Pokemon Zirconium Version

I like a lot of your ideas; it seems that you have really thought them through. I'm all for a grittier, darker and more emotionally complex fan game. ;D Good luck with bringing all your plans to life.

Great write-up Kaiser. I'm also loving some of our Fakemon. Definitely choosing the Grass starter.

Thanks for the support, we all really appreciate it!
But don't think that's all we have in store, there are still a few things you'll be surprised about, maybe.

I'm really liking the new pokemon! They all look fantastic!

I know it seems like things have been quiet, but that's just how Team Zirconium rolls; a nice, steady pace keeps us from burning out and losing the passion. Fear not, though! We're not one of those fan game teams that pops up and makes a thread, only to disappear a week later.

Things have been picking up recently; the finishing touches are being added to the starting city (yes, city, not town), and it's really looking good. A good portion of dialogue has also been written, and I am very pleased with how it all turned out. The best news of all, however, is that we now have a dedicated spriter! He's already made several sprites, which I will add to the first post soon.

blueguy said:

I like a lot of your ideas; it seems that you have really thought them through. I'm all for a grittier, darker and more emotionally complex fan game. ;D Good luck with bringing all your plans to life.

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Thank you! We're definitely aiming for something more emotionally complex and darker, but I'm actually going to try and avoid grittiness; as a fan of comic books, I'm personally a little tired of the same old Alan Moore-style psychoanalysis. Things in Zirconium will definitely get serious-business, but we're going to try and retain that good natured innocence that is trademark to the world of Pokemon.

BallisticBlastoise said:

I'm really liking the new pokemon! They all look fantastic!

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Thank you! So glad people like our fakemon; our artists did a great job with them. I know fakemon can really make or break a fangame, so the warm responses that ours are receiving helps me rest easy at night.

Speaking of fakemon designs; we found a few more of the missing designs, so I added them to the original post. All that's missing from our older art now, from what I remember, was our design for Fausteon, the Ghost Eeveelution.

Isn't the last drawing supposed to be our legendary?

"defno' said:

Isn't the last drawing supposed to be our legendary?

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Yeah, I believe so. Still not sure if we really need our own legendary, though. There's enough as it is. D=

Argh, I'm so indecisive.

Of course we'll get a legendary, we'll make two new ones plus a trio. It'll be like the old generations; the trio, a 3 Pokemon evolution line, the last one being really powerful, and then the two legendaries.

For those who are still following, I'll be updating/revamping a few pokemon.
The new fire starter is the Fakemon in my sig

A couple of the links towards the bottom just say "404 NOT FOUND".

Alright since VGD is apparently down I guess I'll post it here,
the final form of the water starter, Irrigelle.

If there is anything wrong with it, tell me asap!

Updated all the new art to the first post! The redrawn Buffiro and Buffaloven are both up, as well as the second and third forms for the Water Starter and the Knight Pokemon. Also, since I forgot to update progress here... have some sprites!

Nice project :3 You've got a decent thing going here, just make sure you get some actual progress done and don't get bogged down by stuff like making tons of fakemon art and things.

...However, your fakemon don't seem entirely creative. :/ I can't tell you how many grass-type Koala starters I've seen named Koalyptus (although yours is the first grass/electric I've seen, the typing doesn't make much sense-- it seems as if you just made it electric because it had yellow on it.) And you have a fire ant line that has "Pyrant" and "Infernant" which makes me want to punch a wall.

However, despite the pervasive boringness of 80% of your fakes, they are offset by the awesomeness that is GARfetch'd. Your artist deserves a cookie. Make that ten cookies. Is your sketch artist different from your sugimori artist? Because I like his/her designs a lot better-- they're better drawn and flat-out more creative.

...Sorry for slamming your fakes D: I oughta offer more in-depth critique, I know. I'm glad you're making such an ambitious and well-thought-out game project, but I suggest you get it under development soon (as in, start making the actual game and mapping/scripting and the like), otherwise it'll never get off the ground.

