FireRed hack: Pokémon Lightbolt Version - [Beta 2.1 Released!]

5qwerty, love the features of your hack. Especially the new area idea that you can travel to, story. I love how you explained in detail what each feature mean cool.

What's up people!

I'm bumping this after ~40 days because I have gotten some more stuff done. Here are some shots of (mostly dialogue from) GIGABEACH CITY, and also the route leading to it. But don't worry, there's a bit more for you to discover when the next Beta is out.




As I said before, the next release is going to contain 5 Gyms, not 4. I was done mapping the city of the 5th Gym a long time ago, but I have to give people dialogue and stuff. I'm going to be kind of busy with school, but who knows? I usually waste my time doing useless crap, so I might end up finishing the 5th Gym City in one afternoon! I'd say it will most definitely be out before 2017 hits (since I'm not adding too much stuff).

Also do note that I have moved the sleeping man from in front of the 3rd Gym to in front of the 4th Gym to make people's lives a bit easier. This is good, but some people will see it as a bad thing. The reason is that after this move, players will be able to "sequence break" the game by beating the 5th Gym before the 4th Gym. I don't really see this as a problem, as this so called "sequence break" was possible in all of the Gen 3 games (can skip Surge/Erika and Brawly and probably more).

Please also note that I will be adding some stuff to the earlier parts of the game. People will appear in the museum after Team Rocket has been chased away, and also the cave that your rival comes out of right before your second battle with him will become available. I'm also considering adding in the Safari Zone and something else that's a secret, but maybe I'll save that for a Beta 2.5 or something.

Again, thank you all for your patience, whoever plays this.

any tips on how to get the lift key at rocket hideout? i really can't work it out myself.
anyway, the game is great, i like it ^__^

krisux said:

any tips on how to get the lift key at rocket hideout? i really can't work it out myself.
anyway, the game is great, i like it ^__^

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Hmm...Tips...

If you beat the boss of Rocket Hideout, something will change about the hideout (you may have noticed this already) which will prevent you from leaving the same way you entered. However you will be able to access a new place that you weren't able to before the change. The Lift Key is still in the hideout, just keep searching.

Hey my little bro :)

What I have to do with the su*** coffee? $:SWAG

5qwerty said:

Hmm...Tips...

If you beat the boss of Rocket Hideout, something will change about the hideout (you may have noticed this already) which will prevent you from leaving the same way you entered. However you will be able to access a new place that you weren't able to before the change. The Lift Key is still in the hideout, just keep searching.

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I probably need to find this guy first {XD}. so probably the puzzle thing is what got me stuck, but thanks :)

Murderlinez said:

Hey my little bro :)

What I have to do with the su*** coffee? $:SWAG

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Uh...what? Note that Beta 1 has three gyms.

krisux said:

I probably need to find this guy first {XD}. so probably the puzzle thing is what got me stuck, but thanks :)

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Alright, have fun. Just keep looking (I mean you can't leave until you do).

Hi, bumping this after over a year of inactivity.

I'm basically done the next release. There may be 2 or 3 things I want to polish up depending on how quick I can make decisions, but it's ready for release now. I actually would have posted it by now, but Mediafire is being uncooperative at the moment.

I was going to release this as an Alpha, but by pure luck (Mediafire being "down") I may do some testing and fixing (technically I have already tested the new parts that I added in, but I have yet to replay the entire game as a whole). Who knows.

Anyway, here's some information on the next release:
- Will have 5 Gyms
- Has 2 more cities compared to last release
- More stupid dialogue

So this release doesn't really have a lot more content in terms of areas to explore, but there is a lot more dialogue per city in the new cities compared to the previous cities. There's also barely any story progression, but don't worry, I have a lot planned for before/after the 6th gym (next release).

Hi guys, Beta 2.0 is available!
I did some testing and some minor fixes, hope you enjoy!

Here's the bit from my first post:

Beta 2.0

This hack looks great, 5qwerty! I just downloaded and had a short look at it.

Also if you have more questions, you can hit me up on discord and I'll help any way I can. <3

Hi all, I'll give a bit of a short update here. Technically I can release a Beta 2.1 right now, just after some small stat changes to some Pok?mon Stats and some scripts. The only changes to the game would be (aside from fixing the errors at the bottom) some map changes to Route 1, Route 8, and Linklater Cave, as well as having levels lowered on Gym Leaders and Gym Trainers. I don't really see the point of doing this, since the difference between this patch and the last would be very small.

Below are what I have planned for the next release, as well as some errors in 2.0 that I am aware of.

Next release plans:
- Up to at least 6th Gym.
- Actual story progression.
- A lot of old areas being fleshed out. This includes some buildings in Lamp and Cloudpeak, as well as some places that may be accessible with Surf/Strength/Rock Smash. I'll also try to throw in a few secrets and gifts here and there.
- Probably some revisions to previous dialogue, most notably the dialogue of Trainers after you've beaten them (a lot of the dialogue doesn't make sense if you forget what they said in their challenge/defeat text).
- In-depth Pok?mon balancing. I'll try to make every obtainable Pok?mon a bit more worth it to train. As in, probably +10 to some of their stats, and some new moves.
- Maybe update Gym Leader overworlds and battle sprites, but I will for sure get the walking sprites for Silvester/"Brock" working.


Errors in Beta 2.0 (that I know of):
- I am aware of the tile error in Gigabeach city, I don't know how I didn't catch that.
- I am also aware that none of the Pok?mon NPCs do their cries when talked to.

