[Idea] Pokemon Dating Sim

EDIT: The game has been released! Please post everything related to it in the thread I just gave.

Good day, everyone.

I thought about creating a Pokémon Dating Sim (with Persons), 'cause it seems Google's only, at least half reliable link links here. There are sure people (besides me) who would want such a game. But as the old discussion has shown, just jiggling about how great it would be, doesn't lead anywhere. So I want to get something done.

General information: As newbie I'm not allowed to link yet, so if you don't know something mentioned later, please just google it. Disregard that, 15 Posts!

I suggest using Ren'Py for this Dating Sim, 'cause it's easy to handle and learn even if you don't have any clue how to program. On the other side, it's fully compatible with Python, so counting love points and this stuff won't be a problem either. Ren'Py ist ideal for this kind of thing. Sure, one could use the RPGMaker, but that's not what it's designed for and I think even with Pokemon Essentials it would be more afford.
Later, if somethings has been created, we may transfer it into flash.

The most important thing after the game engine would be the images. I strongly believe there are enough free backgrounds around the Internet, starting with the RPG-Battle-Backgrounds, so that wouldn't be a problem. If you disagree, I suggest creating backgrounds out of original Anime locations by vectorizing it. Yes, vectorizing. That's the same I want to create the characters. So either vectorize them from the Anime (please be aware of JPEG artifacts) or from Ken Sugimoris Artwork.
I think vectorizing is legitimate because it's easier to change (for emotions etc.). I'm using Inkscape.

Sounds and writing shoudn't be a bother, because sounds (and bg music) are even easier to get from RPG ressources than appropriate images and writing is "just" writing, meaning we don't need much more than a brain to think of something plotworthy. In the end I will read over it anyways and I'm a hard critiziser.

That about material. Now to personal: When it comes to abilities, franky spoken, I'm feeling capable of doing everything on my own, except for I don't know the characters so well. But when it comes to time, it would be impossible. It may takes years to complete anything. Nobody wants to wait years.


So, I want you for this project. I need character designers, character writers, a few Ren'Py-ists and programmers and at least one tester, because my PC tends to be slow and I can't test the compiled games myself. SFX'ler, background designers and artists are welcome. What do you need?

The Character Designer (very important and very needed):
You need: nothing at all. We're going to scrap the characters out of original Pictures, to example Misty from the Anime. I'm not a character designer myself and no good artist. But yesterday I red a little bit (okay, I've only read the German Wikibook, maybe it's better) about Inkscape and how to use it and today in about 3 hours (with lots of testing how this will work and that will work –> next time will be faster), I could vectorize Mistys head:

If I can do that, you can do it too. Btw, this quality is fine with me (well, eyes and nose could be better), because thinking of Dating Sim I think of these free-for-all flashs and not some mighty commercial product. So, you would find good (mostly original) pictures of your character through the almighty Internet, probably as JPEG or PNG. Then vectorize them. Then start playing with the expressions and create some vector images, which are identical, besides the expression. That's all. Easy job, but takes some time.

The Character Writer (very important and very needed):
You need: knowlegde of your character (very important), some fantasy and being criticisable (because the Writer Supervisor or I WILL criticize you). I point this out, because in contradiction to playing music or drawing (or vectorizing) images, people don't immediatly recognize when writing is bad. Sad, but true. So, look out your writing let the character be original, so called in character (see). Extreme Example: "You: Want some drugs?" – "Misty: Hell yeah!"
I know it's funny, but the Love Hina Sim Date already made that joke.
Also watch out things doesn't appear out of nowhere. Image you and Misty explore a mystery dungeon (*g*), and the batteries of your lamp are out. Lucky you Misty had some in reserve, right? Wait, why did she?
And exploring a dungeon with Misty may be possible, but remember she's more the water type? So, her reason shoulnd't be "Because." but more like "Because rare Water Pokémon, yay!"
As writing go, you will create "messages" for the character as well as questions for the player with multiple choice answers and decide, how much the love points for that character will raise. You will write that in Ren'Py language from the beginning (see). Don't forget to make notes, where your character looks how (expressions), so we can insert that later. As soon gifts, dates and the battle system are settled, you will also explain how your character reacts.
Not that easy, but if you know your character it's just work.

Nothing hinders you to be Character Designer and Writer (for the same character) at the same time. In fact, those two should work good together, because the Writer knows which images are needed (e.g. "Make her a extremly scared face"), and the Designer knows which images are possible (e.g. "I can't give you a image with her belly exposed, because there's no image in the original style where that happens.").

Less needed positions:


That would be all positions I think. Generally, you can be in as many positions as you like, as long you do your work. No problem if you want to share your character with someone else. You're free to help anybody in the team, if he/she wants your help, but please concentrate on your own work, too.
But I want to have the two Supervisors and the Organisator distinct.

