Emerald hack: OriginWizard's Magic Emerald

[OriginWizard]

You could also make Celebi the prize for 100 Mt. Battle wins.

Not a bad suggestion! I don't have anything for celebi yet, was tempted to make my own Ilex forest event but being so new to scripting it was a tall order to fill. The Mt.Battle, even though it's 100 trainers, is mostly copy and paste with unique trainers which I can do. The only new thing I'd have to learn is how to code someone giving you a pokemon after a battle. My first attempt at that caused a lot of problems.

Some Mt.Battle updates:

Started putting down the foundations for Mt.Battle.
I've decided to use the volcano on route 112 as it seemed fitting, I moved the entrance to the firery path and set up the tower that will house the 100 floors.

Spoiler:

The foyer is based on the battle frontier since I like the clean look it has, in universe this building is very new so I think it fits.

Spoiler:

The floors currently look like this. There's only 10 so far while I work out scripting all of this.

Spoiler:

I could give the player BP and set up a BP store or give the player specific rewards for beating each floor. I'll need to see if it's possible to use a BP system or not.

 

[Teamshadowbossace]

Tonights updates!

The Pokepark is now on the map! It's a small island just off the coast of Hoenn. The map screen also updates to show you're there.

Spoiler:

A building in the Pokepark is giving away event pokemon! All you need to do is walk in and talk to the greeter, she will explain how you can claim your event items.

Spoiler:

The items can be found on the counters in front of the screens.

Spoiler:

Once you have your ticket just step on through one of the doors available and you'll be able to gain direct access to the pokemon! If you prefer to do it the old fashioned way then you can still take your items to the sailor in lilycove to sail there like you would originally.

Spoiler:

These locations now have areas on the map as well.

Spoiler:

The only one I'm having trouble with is the EON ticket event as you aren't supposed to have access until after you've selected Latias/Latios as the roaming pokemon after you defeat the champion. This could cause problems.

EDIT:

Would you like to have your character and pokemon team in the rom? I'm continuing to expand on the secret bases and need trainers to fill these bases!
You can design your own base and post a screenshot which I will recreate in the rom, or simply tell me your characters name and 3 favourite pokemon from gen 1-3 and I'll make you a trainer!

Hi my name is shadow (not real name btw )
My Trainer class : ninja boy
Secret base location : 114
Pokemon:Crawdaunt,Salamence,electivire
Edit :replace electivire going for gergar

 

[OriginWizard]

Hi my name is shadow (not real name btw )
My Trainer class : ninja boy
Secret base location : 114
Pokemon:Crawdaunt,Salamence,electivire
Edit :replace electivire going for gergar

Electevire wasn't in gen 3 so Gengar to the rescue! Lol Okie dokie I will add you to the list!

 

[Teamshadowbossace]

Electevire wasn't in gen 3 so Gengar to the rescue! Lol Okie dokie I will add you to the list!

Sweet man
Here's my levels

Crawdaunt-98
Salamence-99
Gengar-100

 

[OriginWizard]

Sweet man
Here's my levels

Crawdaunt-98
Salamence-99
Gengar-100

Okie dokie!

In other news, as a side tangent I took the Mt.Battle challenge on Colosseum to remind myself how it worked and what you got. Well it took me 5 hours but I defeated all 100 trainers in a row, beat the master at the end and got... Nothing. Not even enough Coupons (BP) to buy anything in the shop.
Apparently in order to get HO-OH you have to take the challenge from the main menu and NOT in story mode.
Waste of 5 hours.

Spoiler:

Yeah mine's not going to be this ball busting, I want the players to get rewards for milestones as an incentive.

 

[OriginWizard]

Small update for you, Large update for me.
Hex editing! Dear god I didn't know what I was getting myself into. It's probably fairly simple once you get your head around it but wow, you open up the rom and it's just numbers and letters, trying to find corresponding numbers and letters to change something as simple as a pokemon level.
The reason why I'm doing this is because I can't find anything, anywhere, about making a Red Gyarados style event in a rom. I wanted to have an overworld pokemon sprite that when clicked on always spawns a shiny pokemon. Considering the lack of documentation on the matter I question whether it's even possible to do with Binary rom hacking... But Decomp looks even more intimidating to wrestle.