Awesome!
Best of luck for your hack Qwert!

love the map layouts and original tiles. good luck!

Thank you to the above users for taking the time to reply.

Petuuuhhh said:

Hi,

I really like this game. After you beat the first gym leader, the game really gets good. However, I have a slight criticism about the early game. I chose Ponyta as my starter, and when I got to the first gym, it was at level 16, after only catching a Pidgey at level 2 and not training it. If I had trained it to level 18, then the battle with the first gym leader would have been easier with a Pidgeotto, but that's a lot of grinding. I noticed that both Anorith and Cradily have STAB Ancientpower. This is a very difficult move to work against with Ponyta and Pidgey/Pidgeotto being weak to it. It came down to my critical on Cradily to keep me from losing the battle the second time. Anyway, it has been enjoyable so far, and I really like the mapping.

Thank you,

Click to expand...

All Gyms will be nerfed a bit next patch, and I am considering making Ancientpower weaker. It fits thematically, but it is a bit too strong, at least in the case of the Fire starter. I might end up giving it a move to deal with those Pokémon as well.

Petuuuhhh said:

Does anyone know how to get the old man to stop blocking Gigabeach City gym?

Thank you,

Click to expand...

Ok, this brings up something that I totally forgot. There is an area you have to visit to get an item to get the old guy to leave, but there is no explicit text that's really telling you this, though I will try to make it more clear in future patches. I'm considering cleaning up GIGABEACH a bit, as well as CRAZY MAZE CAVE, the latter being super messy and hard to navigate even for me at times. It's a constant struggle since I don't want to make everything trivial, but I also don't want everyone ragequitting either.

Hey! Must say... great work on this hack! Couldn't keep it away at all! The cavr puzzle made me rack my brains... but loved it as well!
Just wanna know one thing though... I know that I have to pour coffee on the sleeping man, but I don't get how to buy such an expensive coffee! Do we get a voucher? Or do we sell something? When I saw that faulty tile in the Beach city... i thought that i must have finally found something to buy the coffee (thought it was a hidden object :-p) but i still dont get it... I've spoken to every person and visited each place... But it's been a week and I still don't know. Could you give me a hint on this one? Thank you and a great job done again! :-)

BlueRose04 said:

Hey! Must say... great work on this hack! Couldn't keep it away at all! The cavr puzzle made me rack my brains... but loved it as well!
Just wanna know one thing though... I know that I have to pour coffee on the sleeping man, but I don't get how to buy such an expensive coffee! Do we get a voucher? Or do we sell something? When I saw that faulty tile in the Beach city... i thought that i must have finally found something to buy the coffee (thought it was a hidden object :-p) but i still dont get it... I've spoken to every person and visited each place... But it's been a week and I still don't know. Could you give me a hint on this one? Thank you and a great job done again! :-)

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Thanks for playing! You need a voucher, and I guess I'll make this information public since I'm going to change the area.
It's in the cave.

Also, I'm going to be changing Crazy Maze Cave to be non-bad in the next patch. After careful consideration, the cave being that confusing doesn't really do anyone favours, so I'll be changing it whenever I work on it. I did spend a lot of time working on it, so I'll probably end up crying once. The item you need may or may not be in the same location afterwards.

5qwerty said:

Thanks for playing! You need a voucher, and I guess I'll make this information public since I'm going to change the area.
It's in the cave.

Also, I'm going to be changing Crazy Maze Cave to be non-bad in the next patch. After careful consideration, the cave being that confusing doesn't really do anyone favours, so I'll be changing it whenever I work on it. I did spend a lot of time working on it, so I'll probably end up crying once. The item you need may or may not be in the same location afterwards.

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Awww.. I actually liked the challenging Crazy Cave... don't change it... maybe you could give more clues as to what to do... something like 'Go back through the same cave' or maybe 'Go through the cave twice'
Don't change the puzzle maybe... coz I'll be honest that i prefer challenging puzzles rather than being spoonfed :-)
Do we have to defeat the team rocket boss before finding the voucher? Is the elevator key also in the cave? Sorry for asking so many questions

Completed up till Gigabeach City. All the best for your future updates!

Thanks for playing! I'll try to work on it when I have time.

Also, do you have five badges already?

BlueRose04 said:

Awww.. I actually liked the challenging Crazy Cave... don't change it... maybe you could give more clues as to what to do... something like 'Go back through the same cave' or maybe 'Go through the cave twice'
Don't change the puzzle maybe... coz I'll be honest that i prefer challenging puzzles rather than being spoonfed :-)
Do we have to defeat the team rocket boss before finding the voucher? Is the elevator key also in the cave? Sorry for asking so many questions

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The cave is just super tedious to go through because it punishes you for having small mistakes (not knowing where to go) and I included stupid hard parts in there just for the sake of making it hard. Yeah I guess it's "challenging", but probably for the wrong reasons. I'll attempt to make it both challenging but also not bad when I change it. I really dislike spoonfeeding and handholding as well, so I'll definitely change it to something that fits my philosophy.

Ok, bumping this thread.

Might actually be releasing a Beta 2.1 (unsure, depends on if I want to finish a lot at once or not) soon since I have had some time to fix some of the things I have talked about. Currently I have remapped Crazy Maze Cave (and renamed it to Crazy Haze Cave) and Route 2. There may be some new features near Rockhill City and Cloudpeak City as well, as well as some stat/moveset changes for certain Pokémon. There's also that Brock/Sylvester sprite, but I'll get too that soon as well.