones who will, though.

Sometime tomorrow I hope to get at least one new screenshot out (small-sized, this time! ), and I'll clean up my first post so it looks a bit less rambling and a bit more presentable I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to comment - I really appreciate it, and I'll work the hardest I can to make sure the game lives up to your expectations

[Hedgehogger]

I got to say, that's one impressive story. And the extra recruits who join you also have some interesting backstories. But if you can recruit more than 6 Pokemon, how will you be able to switch members of your party?

And I got an idea: Since you said there were flashes that eradicated everything in their paths, maybe you could make some tiles that look like patches of burnt grass? A few smashed buildings?

Anyhow, this hack looks awesome. Only wonder what the gameplay's gonna be like.

[NatureKeeper]

Don't you think that a ribbon would look nice on Pichu's Battle Sprites?

I can sprite and index that.

[●•ΛΣЯӨЩ•●]

Great hack and screenies i'm looking forward for it!!

[Pink Parka Girl]

Originally Posted by Hedgehogger

I got to say, that's one impressive story. And the extra recruits who join you also have some interesting backstories. But if you can recruit more than 6 Pokemon, how will you be able to switch members of your party?

And I got an idea: Since you said there were flashes that eradicated everything in their paths, maybe you could make some tiles that look like patches of burnt grass? A few smashed buildings?

Anyhow, this hack looks awesome. Only wonder what the gameplay's gonna be like.

Thanks for the comments As for the recruits - I've already come up with a solution to that problem. My original plan was to have it so you could only have five main recruits, but when I realized that people might not like having so little customization in who they fight with (and that many RPGs let you cycle through a group of fighters to rearrange your team whenever you like), what I did to solve that problem is have certain bushes function like Lanette's PC (the fact you can collect only a finite number of items in Ruby also made me realize having a place to put your items was a good idea ' ). You can decide which team members are "active" (as in, they'll appear for you to battle with) and which are "on reserve" (are still travelling with you and will appear on over world events, but won't be on the active battle roster). My ideal situation would block you from being able to put "yourself" in the "PC," but I'm not sure how to do that ' So for the time being unless I can figure out a solution, you're able to put yourself on the "reserve" list (though you'll obviously still appear on the overworld XD ).

As for tiles like that - I've already been working on them the past couple days, where scripting took a back seat and I put my efforts into finishing more sprites and tiles. I haven't put a map together using some of these new tiles yet, but when I have I'll get some more screenshots

To Naturekeeper: I finished the Pichu's backsprite (and three frontsprites - one for battle, and two different ones for your "trainer card" ) the other day, ribbon and all. Thank you for offering, though!

In other news - finally, some creatures other than 'Chus have overworld sprites now. I finished the Pachirisu shown earlier, and also added in Ledyba, Spearow, and a recruitable character named Freya, a Pidgeotto whom you encounter very early on but cannot have join you until later. When I get more done concerning her, I'll post her sprites, stats, and bits of backstory. I'm also gearing up for some story-progressing scripts and "trainer" battles

[Jhonnyduffboy]

Cool trees, how did you get different pallete trees together?

[Jhonnyduffboy]

the story is very interesting, along with the maps

[Pink Parka Girl]

@Jhonnyduffboy - Thanks for the compliments As for the different palleted trees...it's a very easy, simple matter to do that. I have two palettes consisting mostly of varying shades of greens and browns, and some trees are colored with one palette while others are colored with, well, the other Use the Block Editor in Advance Map to make tiles where the different types of trees overlap and hey presto! There you have it

Anyway, I've updated the first post with smaller, better screenshots And here are some more screenshots to show my latest work:


Since you have a set gender in this game, you're simply asked "which picture you like better" rather than "are you a boy or a girl."


Walking along Dapple Path, the first route in the game. Thanks to advice that I've received, the grass placement is more random than it was previously.


Uh-oh! It's a Flash-born Wurmple! What will you do? ...Well, if I were you, I'd unleash the Super Rising Thunder upon it XD You can see that the player's ear now sports a nifty ribbon


We've left Dapple Path behind and have arrived in Pikpik Grove. Hey! It's a Ledyba! ^__^


Normally, there would be a script active here that would make those pesky Spearow keep you from proceeding. But I bypassed that for the sake of a screenshot. Here, we have the very beginning of another route, Golden Trail.

[Tropical Sunlight]

Really looks awesome!
Good luck with it!