Red hack: Pokémon Carmine Red [1.1 NEW UPDATE]

[Wrulfy]

Pokémon Carmine Red​

VERSION 1.1 IS OUT! HERE'S WHAT'S NEW!

Spoiler: Changelog

• Added Gym leader rematches (Special thanks to PlagueVonKarma!)
• Increased the levels of the Elite 4 to widen the gap between the last gym
• Added running shoes functionality, and increased the speed of surf and bike
• Increased the speed of spinner tiles (Special thanks to JojoBear13!)
• Minor learnset changes (golduck gets mirror move instead of roar, beedril and kingler get sharpen and slam respectively instead of swords dance by lv up, arbok/ekans get some of their STAB earlier)
• Minor stat rebalancing of some unevolved (slighlty altered the stats of the nidos) and fearow (traded speed for attack)
• EXP. ALL texts are now much faster, making using it less painfully slow. this affects traded mons as well.
• Changed Jynx's sprite for the 97 spaceworld demo because is just that good.
• Revamped the text speeds, Fast gets replaced with "super" which is instant text, the mid speed gets replaced with fast speed, labeled normal, and slow is slightly less slow.
• Minor trainer party adjustments
• Revised dungeon map battle transitions
• Revised dungeon borders
• Slightly altered some dungeon maps with the new borders in mind
• Slightly better AI for Erika and Sabrina
• Lance now uses max potions instead
• Minor dialog adjustments to hint the rematches and the running function
• Fixed the withdraw animation
• Minor gate tileset improvements
• Minor shop rebalancing
• Increased the obedience levels assigned to badges and pre-badge
• Moved around some of the in-game trades to make some of them avaiable earlier
• Few altered and extra dialogues
• Increased a bit the levels of the last dungeons' wilds post 8th gym, since the curve falls a bit there.
• Golduck is now part ghost type
• Psyduck and golduck have now slightly less attack but a bit more special
• They also have a different lvup learnset
• Couple of lvup learnset changes (vileplume gets recover earlier and toxic last, instead of sludge, and dewgong gets triatack instead of double edge)
• Fixed giovanni's dugtrio bad moveset
• Added a pond next to the mtmoon pokecenter
• Swapped the water and rod encounters of routes 4 and 24
• Fixed rhyhorn learning cut but rhydon not (now is the opposite)
• Cloyster should learn pin missile at lv25, not lv26

After over a year in development, the game is finished!

Hack of: Red Version (using the pokered disassembly)

Introduction
Carmine Red is a personal project of a Gen 1 romhack, using the dissasembly as a base instead of doing a binary hack like it was common many years ago. Based on an idea I had for a romhack I had more than a decade ago, that never got into shape due to the limitations of binary tools, and my desist on continuing it.

My main idea is to enhance a lot of what gen 1 had to offer, while still keeping the mess that the original games were.

The name Carmine, comes from a bug that is used to extract a dark red dye from, hence why Parasect is the mascot of the Hack, and why bugs are the biggest recipient of buffs.

Story
The plot of the game hasn't changed that much from the original game. However, it can be seen as an alternate reality of Kanto, but with some elements set in the future when compared to the original, while everything else happens in the same timeframe. The biggest difference is that there's an epilogue with the Team Rocket's arc near the end of the game.

Features:
For a more detailed list of features, please read the List of Features on the Github's Wiki.

• Massive Improve of learnsets
• New typings for several Pokémon
• Modified type chart
• Modified Base Stats for a lot of Pokémon
• Mofidied wild encounters across all of the game
• Modified a lot of moves, repruposing a lot of bad moves
• SGB support to make the game playable with custom color palettes
• All pokemon are avaiable, including Mew
• Improved maps and modified dungeons, and even new areas
• Improved map Tileset
• More inventory space
• HMs are deletable on the go
• Improved trainer and Boss battles
• A bit more difficulty than the original, but nothing crazy. I would compare it to vanilla B2W2 Challenge mode.
• Runnin functionality has been added, and biking and surfind is now faster
• Gym Leader rematches have been added.

