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[Released] Stygian Snakewood, a Pokémon Snakewood remake


A game not being "nuzlocke friendly" isnt an excuse for bad balancing. Most games, including extreme difficulty hacks like RadicalRed or Run and Bun or Kaizo games are balanced around a few things.

One is the level curve and enemy pokemon strength.

The trainers before a gym leader or "boss" fight are typically of lower level because they're supposed to be the build up for the boss fight. If the game ALWAYS matches your levels, then EVERY fight in the game will feel like a boss fight.

Two is the tools given to the player at any particular split and Three is movesets. This is mostly referring to EARLY to MID game because later mid into lategame the movesets are usually very manageable.


Pre Evolved Pokemon and their movesets are VERY important for balancing. The entire point of a "cheated" pre evolved pokemon is to add a pokemon that is more BULKY and harder to one shot. They typically are given moves that do the SAME damage as their pre-evos would at that level. For instance, a Stomp from a Whismur and a Pound from a Loudred will do around the same damage, but the Loudred is way bulkier than the Whismur is, so its harder to take down without completely overwhelming the player.

With regards to moveset balancing, take the Houndsour in the forest. With a moveset including Bite Flame Burst (not sure if this was the move before the patch) Thunder Fang and Hidden Power Grass there is basically no counter. If you have a Wooper to take the fire move you get blown away by HP grass. Its a pokemon with 330 BST against a pokemon with 210 BST, so Wooper isnt even going to beat it even if it doesnt have HP grass, because Bite DESTROYS it in 3 shots the same as the Wooper hitting the Houndour with Water Gun. However, if you give the Houndour Pursuit instead of Bite its now weaker and more "balanced" to the level of the Wooper AT THAT POINT IN TIME. If you come up against another Houndour later, they can have Bite, because at that time you have more tools as the player (early evolutions and such). It's the entire reason why there are "early" "mid" and "late" game pokemon. A pokemon like beautifly with 100 Sp Atk is a gigantic power spike for the player during the early game which falls off SO QUICKLY because everything else catches up to it. Now imagine having a Giga Drain beautifly at the start of the game instead of having Absorb. Beautifly has 385 BST (or 55 more than Houndour) but you cant even evolve into it for the fight. Due to typing, Houndour has a good matchup into the "better statted" beautifly and has an extreme advantage over the Wooper.


I saw that you had a poll about buffing Wooper. I don't think it needs a buff at all I think the game needs to be built around the tools that you are given. Nerf the fights Wooper should be good into so Wooper can actually win.
So, I'm gonna chime in.
I've been lurking here for a bit, and the discussion here has been pretty interesting! I want to address some of your prior posts, as well as this one. You've spoken ad nauseum about how normal mode should just "be the regular snakewood"
Warning: I have not played normal mode. I have only ever played lunatic mode, being a player who always plays anything at the highest available difficulty. As such, I am not the audience of normal mode, nor can I share you experiences.
I can, however, share a piece of my mind.
You speak about how "vanilla" should be rebranded, and perhaps it should. I think it's relatively minor, but I understand that phrasing matters in building expectations. However, you also constantly give out this advice that "just make vanilla mode into regular snakewood, but with a few tweaks", and if A11 were to do that.. what would you ultimately achieve?
Why wouldn't you just go play regular snakewood?
A thing on the internet that's pretty common is the death of the author, and I think that applies here as well. A11, like you, is a fan of the game. That should be assumed, since they have chosen to make an essentials version of specifically this game. A remake is not a remaster. A11 holds the creative liberty to do whatever they want, and at the end of they day, if that makes you angry, then you are within your right to just not play.
You mention in one of your posts that if they wanted to make a kaizo game, then they should just make their own game instead of taking another person's work and, to paraphrase, "using that to get people to play your kaizo game"
I think this is wrong. Forgive me for my assumption, but I don't think you've made a fangame. A friend of mine has this phrase of "the difference between the amount of work you need to make a mod for a game and to make a game, is about the amount of work you need to make a game.", which illustrates the sheer gap between using existing tools and creating your own. Now, this doesn't fully apply, since A11 has also gone and remade the game in essentials, but the foundation is still present. The story is there, the assets are (kind of) there, etc.
Forgive me for what I'm about to say, but I think you're just whining that the game doesn't bend to your needs. What I'm hearing over and over is that you want to play snakewood, and just snakewood.
You're imposing your own standards on a passion project and masking it under the falsehood of "I'm just giving you feedback", and this is plain out wrong. You are not being helpful by putting on this high and mighty tone, acting all pissed off. You're not providing constructive criticism, or at least, what you've provided has been very little from what I've seen. I'm going to speak broadly here, so know that this next part doesn't apply to you specifically - a fuck ton of pokemon players have this overwhelming sense of entitlement. They're allergic to change, allergic to challenge. They think they're the best game developers, and that they'd be able to balance the experience, but the reality is that they just fucking can't.
Plain and simple.
I mention this partly due to this section:
Originally it was pure hell to play through…..but not from the very beginning of the game, because that's how you discourage people from playing
Providing a "hellish experience" is how you discourage not people from playing, but YOU from playing. Many others have played this game already, some on lunatic, other's on vanilla. Yet you're mentally stuck on one battle, essentially the first gym, because it's providing you with a challenge - one which you don't want to bend to.

