Personal Intro and some questions regarding rom hacking

DeathstickeR · Dec 29, 2018

**most of this is copied and pasted from my intro thread in the meet and greet section**

Hello everyone! My name is deathsticker and I wanna make a pokemon fan game. I know there is a lot of work involved and making a game usually requires a team of people. But before I start trying to get people to help me, I have a lot of conceptual groundwork to lay. But, before i get in my questions that some of you can hopefully answer, I'll talk a little more about myself :D

I have been playing pokemon since I was 4, way back in 1997. My favorite generation is 5th gen (Unova) because I like the philosophical themes represented by the legendary pokemon and team plasma, was as the darker and more serious color palette of the game's artwork. I typically like cute pokemon like Whimsicott or cool pokemon like Lucario or Zeraora.

I havent played Ultra Sun or Ultra Moon because I had to sell my DS a while back to get some fast cash, but in all honesty after how easy Sun and Moon were, I ddint have a drive to get it. I liked feeling challenged by pokemon games like when I was a kid. So naturally im not too interested in the Let's Go games.

As for non-pokemon factoids, I attended an art school for 5 years and studied digital illustration, but have fallen off after I decided to switch careers (going into nursing). Despite my departure from art, I would like to get back into it, though a bit more casually, and a pokemon fan game seems like good long term project for me to mess around with. I like to watch TV, play videos games, draw, and hang out with people. I love the sciences, especially biology and psychology as well philosophy. Anything regarding the human mind is of great interest to me.

Now for tidbits about my project that I have figured out so far.
- Utilizes a Fairy/Steel/Fighting type trio instead of fire/water/grass
- Has a darker story that explores the themes of loneliness, abandonment, and the quest for the inner truth.
- Has fakemon, aiming for about 75 or in total, with real pokemon from the games, though aside from a couple exceptions, I want to avoid 1st gen like the plague. Ive seen those pokemon so many times it has become boring for me and im about to make some enemies here, but i think a lot of the designs are inherently boring too (I'm looking at you, ekans, and voltorb).
- Due to secret plot events, I plan on having alternate typing for some pokemon from the actual games. My plan is for them to retain their primary type in most instances, altering the secondary type, or adding a secondary type to pokemon who normally have a solo type.
-I have the beginning of the story more or less fleshed out

Development of the game will obviously require a lot of art (I hope for it to look at least as good Pokemon Ragnarok, a fan game i am still eagerly waiting for even though it is basically on an unannounced hiatus). But my main concern is any and all things coding. I have zero knowledge for coding and quite honestly dont have the patience to learn, especially since I begin nursing school soon.
I dont know which rom is the best to use, which features are possible, the processing limitations, or any of that. So I have some questions, mainly about features I want to add to my game and I will likely come across more later on.

For now, these are my main questions:

Would creating a trainer level system that increases catch rate based on pokedex completion be difficult? What about pokemon bonuses based on an overhauled friendship system? I don't like EV's or IV's so i would to figure out some alternative way to get those numerical values added to the stats.

How hard is it to add mega evolution?

Can I make the games work like Sun/Moon where moves arent required to traverse the world and solve puzzles?

What kinds of graphics limitations are there for the roms? Is it possible to increase the total resolution of the game? how hard would that be?

What game would be the best to make a rom hack from, given the sorts of things I want to do, and what programs would best benefit me during the development of my game?

I am considering adding another type into the game since it technically already exists, but isnt an official type. This type being Sound (which Noivern makes extra use of). What are your thoughts on this and what sorts ot strengths and weaknesses do you guy think it should have, if i were to add it to the game?

Thank you for taking the time to read this, if anyone has any questions for me about me or my game, let me know! I'm happy to answer anything :D

mgriffin · Dec 30, 2018

You're in the fan game section, not ROM hacking, so I'll try to answer for both RMXP/Essentials, disassembled ROMs, and binary ROMs.
(EDIT: This was true at time of writing, but the thread has since moved!)

DeathstickeR said:
Would creating a trainer level system that increases catch rate based on pokedex completion be difficult? What about pokemon bonuses based on an overhauled friendship system? I don't like EV's or IV's so i would to figure out some alternative way to get those numerical values added to the stats.

