[Released] JohtoBlaziken's Bootleg Pokémon FireRed: A ROM base without the ROM [DEMO v0.6]

zerokid said:

• The music, sound effects and exclamation effects are excellent, particularly the fact that the background music plays for when you're following Oak. The Rival's music when he leaves the lab overlaps the current BGM however.
• The beginning title sequence crashes the game for me with an error saying that the scripts were taking too long to load. I played through the RMXP debugger.
• You lose money to your Rival if you lose the first battle against him, whereas this doesn't happen in FRLG. Switch 33 can prevent this for you.
• NPCs with random pathing can walk all over the map rather than being constrained to a small rectangle.
• Map names show up on the save screen, and some names aren't really suitable for this.
• I stand in awe at the fact that you mapped each different individual grass tile correctly! I gave up on that and took the lazy way out, making every grass tile the same.
• Poke Balls loading on to the machine at the Poke Centers doesn't seem to work.
• "We've restored your Pokemon to\lfull health." Note the "\l" in there.
• PC screens don't light up.
• Daisy's House -> I think this should be [Rival Name]'s House but I'm not 100% without checking.

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Thank you for the feedback! I really appreciate the detailed look, and will go and fix many of these issues. The only point among these I am not sure about is the map name thing; I've gone back and forth in my head about this for a while.

Should the map names be descriptive, or as they are in the game? For example, should a house in Cerulean City be labeled "Cerulean City House" or just "Cerulean City"? In the normal Pokemon games, the house would be called "Cerulean City", but this makes it kind of annoying to look through maps in RMXP. In large cities (like Saffron), there would be a huge list of maps with the name "Saffron City", making it hard to quickly find the specific map you're looking for.

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Also, good news and bad news. The good news is, thanks to Zerokid's help, the Sevii Islands will now be a part of Bootleg FireRed! Look forward to seeing them (hopefully) by the end of the summer. There's been a lot of progress on the next demo, but I don't want to show it just yet, because I want the next version I release to be complete up to getting the National Dex.

The bad news is that I will be doing some important real life things for the next month, and will be making zero progress on all of this until July. Please be patient with me!

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Last order of business: a poll! I will be finished up with FireRed proper in the next few months, and am considering including some postgame stuff elsewhere in the Pokemon world.

Where would you like to see FireRed postgame content, post-Sevii islands?

1. Johto
2. Hoenn
3. Somewhere else

Johto Blaziken said:

Thank you for the feedback! I really appreciate the detailed look, and will go and fix many of these issues. The only point among these I am not sure about is the map name thing; I've gone back and forth in my head about this for a while.

Should the map names be descriptive, or as they are in the game? For example, should a house in Cerulean City be labeled "Cerulean City House" or just "Cerulean City"? In the normal Pokemon games, the house would be called "Cerulean City", but this makes it kind of annoying to look through maps in RMXP. In large cities (like Saffron), there would be a huge list of maps with the name "Saffron City", making it hard to quickly find the specific map you're looking for.

snip

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You could get the best of both by using scripts. All the script would have to do is provide a way to input a map's friendly name (let's call it 'display name') and use that in place of the map's actual name whenever it's displayed in-game.

I've had a search for something that offers this, but no joy so far (if anyone knows of anything, do let me know!). However, this sounds simple enough to do, so I'll take a look at it once I'm back. I'd make it a public resource too.

There are a couple ways I can think of doing this. The lazier way is to have the user edit the script directly and just have a big table of map IDs to display names like this:


Alternatively, and probably the more useful way I'd lean towards, is having another property ("DisplayName" ?) in the metadata.txt file which would do the same thing.

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Aaaaanyway, I'd throw my hat in the ring for Johto, but only because it's the most closely linked to Kanto canonically. I think it'd make the most sense for an extension of FireRed. Hoenn could work too at the conclusion of the Ruby and Sapphire quest for Celio!

So basically when I downloaded this game, I launch the .exe file and all it did was show a small white screen with black bars. The white screen turns to orange. When I press c or enter it tells me the script is taking too long to load and will restart. This happens every time I launch the .exe, is there a way to help with this?

NilesMoonFalcon said:

So basically when I downloaded this game, I launch the .exe file and all it did was show a small white screen with black bars. The white screen turns to orange. When I press c or enter it tells me the script is taking too long to load and will restart. This happens every time I launch the .exe, is there a way to help with this?

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Same here

I was wondering... The last reply of this was the one I made on August 10th, and in the times coming Nintendo shutted down Pok?mon Essentials, this means the project is dead?

Hi, first I'd like to say how much I've enjoyed playing this so far. I'm in the Rocket hideout at the moment and it's clear a huge amount of hard work went into the game.

