GrovyleTheThief

Some context regarding certain characters

Okay, I think it's high time to tell you were I got the ideas of some of the characters in the game. I mean hey, the main games almost done so why not right? So let's start off with Mischief. He was a character that I thought about when I was replaying Pokémon super mystery dungeon. You may have noticed how similar the partner and Mischief were. That was intentional. The only difference is that Mischief actually makes up with Bloom by the end of chapter 2. Oh yeah, remember Bloom? Well, back in the early versions of the game, she wasn't really likable very much and the reason for that is because I browsed the Pokémon mystery dungeon subreddit one time and found that a lot of people really didn't like super's partner in the slightest. I never really understood why. Yes, they had a habit of dragging you through their mess but they still cared about you. Later on in the game, the partner actually grows and we see it. Bloom was based off of the player of super albeit loosely. Now, she has more emotion than just annoyance of Mischief. She's shown to have some regret for some of the things she said. Next character on list I'd like to talk about is the fairy type gym leader. Honestly, I can relate to her because she and I have done some really bad things in the past and we beat ourselves up for it. Later on, we realize that being so hard on yourself won't fix anything and we make up for it in the end. And finally we get to Ampharos himself. I intend for him to have the same personality he had from super mystery dungeon the main difference being there's some 

actual depth to his character. my attempt at this was to have a tragic backstory where he was bullied as a little Mareep and because of it, he develops an inferiority complex but later on, he'll grow out of it and become the character he is later. So there's you some context. I was thinking long and hard posting this to get my thoughts out and keep going foreword. By the way, I'm not working on the next update for awhile so you might have to wait awhile on that. Oh and besides, after he break, work on the game might be slowed because you know, life gets in the way. Nevertheless, thank you for sticking around for this post and I'll see you guys when I'm back.

v6 maps

I suppose it's time to settle the deal. So hey welcome back to another dev post. (Man, I'm running out of things to say at this point. Someone send help...) This time, I have some maps to share today but as Ampharos once said in game, I can't show all my cards you know! So lets get on with it shall we? 

I have feeling this version will be pretty chilly! Because this time, you'll be going to some pretty cold locations. One of them being Route 6. It's known to have amazing views at night not only that but it's quite a pretty sight to behold! According to rumors, there's a frism hidden here. For those that played Gates to infinity, you would know what that is but for those of you that didn't, frisms basically record your voice and you would have to warm them up if you wish to hear it.

Up next we have a little snippet of Crystal Cave. It's well known for having an entire cave made of crystal and there are bridges scattered around so travelers would have to interact with crystals in order to traverse the cave. It feels like such an adventure to go through here! Oh and to top it all off, one of the lake guardians reside here. Which one however? That's a secret!

And now it's time roll out the pink carpet for Dreamland City! It is the only place in the entire region that has a royal family ruling over a city and it resides at the end of crystal cave! It's known as "The city of fantasy" since the citizens love to dress in whimsical colors like pink, green, yellow, and purple. The most common one being pink because it represents their love of the royal family for caring for their citizens and leading them in times of trouble. One of which was when Yveltal tried to take the world for itself. During the event, they brainwashed the princess's mind and caused people to starve and suffer from the beatings she orders the guards to do. Eventually, she snapped out of it only to realize that she harmed her own citizens. She thought of herself to be a monster that deserves to suffer. Even though the citizens are forgiving, the princess still locked herself away in her own room because she considers herself to be a danger to everyone and lives in regret ever since.

And that all there is for today! The next steps I have to deal with is interior buildings, eventing, sprites, and making battles. We're so close to the end game that I can almost taste it but there's still two more version left after this. v8 being the longest because there are so many locations I have to map as well as the main story to tie itself together in a neat little bow. Until then, I'll see you guys later!

v6 characters

Well, well, well, back at it again with another dev post and this time, I may not have many new characters probably due to the fact that I don't want to have the too many characters complaint that both Reborn and Rejuvenation have. Anyways, here's two new characters for the version.