It's at this point that I want to address the comment which I'm actually replying to - the subject of wooper.
First off, I want to show off my own roster, as someone who played on lunatic.
[PokeCommunity.com] Stygian Snakewood, a Pokémon Snakewood remake
Wailmer was almost never used, Meganium didn't get a lot of time to shine, Loudred (which became exploud very late) was absolutely awful, sealeo kinda didn't exist, and pupitar was used for one battle. Oh, and voltorb hisui wasn't really used either.
For earlygame, I had: Slakoth, Spheal, Koffing, Egg, Skitty, Pineco, Whismur.
On Lunatic, I know that the floating corpse was difficult, and I found that welcoming - but I understand that you don't share that sentiment.
Now, Wooper. And Houndsour.
You're hyperfixating on the case of "I have the type advantage, therefore I should win."
Wooper is, frankly, a pretty awful pokemon. It is okay that the water type does not beat the fire type.
You mention yourself that even if it didn't have hidden power grass, which might very well be "overboard", wooper would still lose.
If that is the case, then I fail to see the problem. I'm a person who wants to use their guys. I don't want to use other guys, I use MY guys. This means that I don't want to add a pokemon just because I'm having a hard time.
I don't know if this is the case for you, but I'm going to assume that it is for the sake of the argument. You want to use wooper, that's why you're so obsessed with it not being able to beat the fire type. I respect that, and think it's cool.
But some pokemon just don't beat other pokemon. That's reality, at least without going into nuanced scenarios.
You mention BST, and the sheer difference between them. That's part of the reason. Wooper is frail and weak, and it doesn't have the BST to really do anything. To reiterate - changing HP grass wouldn't change anything, or so you said yourself.
I assure you there are dozens of pokemon that would work in earlygame, but maybe you just don't want to use them, or having thought of them, and that's fine.
But to come in and bash someone for their passion project is not okay.
To go after others, such as Commander218, because they're trying to point out what is essentially a vendetta, is not okay.
If you want to play updated snakewood, then create it yourself or take what you're given.
Or provide some some of constructive criticism that doesn't try to mask this overwhelming feeling of "I know how to do this right, and you aren't doing it"
Like, come on man. You can do better. You're saying you love the game, but you're also not giving them any real space for their creative liberty.
Anyways, I'm done ranting. Have a nice evening.
 
