KingCharizard
C++ Developer Extraordinaire
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Welcome to Poke Community's guide to Fan Game Development. In this guide I'll help you understand how to perfect your ideas and make more professional games. This is not a guide to tell you what ideas you should or should not use. It's your game what you decide to do is completely up to you.
More and more I'm seeing games added to Poke Community without proper planning and without much thought being put into the games. Hopefully this guide will change that and help people properly understand what it takes to design a GOOD game. What makes a GOOD game? Well in my opinion it's a great story. I believe most people continue to play any game is the story, they continue to play so they discover what's waiting around the next corner or what will happen to the main character. Yeah cool features and shiny cool graphics are awesome, but it's the story that keeps people glued to their seat. Games are tricky to make, you must think of an idea that's new but also compelling and Fan games especially are tricky to make, because it's a fan game most people probably won't play it for too long because they experienced the game before and it can get boring very fast. Most people seem to go overboard when making fan games. The idea of a fan game is to allow the players aka fans, to add to the game what he/she felt it lacked, to improve it. The games being added to Poke Community are not well planned and quite simple outrageous, People are trying too much and making the game a complete disaster, in the end ultimately failing to produce what could have been a great fan game. In this guide I'm going to show you how you can perfect your ideas and complete the game you've worked hard on thus far.
STORY
This is first and foremost, I believe this is where your game comes to life and it's also the foundation of the rest of your dev process. Now when it comes to the story I feel you're free to use your imagination and create an entire new adventure just don't forget it's a Pokémon game you're making so you should try to include some of the original ideas or concepts. The story can make or break a game, so much thought and planning should be put into this part of the games design.
Below I'll include some tips to help you create your story:
Ø Sometimes It's better to try to envision the ending and build on that if your having trouble
Ø Sometimes it's good to create your environment and build a story on that, but keep in mind to do this you should have a basic idea first.
Ø Sometimes just play a game similar to the type of game you wish to create and write down some things you would change, improve and/or add.
This is first and foremost, I believe this is where your game comes to life and it's also the foundation of the rest of your dev process. Now when it comes to the story I feel you're free to use your imagination and create an entire new adventure just don't forget it's a Pokémon game you're making so you should try to include some of the original ideas or concepts. The story can make or break a game, so much thought and planning should be put into this part of the games design.
Below I'll include some tips to help you create your story:
Ø Sometimes It's better to try to envision the ending and build on that if your having trouble
Ø Sometimes it's good to create your environment and build a story on that, but keep in mind to do this you should have a basic idea first.
Ø Sometimes just play a game similar to the type of game you wish to create and write down some things you would change, improve and/or add.
FEATURES
This Is the most important part of this guide and where a lot of games fall apart. Everyone wants that new and feature packed Pokémon fan game. But some features just don't belong in some games. I'll explain what I mean about that in just a bit. But first I need to say Just because a feature is cool doesn't mean you need it or that you should use it, Yeah the Dual Screen feature is cool but do you really need it and features like the Poke Top are cool as well but does it fit with your type of game, I mean if your game is a survival type game I doubt you have laptop nearby. Also people are trying to add too many features or just trying to add too much content to their games, for example 500-1000 Pokémon is just crazy no one will even bother catching that many Pokémon. But if they do, can you produce this many Pokémon? I believe there are only around 512 official Pokémon (I wouldn't be surprised if I'm way off). Also more than one region is questionable (Although some people are doing this successfully. Doesn't mean you can). If you want more maps try making new towns, caves or routes and add them to the region, also Islands aren't a bad idea either. What the point of more than 8 badges? If you chose to include more than 8 at least make them useful, for example in the original Pokémon games each badge let you use a HM or made your Pokémon growth increase. If you look at Pokémon over the years it hasn't changed much, yet it has made Nintendo billions of dollars. Simplicity can go very far, having the most features or having some huge region isn't going to make people want to play your game or like it. So when deciding what features you plan to use remember to keep them simple and relevant. Also make sure you or someone else working with you have the skills to actually make the feature a come to life.
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to help you decide if a feature is right for your game:
Ø What type of game am I making? Tropical, survival, catch em' all, deep space, ect…
Ø Does this feature fit into my game? Well you're not going to have a Laptop in space are ya?
Ø Will people even need this feature? Like the dual screen yea its cool but is it needed?
This Is the most important part of this guide and where a lot of games fall apart. Everyone wants that new and feature packed Pokémon fan game. But some features just don't belong in some games. I'll explain what I mean about that in just a bit. But first I need to say Just because a feature is cool doesn't mean you need it or that you should use it, Yeah the Dual Screen feature is cool but do you really need it and features like the Poke Top are cool as well but does it fit with your type of game, I mean if your game is a survival type game I doubt you have laptop nearby. Also people are trying to add too many features or just trying to add too much content to their games, for example 500-1000 Pokémon is just crazy no one will even bother catching that many Pokémon. But if they do, can you produce this many Pokémon? I believe there are only around 512 official Pokémon (I wouldn't be surprised if I'm way off). Also more than one region is questionable (Although some people are doing this successfully. Doesn't mean you can). If you want more maps try making new towns, caves or routes and add them to the region, also Islands aren't a bad idea either. What the point of more than 8 badges? If you chose to include more than 8 at least make them useful, for example in the original Pokémon games each badge let you use a HM or made your Pokémon growth increase. If you look at Pokémon over the years it hasn't changed much, yet it has made Nintendo billions of dollars. Simplicity can go very far, having the most features or having some huge region isn't going to make people want to play your game or like it. So when deciding what features you plan to use remember to keep them simple and relevant. Also make sure you or someone else working with you have the skills to actually make the feature a come to life.
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to help you decide if a feature is right for your game:
Ø What type of game am I making? Tropical, survival, catch em' all, deep space, ect…
Ø Does this feature fit into my game? Well you're not going to have a Laptop in space are ya?
Ø Will people even need this feature? Like the dual screen yea its cool but is it needed?
GRAPHICS
Custom graphics are almost always a good thing. However they can be bad if they are poor graphics. When designing custom graphics you should have experience doing so or have someone on your team who is. Although a game with original Pokémon graphics can be just as successful as one with custom graphics, as I stated fancy graphics are cool but won't make or break a game. I will admit I'm no expert on graphics and I don't have any tips to help you create better graphics just make sure they fit into your style game, for example if your building a tropical type game don't bundle your characters in winter clothes. Fakemon, here's what I think, Fakemon In fan games, maybe. It all depends if they are done right. And what I mean by done right is a believable fakemon, not splicing not a random doodle. All the original Pokémon in a way make sense, I believe for instance take CHARMANDER (A Fire reptile aka a dragon). When i see fakemon they don't look like they belong in your Pokémon world, yeah some look cool but they don't fit. When you create a fakemon you must take into account each official Pokémon that came before it and build on that. All of the fakemon I've saw thus far aren't made this way they are created in an image of what the artist believes is cool But a Electric/Fire Type is just crazy. So when making a game i believe it's best to stick with official Pokémon rather then make your own but if you can do it right then by all means add fakemon. You should also remember the official Pokémon can be improved, by adding new attacks, new evolutions, ect...
This Is Incomplete Please wait for an updated version before posting anymore comments. You are free to add advice to this article if you want.
To have your advice added please pm me what you'd like to add.
To have your advice added please pm me what you'd like to add.
I'll keep updating this guide as Ideas come to me.
Created by, KING CHARIZARD from the Poke Community
This guide is just that a guide, you don't have to do what it says or listen to anything I've written it's entirely up to you. I simply explained what I felt was the correct way to create a fan game,
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