[Released] Stygian Snakewood, a Pokémon Snakewood remake

[Curleh]

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

starters new evoltuions. Although I find it odd that Weezing has flare boost, a bunch of fire coverage, and isn't going to become poison fire? If I may ask, why?

If you give it an antidote you can buy from the nearby looter

Also you're 100% right about the wild pokemom experience but its already been said that "people like it" and "it cant be changed" 🙄

 

[A¹¹]

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

starters new evoltuions. Although I find it odd that Weezing has flare boost, a bunch of fire coverage, and isn't going to become poison fire? If I may ask, why?

Thanks for playing! Usually people are scared out by the word "Lunatic" so they (rightfully) avoid it so it's nice to see feedback of it outside of beta testing where literally almost everyone chose Lunatic.
About the Exp system one of the options could be raising the levels of the Petalburg Forest (and maybe of other areas) wild Pokémon a little bit but sometimes it can be a bit interesting that grinding on the main battle is an option, if you want you could just do it underleveled (which is what I personally did while playtesting in order to have a different grasp of the difficulty) but opinion on that latter part is a bit divided, with some people saying it's easy enough to raise new Pokémon while others saying it could be easier, personally I haven't had issues with a rotation (my team was Claydol, Superegg, Pelipper, Dustox, Shiftry, Banette, Steelix, Dachsbun, Demoneon and Typhlosion) but there was some discussion about raising the positive Experience modifier to +100% instead of the current +75%.
Yeah the sprites are definitely an eye catching feature, the team right now is quite small due to people leaving/ghosting me/disappearing, with just me and a single spriter (I can also do sprites, a bunch of them such as Zombie Dratini, Demon Corpse and Zombie Twins were mine but I ain't the best) and we're doing recruitment threads but still no asnwer.

Also thanks for enjoying the maps, I definitely suck at them and the next update's main focus is trying to improve (specially removing every single black void) + other improvements.

 

[chrispy97]

Thanks for playing! Usually people are scared out by the word "Lunatic" so they (rightfully) avoid it so it's nice to see feedback of it outside of beta testing where literally almost everyone chose Lunatic.
About the Exp system one of the options could be raising the levels of the Petalburg Forest (and maybe of other areas) wild Pokémon a little bit but sometimes it can be a bit interesting that grinding on the main battle is an option, if you want you could just do it underleveled (which is what I personally did while playtesting in order to have a different grasp of the difficulty) but opinion on that latter part is a bit divided, with some people saying it's easy enough to raise new Pokémon while others saying it could be easier, personally I haven't had issues with a rotation (my team was Claydol, Superegg, Pelipper, Dustox, Shiftry, Banette, Steelix, Dachsbun, Demoneon and Typhlosion) but there was some discussion about raising the positive Experience modifier to +100% instead of the current +75%.
Yeah the sprites are definitely an eye catching feature, the team right now is quite small due to people leaving/ghosting me/disappearing, with just me and a single spriter (I can also do sprites, a bunch of them such as Zombie Dratini, Demon Corpse and Zombie Twins were mine but I ain't the best) and we're doing recruitment threads but still no asnwer.

Also thanks for enjoying the maps, I definitely suck at them and the next update's main focus is trying to improve (specially removing every single black void) + other improvements.

I'd be interested in helping but I need to learn how to make sprites first lmao

 

[Lucifer]

I have completed the demo so will address the issues coming up here.

First of all, full disclosure, I started on Lunatic out of curiosity but I remember how much of a bitch the legless corpse battle in Rustburo woods was in the original and with a full team of six, uh-uh. So, I switched to Normal.

It seems most either are not familiar with the original Snakewood or expected this remaster to remove the ridiculous factor and create a more serious and cohesive experience and I will admit to some guilt there. I even somewhat hoped for it, however, that thus far is not the case. Would I have liked a full rewrite? Absolutely! Am I disappointed? Absolutely NOT.

Culterine has commented that he intended for the game to be "pure hell". I posted the exact quote some time ago but here it is again:

"I've played through the game myself many times, and I know for a fact how difficult it is. I never intended for it to be anything other than pure hell to play through. "
https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=235371&page=69

Granted, as I have mentioned before, some elements felt somewhat excessive such as all Pokemon having a Hidden Power or something else that was super effective to me regardless of what I had out as though aware of what I was coming with, as an avid fangamer who has experienced the original I felt it was faithful to the spirit which was intended to be ridiculous.

The main factors of this remaster appear to be:
1. Make more zombie Pokemon available
2. Balance it better

Upgrading from the gen 3 format in itself is an improvement. Having the built in exp all, despite the random on and off capping reduces the need for power grinding and evens out team growth with the level curve. I remember grinding being obnoxious in a particular point in late game that does not exist in this remaster as of now.

