Red hack: In progress Pokemon Red/Blue hack

Crystal_ said:

To be honest this hack doesn't make sense as a rombase since it won't be playable until the last minute before being finished. Not that I would be open for it right now anyway.

Realistically, there are only two instances where I could consider releasing the source code for public use:
- Sometime after the hack has been finished and released, let's say maybe 6 months or 1 year after that.
- If at some point I can no longer commit to the development of this project and I decide to release it for anyone that may want to pick it up and continue it (which I doubt would ever happen).

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Isn't the source already up? Pretty sure I took a look at your engine changes to see if it improved on the RBY battle engine, but I never looked too closely at it.

EDIT: Uh. Was that not supposed to be public? You seem to have removed it since...

FIQ said:

Isn't the source already up? Pretty sure I took a look at your engine changes to see if it improved on the RBY battle engine, but I never looked too closely at it.

EDIT: Uh. Was that not supposed to be public? You seem to have removed it since...

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I never was very comfortable with the source code being public in github but I was just kinda lazy to move it. But now that I'm going to start porting a lot of data changes and that the hack may get a little more attention with the last update, I decided it was about time. I've recently moved the project to a private repo in gitlab. I just want a lot of things to stay unknown to the potentially future players, and all that I'm comfortably revealing is what's being shown in those update videos.

Hi Crystal, I've been following the source commits for some while and I love what you're doing. To what extent are you open to feedback and suggestions? I've been throwing radical ideas at Mateo and whilst some have helped, Red++ is a conservative hack. Things like more modern text-boxes: http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?p=9145346#post9145346 (would work well with porportional text), a new menu: http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?p=9381432#post9381432 and a different system for moves: http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?p=9458847#post9458847

KrocCamen said:

Hi Crystal, I've been following the source commits for some while and I love what you're doing. To what extent are you open to feedback and suggestions? I've been throwing radical ideas at Mateo and whilst some have helped, Red++ is a conservative hack. Things like more modern text-boxes: http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?p=9145346#post9145346 (would work well with porportional text), a new menu: http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?p=9381432#post9381432 and a different system for moves: http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?p=9458847#post9458847

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Actually, I've been peeking at some of your posts in the Red++ thread and I remember writing down in my list of never ending things to eventually look into something you said about making status feedback texts not wait until the animation is over. But the thing is, I know myself, and I know I'm going even more conservative or close minded than Mateo in this aspect. You know, at least Mateo's always been extremely trasparent about the features and has released updates frequently. My approach is completely different. I'm being extremely careful at which things I make public, and to which degree. I'm not going to release anything, until the hack is fully finished and carefully tested. I'm trying my best to turn my project into an unpredictable experience, and I firmly believe that not revealing all the information and details greatly contributes to it. Not only that, but if I were to reveal every design change and feature that I've planned for this hack, everyone that remotely cared about this hack would be like, why do this, why not do that, why did you change that, why don't you do it this way instead. And I just wouldn't be comfortable with this. When some things that you've always unconciously taken for granted for so many years playing Pokemon games no longer work as expected, it's natural that people will start questioning what's the reasoning behind me changing it. Also, I guess I'm unconciously worried about someone else borrowing my ideas for their own project before mine is released.

Anyway, as you can see I'm very close minded when it comes to how I want to design this hack. Also, I think there is a case for now wanting to hear about ambitious suggestions. When it's been a lot of time since you made some design choice, it becomes prone to feel repetitive to yourself over time, and you can start considering completely different ways to approach it that you would've never considered to begin with and your head becomes a mess. Maybe I'm exaggerating, I know, of course you or anybody else is allowed to give me suggestions! What I mean is that for radical suggestions like those, I'm most likely just going to ignore it, because I have already make my own design and my own choices for those aspects of the game, and if not already implemented it's covered either in some lengthy documents and spreadsheets that I keep or just shaping up in my head. On the other hand, I guess I would be more open to minor suggestions or improvements, but those really wouldn't make much sense to make without having more knowledge of my project, which in reality none other than me does. I guess you could call this more like "I need a tester to find bugs" because sooner or later I'm going to do some heavy testing and it's bound to turn out more effective if done by someone other than me that also knows the nitty gritty about the game to understand what is wrong. In other words, a dedicated tester. Of course, I know that's not what you were asking but I hope it helps explaining my point.