Increasing catch rate ought to be easy in a fan game, potentially achievable in a disassembled (depending on how easy it is to locate the catch rate code), and hard in binary unless someone already has a resource for it.
Hard to answer for friendship, but if they're simple things like stat changes then: easy, easy, hard. And if they're more complex: easy, hard, hard.

DeathstickeR said:
How hard is it to add mega evolution?

I believe a resource exists for fan games and binary. Unsure about disassembled, you'll have to search—writing from scratch is probably difficult.

DeathstickeR said:
Can I make the games work like Sun/Moon where moves arent required to traverse the world and solve puzzles?

Of course. Just don't put any cut bushes etc on your maps. Beyond that it's probably easy, easy, hard (unless resource exists).

DeathstickeR said:
What kinds of graphics limitations are there for the roms? Is it possible to increase the total resolution of the game? how hard would that be?

Lot's of limitations for ROMs. Definitely can't increase the resolution, a GBA has a fixed size screen and that's all there is too it.
Practically no limitations for fan games, but I suspect that increasing the resolution will be a tedious job because you'll have to change all the UIs to fit the new size.

DeathstickeR said:
What game would be the best to make a rom hack from, given the sorts of things I want to do, and what programs would best benefit me during the development of my game?

I would recommend making a game with Essentials, rather than a ROM hack. I can't comment on what tools are good for hacks, but I'd probably start with a disassembly if I were you and see if you can get to grips with it. I think there are people in the PC Discord who can help you.

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DeathstickeR said:
I know there is a lot of work involved and making a game usually requires a team of people. But before I start trying to get people to help me, I have a lot of conceptual groundwork to lay.

On this point, my opinion (that could be wildly wrong, I admit) is that you should have a working demo that shows off what's special about your game before you start trying to recruit people.

DeathstickeR · Dec 30, 2018

mgriffin said:
You're in the fan game section, not ROM hacking, so I'll try to answer for both RMXP/Essentials, disassembled ROMs, and binary ROMs.

Increasing catch rate ought to be easy in a fan game, potentially achievable in a disassembled (depending on how easy it is to locate the catch rate code), and hard in binary unless someone already has a resource for it.
Hard to answer for friendship, but if they're simple things like stat changes then: easy, easy, hard. And if they're more complex: easy, hard, hard.

I believe a resource exists for fan games and binary. Unsure about disassembled, you'll have to search—writing from scratch is probably difficult.

Of course. Just don't put any cut bushes etc on your maps. Beyond that it's probably easy, easy, hard (unless resource exists).

Lot's of limitations for ROMs. Definitely can't increase the resolution, a GBA has a fixed size screen and that's all there is too it.
Practically no limitations for fan games, but I suspect that increasing the resolution will be a tedious job because you'll have to change all the UIs to fit the new size.

I would recommend making a game with Essentials, rather than a ROM hack. I can't comment on what tools are good for hacks, but I'd probably start with a disassembly if I were you and see if you can get to grips with it. I think there are people in the PC Discord who can help you.

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On this point, my opinion (that could be wildly wrong, I admit) is that you should have a working demo that shows off what's special about your game before you start trying to recruit people.

First off, thank you for your reply. I was getting worried that no one would see my post haha

Secondly, making a working demo feels impossible to me because I lack coding expertise. It would be great to make a game with rpg maker, but when I played Pokemon insurgence, there were a lot of bugs and I chalked that up to either too high of complexity for what I wanted to do or too much labor for one person to reasonably pull off. Either way I'm not sure it is the best for me. But that's also why I made this post.

Also, a more accurate post that better describes my desires and vision can be found here

mgriffin · Dec 30, 2018

DeathstickeR said:
Secondly, making a working demo feels impossible to me because I lack coding expertise.

I disagree that you can't make a demo. Sure, maybe you'll have to focus on mapping, writing dialogue and doing events, but that could a) be enough to attract someone to help you code, or b) be enough to help you gain some confidence to delve into the code.

I find it a real turn-off when people aren't willing to start projects on their own, it gives off a "work for me and build my game for free" vibe. But I can't speak for everyone, and maybe your ideas will attract somebody :)

DeathstickeR said:
It would be great to make a game with rpg maker, but when I played Pokemon insurgence, there were a lot of bugs and I chalked that up to either too high of complexity for what I wanted to do or too much labor for one person to reasonably pull off. Either way I'm not sure it is the best for me. But that's also why I made this post.