Very little else has been changed today as I'm spending all my time learning how to hex edit.

• Mt.Battle can now be accessed.
• Every battle is a double battle.
• Rival May/Brendan have had their teams modified for extra difficulty to match the gyms (May somehow beating a gym that has level 50 pokemon with her level 31 grovyle didn't make sense)
• Wally has a new team.

That's it, not really even worth giving this update a number.

 

[NikolaP]

Very interesting! This is the first time I've seen NPC Secret Base trainers used or implemented, that sounds super fun. I like your approach to the hack - just for you to have fun, that's how I've been privately tinkering with Ruby for years. I covered up all the holes in Secret Bases in my hack because it took me 15 years to find out about the board used to cross them, haha.

If you need another Secret Base trainer, here's my base of a couple of years (I haven't redecorated in years, but it'll do):

My name is Nikola, and if you could make a Gentleman trainer with the team of Blaziken, Lanturn and Alakazam, that'd be awesome.

Also, one day when you have time, consider writing up how you managed to add new secret bases and how you got them to work in general. That sounds really cool, and I for one would love to try it someday!

 

[OriginWizard]

Very interesting! This is the first time I've seen NPC Secret Base trainers used or implemented, that sounds super fun. I like your approach to the hack - just for you to have fun, that's how I've been privately tinkering with Ruby for years. I covered up all the holes in Secret Bases in my hack because it took me 15 years to find out about the board used to cross them, haha.

If you need another Secret Base trainer, here's my base of a couple of years (I haven't redecorated in years, but it'll do):
View attachment 98338
My name is Nikola, and if you could make a Gentleman trainer with the team of Blaziken, Lanturn and Alakazam, that'd be awesome.

Also, one day when you have time, consider writing up how you managed to add new secret bases and how you got them to work in general. That sounds really cool, and I for one would love to try it someday!

Thank you for replying! I've been away for a few days but I'm getting things back up and running again.
I'm loving the base! It's nice to see a real base for a change as that's mostly what I wanted to use this for, to let people share their real bases with the world again and have them immortalised in a rom hack. Nobody in school mixed records or knew what it did really, we just traded and battled. Most of us only have one game, me with sapphire and half of the school with FR/LG which didn't have secret bases, because of that I now love seeking out secret bases to add to my growing collection lol

The good thing about doing it for fun is I don't feel pressured to come up with results, I'll keep going while it's fun and when it's no longer fun I'll finish up what I started, tie a little bow on it and release the whole thing so people can mess with it if they want.
Blaziken, Lanturn and Alakazam! A good team! Do you have a preference for their levels?

The secret base thing was a bit of a bodge job if you catch my meaning, instead of writing my own code I just manipulated what was already in the game, moved around scripts and warps, added in my own designs and linked them up to pre-exsting locations or made new ones. They aren't really new secret bases, more like a clone of one that's been modified to function differently.
For example I have to remove all the PCs from the secret bases as the trigger that tells the game that someone else owns this base doesn't exist, instead I rename the secret base myself, remove the pc and pretend it's real. Otherwise the player can pack up or move into the secret base which erases the base and causes corruptions.
Still it does the job and nobody else seems to have done this before so I like that my rom has some originality lol

 

[oscariothetrainer]

Just a question how come that the recent update is 0.06 but the download is 0.05?

 

[NikolaP]

Thank you for replying! I've been away for a few days but I'm getting things back up and running again.
I'm loving the base! It's nice to see a real base for a change as that's mostly what I wanted to use this for, to let people share their real bases with the world again and have them immortalised in a rom hack. Nobody in school mixed records or knew what it did really, we just traded and battled. Most of us only have one game, me with sapphire and half of the school with FR/LG which didn't have secret bases, because of that I now love seeking out secret bases to add to my growing collection lol

The good thing about doing it for fun is I don't feel pressured to come up with results, I'll keep going while it's fun and when it's no longer fun I'll finish up what I started, tie a little bow on it and release the whole thing so people can mess with it if they want.
Blaziken, Lanturn and Alakazam! A good team! Do you have a preference for their levels?