I can completely understand -- I have been developing personal projects for decades now and I have an extremely strong sense of what I what to achieve and need very little in the way of outside direction.

But it sometimes good for someone to provide a view that is totally upside-down to the way you would do things yourself. If you're anything like me, I know that you're the kind that never takes suggestions as-is, but instead filter them through your own ideas and knowledge to arrive at something better, more fitting and more elegant.

I can do testing for you, I have real hardware; a backlit gameboy mono, a gameboy color, a Gameboy Advance SP 101 and an EDGB to go with them. I know how to build the source, I'm very good with scripting and I can code and disassemble Z80 (I've been disassembling Master System Sonic 1 and writing my own assembler).

The sideways switching between Pokémon fits because 'switching between Substitute and real Pokémon' is similar in both concept and animation.

KrocCamen said:

I can completely understand -- I have been developing personal projects for decades now and I have an extremely strong sense of what I what to achieve and need very little in the way of outside direction.

But it sometimes good for someone to provide a view that is totally upside-down to the way you would do things yourself. If you're anything like me, I know that you're the kind that never takes suggestions as-is, but instead filter them through your own ideas and knowledge to arrive at something better, more fitting and more elegant.

I can do testing for you, I have real hardware; a backlit gameboy mono, a gameboy color, a Gameboy Advance SP 101 and an EDGB to go with them. I know how to build the source, I'm very good with scripting and I can code and disassemble Z80 (I've been disassembling Master System Sonic 1 and writing my own assembler).

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The color hack has been reported to cause damage to hardware in skeetendo. It could have been a mere coincidence, but maybe not. I believe there could be instances where vram accesses occur when the vblank period has already ended, so if there are issues, this may be related to it. I still haven't gotten into that stuff. I just meant testing with an emulator anyway. BGB is as good as it gets.

I must say this offer comes kinda as a surpise right now, but if you would like to offer your help with the testing process, I would of course be open to it. I well aware of your knowledge and experience and I'm sure your help would be very valuable. I still have to clean up some things here and there but if you'd be open to it we can talk privately about this in a near future.

Just a random "I am still working on this" update. The move effects (including battle logic, status effects, field effects and the like), of a total of nearly 300 carefully selected and designed moves are like 75%-80% done and they should be finished in around 6 months. Then I can start working on the general battle UI, animations, held item effects, and AI (in no particular order but currently this is the order I have in mind). Eventually I should get into reworking some things of the overworld engine and start working on a custom storyline and out-of-battle features, as well as data inherent to the gameplay like generic pokemon data and trainer data. I still have not decided if I may try to recruit someone else for help in the animation designs and maybe in the storyline part (this is vague way of essentially referring to anything that doesn't have to do with battling), and, of course, to do some serious testing. This is something I'm considering, but it depends on how things turn out, and, regardless, there is still a long way. Don't ask for or expect a demo until the hack is completely finished though. I once said that it's not going to be possible to finish this in less than 3 years and today it's still the same story to be honest. Realistically, if I keep working on it at this current pace, around 4 years left is a good call.

Alright, I think that's all. It's been half a year since the last bump so I guess it was time for another. Not much to show since what I've been done is not something that you can easly reflect in a picture or even video. But I do still post some vids with misc features/updates from time to time in my <spam>twitter account</spam> if you're really interested.

Hi Crystal_,

Nice wok! I'd really like to see this project finished. Are you still working on it? Is the source code available?

Thanks!

this project is so interesting, are you still working on it?