Travels in the Land of Rijon - Let's Play Pokémon Brown!

Hey all, here in the ROM Hacking forum. This is something that is apparently new to quite a few people, so I guess it's up to me to break you all in (I actually had to PM a few higher-ups to figure out where exactly this thread would go; I'm expecting moves – taking bets now!).

The concept of "Let's Play" was born on the Something Awful forums. There are a couple different ways to do a Let's Play (or LP, for short). First, you have your screenshot LPs – it's exactly what it sounds like: screenshots with text comments to go along in a post. Then, you have your video LPs, where someone will record themselves playing the game with their audio commentary over top of the game audio (or background music, depending on the blandness or over-heard-ness of the game's soundtrack). Each of these involve the public of the forum making their own comments via posts in the LP thread, giving suggestions, commenting on the progress, or just raising general heck.

tl;dr: Playing a game and commenting on it, showing it to random strangers, and cutting oneself to finish (kidding about the last; I guess SA is rubbing off on me).

I figured, since this is apparently the place where this romhack originated (well, now you all know it's a romhack; probably knew anyways if you read the topic title), I'd get you all involved in this LP.

So, without further ado, it's time to play:


That's right, it's Pokémon Brown, a romhack by coolboyman (he's more than welcome to post in this thread, btw; don't be a total stranger – ima in ur romhack playin ur gaem). Brown takes place in the land of Rijon, with a brand new professor (who has gender problems; that'll be covered for sure) named Prof. Tim. Eight new gyms await our intrepid hero as he embarks on his epic journey to defeat the Elite Four and become the Champion of the RIJON LEAGUE.

This will be the latter of the two types of LP that I described (there's actually a third, but *shhhh*) and, as said, I'm hoping to get the community here as involved as possible. As such, you get naming rights and such for the game. Yes, that means picking the starter too (as much I as regret that sentence, it's going to have to be true).

Just remember, the health of this thread and continuation of the LP depends on your input. The more you post, the more videos you get. I plan to finish, but I'd really like everyone to be on-board. Plus, I'd kind of like to do a vid a day. That'll really take you guys to help.

Also, I'd like to know whether you're all cool with me using only YouTube for my videos. I can easily get an account and upload the vids to other video hosting sites, such as Google Video, Vimeo, Viddler, or DailyMotion. But, for now, I'm just using YouTube. If anyone has any problems with YouTube, I can make a mirror.

That being said, let's begin!

First order of operations for you all: to name the hero of our adventure~!! You all should know the character limit (it's seven [7] for those who don't know). We've also got to name our rival (same character limit), to pick the starter (same as RBY: Charmander, Bulbasaur, Squirtle), and whether or not to have a nickname for the starter. Seems like a lot to me... But we must push ahead and jam our fist on that "EFFORT" button!

Table of Contents
Episode 00: Ask Your Questions (the obilgatory intro vid)
Episode 01: Getting Your First Pokémon
Episode 02: The Green Mura
Episode 03: Pokédexes and Caves
Episode 04: Stupid Zubats

This looks wierd but i like it this thread might draw some attension to Pokemon Brown
which is over looked by the newbies that say y dont u hack GBA GB\GHC is stewpid

I shall join your quest!

What an Amazing idea!! This thread will be booming in a matter of weeks!
I'll get started playing brown sometime tomorrow ;P

heh, i remember reading through a couple of these threads.
they always seemed like fun. hopefully this works like the ones i remember, but if it doesn't, you can ignore the rest of the post. =P

as for suggestions, let me see...
hero: Sev
rival: Kaz
starter: Squirtle

(i'm guessing you take a few suggestions on what to do before actually doing things? just curious about that part, since that's how the others worked.)

Aha. The thread finally appears.

@Mac_mini: That's mostly the purpose – to draw attention to one of the really good finished romhacks, and to show that you don't need to use the Advance generation to make a good game. Though... we'll learn quickly that stuff like Bind and Wrap suck. Horribly. And that there's a reason they made Gust a Flying-type move in Gen II.

@Xray: I'm certainly hoping so. Glad to know you'll be playing it too – it's a good romhack. Though, know that it's not a prerequisite for the thread. It definitely helps though!

