[Release] Pokémon Bearberry

[OliveCopper]

Pokémon Bearberry

Hello, this is my first actual game to be made. Pokémon Bearberry uses the Pokémon Essentials engine v14. I don't know everything about Pokémon Essentials, so expect a few bugs. Without further ado, here's Pokémon Bearberry.​

Plot/Story

It has been written that the Legendary Pokémon have been brought to the brink of extinction by a group of sinister beings, who want to experience Mega Evolving humanity. It up to a hero to stop them, and revive the Legendary Pokémon. However, the person that Professor Sessile chose for the job hails from the smallest and least populous town in the entire world of Pokémon, Drosera Town. You are that Trainer.

Spoiler:

You are about to get your Pokémon, but the Professor's Lab is located in Blisuki City. This is not fair, as you are not allowed to go near the tall grass when you don't have a Pokémon of your own. Well, guess who comes to you. It's Professor Sesille! He will escort you to his lab to allow you to pick your Starter Pokémon. Afterwards, it's time to check out the Trainer's School in Blisuki City. During session, the fabled thugs said to be responsible for the near-extinction of the Legendary Pokémon steals the school's Pokémon, only to be stopped by you, and one of the Gym Leaders of the Region. Play on to discover more of the region.

Features

Pokémon Bearberry will not feature much major features, but here are a few...

-Pokemon will have Gen VI Cries.
-All 721 currently discovered Pokémon will be available at some point.
-Most Pokémon will have their ORAS movesets, while some will have brand new learnsets.
-A new region to explore, with various new Trainers to meet.
-A significant challenge for some of you...
Hopefully more to come...

Spoiler:

Please note that the unofficial movesets are lossely based off of the new Movesets for ORAS, as well as some significant improvements. For those of you that wished for a Rapid Spin Electrode, you finally can. Voltorb learns the move at Level 11.

Please note that Pokémon Bearberry uses 3rd Gen graphics in the overworld, as this is the first of my creations.

And now, proof that this is going to be made into an actual game. A collection of screenshots from the early game. Please note that the sprites used for the characters is not final, and will only serve as placeholders. Also note that some screenshots are outdated...

Newest release: Demo 1 of Pokémon Bearberry. This demo is 3 Gyms long, and uses the placeholder sprites found in the screenshots above.

Click here to download the Demo

I will add more screenshots, just need time to collect them...

I hope you enjoy the game. Be sure to report some Bugs, and I'll try to fix them.

Credits

Spoiler:

Flameguru and Maruno, as well as the rest of the Pokémon Essentials team, for making the engine used to make this game.
Much of the game's graphics that were not already included were from Pokemon Zeta/Omicron.
Most of the scripting was done by me.
As for the soundtrack of the game, a good amount of the current soundtrack contains official music from the official Pokémon Games. It also contains remixes and original compositions.
Superior_Larxene, Kunning Fox, Pokeli, and various other sources not from YouTube, for the fanmade tracks.

 

[Florio]

The screenshots look extremely bland, maybe show some more. Is there anyway we can have more information on the demo, such as how long it is?

 

[OliveCopper]

I'm sorry. What needs to be improved? What kind of screenshots do you expect to see? The demo is just a preview of the game, so it is only one gym long.

 

[TBM_Christopher]

Why is it called Pokemon Bearberry? What is the name of the Region?

 

[Evilrake]

It kinda just looks like the regular essentials pack with changed NPC dialogues. What is it about your game that would really interest us?

 

[OliveCopper]

Too bad of all the "A baby can easily recreate your game" comments. There's 6 things I want to explain.

1: The name "Pokémon Bearberry" came off the top of my head upon reading the guidelines. It has no real connection to the theme of the game. In fact, the titles Kanto-based games had no real connection to the plot either, as for the future games, the pretty much only connection is within the mascot legendary.

2: The reason that Pokémon Bearberry uses 3rd gen tiles, is because there aren't any custom Gym Tiles available to the public, and since Pokémon Essentials comes with 3rd gen tiles, it became that way.

3: It's very hard to think of a backstory for a Pokémon game, as the official games' backstories were obscene obscure before the 3rd generation (The remakes of the first 2 gens were just as obscure as the originals).

4: Regional design takes a lot of consideration. Much of the ideas I came up with are too linear. All of the official games' regions actually had looping routes that connect to different places, allowing easy backtracking. It'll be difficult to plan out the region ideally to fit the vast variety of Pokémon species...

5: I can't read any of your minds. What exactly isn't a bland preview?

6: This is only my first actual game. By working hard, I could eventually get people to assist on a second game is possible. After that, I might be able to design a whole game by myself.

EDIT: There was a word misuse. "Obscene" means "innapropriate", as in the "get banned from PokeCommunity" sort. The word I was looking for was obscure, which means, no actual meaning.