So, I'm gonna chime in.
I've been lurking here for a bit, and the discussion here has been pretty interesting! I want to address some of your prior posts, as well as this one. You've spoken ad nauseum about how normal mode should just "be the regular snakewood"
Warning: I have not played normal mode. I have only ever played lunatic mode, being a player who always plays anything at the highest available difficulty. As such, I am not the audience of normal mode, nor can I share you experiences.
I can, however, share a piece of my mind.
You speak about how "vanilla" should be rebranded, and perhaps it should. I think it's relatively minor, but I understand that phrasing matters in building expectations. However, you also constantly give out this advice that "just make vanilla mode into regular snakewood, but with a few tweaks", and if A11 were to do that.. what would you ultimately achieve?
Why wouldn't you just go play regular snakewood?
A thing on the internet that's pretty common is the death of the author, and I think that applies here as well. A11, like you, is a fan of the game. That should be assumed, since they have chosen to make an essentials version of specifically this game. A remake is not a remaster. A11 holds the creative liberty to do whatever they want, and at the end of they day, if that makes you angry, then you are within your right to just not play.
You mention in one of your posts that if they wanted to make a kaizo game, then they should just make their own game instead of taking another person's work and, to paraphrase, "using that to get people to play your kaizo game"
I think this is wrong. Forgive me for my assumption, but I don't think you've made a fangame. A friend of mine has this phrase of "the difference between the amount of work you need to make a mod for a game and to make a game, is about the amount of work you need to make a game.", which illustrates the sheer gap between using existing tools and creating your own. Now, this doesn't fully apply, since A11 has also gone and remade the game in essentials, but the foundation is still present. The story is there, the assets are (kind of) there, etc.
Forgive me for what I'm about to say, but I think you're just whining that the game doesn't bend to your needs. What I'm hearing over and over is that you want to play snakewood, and just snakewood.
You're imposing your own standards on a passion project and masking it under the falsehood of "I'm just giving you feedback", and this is plain out wrong. You are not being helpful by putting on this high and mighty tone, acting all pissed off. You're not providing constructive criticism, or at least, what you've provided has been very little from what I've seen. I'm going to speak broadly here, so know that this next part doesn't apply to you specifically - a fuck ton of pokemon players have this overwhelming sense of entitlement. They're allergic to change, allergic to challenge. They think they're the best game developers, and that they'd be able to balance the experience, but the reality is that they just fucking can't.
Plain and simple.
I mention this partly due to this section:

Providing a "hellish experience" is how you discourage not people from playing, but YOU from playing. Many others have played this game already, some on lunatic, other's on vanilla. Yet you're mentally stuck on one battle, essentially the first gym, because it's providing you with a challenge - one which you don't want to bend to.

It's at this point that I want to address the comment which I'm actually replying to - the subject of wooper.
First off, I want to show off my own roster, as someone who played on lunatic.
View attachment 167004
Wailmer was almost never used, Meganium didn't get a lot of time to shine, Loudred (which became exploud very late) was absolutely awful, sealeo kinda didn't exist, and pupitar was used for one battle. Oh, and voltorb hisui wasn't really used either.
For earlygame, I had: Slakoth, Spheal, Koffing, Egg, Skitty, Pineco, Whismur.
On Lunatic, I know that the floating corpse was difficult, and I found that welcoming - but I understand that you don't share that sentiment.
Now, Wooper. And Houndsour.
You're hyperfixating on the case of "I have the type advantage, therefore I should win."
Wooper is, frankly, a pretty awful pokemon. It is okay that the water type does not beat the fire type.
You mention yourself that even if it didn't have hidden power grass, which might very well be "overboard", wooper would still lose.
If that is the case, then I fail to see the problem. I'm a person who wants to use their guys. I don't want to use other guys, I use MY guys. This means that I don't want to add a pokemon just because I'm having a hard time.
I don't know if this is the case for you, but I'm going to assume that it is for the sake of the argument. You want to use wooper, that's why you're so obsessed with it not being able to beat the fire type. I respect that, and think it's cool.
But some pokemon just don't beat other pokemon. That's reality, at least without going into nuanced scenarios.
You mention BST, and the sheer difference between them. That's part of the reason. Wooper is frail and weak, and it doesn't have the BST to really do anything. To reiterate - changing HP grass wouldn't change anything, or so you said yourself.
I assure you there are dozens of pokemon that would work in earlygame, but maybe you just don't want to use them, or having thought of them, and that's fine.
But to come in and bash someone for their passion project is not okay.
To go after others, such as Commander218, because they're trying to point out what is essentially a vendetta, is not okay.
If you want to play updated snakewood, then create it yourself or take what you're given.
Or provide some some of constructive criticism that doesn't try to mask this overwhelming feeling of "I know how to do this right, and you aren't doing it"
Like, come on man. You can do better. You're saying you love the game, but you're also not giving them any real space for their creative liberty.
Anyways, I'm done ranting. Have a nice evening.
They literally said at the beginning of the game that the "vanilla" version of the game was to "chill and have a good time akin to the original snake wood" i myself have played the entirety of snake wood multiple times and the beginning of OG snake wood is NOTHING like the beginning of Stygian. I dont have a "vendetta" I dont have any issues with the way they want to make the game. It might just not be for me, but the thing that you CANNOT do is ADVERTISE that the game is the SAME AS THE ORIGINAL when in reality it's NOT THE SAME
 