Make way for the princess of Dreamland City! For this is princess Fiona, a deeply troubled and regretful girl who was brainwashed by Yveltal via Dark Matter and she harmed her own citizens during the conflict with Xerneas and Yveltal. She eventually recovered from the brainwashing but realized how horrid her actions were and locked herself up in her room. Since then, she's refused to come out and constantly beats herself up. But when she get's a message from Ampharos, she considers this an opportunity to redeem herself for her actions. She is the fairy type gym leader.

I wonder who this is? Not much is known about this man but the rumor is, he's the president of the Aeolus region. ( Yes, Gate's to infinity's region is coming eventually. But that's postgame.) If true, then what happened to the last one? Pretty ominous!

And that's all the new characters for the version! Let's hope I got you thinking about future events later down the line. come again where I show off some maps. Thanks for popping in and see you soon!

Next week, v6 will start production. I took a break after releasing the behemoth that was v5 since that was a very big update in terms of story and gameplay. v6 is when I'm gonna add nature mints and hm items because it's a little weird to add this stuff near the end of the main game. Speaking of which, I'm nearly done with it so I hope you look foreword to all the crazy stuff that's gonna happen. The main game will end off with a bang! But right now, v5 was just a small little taste of how insane the next 3 versions will be.  Anyways, that's all I have to add. Tune in next time where I show some progress. Thanks for the support and I hope you expect more from me! 

Chapter 5 characters

Man, it's been forever since I posted this. But oh well, better late then never right? So here are the characters that'll show up in chapter 5.

Meet the shy yet brave gym leader, Skylar. He's the protagonists' cousin and like the dark type leader, he was handed it by his father the only difference is that this father retired due to having walking problems so the league passed it onto Skylar. He's known to be one of the harder gym leaders in the Temporal region because he uses a Tailwind setup and if he sets that up, you will be walled pretty hard.

Over here, we have Draco, the dragon type leader. He's also the the region's dragon master. Wow, quite the resume huh? And to top it all off, he's part of the protagonists' family and he was known to be quite charming at parties. He took in some of the regions most famous people to train them to be better. Among them are Ampharos and Mawile. Both of which left to find their purpose in life.

Lastly, we have one of the elite four join us. Her name is Wendy. She's known for her excellent talents in engineering and mathematics.

She's considered to be a "human calculator" who can do all the math in her head and give you the answer you wish to hear. She's also quite a chatterbox when you let her go on about how things work. She is the grandmother of the protagonist and if you hurt her family, she might just go crazy. 

And that's all folks! Next post will be the release of version 5: Reunion. Hey what do you know? I teased the chapter name! I'm actually super excited to release a more polished version. The older ones had pesky grammar errors and chapter 2 was just so bad that I ended up revamping it entirely to make the player care for Mischief and Bloom. Not only that, but Buizel got more screen time as well. I hope to see you guys later!

Map showcase

Hey and welcome to yet another dev post where I show off some stuff that I've finished recently. With that out of the way, let's get this thing started!

So over here, we have Route 5. A place that is known for being quite hot since areas around Treasure Town are in a tropical region. This is where I thought about putting trees on mountains and this is what I got. Pretty huh? 

And speaking of Treasure Town, look what we got here! I know it looks different in this game but because of how Pokémon essentials is with tiles, the least I could do is at least make it close to the place. The difference here is that, I used light grass because I thought it looked a lot

nicer. Oh and while you explore around here, you might come across a house with a lot of books in it and it looks quite old. Hmm, I wonder who the previous owner was?

And last but not least is the beach. Look, I know it looks kinda empty but I tried my best to make it. But any who, this beach is known for pretty sunsets. I wonder if a certain side quest  will be here? No spoilers of course!

And that's all I've got right now. I'm getting quite close to finishing up this version. All that's left to do now is spriting, eventing, and some testing to iron out any bugs I can find. See y'all later okay?