And a few more.

Mechanics:
Most of the mechanics of the original game are untouched, but these are worth considering:

Spoiler:

• A handful of move effects are gone unused due to the moves that used them had completely changed, and a couple of unused effects are now used by other moves.
• Some Items have gone though rebalance. For example, hyper potions have been nerfed, and the Great Ball no longer works like in vanilla, but is just a step in between the regular pokeballs and ultra balls. SafariBalls have that buff now.
• HM Moves can be deleted on the go. However, the game will warn you when doing so, as you can potentially softlock youself in some areas. Several NPCs will remind you to carry the HMs with you at all times.
• The Inventory of the Bag and the PC have been increased by 10 items each. Now you can carry 30 items with you, and store 60 in the PC.
• The trainer AI is mostly the same, but trainers that like to use boosting moves on the second turn, now do on the first turn. Some special trainers will use X items that they dont use in vanilla.
• The old and good rod now have more stuff to catch when compared to the pitiful behavior of the base game
• Sleep should last from 0-3 turns
• Experience doesn't get halved between participants, all get the full experience. This makes the Exp. All really powerful, like Exp share in gen6+

I'll include here the Type Matchup table as well:

Spoiler:

Screenshots:
A bunch of screenshots stitched together

Spoiler:

All of the Overworld color palettes

Spoiler:

And as a bonus, some of the new, improved animations:

Spoiler:

Known Bugs

Spoiler:

• The new item DIRE GUARD is still widely untested, and is in the game mostly as a novelty. Use at your own caution.
• Using Surf in front of an NPC thats in the water lets you get inside it. I havent seen any unprecedent behavior, but I'm listing it anyway
• Prof. Oak doesn't appear in the champion's room when doing E4 rematches till the end of the fight, only the first time. I couldn't get around it, but the whole dialogue of the E4 and champion only makes sense in the context of the first round, so I didn't bother about it
• Since I couldn't make you can't store HMs in the PC and delete HM moves on the go, you can potentially get stuck somewhere if you're pruposely careless. If you always carry them with you, you will be fine.
• Pretty much all bugs present in gen 1 can happen here as well. Missignos might be completely different, though.

Credits

• Everyone on the PRET Github for doing the dissasemblies in the first place
• Everyone on the PRET Discord server for their invaluable help with my countless questions
• Rangi42 and the rest of contributors for Polished Map
• Special thanks goes to Rangi42, 33Dannye,
  Drush, Chatot4444 and more over the PRET discord
• FrenchOrange for the testing he did on my demo and the detailed report he provided
• Voltiene for the code under the warning message when deleting HM moves. I really couldn't done without their help
• Specially for their immeasurable patience against my stubborness of not learning for real how to program in Game boy ASM and just trial and error the changes I made over existing code

Downloads:

Carmine Red project on Github
Link to the last release, Version 1.1 as of February 4th 2024
Direct link to the 1.1 .bps patch


I've also added the 1.1 patch as an attachment

Instalation:
To install and play the game, you can either download the github repository, and build the game youself, following the instruction in the install.md

Or you can just download the .bps patch and apply it to a clean rom of pokemon red on your own.


To play I recommend an emulator that can play game boy games in Super Game Boy mode so you can play it in technicolor. mGBA works fine for this, for example.

04-02, Update 1.1: QoL and Gym leader rematches.
26-04, Update 1.0.1: fixes an issue with sleep turns. All related links and attachment have been updated

 

[Senorsombrero]

Looks good. Found you mentioning this on Reddit. Good luck

 

[KandarRdm]

Seems good so far, but since you can't check the Power/Effects of moves in Gen1, cant tell how some of these moves have been changed, outside the obvious (String Shot for example). So could you make documentation on the changes you made? The Hack looks to have promise, just would like a bit more clarity

 

[Wrulfy]