 

[Radical Raptr]

Spoiler:

Too bad of all the "A baby can easily recreate your game" comments. There's 6 things I want to explain.

1: The name "Pokémon Bearberry" came off the top of my head upon reading the guidelines. It has no real connection to the theme of the game. In fact, the titles Kanto-based games had no real connection to the plot either, as for the future games, the pretty much only connection is within the mascot legendary.

2: The reason that Pokémon Bearberry uses 3rd gen tiles, is because there aren't any custom Gym Tiles available to the public, and since Pokémon Essentials comes with 3rd gen tiles, it became that way.

3: It's very hard to think of a backstory for a Pokémon game, as the official games' backstories were obscene before the 3rd generation (The remakes of the first 2 gens were just as obscene as the originals).

4: Regional design takes a lot of consideration. Much of the ideas I came up with are too linear. All of the official games' regions actually had looping routes that connect to different places, allowing easy backtracking. It'll be difficult to plan out the region ideally to fit the vast variety of Pokémon species...

5: I can't read any of your minds. What exactly isn't a bland preview?

6: This is only my first actual game. By working hard, I could eventually get people to assist on a second game is possible. After that, I might be able to design a whole game by myself.

You shouldn't feel constrained to what Pokemon has done. The best part about making your own fan-game is that you get to do what Gamefreak will never do. A good plot or storyline is almost entirely essential to making a good game - what would be the point or the reason people would want to play your game as opposed to anything else? If there is a driving story, people would be able to immerse themselves in this world and would want to know what comes next.
The title doesn't need to have any connection to the game necessarily, but it should mean something.

Finally, your maps are not good, use this guide.

 

[OliveCopper]

Spoiler:

You shouldn't feel constrained to what Pokemon has done. The best part about making your own fan-game is that you get to do what Gamefreak will never do. A good plot or storyline is almost entirely essential to making a good game - what would be the point or the reason people would want to play your game as opposed to anything else? If there is a driving story, people would be able to immerse themselves in this world and would want to know what comes next.
The title doesn't need to have any connection to the game necessarily, but it should mean something.

Finally, your maps are not good, use this guide

.

I don't know how to make a "good" map. I suck at mapping. Am I supposed to use 6th gen tiles? The 6th gen games are 3-dimensional, which Pokémon Essentials can't handle.

 

[Radical Raptr]

I don't know how to make a "good" map. I suck at mapping. Am I supposed to use 6th gen tiles? The 6th gen games are 3-dimensional, which Pokémon Essentials can't handle.

I sent you a link to a thread that explains and describes how to map better. Follow it and you will improve.
You absolutely do not need to use ridiculous graphics for your game to look good, don't be absurd.
You can make an incredible game just using stock essentials. The problem is that your maps have problems highlighted in the guide I linked you to.

You don't need to use anyone else's resources, but looking through DA will provide you with a lot of sources that you are free to use with credit if you believe you need to improve your graphics - this however is not needed, your problem lies in your actual map layout.

The good thing is that you do not need to leave "100.1% of the mapping to someone else" you can improve! and you should, it is YOUR game, not anyone else's. You should want to map your game yourself, and you can learn how through practice, by learning the skills needed to be a great mapper (the ones highlighted in the linked guide) and by getting feedback from the community here:
At the Map Showcase!
No one is perfect, no one started from the top, everyone had to work hard and learn how to do things. Even the greatest contributors on PC didn't start off that way, they worked to improve themselves and hone their skills. You can to. Don't give up, just use the resources available to you, an you'll be able to work and improve your work.

Don't Pidgeothole pigeonhole yourself to that of the official games. You can use them to spark inspiration or see how something was done, but you can do whatever you want with your game, and the best part is that you can deviate from the norms the official games have set.

 

[TBM_Christopher]

Too bad of all the "A baby can easily recreate your game" comments. There's 6 things I want to explain.

I don't see any comments saying that. I think you're projecting, there. Possibly that's how YOU feel about your game? There were only 3 comments when you wrote what I'm responding to, none of them taking a stab at your ability to make a game, merely suggesting ways to improve.

1: The name "Pokémon Bearberry" came off the top of my head upon reading the guidelines. It has no real connection to the theme of the game. In fact, the titles Kanto-based games had no real connection to the plot either, as for the future games, the pretty much only connection is within the mascot legendary.

Fair enough. It just seems like an oddly specific name for having no "bear"ing on the plot.

2: The reason that Pokémon Bearberry uses 3rd gen tiles, is because there aren't any custom Gym Tiles available to the public, and since Pokémon Essentials comes with 3rd gen tiles, it became that way.

There are plenty of publicly available gym tiles. Failing that, you can get creative and use outdoor and other indoor tiles.

