What are you working on?

First of all, I should say that this isn't going to be a traditional pokemon game. I originally came up with the idea for this project because I wanted to try new things with the pokemon game format and see how they work. So no gyms or elite 4 or anything like that. Instead, the story is going to be relatively short and focused more on exploration.

I loved the open ocean routes in the Hoenn games, so I thought to myself, why not make an entire game like that? I'm also super interested in marine biology, and I love making my own fakemon, so this game is gonna kind of be like a showcase for my own pokemon designs. (Last summer I made a simple Fire Red hack that included 23 of my pokemon, plus some new routes to explore, like a desert and a library in cerulean city. That project taught me the basics of rom hacking so I already have some skill.)

The premise of the game is quite simple: You, the player, are a young child living on a remote island in the Regius Archipelago. This archipelago is said to be the resting place of Regigigas after it pulled the continents into place. When a band of pirates come to your island seeking to find Regigigas and take its power for themselves, it's up to you to travel between the islands where Regirock, Regice, and Registeel are hidden away and gather them together so you can get to Regigigas before the pirates do.

I want to make a game that's relatively simple and short because I want to make a project that I can feasibly complete. I see lots of ambitious rom hacks that never get completed simply because making an entire region and a story to go with it is a monumental task! My story is simple and straightforward so the focus can be on exploration: I want to create an interesting open ocean world with lots of little curiosities and meandering sidequests for players to complete. I'm also toying with the idea of a branching storyline and quests that can only be completed under certain conditions, giving the game some replay value.

I would link to some of my fakemon if I could (not enough posts), they're definitely my favorite part of rom hacking. You'll just have to trust that they're awesome.