Seems good so far, but since you can't check the Power/Effects of moves in Gen1, cant tell how some of these moves have been changed, outside the obvious (String Shot for example). So could you make documentation on the changes you made? The Hack looks to have promise, just would like a bit more clarity

If you check the wiki you can find the Table of Moves with the relevant info

I mentioned the github wiki in the Features, when referring there was a more detailed explanation of the features. In the sidebar there you could find all other wiki pages

Even so, I'll link the Github Wiki's main page for clarity

 

[KandarRdm]

I apparently am blind, didn't see that before. Thanks for pointing this out ^^. Great hack, keep it up ^^

 

[Wrulfy]

Update 1.0.1 has been released, the main post has been updated acordingly

 

[Dr. Jean Pepper]

Beat this hack not too long ago and really do like all the changes you did. The type weakness and resistances changes did keep throwing me off tho which made me lose some pokemon in a nuzlocke I was doing. Having Arbok actually be good was a blessing that saved me alot. Really noticed the difference when playing og Red recently and really missed all the new moves and buffs the old moves got lol. Find it really funny how the first 3 gyms made choosing Bulbasaur a handicap like it was choosing Charmander in the og one lmao.
Beat this game with
Blastoise
Arbok
Scyther
Tangela
Tauros
Zapdos

 

[Wrulfy]

I am glad you liked the game.

Personally I think Bulbasaur is actually the strongest one within context for the first gym, unless you evolve your starter at that point. But leech seed just makes the first gym ace much more easy, in my opinion.

But yes, for the following gyms it falls behind a lot, but I'm sure there's enough encounter variety to get through it

 

[Wrulfy]

Well, time to do some thorough testing and I can say the 1.1 update is ready to launch very soon!

 

[Wrulfy]

Sorry for the unneccesary delay, I got a bit busy with other projects that consumed most of my free time.

VERSION 1.1 IS OUT! HERE'S WHAT'S NEW!

Spoiler: Changelog

• Added Gym leader rematches (Special thanks to PlagueVonKarma!)
• Increased the levels of the Elite 4 to widen the gap between the last gym
• Added running shoes functionality, and increased the speed of surf and bike
• Increased the speed of spinner tiles (Special thanks to JojoBear13!)
• Minor learnset changes (golduck gets mirror move instead of roar, beedril and kingler get sharpen and slam respectively instead of swords dance by lv up, arbok/ekans get some of their STAB earlier)
• Minor stat rebalancing of some unevolved (slighlty altered the stats of the nidos) and fearow (traded speed for attack)
• EXP. ALL texts are now much faster, making using it less painfully slow. this affects traded mons as well.
• Changed Jynx's sprite for the 97 spaceworld demo because is just that good.
• Revamped the text speeds, Fast gets replaced with "super" which is instant text, the mid speed gets replaced with fast speed, labeled normal, and slow is slightly less slow.
• Minor trainer party adjustments
• Revised dungeon map battle transitions
• Revised dungeon borders
• Slightly altered some dungeon maps with the new borders in mind
• Slightly better AI for Erika and Sabrina
• Lance now uses max potions instead
• Minor dialog adjustments to hint the rematches and the running function
• Fixed the withdraw animation
• Minor gate tileset improvements
• Minor shop rebalancing
• Increased the obedience levels assigned to badges and pre-badge
• Moved around some of the in-game trades to make some of them avaiable earlier
• Few altered and extra dialogues
• Increased a bit the levels of the last dungeons' wilds post 8th gym, since the curve falls a bit there.
• Golduck is now part ghost type
• Psyduck and golduck have now slightly less attack but a bit more special
• They also have a different lvup learnset
• Couple of lvup learnset changes (vileplume gets recover earlier and toxic last, instead of sludge, and dewgong gets triatack instead of double edge)
• Fixed giovanni's dugtrio bad moveset
• Added a pond next to the mtmoon pokecenter
• Swapped the water and rod encounters of routes 4 and 24
• Fixed rhyhorn learning cut but rhydon not (now is the opposite)
• Cloyster should learn pin missile at lv25, not lv26