Conflicted on adding field effects

Honestly, after looking into it for awhile, I realized that I'm not really an experienced scripter for essentials whatsoever and maybe I may have lied

about adding them. Well, not on purpose. I thought it wasn't going to take much but boy was I wrong! Maybe I'll add them at some point maybe not it but I'll still work on the game anyways. Not every fangame needs to be like the Reborn games and looking at it now, I could definitely see why. Most people just want a juicy story and fun gameplay if you think about it. And I'll try to deliver by rewriting weaker parts of the game and make grinding less tedious by adding audino trainers. In the future, you may buy nature mints and hm items man, QOL go brr! Speaking of rewriting the early game, I'm almost done I just need to finish chapter 2 and then v5 content will be worked on. Thanks to everyone who supported me and I hope you guys get well and that's all I have to say. Peace.

Early game revamp news

Hey guys, I'm happy to announce the next part of the early game revamps and fair warning, after this, I won't touch it again until criticism shows up at the front door. But anyways, onto to the news.

So the first one I can show is the first city. Honestly, this looks fresher than the last one. I just added too many flowers and called it a day but this one, I moved buildings around, made a new tileset, and rewrote the game a little bit.

This next one is fogbound lake and you may notice that it looks a lot closer it's mystery dungeon counterpart and it looks more full than the previous iterations of this map. And it looks quite beautiful to boot.

And the one that me and a lot of you people have been waiting for, a better, more cleaner version of Serene Village. To be honest, v2 was probably my least favorite version because the maps looked a little clunky and writing here was kinda weak. I'm actually quite excited to rewrite this portion since it cleans up some holes and gives the player some time to get attached to the main characters of the chapter.

And that's all I have for now. Be sure to check again in the future! As, this version is shaping up to be quite large and there are a lot of new things in this version. I hope to see you all soon!

So you wanna know why I'm not working on v5? It's because I was playing Pokémon soulstones since I dropped it once and picked it back up and I now know what made me drop it, boring and repetitive gameplay, shallow characters, and the fact that I personally find it a chore to play all things considered. The only thing pushing me is the interesting plot but the thing about is that yeah, you can have the most interesting plot in the world but to me, if I have no attachment to the characters, I will get disinterested eventually and do something else. At this point, I'm just gonna go back to work on the game tomorrow and do that instead. I don't hate soulstones but man, the game's kinda boring right now. 

My feelings toward Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon

So after beating the game, I honestly didn't really see the problems with the story other than the twist regarding mew but I found it to be quite endearing. I know to some it may be corny but, I like it when the characters work together and do things that the main character doesn't do. It reminds me of Rejuvenation where they do the exact same thing and they both have some of the best Pokémon stories I've ever experienced. Sorry to disappoint the people that come here to follow my game's development and all they get is a post about my feelings but if you guys are reading this, thanks! But anyway, I don't think the game needs a huge rewrite, just a little one with the mew twist and it would be great. The amount of criticism the game receives is quite shocking to me and I just didn't really get most of them to begin with. If my game gets the same treatment, I don't think improving it would be possible. That aside, the characters are endearing, the music fits so many scenes, I could go on and on about how wonderful the story felt but I don't intend on spamming word vomit. That said, thanks for sticking around for the post and I hope I'll have something to show off when v5's development begins. See you later!

Chapter 4 progress

Hi again! So, remember when I said there wasn't much to show last version? Well that's because it was rather short and that's about it. Chapter 4 is a start of the early game revamps but I cant show them all. Not only that but there's also quite a lot more story than chapter 3. It involves your rivals, a character you've seen before at the beginning of the game, an actors son, and yet another admin who seems more reserve and more suspicious than the other 2. In fact, he seems to have some sort of secret that if revealed would get him killed! Oh, and more Ampharos lore. Yeah at this point I'm clearly hyping him up quite a bit but the truth is, I'm actually excited to be almost there so don't hold it against me! But, let's get on with the show shall we?

