Pokemon Fire Red 386: Kanto Roads

[FSBS]

Background: Back in June-July 2015 I worked on and released a half baked redesign/386 hack for Fire Red. Named Alpha Fire Red, it released not-quite finished and to be honest in an incomplete and unsatisfying state as I went through some trouble in my personal life. Currently things have stabilized and I want to get back on the Rapidash, so to speak.

Concept
A total aesthetic redesign of Kanto and distribution of all 386 pokemon available at the time of the release of the original Fire Red. Fire Red expanded and rejuvenated. A Pokémon journey that will take advantage of the variety present at the time of the games release.

Desires
An expansion of the Team Rocket and Mewtwo story in line with Generation 2 and 3's Bad Guys Trying to Harness Legendary Pokémon schemes.
More areas to explore and capture pokemon-new maps!
Different starters than the usual. Tentatively Mareep, Spheal, and Larvitar or Geodude but that may change.

Base
MrDollSteak's Decap and Attack Rombase. I didn't use this before and I think it really handicapped the original project.

If I reach the part where I need help, I will post a proof of concept and ask for recruitment.

I will provide updates in this thread at each step, as well as drafts of the maps I'm working on. I don't think I have enough to qualify for the Progressing Hacks forum.

 

[FSBS]

After finishing a satisfactory draft of Viridian Forest I decided it was time to test. Unfortunately, I had done some things that bugged the game and killed this hack before it began.
So after some rigorous testing, I've restarted. I want to say I wasted 15 man-hours but it helped me get my groove back in regards to mapping. I'm testing this hack map by map now.
Once more; first the maps, then the monsters, then the trainers, and then the scripts.
So here's Pallet town. The green circle is a tile error I don't know how to fix yet. The blue is where an NPC is when I walk out of the house, the arrow where she is when I get out of Prof. Oak's Lab (and where she should be in the first place.) The yellow circle is a shrub where a cut tree will be placed in scripting phase; this little area is meant to be Prof. Oak's preserve. If I can implement it, it is where one can safari zone a starter like Violet-and if I can't, then it will simply be another place where you can catch monsters.
I stated in a deleted post how I want backtracking to serve a purpose and make HMs more useful, possibly by adding puzzles and such.
Anyways, this is the Pallet Town draft.

this is the graphical error I was talking about

and another screenshot showing where the NPC is located afterwards

 

[FSBS]

Here are the maps I did yesterday and this morning. Someone needed a shift switch at work so lucky me, I got to finish Route 2 and touch up Viridian a little this morning. Next up are Viridian Forest and Pewter.
Route 1

Viridian

Route 22

Route 2

As the name of the hack is Kanto Roads (I'm trying to figure out new names but the whole color, metal, gemstone, and greek letter thing feel a little played out), I am endeavoring to make sure that Kanto has a well maintained and connected transportation infrastructure. Sure, we can go all day on how the ten year old main character only takes back roads and stuff, but my own theories lean more towards a low-key fledgling colony in a post-scarcity tech level galaxy. I'd like to edit NPC scripts to reflect that-instead of the 1969 moon landing I want that old man to talk about Zefram Cochrane's Phoenix flight. Yeah, I'm a trekkie.
I'm having minor issues with figuring out which tile allows me to stand on a plateau while also standing under a tree: I use 10 with 0 on the steps-C, 2, and 11 all equal a 1 if everything else is a 10. This is what I get right now:

