Seeking Collaborators for a new project called "Full Spectrum Shanzhai"

[TheLavros]

Hello,
Been playing since Gen 1, and playing fan games for the last few years. I really like where things are going! After playing a lot of Rom Hacks, in my search for the perfect game, I've noticed a lot of things. I like Gen 4 the most, but Fairy Typing is a must. I think a forced "Set" mode is a must. Quality of life features like auto-run are great, but the newer Exp-All nonsense negates the whole premise of the game. Speaking of which... would be ideal to have a curated local-dex of around 200, though I like the idea that your character is making the observations in a journal, rather than a machine. Ideally, we'll be redesigning some sprites. Why is Machoke wearing pants! JK... Sorta?

Anyway, here are my ideas, in no particular order:

MECHANICS:

• TM's: both disposable and reusable
  • Disposable TM = $$
  • Reusable TM = $$$$$$

• Status Attacks
  • Traditionally non-offensive moves like Sand Attack, Thunder Wave, Tail Whip, all do a minuscule amount of damage, between 1-5 damage makes sense depending on the move
  • Freeze/Sleep/Paralysis afflicted lose any attempts to raise evasiveness, and have lowered defense while afflicted.

• Pokemon Encounters
  • Slightly more difficult catch-rates, with a level curve
  • 1% chance of finding a random "lost" Pokémon from a vastly different part of the region
  • 1% chance of finding under-leveled evolved forms
  • 2% chance of drastically over-leveled (regionally appropriate) Pokémon appearing
  • 2% chance of Shiny, all Shiny Pokémon have slightly better stats and knows the move Camouflage
  • 5% chance of "mobbing" behavior, like a group of 2-5 birds attacking an outsider or a predator
  • 10% chance (compared to grassy areas) that a Pokemon appears outside in any non-grass path, town, city, etc
  • Overworld interactions where you have to clear wild Pokémon from peoples homes and business, etc
  • New encounters appear as "???" until you catch it (like in Pokemon Voyager rom)
  • All wild Pokémon can flea (unless Block move is used), chances based on their nature…
  • Moves like "Roar" don't work on higher-leveled Pokémon, but a wild Pokémon with higher HP can trap you, depending on nature…
  • Catching gains 50% the XP of a KO
  • Water encounters on the coastline are affected by the tide.
  • Some Pokémon are labeled "endangered," "extinct," or "locally depopulated," which sell higher at the Black Market
  • Voltorb-styled ambush encounters from Pokémon that look like items or flowers: Victorybell + Vileplum etc… voltorb, magnemite, rotom, and Stunfisk

• Trainer Encounters
  • Trainers aren't ever stupid, and their skill level increases with class…
  • Can use the TRE stealing mechanism to "rescue" Pokémon from Poachers/Tamers/Raiders
  • 30% chance that a "rescued" Pokémon breaks free for you to battle/catch properly

• Following Pokémon
  • 1XP gained per 50 steps
  • Can contract Pokérus when battling the Wet Markets
  • Automatically (+ temporarily) have "Pickup" ability while following in the overworld
  • Changes how the Overworld interacts with you

• Time:
  • Players sets their own clock
  • Businesses close after 9pm, can battle some vendors based on time of day
  • Tides are affected by time, some Pokémon + locations can only be found at low tide

• Happiness (Obedience + Evolution)
  • "Met Location Friendship Boost Mechanic" from Gen2, which incentives training new Pokémon in their native habitat
  • Happiness should also increase more in terrain/locations similar to where you met.
  • Obedience:
    • Affected by friendship
    • Affected by Nature
  • Evolution:
    • Some Pokemon randomly refuse to evolve!
    • Final Stage Evolutions which usually require level-up also require high friendship
    • Similar to "Adventures Red" Rom, Happy Pokémon can evolve up to 5 levels early
    • Friendship drops 60% after evolution, specifically if evolved from leveling-up
    • 50% chance disobedience for the first 3 levels after evolving from leveling-up
    • Trade Evolution: also possible through extreme emotion (love/hate/trauma, etc)
    • Cluster Evolution… must group multiple of the same species, including but not limited to:
      • 2 Koffing = Weezing
      • 3 Diglett = Dugtrio
      • 3 Magnemite = 1 Magneton
      • Slowpoke + Shelder = Lowbrow
      • Slowpoke holding King's Rock + Shelder

• Battle Changes:
  • Confusion causes temporary disobedience (self damage or wrong move, or nothing at all)
  • .01% chance that a KO'd Pokémon dies of injury after battle
  • Non-Gym/Dojo tournaments in specific towns based on Terrain with a rare (climate-specific) Pokémon a a prize