You know when I first made this city, it didn't really scream "City of nature" at all. But now it really does and I feel like I'm onto to something here. There's more flowers, a more nicer design, and it's just slightly better for the most part.

Ok so maybe Serene village looks nothing like it's mystery dungeon counterpart but at least it looks slightly less clunky. In chapter 6, I hope to completely remake this entire map it still looks to be quite barebones as of right now. And that's all for the old now onto the new!

I know this seems quite shorter than route 3 but it's fine as it is. Anyway, I was inspired by Rejuvenation a little bit and got an area pretty similar to goldenleaf Town. I feel this is where people might take this game to be a ripoff of Rejuv but it's really not. 

Oh and speaking of which, in this city, people absolutely hate outsiders with a passion but it wasn't always this way. 10 years before Lucas/Dawn

arrives to the Temporal region, a power plant that was built here seemed to have a meltdown. No one knows how it happened and the only that knows would be the CEO of Voltorb energies but he disappeared shortly after and no one has seen him since. A popular theory is that outsiders caused the meltdown but there's no evidence suggesting that outsiders did it. Things get worse when a famous actor took their own life for an unknown reason. The thing is, that actor was the original dark gym leader only for it to be passed to his son and the only thing he did was just lock himself up at their house to mourn their loss in peace. Since then, people do not take so kindly to strangers and would most likely out them out. And that's all I have to show right now! As you can see, this version seems to be quite larger than last one. Oh by the way, I fixed trade evolution. You can thank me later. Until next time, peace! 

Hey so I took a break and while I was at it, I replayed Reborn and realized I was a little too harsh on it and while there were some terrible story moments like with the Apophyll arc where to me, everyone made some very stupid decisions and Kiki being a selfish jerk and Cal being stupid too.

The only positive thing I got was Victoria's character development but she's up there with 90 percent of the cast I don't like. Here are the 10 percent I do like, Aya, Shelly, Lumi, Eve, Taka, Charlotte, and Titania. Also, I didn't like the fact there were so many puzzles and they all feel like a chore to deal with. But I'm not gonna rag on Reborn mainly because I'm well aware that the community understands that the game isn't perfect and there are some flaws. But then again, nothing made by people is perfect. Neither is my game... Oh and speaking of which, I'll start working on chapter 4 tomorrow. I made this post just to get my thoughts out and make an announcement on my project. I hope you all have a wonderful day! 

So remember when I said technical stuff would improve in chapter 2 well they did but not the chapter itself. I'm sorry to the people experiencing a very unpolished buggy game... But I'm not gonna beat myself up! Instead, I'll try to rectify the issues with chapter 3. And the reason I didn't really show much on it is because it's rather short. But be aware that I don't intend on rushing this game like I had the last two versions. Oh, and for people that want Mareep, you'll hopefully get it next version! 

So I wanted to let you guys know my break schedule. I usually take a break for a couple days and then back to game deving. But, there might be instances where I might not have the time to work on the game so be prepared for that cause I'll probably get a job soon and then there's college to deal with. You know, the usual life stuff. Oh and since we're here, chapter 3 development is on the way so be sure to keep an eye out! 

Tune in next time! And remember, please don't do anything stupid just cause you're bored!

Chapter 2 Map update

So this version for me feels like an improvement but I might get to Rejuv's level of graphics one day. But here some snippets of maps that got a little overhauled and some new ones as well. So let's get this little dev post started shall we?

Hey look, I made Route one look a little less barren this time! But perhaps when we get into near the end of the main game, I'll revamp it even more but not when I'm still in the early versions.

So this is a city I put little bit of a touch up but it's less empty. For now at least.. That's it for the previous areas, now onto the new.

Route 2, a place mostly famous for the pretty surroundings and the ranch where Chief Ampharos was born. This is a part where I made my own tiles and it looks amazing so far! Maybe when I get an artist, the tile sets will look even better! 

