Welcome to a new era! An era of inclusion and gratitude. How has everyone's days been? ^_^And here I thought I wouldn't live to the day when ROM Hacking would get the DCC...
Welcome to a new era! An era of inclusion and gratitude. How has everyone's days been? ^_^
I agree, but the "rules" of the natural mapping style, particularly that which is perpetuated by some of the old mapping tutorials and such, lends itself more to a random, squiggly pattern of drawing in order to make something look more natural. One of the mantras repeated for that style is to avoid squares at all costs, when squares are one of the best ways to guide a player through a map along with things like highlighted paths etc.I wouldn't say that natural mapping is bad, and honestly, should level design be at the forefront of ones mind when making a map, it should be able to surpass GF design. In any type of map design, if one doesn't consider level design, of course the map will be bad, but that goes without saying.
Yes. Azure Horizons, Sienna, rijonAdventures, Liquid Ocean, YAFRH, Blaze Black / Volt White and their sequel, and Platinum Red and Blue are the best hacks around at the moment. Try them out (for the ones with releases)! You could also check out the Pokémon Vega series, though they are in Japanese.does any one know any good hacks
I just google searched Vega and GOD do those sprites look good. It's funny, because I was playing Touhoumon one day and thought to myself, "There would probably be more high quality hacks if Pokemon hacking was bigger in Japan". Doujin/fan works that come out of Japan seem to support that idea, often being a rather high quality (In the case of Pokemon hacks, Touhoumon spriting or the script work in Touhou Gensokyo Scenario are good examples...then again, Touhou fans are crazy, so this is to be expected).
Yeah, I'm gonna take a look at Vega, what I've seen so far has me blown away.
haha that's good
Anyway, what do you guys think about the dichotomy of "natural" mapping and Game Freak-styled (i mean good lmoa) mapping? In my opinion "natural" maps are just trying to be artistic without considering the principles of level design or navigation, and often results in a mess of trees and bushes and no clear sense of direction.
I think that a big part of the problem is that PC's teams are too bloated. Now, this is just coming from my experience when I hacked avidly in 2008 and a few years after that, so I can't say whether this is a contemporary view, only having just rejoined the hacking part of the forum, but often times it would work like this: A person comes up with an idea and posts it. They then would go on to recruit members that suited the needs the creator himself/herself didn't cover (usually more than needed), often without asking for work experience or any other kind of information, and then they would recruit those members (and about 20+ beta testers).I think Vega is an example of how hacking teams can work, as opposed to what comes from PC's teams.
Welcome to a new era! An era of inclusion and gratitude. How has everyone's days been? ^_^
haha that's good
Anyway, what do you guys think about the dichotomy of "natural" mapping and Game Freak-styled (i mean good lmoa) mapping? In my opinion "natural" maps are just trying to be artistic without considering the principles of level design or navigation, and often results in a mess of trees and bushes and no clear sense of direction.
Do you know if there is a translation of the hack?It's a solid hack, though some parts are clearly... fan-made. Not that that's a bad thing. They really went all out in some aspects - they completely redid some music, sprites, even the intro Nidoran cutscene, and still manage to make it feel like a Gen 3 hack. It's super impressive. I think Vega is an example of how hacking teams can work, as opposed to what comes from PC's teams.
I did a really hacky partial one a while back that handles move and item names, making the battles playable but not doing much to the overworld. I'd link it but I'm pretty sure it's against Pokecommunity's rules due to lack of permission so I'll just direct you to Google. Fair warning if you try the hack- the difficulty curve is one of the more flagrantly fan-made parts of it.Do you know if there is a translation of the hack?