• Terrain/Typing advantages + Limitations
  • Day/Night Advantage:
    • Grass moves get 10% boost during day
    • Dark moves get 10% boost at night
  • In Water:
    • Surf requires a Pokémon large enough to carry you
    • Cannot fight with Pokémon they're surfing on (or you drown)
    • Only Pokémon who swim, fly, hover can partake in water battles
    • Cannot fight with Pokémon pulling your Inflatable Boat (or you can't navigate)
    • Ground type attacks like Dig won't work
  • On Land:
    • Water types have severe disadvantage…
    • Moves like Dive won't work
    • Only water types with legs can battle at full capacity on land… Mudkip works great, Goldeen does not
    • Pokémon like Lapras loses speed, accuracy, evasion, defense, special defense, and can't use most physical attacks on land (because it has fucking flippers)
  • The move Fly is know by all flying-types at the start
    • Transportation requires a Pokémon large enough to carry you
    • Cannot use the fly move indoors, in battle, or dig, etc…

• Money
  • TRE-styled low-stakes battles, no amulet coin, etc… gotta scavenge, garden, fish + sell… and there's always tomb-raiding.
  • Larger sums can be won in tournaments at Gyms
  • Repeatable odd-jobs renew on a daily basis

• Gardening
  • Berry Pots: mobile but limited yield, require more attention, "annual" and must be replanted
  • Field Planting: great yield but not mobile, may attract Pokémon in overworld, "perennial" and grow forever
  • Harvesting: Field yields daily, Pots yield every other day
  • Yield: Fields have 10 per bush, Pots have 5.
  • Berries can be sold

• Scavenging
  • Pokemon like Paras will produce Mushrooms once a day, if they're not holding other items
  • Pokémon like Miltank + Shuckle will produce Milk or Berry Juice once a day, if they're holding the Refillable Bottle
  • Revival Herbs respawn daily
  • Thief/Covet/Pluck to snag items from wild Pokémon + NPC battles
  • Fish and Meat can be caught/sold, price based on level and the buyer

• Camps + Bases
  • Must set/strike: cannot build new Camp or Base without "striking" the prior…
  • Free healing at either your Camp or Base
  • Switch Party-Pokémon freely while in base or camp
  • Camps have camp fires, which can attract Pokemon

HEALING ITEMS:

• Synthetic Healing Items (potions, etc) are a bit more expensive, to discourage purchase unless in a pinch
• Honey:
  • Heals burns+confusion and paralysis+confusion OR used to attract Pokémon
  • Can be sold at
• Lemonade/Berry Variations, sold at tiered prices
  • Regular, Cheri-Lemonade, Pecha Lemonade, Lum Lemonade, etc.
  • Regional Availability (town-specialties)
• Herbal Medicine remixed
  • "Bitter Herbs" only reduce happiness of pre-evolved forms
  • Work 10% better on grass-types, when applicable
  • Highly coveted, may trigger battles with wandering Shaman
• Mushrooms, large and small...
  • Tiny Mushroom: medicinal, acts as Full Heal! Can be sold to Herbalist, may cause surprise encounter with Shaman trainer
  • Big Mushrom: looses medicinal value, but can be sold to restaurants
• MooMoo Milk Variations, sold at tiered prices
  • Chocolate Milk
  • Milkshake

PRACTICAL ITEMS:

• Whip: used by Tamers + Poachers to control disobedient pokemon… The Whip costs 1 turn, guarantees that specific Pokemon will obey for the rest of their time on the battlefield. 50% chance raised attack, 20% chance of confusion. Obtainable at the Trading Post, with social stigma attached…
• Inflatable Boat (before/in-lieu of Surf, etc… follows a current, unless water-type uses Aqua Jet)
• Winter Coat (like in Prism, for icy situations)
• Matches (gift at start of game, also sold at Trading Post)
• Crow Bar (for tomb-raiding)
• Refillable [Water/Milk/Juice] Bottle
• Reusable Pokéball which can only ever capture 1 pokemon (given right in the beginning of the game)
• Tent (for setting up camps)
• Fishing Rods:
  • Old + Good Rod = Gen1
  • Super Rod = Gen3

IN-GAME TRADES:

• 1 trade available per Trading Post, minimum
• Randomized trade propositions
• Post-battle propositions

