Red hack: In progress Pokemon Red/Blue hack

[Crystal_]

Current features overview

This is a brief compilation of some of the features already implemented or that are in progress. This list does not include planned features that haven't been yet approached.

• Based off the Pokemon Red color hack (GBC), with minor additional features.
• Extensive reworking of the battle engine. Almost everything is in progress of being rewritten and remodeled probably as never seen in a Pokemon hack, including main battle logic, move effects, held item effects, status handlers, and AI. This is taking and will take a long time.
• Double battles (also in progress, see above)
• Separate bag pockets
• Held items
• Special Defense stat and separate DVs and stat experience for Sp. Def and HP
• Additional Pokemon PC features
• Modifications on experience gain mechanics
• Modifications on learning moves and evolution mechanics
• More versatile wild and trainer Pokemon data structures
• More intuitive status screen navigation
• In-game time tracking
• NPC movement improvements
• Many misc battle related improvements and native bug fixes (many inherent to the engine rewrites)

Media

Screenshots below do not necessarily reflect the planned final result, but the current progress.

Credits

• The disassembly of Pokemon Red which basically makes this project possible
• The Pokemon Red Full Color hack, done by Danny-E 33, Drenn, and FroggestSpirit

 

[Drake Seawood]

Pretty interesting I'd say. Personally, it would be nice if all the moves have their statistics from 2nd gen (Wing Attack 60, DE 120). Also, was the LinkBattle routine removed? Wifi battles are another good situation for test as it's gonna be something innovative for me and the others.

 

[GiovanniViridian]

I had watched that Double Battle vid before this thread was posted, and it was a pretty nice breakthrough. The in-game items proved this further as well.

 

[Crystal_]

Pretty interesting I'd say. Personally, it would be nice if all the moves have their statistics from 2nd gen (Wing Attack 60, DE 120). Also, was the LinkBattle routine removed? Wifi battles are another good situation for test as it's gonna be something innovative for me and the others.

Link battle functionality is unfortunately not supported due to the complexity it would involve implementing it.

 

[SpikeJolteon]

I'd love to help,Beta testing, You can message me if you'd like on the details on what you need to test and what you're looking out for.

 

[Mammz]

I like the idea, but wouldnt it benefit you more to use a fourth gen base. We all love 2 gen, but with everything youre trying to achieve, i feel like itd be a bit easier on say soulsilver.

 

[Crystal_]

I like the idea, but wouldnt it benefit you more to use a fourth gen base. We all love 2 gen, but with everything youre trying to achieve, i feel like itd be a bit easier on say soulsilver.

I would personally disagree with that, because the source code of Red/Blue is much simpler than any other generation (especially that GBA games and beyond) if you want to get your hands dirty working over it. This was one of the main reasons I didn't pick gen 2 as a base. And gen 3+ style or mechanics is completely different from what I'm trying to achieve anyway, even if the double battling concept was indeed taken from there.

 

[Schattenjager1]

I like the idea, but wouldnt it benefit you more to use a fourth gen base. We all love 2 gen, but with everything youre trying to achieve, i feel like itd be a bit easier on say soulsilver.

I personally enjoy projects like this a lot more. It's awesome to see later gen features in first gen games.

 

[Mammz]

I would personally disagree with that, because the source code of Red/Blue is much simpler than any other generation (especially that GBA games and beyond) if you want to get your hands dirty working over it. This was one of the main reasons I didn't pick gen 2 as a base. And gen 3+ style or mechanics is completely different from what I'm trying to achieve anyway, even if the double battling concept was indeed taken from there.

I understand. I can't claim to be an expert, I only figured 4th gen mechanics would ultimately add to your project's potential. But I can understand it taking longer in comparison to gen 1.

I personally enjoy projects like this a lot more. It's awesome to see later gen features in first gen games.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a genuine fan of these hacks as well. I'd like to see more gen 1 and gen 2 hacks to be honest. I'm tired of seeing FR/LG/R/S/E hacks.

 

[Firsakova]

Good luck man! I can't wait to see the results of your work ;)

 

[Crystal_]

Since this has been bumped recently, I'm just going to let you all know that I'm still working on this hack regularly and that the plans are still the same; I've been shaping up the battle engine and many complex move effects are already implemented. Right now I'm focusing on designing the data so that I can move on with the more generic move effects. It's just that I have no intentions to make the progress public for now, and I won't be looking for testers for some time, until the battle engine is even more polished.

 

[Fotomac]

I'd like to see how you managed to do several of the features.

 

[Del]

Well done, this hack is so unique, Danny, Mateo, Misky and now You are major figures of GBC and GenI/II hacks... I am cheering for you, please if you need any beta testers, I would gladly do it!

 

[Crystal_]

Just a random update as it's been around 6 months since my last post here. Mostly to let everyone now that this is not dead, just taking a very long time. The move and Pokemon data is mostly designed and the main complex move effects and status effects are already functional, so I should be able to speed it up a little now that I will taking care of the more generic move effects and general things about the battle and status screens interfaces.