The secret base thing was a bit of a bodge job if you catch my meaning, instead of writing my own code I just manipulated what was already in the game, moved around scripts and warps, added in my own designs and linked them up to pre-exsting locations or made new ones. They aren't really new secret bases, more like a clone of one that's been modified to function differently.
For example I have to remove all the PCs from the secret bases as the trigger that tells the game that someone else owns this base doesn't exist, instead I rename the secret base myself, remove the pc and pretend it's real. Otherwise the player can pack up or move into the secret base which erases the base and causes corruptions.
Still it does the job and nobody else seems to have done this before so I like that my rom has some originality lol

Thanks! The base isn't honestly looking its best or as good as some I made 10-ish years ago, I should really build a new one or redecorate someday, I haven't in ages. A bit too few Colourful Plants in this one!

As for levels... well, that Blaziken is my first Pokemon ever and he's been level 100 for at least about 15 years, haha. I got stuck a lot as a firstgrader who didn't know English, he was at level 50 before the Normal-type gym. See what works for you - preferably something high.

Nice trick with the bases! So, they're essentially just regular rooms, accessed through regular warp tiles and made to look like bases? That sounds surprisingly simple. Did you repurpose some unused existing rooms for this or create new ones? I usually use the upstairs link trading and battling rooms when I need a cave or otherwise new location.

On that line of thought: Great idea with the tall grass in the cities being the place for foreign Pokemon! I did similar stuff with new locations I adapted from rooms with no encounters (secret caves that I hid the entrances to till the postgame), and also, would you know it, the secret bases! What you did with cities, I tried with adding Pokemon in the secret bases and setting the encounter rate to 0 so that you can only get them by using Sweet Scent.

 

[OriginWizard]

Just a question how come that the recent update is 0.06 but the download is 0.05?

Hello! The downloadable versions are stable versions, anything past whatever is downloadable is considered unstable and will be uploaded once they are stable.

Thanks! The base isn't honestly looking its best or as good as some I made 10-ish years ago, I should really build a new one or redecorate someday, I haven't in ages. A bit too few Colourful Plants in this one!

As for levels... well, that Blaziken is my first Pokemon ever and he's been level 100 for at least about 15 years, haha. I got stuck a lot as a firstgrader who didn't know English, he was at level 50 before the Normal-type gym. See what works for you - preferably something high.

Nice trick with the bases! So, they're essentially just regular rooms, accessed through regular warp tiles and made to look like bases? That sounds surprisingly simple. Did you repurpose some unused existing rooms for this or create new ones? I usually use the upstairs link trading and battling rooms when I need a cave or otherwise new location.

On that line of thought: Great idea with the tall grass in the cities being the place for foreign Pokemon! I did similar stuff with new locations I adapted from rooms with no encounters (secret caves that I hid the entrances to till the postgame), and also, would you know it, the secret bases! What you did with cities, I tried with adding Pokemon in the secret bases and setting the encounter rate to 0 so that you can only get them by using Sweet Scent.

Some of the secret bases are repurposed over existing secret bases, others have been cloned and a few have been made new but use standard warp tiles instead of secret base tiles.
The sweet scent idea is really clever! I never actually thought about that but you've given me some ideas now haha

 

[OriginWizard]

Updates:
First off I'm sorry for the slow updates. Aside from the real world being a factor, I've had to get my head around a lot of the coding needed to do what I want to do in the rom. I finally figured out how to make certain pokemon shiny, but I haven't figured out how to change a pokemon's OT yet though, if it's even possible.

• In celebration for the opening of the new Pokepark, a special pokemon is being given away at the tent in slateport.
• A new legendary encounter has been added.
• A shiny legendary encounter has been added.
• The 2nd gym in Rustboro has been closed until further notice.
• "Shiny Trainers" have been added to the game.
• New secret bases have been added.
  
  Spoiler:

  

  

  
  

  

  
• More pokemon have been added.
• Baby pokemon can now be encountered in littleroot town but only if the player uses sweet scent (Thank you NikolaP for the idea)
• 1 of 3 Legendary Dogs have been added.
• Altering cave has been activated. All unreleased mystery gift pokemon lie inside.
  
  Spoiler:

  
• Berry Juice can now be obtained in the game.
• You can now get both the Acro bike and Mach bike.

New downloadable version can be found here

 

[OriginWizard]

Here's something new! Another way for people to get themselves in the Rom!
There's still spots open for secret bases, but if that's not your thing then the new GTS may be up your alley!