My mapping skills are getting pretty good though. My last project was okay, but looking back also felt largely uninspired. Not much deviation. I actually revised Rte 2 twice now to take advantage of its size and assets. I'd like to make Kanto feel comfy and new.
I like what I'm doing here with plateaus, because in vanilla there are only ledges raising the landscape up to Mt. Moon and Indigo-and anyone who has ever been around a mountain knows that there are foothills, there are significant knolls and rises and all sorts of escalating geographical features leading up to them.
Another thing I want to say about what I'm doing is that I'm taking advantage of the tileset in a way I don't feel the team did for the game. Why make a remake if it's just the same with prettier graphics? Why not reinterpret the world a little? Granted, that might be hubris on my part to say I can do a better job of enhancing Kanto from color/metal but that's what I think I'm doing.
"Then why not just make your own hack from scratch, FSBS?"
Because I just want to perfect my own vision of Fire Red. Omega Fire Red was my first hack, and Liquid Crystal is fantastic and I like what those guys did with Crystal-faithfully recreating the old with a new direction while staying loyal to the themes and story of the original. I'm not saying I'm making Liquid Fire Red here, but LC is where I draw inspiration.
Every day I'm getting new ambitions for what direction to take this hack in scripting phase. I looked at another Fire Red hack briefly today and what stood out to me was the switching of Cerulean and Vermillion gyms-what a concept! And logical too! Why wouldn't the water gym be down at the seaside, and why wouldn't the electric gym be closer to the power plant? So I'm going to use that idea (with credit to that hacker and his/her hack for the idea, of course) when I get past design and distribution stage. If I get past that, I don't even know how to go about it just yet. But it's an exciting concept at any rate.
So that's it for this map showcase, I guess. If nothing else I hope people enjoy looking at them and I hope I can take this tentative hack to the showcase one day. Maybe-dare I say it? Hack of the month in a year or two. Pies in the sky, my friends. Pies in the sky.

 

[FSBS]

VIRIDIAN FOREST DRAFTS
I worked on these two yesterday and this morning. I'm going to go with the second draft, as I wasn't sure why the more official road would be winding when there is a shorter, safer, more direct and clear path to take. In the second picture the yellow circle marks a hidden Master Ball. I intend to drop a handful of these throughout the region. As I finished it though, I couldn't help but to think that it can be edited further still to take advantage of the unique trees in this tileset.

 

[Turjo12]

Cool hack.

 

[FSBS]

Cool hack.

Thanks

 

[FSBS]

After several hours I am done with Pewter. Brocks gym is in the mountain.

 

[FSBS]

Here's Route 3 and some screens I took while testing. There are two paths to take here and a hidden item (Oran Berry in the vanilla game, currently a Master Ball in testing phase), no bugs to take to the quick questions and answers thread.

 

[FSBS]

Another update before I spend the rest of the day focusing on Mt. Moon and the rest of Route 4. This is the area outside of the R4 Pokémon Center. The area highlighted by blue is where I'm going to put some rock smash rocks, maybe some NPC guards or something working on the Pewter-Cerulean highway.

 

[FSBS]

I've had a rough time with Mt. Moon's interior. In my opinion, the caves are pretty decent (all things considered) in vanilla edition. I gave it a good try for now, making a discernible pathway with some semi-hidden passages and a nice little crater lake, but it is starting to become clear that I may need some unique tiles. I'm not a fan of the custom sets many hacks use, as the ones in FRLG are so crisp and clean (moreso than RSE) and I don't know anything about importing custom tiles or making them (good thing the veteran hackers have written tutorials!)-YET. Also, since the HM Flash is available earlier in this hack than the vanilla, I am making Mt. Moon Flash requisite. Flash will be boosted to a decent damage/effect range to make it more useful, of course. All of the HMs will be tweaked in this regard. Who knows, your HM slave may become a decent stringer.
As for Route 4, you're looking at the fifth or sixth hour of progress and the fifth draft of it. I'm having personal problems with whether or not the area is subjected to a rain shadow effect as the other side is-but then the issue comes into play as to whether or not Route 3 should be as green as it is. The part near the Mt. Moon entrance is obviously kept up by the Pokémon Center staff with help from the well nearby.
Finally I took a break and decided to test out the height/width stuff that I didn't for some reason try out before I started this hack. I am pleased with the results, as it will allow me to further tweak Viridian, Virdian Forest, Route 2, Pewter, and Pallet-including dealing with some of the tile errors and where those other two people live. Expand the labs area and such. I can think of applications for this everywhere, really.
I'm also getting good ideas in discussion with others on new areas, new things to do, new maps to make. You know what's really cool though?
Johto.
This hack is going to take a long time to release. Even up to the Sevii with edited gyms and monster distribution will take awhile. If I did add Johto though, it would be like three gyms at a time. It would be as ambitious as Liquid Crystal at that point, and I don't know if I'm quite that ambitious yet. I'm not even a tenth of a hacker one of those guys is. Man, I should replay that one, it's been about a year.
Maybe I should start a blog for this project. Not a big tumblr fan due to a negative experience years ago, but it seems like it would be a better place to ramble and showcase maps than here. Here are the maps: Mt. Moon Interior, Route 4, and the test I did

 

[FSBS]

Here we see the newly redesigned second draft of Pallet Town. This took a few hours of effort, but I am pleased with the final result. A cut tree will be placed in the tile highlighted by the green circle, and the yellow circle highlights a warp tile that takes one into the Old Rod fisherman's home, a simple little work-around to take advantage of the numerous fishing spots in the area. Can I accomplish this by making an NPC script? Yes, but I prefer to have him live here, fishing off that little dock. Makes Pallet a little more of a town, I think.