ZephyrPlusle said:

Nice project :3 You've got a decent thing going here, just make sure you get some actual progress done and don't get bogged down by stuff like making tons of fakemon art and things.

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Thanks! Truth be told, we had some decent mapping and programming progress for awhile, but... after playing through what we had done we decided to take a completely different approach. The towns got redesigned and the intro scenario was entirely rewritten. It's much better now, but... unfortunately, now we're all much busier than before. Real life is bogging us down more than fakemon art, for sure. But no worries! We never set out to rush the project or nothing, good pacing is key.

ZephyrPlusle said:

...However, your fakemon don't seem entirely creative. :/

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Oh my, defno's first critic. D=

ZephyrPlusle said:

I can't tell you how many grass-type Koala starters I've seen named Koalyptus

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Good thing ours is named Eukhay, eh? Eheheh... >_>

ZephyrPlusle said:

(although yours is the first grass/electric I've seen, the typing doesn't make much sense-- it seems as if you just made it electric because it had yellow on it.)

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Other way around! He's yellow because he has Electric in it. O_o

ZephyrPlusle said:

And you have a fire ant line that has "Pyrant" and "Infernant" which makes me want to punch a wall.

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Yeah, I know, the names were kind of obvious. Renaming those two is probably in our best interests, I guess.

ZephyrPlusle said:

However, despite the pervasive boringness of 80% of your fakes, they are offset by the awesomeness that is GARfetch'd. Your artist deserves a cookie. Make that ten cookies. Is your sketch artist different from your sugimori artist? Because I like his/her designs a lot better-- they're better drawn and flat-out more creative.

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Yeah, we had one Sugimori-style artist (defno) and several different sketch artists (RamenGaiden, No Limitz, Poison Jam, WeakendArc and -Axle-). GARfetch'd was done by the wonderfully eccentric WeakendArc, who is unfortunately no longer a member of the team.

ZephyrPlusle said:

...Sorry for slamming your fakes D: I oughta offer more in-depth critique, I know. I'm glad you're making such an ambitious and well-thought-out game project, but I suggest you get it under development soon (as in, start making the actual game and mapping/scripting and the like), otherwise it'll never get off the ground.

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Thanks! Suggestion duly noted, I plan on pestering our programmer as soon as I spy him online, for sure. Hope to see you posting support more. Um, if you want to, that is. Please love us. D=

I gotta say, what you've presented so far as your story is somewhat... intriguing. You've definitely captured my interest in seeing where this project eventually goes.

Now to speak as my inner critic, I do see some stuff that I both love and hate.
Bad news first, and it seems I'm not the first to comment on this, but those fakemon are... typical. Unimaginative, so to speak. You need to stretch the concepts you create. Take an animal, disassemble it, add to it, and replace. Take an object and do the same. Pick a type at random and see how you could twist it around. Just stop being so... bland.
(^Also, names are pretty sad, people's too.)
Obviously the story so far seems to be your strong point, and I can see several differences and similarities between your idea and the official games. Time will tell if I really will enjoy this. Just remember that it's still a game, and you don't want it to turn into an interactive picture book. Keep your game and your cutscenes moderated.

Anyways, can't wait to see where this eventually leads.

KWolf 2K said:

Take an animal, disassemble it, add to it, and replace. Take an object and do the same. Pick a type at random and see how you could twist it around. Just stop being so... bland.

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Oh, if you only knew! We're aware of this pattern, yes, and it's something we're trying to work on. Are there any in particular that we could perhaps have the artists spice up a bit?

KWolf 2K said:

(^Also, names are pretty sad, people's too.)

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Ack, I'm hurt! I'll be the first to admit that some of the Fakemon names are horrible (I didn't name them, so it's okay for me to admit it!) but I rather like the NPC names. Any I should think about changing? D=

KWolf 2K said:

Obviously the story so far seems to be your strong point, and I can see several differences and similarities between your idea and the official games.