Spoiler:

I am in need of trainers and traders to fill the GTS with, obviously this will not be a functioning online trading system but I will be adding as many traders as I can in the GTS.

Spoiler:

There's also a new training facility that exclusively uses Legendary pokemon, because that's pretty much what most kids did, they used legendaries because they were cool and strong.

Spoiler:

So to enter simply fill out one or more of these forms, I will also include a new form for secret bases:

Secret base form.

Spoiler:

Trainer name:
Double or single battle:
your 3 pokemon for single, 4 pokemon for double:
Their levels:
Their moves:
Secret base location:

Training facility form.

Spoiler:

Trainer name:
Your team (all legendaries, from 1 to 6 pokemon):
Their levels:
Trainer difficulty (0-255):
Moves will be randomised.

GTS form.

Spoiler:

Trainer name:
Pokemon offered:
Pokemon asking for:

I want to include the community more in what I make, makes it more fun when people get their characters in the game.

Also new secret base has been added:

Spoiler:

You said you wanted more colourful plants so I added some more in, if you would prefer I can remove them and leave it the way you showed me.

 

[Penny55gg]

Trainer name: Penny
Pokemon offered: Dratini
Pokemon asking for: Oddish

 

[OriginWizard]

Trainer name: Penny
Pokemon offered: Dratini
Pokemon asking for: Oddish

The first GTS trainer! I'll get you added asap.

 

[rayquazamay]

I recommend making a documentation file with everyone's team when you're done making this romhack!

 

[OriginWizard]

I recommend making a documentation file with everyone's team when you're done making this romhack!

That's a good idea! List everyone who volunteered and the team/trade they have in the game.

 

[OriginWizard]

Woops it's been real quiet around here! I'm back at university so I have a lot less free time to work on this. It's not dead at all, just going to have larger gaps between each update. Please feel free to keep submitting trainers and traders! There's still 3 buildings at the Pokepark with no function so you're also welcome to throw ideas for things you'd like to see in a pokemon game!
Some minor updates:

• Fixed some broken tilesets.
• I did make a new location but it really did not want to work with my vision so was removed.
• 100 npcs have been added to the game, most do not have working teams but they do exist now for the MT.Battle location.
• More double battles have been added to the game.

 

[OriginWizard]

Hello again everyone! I have some updates for you! Yes this project is NOT dead.

I was asked to show my Rom at my city festival, the university wanted to have it playable for the public so I've been working on the rom to finally finish the PokePark which is going to be the only available location for the festival. But these changes will be in the main game as well. No public version just yet as I had to remove the warps that allowed you to leave the pokepark which I will add back in after the festival.

Changes:

Spoiler:

New Trainers:
Joe - based on university lecturers with team theme of "development"
Alan - based on university lecturers with team theme of "Precision"
John - based on university lecturers with team theme of "Art"
Baby Doll - Baby pokemon team
Flare - Fire types only
Wheat - grass types
Mound - ground/rock types
Gregg - High difficulty pokemon

New building - Champions Rest. Battle pokemon champions at their strongest.
Seviper building now has an interior.
New cave interior.
New resting area.
Removed Gym in PokePark.
Added trainers to GTS building.
Small redesigns to PokePark.

I get the feeling I'm almost out of space on the Rom, I'm starting to hit walls where no matter what I add it corrupts or overwrites something and causes corrupted music or tilesets. I've been using FF Bytes instead of 00 to try and limit these problems but Emerald already has so little space that I'm wondering how much I can keep adding.
Because of this problem I'm going to call this version 0.9 and then when I modify it to function all the way through beginning to end of the game I'll call that version 1.0 and go from there. If I can keep adding more then I will, if I can't then I'll at least have a released version out.

I may then move on to another rom, such as FR and try to add secret bases into the game.

 

[OriginWizard]

Today went amazingly well! My table had a crowd around it the entire time, people liked the demo, and I got plenty of feedback. It feels good after you've put so much work into something.
That being said the work now begins again with converting this all back into the main game and releasing it.
I can't even begin to assess when that will be, since this was only possible because my uni wanted me to work on it more for the festival, with the festival over they will want me working on other projects again. But in my spare time I'll get this sorted out and published.

[My table at the festival with a member of the public playing my game!]