Feedback (For the purpose of compilation I do repeat a few things I have said before here):

1. Perhaps ease up a tad with the Hidden Powers and ridiculous moves such as Haruko's Alolan Meowth having Ariel Ace, as I have said it's just a tad excessive.

2. Skipping over the impossible Wattson battle felt flat, I'd love to see it return at level 255 and perhaps as someone else suggested with a mega manentric to really give him thagt cheating bastard feel.

3. With its learn set I was 100% expecting the plague ratatta to evolve into a Plauge/Dark type and was a bit disappointed that it remained plauge/normal.

Overall, I am enjoying it and look forward to the next update--as long as I don't have to start over. There is clearly a higher shiny rate in this game and this shiny hunter has taken advantage of it--a lot.

 

[A¹¹]

I have completed the demo so will address the issues coming up here.

First of all, full disclosure, I started on Lunatic out of curiosity but I remember how much of a bitch the legless corpse battle in Rustburo woods was in the original and with a full team of six, uh-uh. So, I switched to Normal.

It seems most either are not familiar with the original Snakewood or expected this remaster to remove the ridiculous factor and create a more serious and cohesive experience and I will admit to some guilt there. I even somewhat hoped for it, however, that thus far is not the case. Would I have liked a full rewrite? Absolutely! Am I disappointed? Absolutely NOT.

Culterine has commented that he intended for the game to be "pure hell". I posted the exact quote some time ago but here it is again:

"I've played through the game myself many times, and I know for a fact how difficult it is. I never intended for it to be anything other than pure hell to play through. "
https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=235371&page=69

Granted, as I have mentioned before, some elements felt somewhat excessive such as all Pokemon having a Hidden Power or something else that was super effective to me regardless of what I had out as though aware of what I was coming with, as an avid fangamer who has experienced the original I felt it was faithful to the spirit which was intended to be ridiculous.

The main factors of this remaster appear to be:
1. Make more zombie Pokemon available
2. Balance it better

Upgrading from the gen 3 format in itself is an improvement. Having the built in exp all, despite the random on and off capping reduces the need for power grinding and evens out team growth with the level curve. I remember grinding being obnoxious in a particular point in late game that does not exist in this remaster as of now.

Feedback (For the purpose of compilation I do repeat a few things I have said before here):

1. Perhaps ease up a tad with the Hidden Powers and ridiculous moves such as Haruko's Alolan Meowth having Ariel Ace, as I have said it's just a tad excessive.

2. Skipping over the impossible Wattson battle felt flat, I'd love to see it return at level 255 and perhaps as someone else suggested with a mega manentric to really give him thagt cheating bastard feel.

3. With its learn set I was 100% expecting the plague ratatta to evolve into a Plauge/Dark type and was a bit disappointed that it remained plauge/normal.

Overall, I am enjoying it and look forward to the next update--as long as I don't have to start over. There is clearly a higher shiny rate in this game and this shiny hunter has taken advantage of it--a lot.

Thanks for playing!

1. That is already been addressed in the next update. Almost every single Hidden Power instance on Vanilla has been cut until Dewford (since you get Hidden Power there) and some of the weirdly high BP moves have been slightly lowered.

2. Yeah that's something that's been on discussion already but at the same time it's pretty much impossible and no way in hell I would enable exp gain from it.

3. That's just the regular level up moveset of Raticate with the levels slightly tweaked lol. But anyway it's the only Plague/Normal "regular zombie" that the player has access to (that is a term I made for the zombies that aren't stuff like Slaking and Lati@s that will remain boss only until postgame) and the Headdoom line is already Plague/Dark so it would be a bit pointless.

Yeah I'm dedicating myself quite a bit to the next update and indeed the shiny chance is higher, about 1/100. Mostly because of Fakemon but so far Bouffalant and Kecleon also have custom shinies

 

[Lucifer]

and the Headdoom line is already Plague/Dark so it would be a bit pointless.

Oh sick. I am looking forward to getting that line, I don't know if you can tell ( )but Houndoom is one of my favs.
I was wondering if it was Plauge/Dark or Plauge/Fire, and I think I prefer Dark.

 

[Curleh]

Thanks for playing!

1. That is already been addressed in the next update. Almost every single Hidden Power instance on Vanilla has been cut until Dewford (since you get Hidden Power there) and some of the weirdly high BP moves have been slightly lowered.

2. Yeah that's something that's been on discussion already but at the same time it's pretty much impossible and no way in hell I would enable exp gain from it.

3. That's just the regular level up moveset of Raticate with the levels slightly tweaked lol. But anyway it's the only Plague/Normal "regular zombie" that the player has access to (that is a term I made for the zombies that aren't stuff like Slaking and Lati@s that will remain boss only until postgame) and the Headdoom line is already Plague/Dark so it would be a bit pointless.