For everyone who is having the issue where the game.exe crashes at startup (with the "taking too long to load" message) if you have RPG Maker XP you can make a couple of small edits to the scripts and fix this. Comment out (place the '#' symbol in front of) the following lines:

• line 561 in Main (pbEmergencySave)
• line 37 in TitleScreens (ClassicIntro.new)
• line 52 in TitleScreens (GenSixStyle.new)
• line 61 in TitleScreens (@screen.intro)
• line 63 in TitleScreens (self.update)

Now add a new line under line 63, enter 'closeTitleDelete'

Then click Ok, save the project and click the play button while holding down the ctrl key on your keyboard. Once the playtest starts you can close it and run the game from game.exe.

I've made a bunch of other small tweaks and fixes as I've played through but don't have the post count to post links yet. Hopefully JohtoBlaziken won't mind me posting my updated version when I can.

Well damn I wish the project wasn't dead would like to test how good the game is but can't really play it. ;~;

NilesMoonFalcon has kindly agreed to post the download link for me.

A full changelog is included in the download (mostly for Johto Blaziken's benefit if they decide to continue with the game and want to merge in my changes) but the main things are the removal of the intro (for now), fixing a few crashes and graphical/tiling issues as well as adding ghosts to the Pokemon tower (based on the tutorial by Desbrina) if the player doesn't have the Silph Scope yet.

I'm going to continue working on this as I play through so if you find any bugs please let me know. I also plan to add the VS Seeker based on mej71's scripts but with some changes so that the rematch teams are fixed (like in Fire Red) rather than scaled to the levels of Pokemon in the player's party.

Huge and awesome work, I made a Kanto map too with Essentials 17.2 and I used this project for checking when I found a couple of problems like missing tiles. Having a game with all the regions is everyone's dream!

Amazing job! Tremendous quality, thank you!

This is really spectacular, thank you!

Hey, I'm getting an error when I try to launch the game through the actual "Game" launcher. When it starts, the game window does a slow tint to orange, and after a few moments I get an error saying 'the script took too long to load, please restart the game', then it closes without an error message. I've tried changing the settings within the title screen script to see if that did anything, but same result. Any ideas how I can circumvent this?

damn.. I wish this existed when I started working on my game. It would've saved me so much work!
Great job, this looks really well made.

I'm going to be implementing the Kanto region into my game. Can't wait to try this out.

Greetings to all who see this, wondering how to fix the currently messed up opening sequence when you boot up the game directly from the .exe itself.

You'll need a copy of RPG Maker XP (either the free trial, or the full version, doesn't matter) in order to make this fix happen.

On RPG Maker XP, open the project file for Bootleg FireRed by selecting Open Project.

Once the project is open, go to the Script Editor icon (it'll be the third to last icon on the right at the top, just before the Sound Test & Playtest icons).

Open the Script Editor, then from the list of scripts on the left side of the Script Editor, scroll all the way down to 'TitleScreens' in a little section titled 'UPI Installed'.

Right click on the 'TitleScreens' script, and delete it.

Click OK to save changes to the Script Editor, then click Save Project to save the changes to the game's project file itself.

Close RPG Maker XP, and then launch the game directly from the .exe (which is just a little icon of the Red character sprite).

The game will now put you straight into the Press Start screen & the Main Menu, with no more issues regarding the startup sequence (as this solution effectively removes that startup animation altogether).

Good afternoon, to all who read this. Axis here again.

I have been spending the past month or so working on a personal fangame on RPG Maker XP, using the Pokemon Essentials starting kit & JohtoBlaziken's Bootleg FireRed template as it's foundation work. The fangame is currently still under development, so no publicly available alpha builds have been released as of yet.

However, in the time I have been working on this project, I (along with the help of a friend who has been helping me playtesting my fangame) have found numerous gamebreaking errors/mistakes along the way in the Bootleg FireRed RPGXP project base, which have resulted in crashes, altered in-game experiences, or have even been sources of hardlocking for any players who attempt to play through it, or for any gamedevs who intend on using Bootleg FireRed as a template for starting their own fangame projects.

I have been keeping track of & noting down every single source of crashes, improperly implemented/coded events & scripts, hardlocks, or any other potentially problematic issues that detract from the in-game experience. As of today, I decided to spend the entire morning taking matters into my own hands, and using my experience from developing my fangame to fix the original Bootleg FireRed project base, so that anyone who wishes to use it towards their own projects from this point onwards, can now use a much more functional & playable template, and edit/change/add/remove things to their liking.