Your payment: A lot of fun, your name (Nick or real, what you want) in the credits and afterwards the fact you were part of the team that created the (probably) first second third Pokémon Dating Sim in English language, but hey, it will be the most awesome I promise! :D


Last things: There will be only Persons to date in this Dating Sim. An exception to this rule is the idea of (anon) girls/woman dressed up as Pokémon. I would really like a Pikachu Girl, as it was mentioned in the other thread. So if you want a character, just be part of the project, vectorize her and write some lines!
What I left unclear was the male protagonist. That will be decided by you. And with you, I mean the "going to be part of the project"-you. I would prefer Brook (EDIT: For now we go with that), because it suits him and would be funny. Any womanzer from the series would do. Any character would be possible, but would it suits them (e.g. Ash)? It could also be an anomyous character, what would mean he's stranger to everyone (makes writing easier). But I think it would be a shame to just insert a no-name.
The game will be for free, at least because of Konamis Copyrights. If the source including ressources will be released for everyone will be decided inside the team.

Now, if you want to be part of this project, just post it here. If you prefer sending me a PM you should reason why. Being shy is a bad attribute for working in a team, so just post it here ;)
If you have any suggestions or critic about this project PLANING (aka this first post), feel free to share it me. If you just want to tell me, I should totally add a certain character, without thinking about joining the project… then think again!

EDIT: I forgot to mention: Since I'm the initiator and want that game too, I'll try to help out whereever it is needed. If we don't get programmers, I will do that. If we have just one character (which would be very sad) I'll try to make up a second one, etc. But if we are few, it will take very long.

Update 21.12.2011: Look at that, thread is third Google result for the term 'pokemon dating sim', second is the other thread and first an article about the topic.

Update 23.12.2011: Forgot to mention, the Organisator will take care of the sounds too. Speaking of that, I found the background music from FR/LG. Should be sufficient.

Update 25.12.2011: Sound effects taken from the RPG-Maker XP. Pokémon cries would be avaible through Pokémon Essentials.

Update 01.01.2012: See here

Update 15.01.2012: Game Concept was almost completed, will start programming as soon as I have time for that. Already started learning Phyton.

Update 09.02.2012: See here

Update 12.08.2012: Oh, look at the time! And at this.

Update 23.01.2013: Release!

Wow, this idea sounds... Different. Not in a bad way; I mean, this could appeal to people who like visual novels, especially this genre (I know, I'm stating the obvious, am I). This really seems in-depth for an idea post - I wish you good luck with this game and I hope it succeeds.

I just hope these people find their way to this site…
Seems like I have to do some advertising… Is my signature appealing?

Ayutac said:

I just hope these people find their way to this site…
Seems like I have to do some advertising… Is my signature appealing?

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Oh, trust me, PokeCommunity's pretty popular. I'm sure that they'll look at your topic.
Honestly? For signatures, it looks fine. There's nothing wrong with it though. Just make sure you advertise only in your signature though - I doubt that it's appreciated to make posts mostly pointing to this topic. That's me being Captain Obvious again and wow, I'm pretty good at it.

Nijiri said:

That's me being Captain Obvious again and wow, I'm pretty good at it.

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Made me laught :D
Yes, I know that. But someone mentioned the Girl Fanclubs earlier, maybe I will ask there directly, if nobody finds his/her way here.

This is interesting. I personally don't like the vectoring but to each is to his own. I happen to be working on a dating sim based off a game from the early 90s but I don't plan on releasing anything for awhile.

RMXP is fully usable for a dating sim, by the way. It has better picture quality than the other RPG Makers to my knowledge. The only thing I was concerned about this thread was the style you used. Do you have a drawing pad? If so, maybe you can draw the game in your own style like I am.

Good luck with this, hoping to see more.

No drawing pad, just a mouse. Just as said, I'm not the designer type. Wouldn't hinder me to do a character but it would be nicer (and concernering me, more productive), to have at least 3 other people in the team.

As some may have noticed, for some days there's a teammate mentioned in my sig. The person in question is a friend of mine from RL, he's not registered here yet. Together we thought through some points, so here is an bigger update:

For now, the player will play Brook. The questionable girls we concentrate on will be Misty and May. (If you want someone else, feel free to help us.) Probably we will base the game more on the Pokémon Adventure Manga than on the actual anime series. Nevertheless for now we will use character images from the Anime for vectorizing, since there we have colours already and it's easier to work with. The appereance doesn't differ much anyway.
There will be different milestones for the relationship with the girls, but they are not necessary lineary. You may also stuck in a dead end if you overdo it.

The background story is that we have the WORLD championship in Pokémon fights, possible with a parallel world championship in Pokémon contest. It will be on an island (or maybe two) so we don't get much distraction. Because of this the game will be extendable to no end :D Since it's such ab big tournament, it won't be handled in one day or one week, but about 30 days.
I don't really care much about timeline problems with the canon, because durr, it's a sim date. But we will look out, nothing too dumb happens. The best would probably be to place it after the canon timeline. So, yes, of course all characters are 18 or older :P
Yet I think we will take our freedom about the character design. I want GenI Misty ._.

