FireRed hack: Pokemon Harmony [BETA 1 RELEASED]

[LordGulcasa]

Coming from god knows where emerges a new hacking group, with a hack of their own...

Hack of: Pokemon FireRed (U)
(Project started in July '09)
​

Brought to you by the MPH Haxxaz: Brongaa (LG), Younegai, Renna, Rehdblob, and Jillsandwich93​

Introduction

"What are we doing here?"

Hello, PokeCommunity, and welcome to Pokemon: Harmony, the Mario Paint Hangout's official hack of Pokemon FireRed! (officially unofficial, that is)

Anyways, we know you're wondering: "What in the world is Mario Paint, and why are you people making a Pokemon hack?" Well...the Mario Paint thing'll be explained later, since it's unrelavent to this topic, so we'll answer that other question immediately.

This project had origins as a small Gym Leader hack for just a community, but it soon snowballed and escalated into a huge monstrosity of a hack, including customized...well, pretty much everything!

So anyways, we (being me and 4 others) are glad to get this thing rolling, despite it being our first actual hack - hopefully we won't disappoint!



Story

"The Part That Really Matters"

One rainy evening in Iwato, a mountainous region in the Pokemon world located northeast of Hoenn, you are watching a news report with your dad on the TV when suddenly, a heavy lightning storm comes out of nowhere! A special broadcast goes on, showing Sootopolis City over in Hoenn, but with one little thing you don't see every day, even in the Pokemon world - the ancient beings Groudon and Kyogre are duking it out in the middle of the city! You want to watch what's going to happen...but then your mom asks you to go and get your sister Lydia, who's playing outside, before something bad happens to her, so you leave to find her near a waterfall, and after convincing her to go home, an earthquake happens! You lose your balance and slide down, and after getting up...

You realize you landed in some wild grass, and a flock of angry Spearow starts attacking you! You try to get away, but you can't...however, luckily a Pokemon trainer finds and saves you with his Growlithe. You then black out, and wake up several days later.

Your mother informs you about what happened on that night, and she and your father have asked the local (and rather nutty) professor, Professor Camellia, to let you own a Pokemon for protection, in case anything were to happen to you again. Since you're feeling okay now, you decide to head over there, and run into fate unknowingly...


Characters

"The Friendly, Weird, and Awesome People You'll Meet"

Harper is the male main character. He's generally known to be a positive thinker and dreamer, who lives in Etude Village with his family. Harper is always in a good mood, and his energy always reflects on those around him.

Melody is the female main character. Unlike Harper, Melody is a down-to-earth person, having a strong head on her shoulders and a sharp sense of reality. She resides in Etude Village with her parents and little sister. She always thinks about the situation at hand calmly and comes up with wise decisions on her own.

Cody is the "rival" character. Cody is a warm, friendly native of Etude Village, living with his older sister and younger brother. His life dream is to become an experienced Pokemon trainer, which is shown on his determination to become the Pokemon League champion of Iwato.


Along with these three is Professor Camellia, the eccentric Pokemon researcher who works in her lab in Etude Village. A totally scatterbrained person who, despite being an intellectual, always seems to lack common sense and logic. She gives Harper and Melody a starter Pokemon to protect themselves, and unknowingly starts their Pokemon journey.



*NOTE: This will be updated as the hack continues.



Features

"The Stuff That Makes Our Hack Totally Awesome"

Join the main character, Harper or Melody, as you travel across Iwato to conquer all 8 Pokemon League gyms and become the new champion of the Elite 4, as well as take on a new rising crime syndicate, Team Dissonance. However...this is just the beginning (unless we mentally break down from unstable working conditions)!

Pokemon Harmony will contain:


- An all new storyline taking place right before Emerald ends, with many twists and turns happening after the normal Elite 4 story arc.
- As always, a new evil team to defeat.
- Completely new and original music composed exclusively from the Mario Paint Hangout community.
- Custom battle sprites for ALL trainer classes, along with several new ones
- All 386 Pokemon available up to Generation III without hax.
- A new starter Pokemon triangle, besides the ordinary Grass -> Fire -> Water one in the official games.
- A combined Pokemon Center AND Mart, for your shopping and healing needs all in one convenient place :D.
- Supah cool Day/Night system already implemented!



Progress


Beta 1 - Up to the first gym –100%
Beta 2 – Up to the 4th gym – 2%
Beta 3 - TBA
Beta 4 - TBA
Beta 5 - TBA
Beta 6 - TBA
Beta 7 - TBA
Beta 8 - TBA
Final Version - TBA



(Note that we'll probably have bugfixes/graphical changes to improve the game after the final version. So don't think that we'll disappear after the final version)


Screenies

"Where You Are All Awed by .PNG Files"

Development Team

"The Builders of PH"



All members of the Mario Paint Hangout currently*



Brongaa (LordGulcasa) – Founder- Co-Head Developer – Director, Plot and Storyline, Spriter, Tile Editor, y EL SUPREME OVERLORD

Younegai - Co-Head-Developer - Lead Mapper, Plot and Storyline, Storyboard Concept Artist, Strategy Guide, Scripter

JillSandwich93 - Co-Developer - Music Director, Composer, Mapper, Plot and Storyline, Spriter

Renna – Co-Developer – Lead Spriter/Artist

Rehdblob ( AKA The Jack of All Trades) - Main Hacker/Co-Dev- Mapping, Scripting, Composing, Music Insertion, Plot



Special Credits

"The Semi-Builders of PH"


BuckyBoy2009 – Composer, Concept Artist
Phantomtaco132 – Composer
Gallahaut – Composer
Cheercomposerxo – Composer
MetaKnightMK – Composer
TheUltimateZoraLink – Composer
Rusty8984 – Composer
Eskay – Spriter

So yeah, as you can see, basically everyone in the community is a composer, making for fully custom music!