NEW TYPES OF VENDORS

• Herbalist: can fully heal Pokémon, for a price, also buys/sells herbs + berries at slightly better rates)
• Trading Post: sells conventional items, has "foreign-trades," Battle/Move-tutors
• Fish Stand: buys/sells fish at low prices
• Restaurants/Butchers/Markets: buy milk, mushrooms, fish + other meat at better prices, sell regional goodies
• Wet Market: buy/sell Pokémon + rare items, be able to contract Pokérus… maybe from a bat-bite!
• Black Market: buy/sell rare Pokémon, artifacts, "prohibited" items, "illegal battles" with previously-infected Pokémon beefed up from Pokérus, etc…
  • Underground Pokérus "Thunderdome" battles with higher chances of a KO'd Pokémon dying, but much higher winnings

NEW TYPES OF NPC ROLES

• All NPC have a purpose or information to share
• Some NPC won't give you things if your Following buddy is unhappy, and some won't even talk to you if you own The Whip.
• HERBALIST: buys Revival Herbs and uses those to make all the other Herbal Medicine variations like energy powder (etc), can be battled after-hours
• SHAMAN: might pop up like a pokemon encounter to battle over scavenged medicinal herbs + mushrooms
• RAIDERS: use thief a lot in battle, more skilled, will steal a Pokémon if you lose
• HOOLIGAN: also uses thief in battle, less skilled, will take all your money if you lose
• BALL SMITH: provides specialty balls, if you do errands
• MTN MAN: Doesn't like cops, full of secrets
• COPS: never there when you need em, always attacking you, totally corrupt… Substitute for Team Rocket.
• HEALER: will heal you (after a battle), even if you lose
• POACHERS + TAMERS: one breaks the law, both are shitty to their Pokémon and use whips
• PIRATES: Unaffiliated with Cops, Raiders or Hooligans… they have foreign (regionally unobtainable) Pokémon, not otherwise encountered outside of randomized trade opportunities
• RANGER: Show up out of nowhere to do Controlled Burns (good for flushing out wild Pokémon) and to enforce poaching/over-catching laws

OVERWORLD MOVES:

• Overworld Moves don't work with KO'd Pokémon… their ass is knocked out, after all!
• Ember (with Water Gun or Sand Attack) for starting fires
• Dig (can be used to excavate a tile anywhere to scavenge resources, or escape caves, etc)
• Bulldoze (clears single tiles and converts to plantable-space for berries)
• Weather Moves (for watering fresh-plantings, also influencing encounters + battles)
• Nature Power (Camp)
• Secret Power (Base)
• Odor Sleuth (Dowsing Machine)
• Aqua Jet (pulls Inflatable Boat)
• Teleport (only to Camp or Base)
• Fly + Surf (only with physically appropriate Pokémon)
• Cut (or Slash or Hyper Cutter or Fury Cutter)
• Strength HM (or Superpower learned move)
• Rock Smash HM (or Brick Break TM)
• Waterfall
• Sweet Scent (can attract Pokémon between level 1 + level 60)
• Rock Climb

STORY:

• Your character is an orphan, and at 14 is too old to stay in the orphanage… the game starts out with a bunch of kids running amuck and a Foster Mother who's got more on her plate than she can handle. You're planning to strike it out on your own, camping as you go, but before you depart there are some obligations to help out the neighbors: first you have to harvest from an orchard for your uncle, he gives you extra berries for you to plant at the orphanage. After that, the Foster Mom lets you know that the town Matron has requested your services… she sends you to collect some Revival Herbs (13 total), hidden throughout the forest just north of town. She gives you $1, tells you not to spend it in one place, and sends you on your way. afterwards borrowing a Pokémon to clear a barn of pests, finally earning some useful items and gifts which allow you to progress farther out of town: one reusable poke ball, and three standard. Your uncle recommends you take your new items up to the cave on the northeast side of town, and try to catch a low-level Pokémon… Safari-rules, with no step limitations, but everything is level 3 and wants to run away… caught with rocks/bait/creeping closer. (This should be frustrating and difficult). Before you go, you need to plant some of those harvested berries at the orphanage, to help ease Foster Mom's burden. In appreciation, she sends you off with a Tent, a Refillable [water] Bottle + some matches.
• The region is modernizing, with civil works in progress and artifacts to be salvaged from old tombs before the inevitable paved nightmare of modernity.
• Historic Dojos, decrepit and prestigious alike, function as an early game "Gym Challenge" with teams built around shape/themes (instead of typing), based on the Chinese Zodiac: "Monkey Dojo," "Dragon Dojo," etc… Move-Tutor reward for beating each town
• Gyms with connected Pokecenters are in construction, half built, until mid-game…
• Gym Challenge becomes available + each has a Pokécenter for free healing
• The Cops are aggressive and only looking out for themselves: best to avoid them, as long as you can. They seem to never be around when the Raiders come… People who ask questions go missing.