I did upload an update video that is now relatively old but I've noticed that I had not shared it here anyway. It shows some of the implemented move effects in action, although more work has been done since: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsTgdBcAmyY

Here are some other recordings of other minor random updates showing specific move effects or features:
https://twitter.com/crystal_rby/status/737962674160607233
https://twitter.com/crystal_rby/status/766286137312874497
https://twitter.com/crystal_rby/status/780527958964465665

By the way, I'm not open for testing right now (I don't know when I may be, I've kinda changed my mind about this for now, and I'm probably going to approach this a bit more "professionally").

 

[Crystal_]

Apologies in advance for the bump and double post but I wanted to share a new update video with a lot of the features currently implemented in this hack, including almost all the information that I'm willing to reveal for now. Keep in mind that there's still a very long road until the hack is complete and that my decision is that there won't be a beta version available until the hack is fully completed for release.

Meanwhile, however, if you're interested in old generation Pokemon hacks or you're just curious, feel free to watch the video below and deposit feedback if you'd like to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TRHZ0hWsaI

 

[FIQ]

I took a look at the RBY battle engine at one point and it seemed like a mess. The 2gen engine is also a bit awkward, but mostly because it has a tendency to duplicate a lot of the logic. You seem to be of the opposite opinion. What is it that makes the RBY battle engine easier to work with?

 

[Rangi]

This is an incredibly innovative hack. Some thoughts:

• Showing moves being evaded or failing is neat. I never liked the lack of animation in the official games.
• When Pokémon are swapped in double battles, how about moving them up/down instead of right/left to distinguish it from evasion?
• Bulbasaur was poisoned; do you plan to make Poison types immune to poisoning (and Fire to burning, Electric to paralysis, and Ice to freezing)?
• Bag pockets are very convenient.
• The mobile PC system is interesting. It seems like you could effectively enter a dungeon (I'm thinking of Silph Co.) with a team of 6+20 Pokémon. Will the overall difficulty assume that players do this, or do you have a counter in mind?
• Menus in the overworld are gray, not the sharp black and white of submenus like the party list. Was this unavoidable due to palette space?

 

[Crystal_]

I took a look at the RBY battle engine at one point and it seemed like a mess. The 2gen engine is also a bit awkward, but mostly because it has a tendency to duplicate a lot of the logic. You seem to be of the opposite opinion. What is it that makes the RBY battle engine easier to work with?

It's hard to explain, and I guess it can be labeled as a personal preference. Gen 2 is clearly much better written than Gen 1 and far more robust. It even feels like a higher level language at times. In particular the Gen 1 battle engine feels easier to pick up and dissect; in Gen 2 it feels that you'd have to go through and recode at least twice as many things to remodel the battle engine the way I'm doing. I also always had this idea in mind of reconsidering the functionality of every part of the game at some point, so Gen 1 obviously felt a lot more accessible. The amount of code in Gen 2 is just overwhelming and never ending.

So yeah, maybe I should've started with Gen 2 as a base, or at least consider it more carefully before starting. After all, you could argue that at least one third of the things I'm aiming to implement already exist. But for the remaining parts, reverse-engineering and rewriting the GSC code can be a lot scarier, at least at first glance.

This is an incredibly innovative hack. Some thoughts:

• Showing moves being evaded or failing is neat. I never liked the lack of animation in the official games.
• When Pokémon are swapped in double battles, how about moving them up/down instead of right/left to distinguish it from evasion?
• Bulbasaur was poisoned; do you plan to make Poison types immune to poisoning (and Fire to burning, Electric to paralysis, and Ice to freezing)?
• Bag pockets are very convenient.
• The mobile PC system is interesting. It seems like you could effectively enter a dungeon (I'm thinking of Silph Co.) with a team of 6+20 Pokémon. Will the overall difficulty assume that players do this, or do you have a counter in mind?
• Menus in the overworld are gray, not the sharp black and white of submenus like the party list. Was this unavoidable due to palette space?

2. It would feel less realist imo. I think that the horizontal animation comes closer to suggest that rather than the Pokemon moving, the camera angle or your eye sight is changing its direction. The move animation and feedback text should be enough to let the player know whether an attack is being evaded or a Pokemon is being scrolled in. You know, ideally all 4 pokemon would be displayed, but due to screen space and other hardware limitations it's not feasible unless you make the sprites extremely small and make everything look excesively congested.

3. There are many minor things like these that are not implemented but it's not a big deal. Nothing relevant to read from that. I have a very big data sheet and progress document where different minor mechanics like these are also contemplated.

5. Yeah, you know, the feature itself suggests what it could be useful for. I have studied how I'm willing to have this feature play out and what it is going to offer more carefully, but the overall goal can more or less be guessed.

6. It's something that I haven't really taken care of yet. It's a leftover from the color hack this game is based off, and other than fixing a couple of minor bugs here and there I haven't done anything about it. But as with everything else, I expect to go through these kind of things eventually.

 

[Awec]

This hack looks amazing! Do you have any plans to eventually make the source available on github for others to use it as a rombase?

 

[Crystal_]

This hack looks amazing! Do you have any plans to eventually make the source available on github for others to use it as a rombase?

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).