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Yeah, I wanted it to be different but at the same time I found room for alot of homages to the traditional Pokemon formula. It's funny how well of an allegory the Pokemon franchise makes for so many different things!

KWolf 2K said:

Time will tell if I really will enjoy this. Just remember that it's still a game, and you don't want it to turn into an interactive picture book. Keep your game and your cutscenes moderated.

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Oh, definitely. In fact, there's one crucial scene specifically that I've been trying to work in my head for weeks that happens later in the game. Trying my best to make it as interactive as possible, got some ideas in mind. It might be a bit text heavy, but anyone who has ever played a Shin Megami Tensei: Persona game will be able to fit right in. There's a good balance between playing and reading, I'll make sure.

KWolf 2K said:

Anyways, can't wait to see where this eventually leads.

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Thank you kindly! Hopefully we'll have more for you to look at, rather than read soon enough.

My interest has been piqued by your project as well, by the way! Really dig the way you're shaking things up. Best of luck to you and your team.

I hadn't really noticed before, but now that I've seen it pointed out, they're right: some of your Pokemon designs suffer from the "it's just a purple rat" problem. Fakemon usually fall into one of three categories; oddly-colored animal, overly complex, and that's-no-Pokemon.

These all exist within the official designs, of course. Rattata's just a purple rat, Dialga and Palkia have way too much detail crammed into them, and Magmortar... Wait, that's just Gutsman's Halloween costume. You have to find a balance between simplicity and originality. I'm not sure what Munchlax is, but it has a definite Pokemon feel to it.

T3h Kaiser said:

Oh, if you only knew! We're aware of this pattern, yes, and it's something we're trying to work on. Are there any in particular that we could perhaps have the artists spice up a bit?

Ack, I'm hurt! I'll be the first to admit that some of the Fakemon names are horrible (I didn't name them, so it's okay for me to admit it!) but I rather like the NPC names. Any I should think about changing? D=

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For designs, you need to spice up Arboala, Medalyptus, Embison, and Buffaloven, down play most of your evolutions of existing Pokemon as they all look like humanoid steroid abusers (infact, most of the ones standing on two legs look evil and pumped full of steroids), do something with the pawn/knight ones because they're just bland, and the Marionette one looks reeeaallllly familiar... I think it's a Digimon, but I'm not sure.

As for names, I'm looking at the ones that are just way out there, particularly Janus, Odessa, and Tobias. I've never heard of anyone named that, (though I know Bill Cosby's son was named Ennis, and Alice Cooper named his daughters Calico and Sonora, but those are about the strangest I've heard in a typical english oriented society.) Also, Maple is an incredibly common professor name in the world of fangames.

T3h Kaiser said:

Thank you kindly! Hopefully we'll have more for you to look at, rather than read soon enough.

My interest has been piqued by your project as well, by the way! Really dig the way you're shaking things up. Best of luck to you and your team.

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In that order, good to know and glad to hear.

o hai! Just to eliveate fears that all of our Fakemon would be based on real world animals (and to remind people that we're not dead yet), I present to you... well... this guy! No name yet, but he looks pretty amazing!



Art done by the ever-fabulous defno!

Funny story about this guy; he was actually drawn from a misunderstanding. I had the idea for a Dark type guy with that kind of face and really long arms. I was pretty vague with the description, but defno ran with it like a trooper. Turns out that I forgot the part of my description where I mentioned he was suppose to be short and impish, so defno made him real big and tall. But, luckily it still turned out really awesome! I almost prefer him like this, he has a nice goofy charm to him; clearly a Dark-type and thus potentially eeeeeviiiiil, but I can't help but want to give him a hug. We will probably go with the original imp design as a pre-evo for him.

Should have a map to show everyone soon, just gotta tweak it a bit.

EDIT: Here's the first form!



Really like how he turned out!

That looks really good.
Keep up the work.