The following is a list of fixes & changes I have made to JohtoBlaziken's original Bootleg FireRed v0.6 release:
-The faulty TitleScreens script under 'UPI Installed' in the Script Editor was deleted, making it much easier for players to boot up the game directly from the .exe
-Added the New Game intro when Professor Oak first talks to the player, so that a player nickname can be set
-Changed the duration of the fade out to 2 seconds for the rival theme when he leaves Oak's lab after you first defeat him
-The originally prolonged fadeout duration of 10 seconds caused overlaps in BGM/audio, and potentially resulting in crashes for certain players
-Removed the Oak Aide that gives out the Running Shoes; instead the player is now able to run from the start of the game
-Fixed a crash from interacting with the Mart Rep on Route 1
-Fixed a crash from interacting with the Nidoran trade NPC on Route 5, by changing up her dialogue slightly to not call for the gender symbol text
-Moved the XOR Test NPC into an unreachable spot in Vermilion City, to prevent players from potentially crashing the game by attempting to interact with it
-Reconstructed the wooden walk bridges on Route 12 to use the tileset of the walk bridge used in Vermilion City
-The nature of the new (but now traversable bridges) is still buggy, due to the layer underneath the bridges being Surf-able water tiles
-Added a new heal script to the heal circle on the 5th floor of the Pokemon Tower (which previously lacked said script by default)
-Changed the metadata for Rock Tunnel to have darkness enabled (it previously did not have it enabled by default)
-Created a new Bill NPC in his house, who simply gives you the S.S. Ticket upon talking to him
-The previous events/NPCs inside the house were incomplete in coding & lacked any actual storing of the S.S. Ticket in the player's bag
-Moved the Warptest NPC into an unreachable spot inside the Pokemon League Building Lobby, to prevent players from accidentally warping straight to the Champion Room
-Fixed the coding for the Psychic trainer NPCs inside Saffron Gym to call for 'PSYCHIC_M' instead of 'PSYCHIC' (which previously crashed the game before being fixed)
-Fixed the coding for all Burglar trainer NPCs on Cinnabar Island to call for 'BURGLAR' instead of 'BURLAR' (which previously crashed the game before being fixed)
-Fixed the coding for a few trainer NPCS on Route 11, whose intros were calling for non-existent trainer class intros
-'Electrician' was changed into 'Engineer', and 'Gamer' was changed into 'Gambler'
-Removed an invisible stray player touch-activated warp tile that would transfer the player from the Celadon Condominium Rooftop into the Route 5/6 Underground Path
-Added in the player transfer event scripts for the staircases inside the Cinnabar Mansion
-Please note that the basement is readily accessible from the 1st Floor, due to the statue-gate system having never been implemented into Bootleg FireRed
-Added in the player transfer event scripts for the ladders inside the Seafoam Islands
-Please note that the boulder puzzle & water currents were never originally implemented, but are no longer necessary for navigating through the Seafoam Islands
-Similarly, the boulder puzzle for Victory Road was never originally implemented in Bootleg FireRed, and is no longer needed for navigation either
-None of the warp tile scripts were originally implemented inside Silph Co. or Saffron Gym, so both locations were revised as follows:
-New warp tile event scripts were created from scratch only for the two warp tile pairs needed to reach Gary & Giovanni inside Silph Co.
-Notably, none of the sideways-facing Card Key doors were ever originally implemented inside Silph Co.
-The layout & trainer arrangement inside Saffron Gym has been changed to instead require the player to battle each trainer in order to reach Sabrina
-All of the non-functional warp tiles inside the gym have been removed, and the walls in each room slightly changed to allow navigation without the warps
-A stray gate inside the Cinnabar Gym (which relied on the Card Key instead of the non-existent quiz system) has been removed
-The HM/badge system has been properly set to require # number of badges, instead of assigning each field move to a specific badge
-The fishing mechanics have been set to FR/LG-style, instead of RSE-style (i.e.; disabling the fishing bite reaction test)
-Trimmed the duration of the 'frlg_heal' audio file by editing out prolonged silence, to allow in-game BGMs to resume quicker whenever the player heals the team
-Removed a ledge on Route 4, to allow players to backtrack from Cerulean City back towards Pewter City
-Added in the rest of the code needed for the Magikarp Salesman inside the Route 4 Pokemon Center to function properly & actually [attempt to] sell a Magikarp
-The Rock Smash HM/TM being unobtainable (as the Sevii Islands were never made in the original Bootleg FireRed project) has warranted the following change:
-Any rocks inside the Cerulean Cave that would've otherwise required Rock Smash for navigation have been removed, to allow players to reach Mewtwo

The newly fixed up Bootleg FireRed RPGXP build can be downloaded here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/5wbky...d+RPGXP+v0.6+(fixed+by+AxisVactaire).zip/file

I realize that deciding to take matters into my own hands, fixing the otherwise buggy/unplayable Bootleg FireRed project myself, and re-releasing the changed result without prior communication/consulting with the OP (JohtoBlaziken) may not have been in good taste. But given the dates of all older posts in this thread (and from who each of this thread's posts & replies were originally from), I have concluded for myself that the Bootleg FireRed project has otherwise since been abandoned/forgotten. As such, I decided I didn't want to be the only one benefiting from a fixed up Bootleg FireRed project template, and that as my way of giving back to those who have made RPG Maker, Pokemon Essentials, and Bootleg FireRed available for other aspiring gamedevs to make their Pokemon fangame dreams come true (as it currently is for me with my own Pokemon fangame project), I have gone out of my way & taken some of my free time to put this out for all who read this to see & potentially benefit from. I hope this will potentially help all who come across this in the future. Thank you for your time~

-Axis

is this game finished?