Lush forest is a location from Super mystery dungeon and despite what people may say about that game, you got to admit that the locations look pretty good. Except this is my version of the location and I think it looks close to it.

Hey remember that area where you rescued a Goomy? Well, here it is. This is a place that is infamous for having people be spooked by wild Pokémon out of nowhere.  

And the last place I'd like to present is Serene Village and no you won't be here the entire time. Serene Village is very infamous in the PMD community for being the slowest part of Super. But in this game, it's just a place where people would go for a more peaceful life. 

And that's it for this update, as I'm looking at it, it seems to be quite longer than chapter 1 and I hope you enjoy all the content it has to offer!

And now starts another painful round of eventing and this time, it might take me a little longer than last time. Wish me luck!

Chapter 2 character showcase

Wow, I'm surprised that spriting this time around is pretty short in comparison to the previous version. To be honest, I was barrowing someone else's sprites and I did give credit don't worry! But those sprites (except the Pokémon sprites, but I did give credit. I don't want to steal.)  are replaced now and I only needed to do around 5 of them luckily for me. Since we're on the topic of characters, take a look. 

Mischief

Hey so remember when I said I'm gonna try to rewrite the 3ds mystery dungeon games? Well, here's Super's partner and I'll make him self aware and actually care for his friends. Or so that's what the Pokémon mystery dungeon subreddit is triggered about. But if I were to say every complaint I've heard, We'd be here all day. Anyway, this is Mischief ( yes, I did base them off of a streamer's lets play.) He's a playful yet chaotic Riolu who kind of drags his friend to trouble and he is somewhat aware of the problems they're causing and is a nice but troubled kid. Also, he's the gym leader of Serene Village.

Bloom

(See above for the inspiration since this is also the streamer's choice.)  Bloom is a Chikorita that you don't want to anger lest she gives you an entire essay as to what your flaws are. Though she gets annoyed with her friend a lot, she loves him conditionally and would do anything to keep Mischief around. She's the reserve grass gym leader and not many battle her but she focuses on doubles rather than singles.

Krystal

The last character I want to show off is another Team Emerald admin. Her name is Krystal. Born from a super rich family, she prioritizes money over anything else and shows no remorse for her actions. She's cold, calculating, and a step above Shirley and is proud of all of it. This is a snake that once crossed, you'll never hear the end of it.

And that's it for the chapter 2 update. The next one will be about some map overhauls. Thanks for reading!

Hey guys, I took a little break since the last version and development of chapter 2 is starting tomorrow and btw if anyone asks when Nikos' gonna come back, it would be after the main game (first 8 badges) is done. I just wanted to have a little cameo for a character in the post game ( next 8 badges). But let's get back to the present for now. Here's what I'm gonna try to do for the next version; improved exterior maps, replace the placeholder sprites with original ones, and more character interaction. Hope it goes well and that's all folks!

Update

I finally finished mapping and it took not as much time as I was expecting but we did it! Now to move to the technical stuff like eventing and editing some PBS files. I swear, the technical stuff will straight up give me a migraine since I have to figure out what the mistake is. Oh well!  As always, thanks for tuning in and I'll see you next time!

Map Teasers

Well, it's that time again but this time, I have some maps I would like to share for the game.

This is Crystal Town, a town that takes place in a desert and despite the harsh climate, It's quite welcoming to outsiders and here is where a trainer's journey starts.

Here's Route 1, you might think it's going to be a cake walk to get to the next town but other trainers beg to differ.

Ah, the city of nature. A nice tranquil place to spend your time in. Friendly people, a library to get lost in reading a book, this place seems like home for travelers but keep in mind, it wasn't like this 15 years ago. Instead, it was a terrible urban area that had pollution, increased crime, not so nice people, you know, the usual. But then a certain someone petitioned the mayor of DragonBorn city to make this city better.

In all seriousness, this is my first time mapping so if you have any tips to improve then lay it on me. Otherwise, thanks for tuning in and following the development.