up to level 38 and 4 badges, gameplay time may vary due to speed up so honestly i'm not sure. the game stops at the shakya monastery (former lavaridge)
Cool, that's good to know.
BTW A, there is no need for all the "I know it's stupid" comments. You're doing great and I believe the original was intended to be stupid.
 
They literally said at the beginning of the game that the "vanilla" version of the game was to "chill and have a good time akin to the original snake wood" i myself have played the entirety of snake wood multiple times and the beginning of OG snake wood is NOTHING like the beginning of Stygian. I dont have a "vendetta" I dont have any issues with the way they want to make the game. It might just not be for me, but the thing that you CANNOT do is ADVERTISE that the game is the SAME AS THE ORIGINAL when in reality it's NOT THE SAME
hey fun fact akin means "similar" and not "same" :) secondly you can just say "hey maybe rename vanilla mode" instead of whining the whole time about the game not being original snakewood
 
hey fun fact akin means "similar" and not "same" :) secondly you can just say "hey maybe rename vanilla mode" instead of whining the whole time about the game not being original snakewood
Im not whining about it not being the original……the original has Ruby AI from 2010…..
 
I just found the first Fire Stone in the game in Famine's Desert, is there more than one Fire Stone in the game?
I ask because I am torn between whether I want to evolve my egg into Entei or Celebi and I have a Vulpix. If there is another Fire Stone somewhere, I will evolve my Vulpix now, if not, I'm gonna save it.
 
I just found the first Fire Stone in the game in Famine's Desert, is there more than one Fire Stone in the game?
I ask because I am torn between whether I want to evolve my egg into Entei or Celebi and I have a Vulpix. If there is another Fire Stone somewhere, I will evolve my Vulpix now, if not, I'm gonna save it.
There is only one in the current demo, I do intend to make them available for purchase around Lilycove though.
 
There is only one in the current demo, I do intend to make them available for purchase around Lilycove though.
Alright, thanx.
Now I am struggling to decide which one of the Rustburo eggs in Rustburo keep, I hatched all three in separate game windows and it's difficult, I want to keep them all.
 
Thanx. Damn, Secretegg is the GOAT!
That's interesting that there is a split on the impossible Wattson battle. If it does come back, might I suggest making him level 255 rather than the 100 it was in the original because it'll give his cheating more of an authentic feel.
Could also make it a mega manectric for the lols
 
Could also give mega manectric the auto revive function x6 or something, and only have it be level 50. That way it's theoretically possible to beat, maybe even have a reward for beating him?
 
Been a long time since I used this account, but I really wanted to chime in with my thoughts on the demo. Especially when I see a lot of back and forth on the difficulty.