Yeah I'm dedicating myself quite a bit to the next update and indeed the shiny chance is higher, about 1/100. Mostly because of Fakemon but so far Bouffalant and Kecleon also have custom shinies

I think sporadic use of HP makes for a better experience. Thank you for making a change

 

[Sun Moon]

Cutlerine has no idea what "pure hell" means in a Pokemon game. Pokemon Snakewood was ridiculously easy compared to actual
hellish fangames like Pokemon Clover and Pokemon Reborn. Get some of the OP Pokemon Cutlerine created like Kenchukuo and
Radiorange and you'll breeze through the game. Keep doing what you're doing, A¹¹. Game looks excellent. Vanilla mode should satisfy
the "too hard" babies.

 

[Lucifer]

It would seem that Pickup is not working. I have a Pickup Lioone that I have at times carried during grinding and it has never picked up a single thing.

Cutlerine has no idea what "pure hell" means in a Pokemon game. Pokemon Snakewood was ridiculously easy compared to actual
hellish fangames like Pokemon Clover and Pokemon Reborn. Get some of the OP Pokemon Cutlerine created like Kenchukuo and
Radiorange and you'll breeze through the game. Keep doing what you're doing, A¹¹. Game looks excellent. Vanilla mode should satisfy
the "too hard" babies.

I concur that Snakewood is no Reborn but I don't believe Culterine's form of 'pure hell' was exclusive to how difficult the battles were, but also the ridiculous puzzle designs and dialogue and other such aspects.

For example, the Isle of Calm, the fact that there is a staircase in the base that spits back out at the beginning point of the isle and the Deadly Seven nonsense and even more so the personal trivia at the end that it's not possible for us to know.
It didn't bother me in the original as someone who has a sense of humor and the common sense to use save states and even less so in this remaster but at least one Youtuber I watch got frustrated with it (btw, his frustration is actually hilarious as opposed to off putting at least in my opinion), and it feels as though Culterine intended that.

There is no need for naming calling. It's great that you found the original easy but not everyone is you.
There is nothing babish about preferring vanillia. Some people just prefer to focus on the plot than on competitive strategies and neither Koncukuo nor Radiorange are in this remaster right now, so that's fine for the original but not something that can be considered to get someone through this demo.

I do however agree, A11 (I can't figure out how to get that exponential format on here, it doesn't seem to be an option in the forum editor), that you're doing great.

 

[chrispy97]

is their a way to get that cyndaquil?

 

[A¹¹]

is their a way to get that cyndaquil?

as in the vanilla snakewood, there is a hidden passage in the trees in the shakya monastery, from there you unlock quest that allows you to get one of the 3 johto starters

 

[chrispy97]

Can some please explain how to get past the damned base puzzle. It doesn't seem to be the same as the OG one

 

[litenite]

hey, I love the idea of this fanmake. Great work! I can't imagine the amount of effort that went into this. I was wondering if you had an easy way to share the lines of dialogue for a project I'm working on?? I found them in the data, but there's an encoding and some extra metadata apparently. Check out

for the first installment (hand-typed all the lines lol).

 

[Stragona_The_Alcremie]

the island of calm base puzzle is way to confusing.

 

[Fridge_Slamer]

the island of calm base puzzle is way to confusing.

thats kinda the point, first you have to defeat the nine members of the deadly seven, then you acctualy find out how to infultrate the bad guys base, and THEN you suffer (kiddin')

 

[chrispy97]

thats kinda the point, first you have to defeat the nine members of the deadly seven, then you acctualy find out how to infultrate the bad guys base, and THEN you suffer (kiddin')

is their a map through the teleporting room? as i have spent a couple days now on and off trying too get through

 

[A¹¹]

is their a map through the teleporting room? as i have spent a couple days now on and off trying too get through

first of all sorry for you getting stuck there but here is a solution that MIGHT work, I've heard mixed results and as one would expect it's not that easy to replicate 1:1 a puzzle in a completely different engine in a different art style, a good tip is to quicksave with the S button before every step then soft-reset using F12 if you fail

 

[Michael371701]

How long will it take to complete this demos playthrough?

 

[chrispy97]

first of all sorry for you getting stuck there but here is a solution that MIGHT work, I've heard mixed results and as one would expect it's not that easy to replicate 1:1 a puzzle in a completely different engine in a different art style, a good tip is to quicksave with the S button before every step then soft-reset using F12 if you fail
View attachment 167217

Thank you! I meant to say it earlier, but got caught up in black myth.

 

[TheArkhomDestroyer]

Is there a list of the current zombie pokemon in game? I kinda wanna see if I can throw together a few cries as a way to test out my audio editing skills