3: It's very hard to think of a backstory for a Pokémon game, as the official games' backstories were obscene before the 3rd generation (The remakes of the first 2 gens were just as obscene as the originals).

..obscene? Are you sure that's the word you're looking for? I'll agree that the original 2 generations' plots were a bit thin, but obscene implies that there was something offensive to them.

4: Regional design takes a lot of consideration. Much of the ideas I came up with are too linear. All of the official games' regions actually had looping routes that connect to different places, allowing easy backtracking. It'll be difficult to plan out the region ideally to fit the vast variety of Pokémon species...

It'd be a lot easier to fit all your planned species if you made some cuts. After all, 721 Pokemon distributed among ~10-15 routes still leaves you with at least 48 Pokemon per route.(This is a gross oversimplification as it doesn't account repeated Pokemon or evolved forms) Do you seriously believe that your game in particular will be fun enough to warrant the player attempting to catch EVERY Pokemon? And regional design wasn't what I was bringing up. I was asking if you had even considered a name for the region in which your game took place.

5: I can't read any of your minds. What exactly isn't a bland preview?

Some demonstration of what makes your game unique. NPC dialog is VERY cheap to make, so if that's all you're going to show(along with a stat screen and some bland maps), it'd better be the best dialog ever written.

6: This is only my first actual game. By working hard, I could eventually get people to assist on a second game is possible. After that, I might be able to design a whole game by myself.

Slow down there, cowboy. You might need some help finishing this game before you think about a second or third.

 

[OliveCopper]

...Hmm, you'r right, I am gonna need help. I have been working on more stuffs with the game, and will give you a taste of the newer events in the next demo. In addition, a number of maps have been furnished, but it is possible for them to still be "bad". If you could improve any maps without having to start over, that would be more appreciated. could use more implementation ideas that shouldn't be too hard to script...

 

[Gexeys]

...Hmm, you'r right, I am gonna need help. I have been working on more stuffs with the game, and will give you a taste of the newer events in the next demo.

Don't be in such a rush to push out your first project dude, take time to learn about what makes a game good, what makes maps playable etc etc. Doing something well takes time, game or not. Look at popular games, compare them to games that aren't popular and see why.

In addition, a number of maps have been furnished, but it is possible for them to still be "bad". If you could improve any maps without having to start over, that would be more appreciated.

That's really not how it works, over the course of being a game developer some of your maps will be remade 1,2, or even 10 times, it's all about improving your skills and remaking things to a better standard.

. could use more implementation ideas that shouldn't be too hard to script...

Fancy features are nice but really it's about hard work that's represented by positive responses.

 

[OliveCopper]

To ring in the New Year, I have posted the first real demo of Pokémon Bearberry. It does contain a few bugs though...

This new demo reveals the enemy team's name, as well as their purpose. In addition, some of the early game has been remade, including dialogue text.

I have also refurnished a few maps to make them a little better. If they are still "bad", I'm sorry, tell me what the problem is. I try to use official maps as references... Well, the best way to make a "good" map, is to make 100 "bad" maps and learn how they can be improved.

 

[OliveCopper]

Just a microscule update, since I haven't done a lot of work on the game.

As a preview of the next demo, I'll give screenshots of a new location. Route 12.

Route 12 is not available in the current demo, the game is still a work in progress.

Also, I would like comments about this game to tone down, since I am still new to game design...

 

[Florio]

Just a microscule update, since I haven't done a lot of work on the game.

As a preview of the next demo, I'll give screenshots of a new location. Route 12.

Route 12 is not available in the current demo, the game is still a work in progress.

Also, I would like comments about this game to tone down, since I am still new to game design...

The routes are looking better than your previous ones, though still I bit bland. Might I suggest adding some skinny trees, rock, and flowers around the map? Would make it look better. Also there are 4 different types of grass you can use in FRLG style, so make every patch of grass different.

 

[OliveCopper]

Sorry about the lack of updates, got a bit lazy during development, but I will continue to work on this game. However, the next demo probably won't release until about 7 weeks. I'll send a half-way report to keep this thread alive. Also note, that this will still be an actual game. I'll try to update the screenshots when I can.

 

[OliveCopper]

Just a small heads-up. Progress has slowed down due to a potential winter storm approaching where I live. I have arranged some events that were not in the first demo. Keep in mind that encounter rates might have changed, and more items will be implemented. Some items are also included specifically for this game. Good luck!

 

[OliveCopper]

Just a minor update. I'm still working on the game. I have added a bike shop to the upcoming demo, which should take a while to release. In addition, there will be a little girl who has lost her Emolga, and will give you a reward for returning it. Sorry about slow progress, a number of personal distractions are getting in the way...