[Release] Pokémon Essentials, version 15.1 - 15th January 2015

[Maruno]

Pokémon Essentials, version 15
31st December 2014
Download​

Can't hold it back any more. Turn away and slam the door!

Let It Grow

• We all know about Mulch. It sits there in the Bag being pointless. UNTIL NOW! Gen 4 berry tree mechanics have been added to Essentials, which is not only a different set of calculations but also allows you to use Mulch. Yes, there's even a little soil patch that appears beneath the plant, which dries out over time (even while you're standing right next to it). Another vegetation-related thing is that there are now separate animations for vigorous grass rustling and shiny grass rustling, both of which are used by the Poké Radar.

Let It Throw

• Safari Zone battles have long been dull. You throw a rock, and nothing happens. You throw some bait, and there's nothing there. The player is standing on-screen, and yet when they throw a Poké Ball, it appears from the left while they just stand still. All this has been rectified now, which means you can actually see things happen when you do them. There's another animation which has also been added, which is the one where you throw a Poké Ball at an opposing trainer's Pokémon and they knock it away before calling you a thief. I had to mention it here because no one would ever notice it otherwise.

Let It Snow

• Weather used to look a bit naff, let's be honest. It looks better now, and that's also us being honest. Raindrops are a proper pixel density (so they won't look awful if for some reason you choose to play at the smallest screen size) and fall faster, there are several kinds of snowflakes which drift down calmly, and sandstorms have a little more visibility to them. Oh, and there are two new types of weather: heavy rain and blizzard.

Let It Know

• Some of the PBS files have been made slightly more user-friendly. pokemon.txt recognises the alternate names for some growth rates (MediumFast and MediumSlow), and also accepts names for egg groups as well as numbers, and there are a few other things too to let the game better know what you're talking about. There's also a bunch of new methods to replace some clunky code the user used to have to write in order to, say, find the last Pokémon in the party or figure out if the player has seen a Donphan. And as for Essentials letting you know about things, error messages in battle now pop up automatically, and battle logging now includes a few more bits of information.

Let It Go To The Wiki To Find Out More

• Naturally there's a bunch of other stuff that has been done in v15. AI has been tweaked yet again, fixing errors and potentially making significant differences to it (for better or worse). All graphics files have been optimised, which means the whole download is over 10MB smaller than it once was. Essentials no longer supports the inferior bmp and jpg (and jpeg) file types, but on the plus side this may well result in less lag. The Move Relearner screen now looks a whole lot better, and Pokémon can relearn egg moves and any other special move they had when they were obtained. And there's a whole bunch of bug fixes and other goodies.

The full change log for this version is available on the wiki.

Happy New Year!

 

[LaiikerGlezz]

happy new yearr and thank you !!

 

[northrone]

Awesome!

Can I ask what you did to improve graphics loading (the one that disables jpgs). I'm just curious.

 

[mej71]

Awesome!

Can I ask what you did to improve graphics loading (the one that disables jpgs). I'm just curious.

Might be others places, but definitely in def pbResolveBitmap.

 

[KillerMapper]

Sped up rearranging Pokémon in the party.

Nice!

Thanks for this update! Wasn't expecting it so soon!

 

[Savordez]

Damn, 2015 really starts with a bang. Awesome additions, and bug fixes are always welcome. I'm always super excited when a new version comes out o_o

 

[QwertyQing]

So I just downloaded pokemon essentials and every time I try to open it it say load actor data.
What do I do I've never done anything on RPG Maker yet.

 

[QwertyQing]

So I just downloaded pokemon essentials and every time I try to open it it say load actor data.
What do I do I've never done anything on RPG Maker yet.

Don't worry I figured it out on my self.

 

[FL]

Very well! Several good small changes! Finally you merged Game_Character!

I only wish that you focus in more requested features like gen IV/V moves/abilites/items effects and, at least, a major feature per update. The first feature that you annonced has Mulch... Remember: In a business, advertising is everything, and will be good for everyone if the Essentials/community grow up.

 

[khkramer]

Have you ever considered making a github repository for Pokemon Essentials so everyone could contribute improvements?

If someone scripted a feature or fixed a bug for example, they'd submit a pull request, you'd review the code and decide if it's suitable to be added to the codebase.

I think doing this would massively increase the progress of improvements on Essentials and might even increase interest in the engine.

 

[Maruno]

If you know how to turn an RMXP project into something that can be put onto github, I'll consider it.

 

[khkramer]

If you know how to turn an RMXP project into something that can be put onto github, I'll consider it.

Just have the game load scripts from a directory instead of Scripts.rxdata, and you can add the essentials folder to git.
Then create a .gitignore file which would tell git to ignore all resource files, the audio, data and graphics folder for example.

I also still have some ruby scripts on my pc that converts Scripts.rxdata to a folder containing individual ruby scripts and another that converts the individual scripts back into Scripts.rxdata

 

[Maruno]

Just have the game load scripts from a directory instead of Scripts.rxdata

And you know how to do this?

 

[KillerMapper]

I also still have some ruby scripts on my pc that converts Scripts.rxdata to a folder containing individual ruby scripts and another that converts the individual scripts back into Scripts.rxdata

That means possibility to make changes from an external editor instead of the RMXP editor (which isn't actually funny to use)? That would be great.

 

[khkramer]

And you know how to do this?

By adding the following at the beginning of Main:

 Dir.new("scripts").each_with_index {|file, i|
    next if i == 0 || i == 1
    require "#{Dir.getwd}/scripts/#{file}"
  }

This will load all scripts from the scripts folder.

EDIT: I'm using MKXP for my own game which allows loading scripts from a folder by default via the config file, however there are still a few incompatibilities with Essentials I'll have to fix before I consider releasing my compatibility 'layer' (a few scripts which would make Essentials work with MKXP) to the public.

For those who don't know what MKXP is, it's basically an open-source high-performance alternative to the RMXP/RPGVX(A) player which works on Windows, Mac and Linux.

That means possibility to make changes from an external editor instead of the RMXP editor (which isn't actually funny to use)? That would be great.

Exactly.
That's why while developing my game I'm already loading all scripts from a directory.
Rubymine is sooo much better than the RMXP script editor.

 

[Terkhen]

EDIT: I'm using MKXP for my own game which allows loading scripts from a folder by default via the config file, however there are still a few incompatibilities with Essentials I'll have to fix before I consider releasing my compatibility 'layer' (a few scripts which would make Essentials work with MKXP) to the public.

I registered here to check if there was some way to make Pokemon Essentials games work in Linux without having to resort to wine. I'm glad to hear that there is work being done in this front :)

 

[FL]

That means possibility to make changes from an external editor instead of the RMXP editor (which isn't actually funny to use)? That would be great.

On the other hand, RPG Maker XP editor won't work anymore and we need more programs for editing a game (a step into ROM hacking direction). This is a thing to be considered.

 

[khkramer]

On the other hand, RPG Maker XP editor won't work anymore and we need more programs for editing a game (a step into ROM hacking direction). This is a thing to be considered.

The only extra program you'll need is a text editor or an IDE.
And this could also be used for Pokemon Essentials development only, with Maruno packing the scripts into a new scripts.rxdata and releasing it as a download just as it is now.

 

[khkramer]

If you know how to turn an RMXP project into something that can be put onto github, I'll consider it.

Well have you considered it?

 

[Maruno]

I don't have any information on the process I asked about. So no.