Videos and Media

Visit our Youtube channel for trailers and other crap that you'll like

https://www.youtube.com/user/PokemonHarmony!


Bugs

- When you first bump into Cody, the rival, your palette gets screwed up, sort of like this : https://i488.photobucket.com/albums/rr248/WaluiJ/Bug.png?t=1277472247 (Credit to Weejay)
- In your first battle with him, if you started with Totodile and you're facing Mareep, if it paralyzes your Totodile with static, the paralyzed symbol won't appear.
-For some reason, if you lose, you get sent home instead of to the last PokeCenter you went to. The only advice I could give you 'til we fix this is don't lose.
- House TV text is messed up.
- When you walk on the custom coloured grass, the frames are really messed.
- The town maps are all out of order (it doesn't even look like the game). But that's just because the OW map ain't finished lol.
- There are probably way more bugs than that, so help in finding them is appreciated!

Banners

We don't, you know, HAVE any right now. '-_-
We would greatly appreciate the help.


Tools Used

"Because Being Blamed for Stealing is Never a Good Thing"

Advance Map
A-Trainer
Sappy
Pokescript
XSE
EliteMap
D/N System
Free Space Finder
Start Position Chooser
Overworld Editor RE
Sappy2005
XVI32.exe (Hex Editor)
IrfranView
A-Text
MS Paint
Unlz.GBA
AdvancePaletteEditor


FAQ


1. Q: What is Mario Paint?

A: It's an SNES game that allows people to draw, animate, or even compose basic music. Some people liked the music maker, which created a whole base on its own, which led to the creation of the widely used Mario Paint Composer program. Check some videos on Youtube, and you'll see what we mean.

2. Q: How do we enable the D/N system?

A: Go to "Options" on the menu, and under "Emulator", there's an option for enabling a Real Time Clock.

Beta Info/Notes

- Unless you love glitched up zones, don't go after Cellomento.

Guides

Will write up soonish.

Downloads

Beta 1 : https://www.mediafire.com/?dg23dshdm7ker2d

HELP WANTED!
Yes, we know there's a lot of problems. Yes, it might not be as aesthetically beautiful as some other hacks out there. But we are trying our best to make this hack as good as it can be, and we just don't have that much hacking experience. Prior to this, none of us had ever done hacking before, and though we've come far, there's only so much a group of 5 inexperienced hackers who mostly specialize in composing can do. We have encountered some problems along the way, and I figured the best way to fix them is to get help from here. So, here are some stuff we need help with:

Tile Editing: We basically need a talented tile spriter. Renna is only one person who's quite busy, and I'm busy as well, so it would be a great help if someone could cover this. We want to make this look kinda nice :P.

Scripting Help: We need a lot of help in this area. Rehd is probably the busiest among us yet he has the biggest workload. Not only does he help us in every area, he's also the main scripter, getting occasional help from Youne and JS. If there's an experienced scripter out there, we would be incredibly grateful.

HEX : This is easily our weakest area. Out of 5, we have a grand total of 0 people who can hex edit efficiently. This covers a bunch of stuff, most notably making space for extra songs, and all that other stuff. If someone could help us out here, we would be incredibly grateful. So grateful in fact, we would...I dunno yet, love you?

So yeah, that's basically it. We're just a group of inexperienced people trying our best to make the most of what we got. As stated several times over, to the point where you can guess before I say it, help would be appreciated :D!

 

[Kevin]

Nice, you released a beta. But you should attach it to the post, because I do see the link, but it's all the way in that poast. =P I real don't like the palettes, it messes up the tall grass. You should change it.

 

[altariaking]

I haven't played it yet, but the maps in the screens are full of tile errors.

 

[LordGulcasa]

I haven't played it yet, but the maps in the screens are full of tile errors.

Lol, yeah, they probably are. We released this knowing the errors though with the intent of getting help, as we are all just newbies :P.

EDIT: Also, could you point out the tile errors please?

Also Destiny, I'll attach it right away, and yeah, we'll try to see what we can do about that. We kind of want custom graphics though, hence our plea for help :P.

 

[nasonex]

Nice Hacking! I love the storyline plus the D/N system.

I've got my eye on this one! :3

 

[chrunch]

When I get to the part when I'm saved by the Growlithe, and I black out, the screen stays black. D:

Apart from that bug, the game was pretty good so far, but I could only reach the Growlithe part before the bug, so I couldn't really tell.

 

[Binary]

It's good that you progressed up to a beta before posting a thread. Okay, so firstly the story's okay, but it's more like the events in the hack. You should create a background and setting of things in the story. Otherwise, after you get the Growlithe, it looks like it's just going to be like an ordinary hack with nothing too special. So, you should really build on that.

I haven't played the beta yet, but I think that you need some work on your maps, judging purely from the screenshots XD. The events sound nice though. And are you really going to create custom battle sprites for all the trainer classes? That's a lot of work. You should really learn how to script; I'm sure you can. :D

Anyways, good luck.

 

[Lord Varion]

rival looks an awful lot like silver?

 

[teejermiester]

I found some tile errors with the stairs on screenie 11. Other than that, this hack looks great!!! Keep it up!

However, it could use some new tiles.....