 

[FSBS]

I Hitmonchan you not, I've put about four hours into this one so far and predict another 2-3 hours left finishing it up before I can test it. And here I thought mapping was the easy part.

 

[LilBueno]

Wow! I really like how you're revamping the maps. Specifically, the towns. I love these designs.

 

[Flowerchild]

It might be a good idea to improve your mapping. Enlarging the areas is a good idea, but looks terrible if you don't fill the space with stuff. Most of your city maps, especially Cerulean, feel awfully empty. Also, straight mountains look awful in every map ever, you haven't shaded the trees correctly, and you're using that bridge tile wrong. Also, most routes are designed to force the player into tall grass. If you want to eliminate that, it makes the game more realistic but could also end up with the player not finding a lot of Pokémon. You're also jumping back in forth between Game Freak and natural tree style (placing the trees in rows vs placing them randomly). Pick one or the other. If you want to do natural mapping, I'd suggest going the Gen VI route and just placing a darkened area where the player can't walk, then randomly placing trees within that.
Good luck.

 

[FSBS]

It might be a good idea to improve your mapping. Enlarging the areas is a good idea, but looks terrible if you don't fill the space with stuff. Most of your city maps, especially Cerulean, feel awfully empty. Also, straight mountains look awful in every map ever, you haven't shaded the trees correctly, and you're using that bridge tile wrong. Also, most routes are designed to force the player into tall grass. If you want to eliminate that, it makes the game more realistic but could also end up with the player not finding a lot of Pokémon. You're also jumping back in forth between Game Freak and natural tree style (placing the trees in rows vs placing them randomly). Pick one or the other. If you want to do natural mapping, I'd suggest going the Gen VI route and just placing a darkened area where the player can't walk, then randomly placing trees within that.
Good luck.

Cerulean was a draft, totally incomplete.
I'm not sure what you mean by straight mountains, but that sounds like a stylistic preference.
I'm still working out the bridges, but that doesn't mean I'm using the tile wrong.
If the player is skipping large portions of grass, that's up to them. The choice is theirs, but by skipping they lose experience, money, hidden items, all the things that come with adventuring. Try following these roads straight and never going into the grass and see how far you get.
Why do I need to pick a style? Consistency? I don't see why I can't have both.
The shading is work in progress. None of these maps are 100% finalized.
So thanks for the critique, I am learning as I go.

 

[FSBS]

Wow! I really like how you're revamping the maps. Specifically, the towns. I love these designs.

Thank you.

 

[CapR]

You are doing great I have a game also changing tiles will Level up your hack as mine it's Pokemon Caucasus Beta 1
You should check I it out!

 

[FSBS]

If anyone is following this, work is still chugging along. I've got Routes 24, 25, 5, 6, 11, Cerulean and Vermillion drafted and working on Route 9 today. I've run into a challenge, and that is that some routes might not necessarily need a change, like Route 6 or 11. The solution for 6 was making it a little longer and reshaping the pond, adding some trees and dotting the grass.
I've discovered a pre-fabricated set of maps in the Tools and Resources forum that recreates the Johto exteriors in FR. One of the ambitions of this hack would be to include Johto (and an even crazier ambition would be to add Hoenn after that) and that tool would be incredibly useful towards this end, rather than creating the maps from scratch myself.
I've already gone ahead and moved the Old Rod fisherman's house to Pallet Town for testing purposes. I'm going to edit maps up to Lavender and then start changing encounters, adding or editing dialogues and interiors as well as add maps so I have a demo to put up on Progressing Hacks thread, probably around March or so. Fingers crossed.

 

[realityxking]

Im a huge supporter, hope everything goes well! It looks great!

 

[FSBS]

Thanks for your interest. I had to restart the project the other day, but I've still made quite a bit of progress on the showcase. The project has generally expanded in scope as well.