To start, I'm someone whose played pretty much everything from the romhack and fan game communities. Starting all the way back with the original error or games like Snakewood or Ruby Destiny. Haven't not gone back to those in years, when I saw this project was indevelopment I was pretty excited. I've never been on to find the "edge factor" some fan games have to be too jarring or bad. In fact I think a few games really handle it well, and others not so much. I always saw the orignal Snakewood as a wacky take on the "what if we took pokemon the kids game and added gore and violence to it" idea people always have for games aimed at younger audiences primarily.

Which made the orignal a lot of fun. The sprites were dark and out there, but geuinely pretty funny, story wasn't anything crazy, but most old rom hacks weren't great in that department either. All the events and things that they wereable to edit at the time was impressive and honestly still is.

But all that aside, I finsiehd the demo today, and I loved it! Its a really great start. A few errors with the black border creeping in, making maps feel smaller, but its not easy to work around that in RPG maker, so I didn't mind. I played on lunatic because I love a good challenge. As I stated prior, I've played basically every fan game or rom hack out there, minus a few current ones. I always run mono runs through Radical red hardcore mode every now and then, and I've played things like incliment emerald, kaizo emerald, and the various other hard mode challenge hacks.

Keep in mind that just because I play these a lot and can beat runs fairly quickly/easily, I would not consider myself a good pokemon competitve player. Like your not going to see me at worlds lol. So when it comes to the difficulty on lunatic, I found it pretty fair. I stuck with the same team for pretty much the whole playthrough, and picked up two rotation mons. Those being Harriyama who I used in literally one battle, and Pcypig, who barely got screentime as its only available in the last part of the demo.

The hardest fight was the Rustorb Forest boss for sure. The rest I was able to stragetize with much easier. Even then, the bigges issue I had was the dirtkrow. I was able to find a way to counter their team after like two tries, minus the dirtkrow, as I had no dark types and didn't feel like catching one lol.I was still able to figure out how to win though, and once I beat that, my team evolved by later fights and it was much easier. Still wiped out a few times though, but I didn't mind as it helped the strageties I could run.

I see a lot of complaints about that Headour, but frankly, I had static pikachu, once it used bit, got paralyzed, and it was one shot after that by Wooper, the comparison I saw being made here earlier. Nerf the pokemons speed and these bosses become easier. So the game definitely has options for people. I do think you could probably include a few more early game however. I wouldn't know what to go with though.

I think the easiest way to fix this issue and make it more encouraging for players, is make the wild pokemon actually give exp, without it being capped. That honestly makes no sense imo and is counter intuative. Give people the option to grind to the level cap in the wild before each fight, and players will be more encouraged to try multiple teams or pokemon out. Especially when the game has a really fun amount of balance changes. I would have used so many more pokemon if it was easier to train them. A fan game that works well with this concept is Vanguard for example. Plenty of new forms and balance changes in that game as well, and its built around encouraging the player to consistently swap teams. I think that would be perfect here.


I loved all the new sprites and forms I saw, from the beta mons, to zombie forms I don't remeber from the orignal, as well as new regional forms not in the orginal. I don't know how many people are on the team, but it all came out great, and I can't wait to see more in future. As the game develops more, I think finding that balance will become easier, and hopefully more people can contribute their thoughts to help it out.

I think for now that's the main thoughts I had, the story is still in tact, and I enjoyed the mapping, every area stays distinct from the original and the new tiles go a long way in making it stand out.


Also I see people got the spheal in the demo, and how do you do that? I tried literally everything and it wouldn't join me lol.


One other thing, super excited to see the
Spoiler: starters
 
Are we going to be getting some of the fakemon from the first? I know their was a thing on Mt pyre you can capture
 
Are we going to be getting some of the fakemon from the first? I know their was a thing on Mt pyre you can capture
you can get some already such as calfy (and ramshaker), hombone/hombeast and psylet/psypig, + more they're just going to be gradually introduced in the game as encounters like everything else
 
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