I couldn't comment on Insurgence, but my opinion is that it's both much less effort and much less difficult (in general) to make new features in Essentials than in a ROM hack. Feel free to pin your hopes to finding a talented coder, but those people tend to already have projects, so it's very likely that you'll have to get your hands dirty if you want to see your vision come to fruition, and in that case I think you'll have more luck learning Ruby (used in Essentials) rather than assembly or C (used in binary ROMs and disassemblies respectively).

DeathstickeR said:
Also, a more accurate post that better describes my desires and vision can be found here

I had a read through that. For your "no HMs" I think it would be simple enough to change in Essentials, you'd just modify the "can I cut?" (etc) checks to look for a particular type in your party. It's probably pretty simple in a disassembly too, assuming that you can identify those checks.

I'd also say that I don't think your feature list or signature moves are particularly difficult to achieve from a coding perspective, even for someone who's learning to code (you'll need some pointers for a few things, but I expect there are plenty of people here or on Discord that could give those, myself included).

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Anyway, good luck!

DeathstickeR · Dec 30, 2018

mgriffin said:
I disagree that you can't make a demo. Sure, maybe you'll have to focus on mapping, writing dialogue and doing events, but that could a) be enough to attract someone to help you code, or b) be enough to help you gain some confidence to delve into the code.

I find it a real turn-off when people aren't willing to start projects on their own, it gives off a "work for me and build my game for free" vibe. But I can't speak for everyone, and maybe your ideas will attract somebody :)

I couldn't comment on Insurgence, but my opinion is that it's both much less effort and much less difficult (in general) to make new features in Essentials than in a ROM hack. Feel free to pin your hopes to finding a talented coder, but those people tend to already have projects, so it's very likely that you'll have to get your hands dirty if you want to see your vision come to fruition, and in that case I think you'll have more luck learning Ruby (used in Essentials) rather than assembly or C (used in binary ROMs and disassemblies respectively).

I had a read through that. For your "no HMs" I think it would be simple enough to change in Essentials, you'd just modify the "can I cut?" (etc) checks to look for a particular type in your party. It's probably pretty simple in a disassembly too, assuming that you can identify those checks.

I'd also say that I don't think your feature list or signature moves are particularly difficult to achieve from a coding perspective, even for someone who's learning to code (you'll need some pointers for a few things, but I expect there are plenty of people here or on Discord that could give those, myself included).

---

Anyway, good luck!

I don't mean to give off that vibe. I have tried to learn coding before, but it is very dense and especially difficult to wrap my head around. It is like learning a language and I've always been terrible at that. I'm not saying that I refuse to learn and I didn't expect to make the game without coding at all. I'm trying making sure people know that I am a writer and artist and that strong coding skill isn't something I would be able to readily bring to the table and thus would need A LOT of help both in understanding and writing code.

I'm glad to know those things should be simple. And I assumed that all of the best coders are already working on projects. But I can't know if any fish will bite if I don't cast my line. Thank you for the feedback and assistance thus far! The main reason for me posting all of this was more or less to gauge what is possible and what I will need to successfully make the game.

mgriffin · Dec 30, 2018

DeathstickeR said:
I don't mean to give off that vibe. I have tried to learn coding before, but it is very dense and especially difficult to wrap my head around. It is like learning a language and I've always been terrible at that. I'm not saying that I refuse to learn and I didn't expect to make the game without coding at all. I'm trying making sure people know that I am a writer and artist and that strong coding skill isn't something I would be able to readily bring to the table and thus would need A LOT of help both in understanding and writing code.

I'm glad to know those things should be simple. And I assumed that all of the best coders are already working on projects. But I can't know if any fish will bite if I don't cast my line. Thank you for the feedback and assistance thus far! The main reason for me posting all of this was more or less to gauge what is possible and what I will need to successfully make the game.

I definitely wasn't trying to imply that you're giving off the vibe; it was more a description of how I feel about recruiting threads here on PC in general.

I'm glad to hear that you're willing to give it a go, and I hope you're successful either alone or with others :)

Perseverance is key, and anybody can have that if they try!