We will probably use a Transit Map, but tend to overworld. So you have your map (we already have something special in mind) and click to your main location, e.g. a park or the beach, and will directly go there. But when you're inside buildings or running through a forest or dungeon or something you will click from screen to screen (possible without going back to the overworld map).

Currently we have 4 stats in mind:
Attack, Defense, … Strength(/Endurance), Skills, Charisma/Charm and Intelligence. The range will be from 0 to 50. A "normal" start value would be 10 so far. Strength will affect your HP. With a value of 10, you will have 100, with a value of 50 it would be 250. Charisma will influence the relationship points you get, with value 10 you will get the usual amount. I plan to have some charisma conditions for the girls, so charisma doesn't get the least important stat like in so much other Sim Dates. Skills and Intelligence will be important too, but we don't have the relevance yet.
There probably won't be jobs who only concentrate one one stat, and the jobs will be Pokémon related (of course).

Changing your location may cost energy, will probably depend on the difficulty you choose. There won't be day- or night-time as such, everything will depend on your current HP.

We still want teammates who would be ready to "create" a girl of their choice. Technically one image is enough and more can be added later. So I would tend to say Character Writers are a bit more important, because it's much. We would appreciate your help!

By, "Create" you mean you want people to post their vectors of the Pokemon girls (Cynthia, Narissa, Dawn, Iris, Erika, etc...)?

This really makes me wanna make my own sim with actual fanart, but I've got too many projects at the moment to even consider it.

Oh, and I think Todd Snap would make a great player character too xD

Evil Arms said:

By, "Create" you mean you want people to post their vectors of the Pokemon girls (Cynthia, Narissa, Dawn, Iris, Erika, etc...)?

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Well, technically yes. At least one image is necessary (and it's better not a derpy one), but as an average player I think, more emotial expressions on the same pose would be lovely so she doesn't only react with dialog but also with expressions.
But one image is enough to run everything (so the player can actually see his target) but it would be boring, if it would be ALWAYS the same.

On the other side, the Writer has to think of at least three different statements per relationship milestone to get the character running. But with only three, that could be fast considered as boring too.

(You see, I don't only want to make this game, I want to make it halfway good.)

So, after we recive one of the necessary components (a image or three in character statements/questions per milestone (probaby about six milestones)) we will hold it up until we got the other component/create it by ourselves. Of course the helpful person will be listened in the credits for his/her work.

We also have to think about how the character will react to certain gifts.

Oh, and another thing: I don't want you to post the material here.
PM me. Pictures should be surprises for the players ;P

Also, if you are interested in do some Character Writing, PM me in forehand to get to know the milestones, because I don't want to publish them (yet) because there can be some surprises too. (Maybe they get a spoiler, we will see.)

Also about your suggestions: For what I know about Cynthia yet (with is not much), I think she would be perfect as the third character, since she is the (generic) strong one which would be more difficult to approach.

So when you happen to have more time I would like to see you contributing something ;)


EDIT: Looked Todd up, couldn't remember him. But hey, he has the power to make things better :D

BulbapediaEP55 said:

This is one of the few 4Kids episodes in which rice balls are referred to properly.

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I've just thought about the battle system and I think it would be good if we have different player characters to go with (with different Pokemon), but for now, stick to Brook. Also I'm looking towards weekend, when some thing will be put down on paper (hopefully)

*quietly saying*
Look at this, the concept of protagonists and girls is implemented, as well as the battles. And everything is highly extendable! Today I will start the interaction between protagonists and girls. After that's been done, we must implement the Python classes into Ren'Py (simply actions as well as option menus etc.) Vectorizings are ongoing. Fine Progress I would say.

For a mostly German documentation (because after programming, logging and documenting everything, caring about my other projects and my studies I'm too lazy to translate it by now) look here

I'm not sure if this project is still on, but I'd be happy to join as a plot writer. I'm pretty good at writing stories, and have wanted to make a Visual Novel/Dating Sim for a while now.

Anyways, just thought I'd drop my application off.

Ciao,

Troyamonga

Oh no, I'm sorry for not seeing you! I seem not to have the topic favourited or something, I thought I would get a message when someone replies.
I will send you a PM shortly, please bear with me a bit longer.

So, update: I was studying. And I had no chance to do anything with Ren'Py and I guess that demotivated me the most. But I'm getting a great and powerful laptop soon and then I will start the Ren'Py part.

By now, I have myself, a lazy friend IRL who is doing May and needs some encouragement too, a nice proofreader who got nothing to proofread and a guy who told me he would trace backgrounds but hasn't done anything yet.

If you are reading this and want to apply, sent me a PM.

If you are reading this in the far away future, this project is not dropped until I say so, HERE. And currently I have no need to drop it. Must simply approve Technology, so I can use Ren'Py and trace images properly. Soon....

EDIT: Meanwhile a Release happened, so everything happening right now will be updated there from now on.