QUALITY OF LIFE FOR BUSY GAMERS:

• Auto-Run options
• Auto-Repel option
• x3-speed Battle Animations

A note about Maps:
Back in the day, I liked not using flash in Dark Cave because of the forced exploration and unavoidable battles. Not too hard to create that without a cave, so I think dense maps would be good. My first attempt at map has a bunch of flower tiles, representing Medicinal (Revival) Herbs that will renew on a daily basis… part of the requirements to leave town require hunting at least 13 Revival herbs for the Old Lady


From the DS perspective, that map could be tricky. If you compare the thumbnails above and below, you'll notice how many of the Herbs (circled in the bottom-right thumbnail) are visible, which compared to the overheads up top are much more difficult to see. That should make the little labyrinth a pain in the ass!



So... there's a lot of place-holders in there, like the silly boulders, or stairs instead of houses. I'm on Apple and having a hard time accessing DSPRE, so unless someone can help explain that to me it'll be a while til we better maps. If anything so far has you interested, please get in touch. Collaboration is the only way I'll have any hope of seeing this come to light, as I don't have a PC to work on and my computer storage is too full to run emulators effectively. I've got passion, ideas, and some time.

Thanks for your consideration!

 

[manta]

What you are proposing is unfeasible in Gen 4 with current developments, really, so I would recommend developing it in Gen 3. Given that this is your first post, I am assuming this is your first game. That being said it's easy to come up with ideas, harder to realise them especially if you're new to the scene. To be frank, it might be difficult to recruit people for a project of this scale, but you can at least start out with a scope that's reasonable for one person. I'd cut this list down to 1/4 of the size if I were you. Also, you say that collaboration is the only way your plans will come to light, but you cannot expect anyone to take on such a large amount of work whilst you sit in the director's seat. You'll need to pick up a Mac or PC and do the bulk of the work yourself. Anyway, hope you manage to make something of this, the scene needs people bringing in novelty.

 

[TheLavros]

What you are proposing is unfeasible in Gen 4 with current developments, really, so I would recommend developing it in Gen 3. Given that this is your first post, I am assuming this is your first game. That being said it's easy to come up with ideas, harder to realise them especially if you're new to the scene. To be frank, it might be difficult to recruit people for a project of this scale, but you can at least start out with a scope that's reasonable for one person. I'd cut this list down to 1/4 of the size if I were you. Also, you say that collaboration is the only way your plans will come to light, but you cannot expect anyone to take on such a large amount of work whilst you sit in the director's seat. You'll need to pick up a Mac or PC and do the bulk of the work yourself. Anyway, hope you manage to make something of this, the scene needs people bringing in novelty.

Thanks so much for the feedback! I only prefer gen 4 for the look of it, but I'll redirect focus if you think that will make the difference. I'm on a Mac, and frustrated as all hell when it comes to the tools... I have PDSMS that I need to launch via Terminal with Java code, but haven't been able to access the DSPRE and so I've been stuck at what I figured would be an easier stretch of the process. What tools do you know work for Gen3 on Macbooks?

I'm looking to gather as many folks as possible to collab, because more creativity and ideas is far superior to 1 person's suggestions. I want battle mechanics that have some semblance to reality, and some minimal stakes, and I'd be fine if it was implemented over classics like FRLG: I don't require custom maps or story, just a challenge. Surely I'm not alone, in that.

 

[manta]

Thanks so much for the feedback! I only prefer gen 4 for the look of it, but I'll redirect focus if you think that will make the difference. I'm on a Mac, and frustrated as all hell when it comes to the tools... I have PDSMS that I need to launch via Terminal with Java code, but haven't been able to access the DSPRE and so I've been stuck at what I figured would be an easier stretch of the process. What tools do you know work for Gen3 on Macbooks?

I'm looking to gather as many folks as possible to collab, because more creativity and ideas is far superior to 1 person's suggestions. I want battle mechanics that have some semblance to reality, and some minimal stakes, and I'd be fine if it was implemented over classics like FRLG: I don't require custom maps or story, just a challenge. Surely I'm not alone, in that.

When working with the decompilations on macOS you can just use Terminal combined with peripheral tools like porymap. See the install instructions for pokeemerald here https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald/blob/master/INSTALL.md

 

[TheLavros]

When working with the decompilations on macOS you can just use Terminal combined with peripheral tools like porymap. See the install instructions for pokeemerald here https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald/blob/master/INSTALL.md

Thanks very much, mang 🤘🏿