@popetaffy: That's it. Kind of makes things difficult when there's not a lot of stuff, though; because then I can't exactly go on with just one person's idea. Well, I can, but it's not exactly fair. But this will probably work like the other threads of this sort you've seen.

Excellent! :D Hopefully this takes off.

As far as names and such, I'll build on popetaffy's suggestion and request Severin for the main character (Venus in Furs lol). I don't really care about the rest...

oh, and name for the starter: Queequeg. :O

Great job! Although seeing it just reminds me of the countless stupid mistakes I made back in late 2003. I'm finishing up an update for it which fixes most of the stupid text errors and glitches. (English is not my first language BTW, so that's my excuse). So I'll send that to you when I'm done which should be soon, and you can continue off from where you were last off using savestates. You might get it before everyone else too, just because I'm nice. If you played through it once, you'll notice a few new things. So keep it up, I'll be watching... and groaning at my own work.

All right, I think two suggestions are enough for now, considering that it's taken a little while for them to get out. I'll get the video done tomorrow -- at least, that's what I'm hoping for.

@coolboyman: Sounds very good to me. Updates and fixes are what romhacks are about. Well... part of what they're about. I guess you could apply that to all user-created content. ... wait, I'm just digging myself a deeper hole. Curse you Half-Life! But, seriously, looking forward to the fixes; there are some really funky things that I was going to point out, but now I know the reasons behind them and the fact that they're going to be fixed, which is an uber plus.

EDIT (25.11.2008): First video is up. [link] (YouTube)
Again, if anyone has any problems with YouTube, just mention it and I'll upload a mirror to Google Video or DailyMotion or something. And I forgot the bumping/double-posting rules for a second there; sorry about that.

Check your Youtube account, I sent you a prototype that has everything fixed up to the fourth GYM. Hope you have fun with it, you deserve it!

Only the fourth gym? Oh fun.

Well, sorry for the lack of updates. I haven't given up; don't worry about that! I'm balancing playing through it on my own file along with schoolwork. ... the former more than the latter, unfortunately. And time at home was spent playing Pokémon XD (:science:). I beat it over Thanksgiving break so we don't have worry about that anymore (or Colosseum because I don't have a big enough memory card for both XD and Colosseum data).

But fear not. The rival fight will come soon. I'm planning on doing a slew of recording either after I'm done my work (hah, that'll be a while :<) or this weekend.

Wow, this looks awesome :)

I myself am doing a few Let's Plays on youtube, mistranslated versions of Green and Crystal =p

You're actually in my Related Videos, Chrona! I might give the vids a look-see when I'm done recording today, since I'm doing a whole slew of them.

Also, Part 2 is up – check the main post to get the link (see what I did there?). You all get to see the changes that Coolboyman made, how much VBA fails on a Mac, and the fight against the rival (TACKLEFEST).

This is Great, keep it up! Ive done part of Brown but I'm waitong for the new release before continuing.

It's good to see that this is getting people interested in the hack. It's what I was going for!

Also, the next video is up.

EDIT (09/12/2008): For those of you who are curious, the next video is up. I'm still working out how to get CamStudio to work with me (and for VBA to be exactly 640x480) in Windows so the next one might be tomorrow. It seems my schedule has turned to every other day rather than every day.

I do have a question for you all, though!

Queequeg is getting a little lonely, so he needs a new partner (plus the fact that I have to redo all of Merson Cave because of stupid VBA)! My question to you all is: what Pokemon should it be, and what should it be named? We've got a choice of Zubat, Diglett, or Geodude.

Gah, I'm sorry I haven't responded here in so long. I have been watching the videos, though, and they're excellent (particularly the first one, with all the myriad errors to ridicule-- it's a pity CBM sent you his new version beta thingy, but I can see why he did).

I wish more people were following this, though. Hopefully bumping the thread this way will help.

Anyway, though... I almost want to vote for making you get a Zubat, but I'll go with Diglett. Aaand let's see... counting from the start of the next video, if you run into less than five Zubats before the Diglett, name it Dooglitt (lol paper mario 2). If you run into more than five, name it Znad.

And that's my contribution for now. 8D

It should be a Geodude I think.

go with zubat. :)
i want to see if it will go to a crobat or not.