Tomas Elliot

Azery said he would make the announcement. Knowing him, this might take a while Watch him forget the "the following announcement" banner

Still waiting for this topic to be pinned

I came up with a ton of possible answers to this but... Dem spoilers. I can only say, just wait and see. Also of note is that the ace Pokemon of the FIRST gym leader has a bases stat (not revealing which one) that is THE SINGLE HIGHEST in Graterras. Now that I think about it, the third gym is probably going to be way easier than the first two, and not for lack of difficulty in the third battle lol.

Ok I added a point discussing the plot aspect to the OP. It consists of two parts: the first part is a copy-paste of Anvilicious' post, while the second is a thought of my own. Again, thanks to Anvilicious for his contribution, and thank to all of you for the attention this guide is grtting! I genuinely hope it will help the many people out there who dream of one day creating a fangame...

This is a very true point, but how do I fit it in the "do not" format of the OP? Maybe I could say "do not overlook the plot"? Anyway I gotta leave for now, if you come up with more a more detailed suggestion regarding this point post it here, and I will add it to the OP when I get back. Thanks for the contribution

Nitpicker <.< With two thirds of the current views, that topic would STILL be the most viewed in the section, so there. Also, with that example I was trying to get a point across, and the point in question did account for the same individuals returning over and over again. As a matter of fact, the fact that people keep returning to a topic is exactly what that point was all about: what I was trying to say is that people need to come up with ways to encourage viewers to come back to their topic. Heck look at this very forum: Reborn grew so big and so succesful because people kept coming back to it in the early stages, and that happened because Ame was able to offer something that at the time was new (and now isn't merely because of her and the many who tried to emulate her). So yeah, to keep people coming back to their topic, those who start a fangame project should also try and offer something that is new, that was my point.

Don't quote the entire OP if your post amounts to two lines, it makes it hard to read <.< And you are actually right, fixing. I can't even

http://www.pokemonreborn.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16403 I have put all my thoughts in regards to people who want to start fangame projects, as well as my advices for them, in that topic. Feel free to check it out

Ok so, as the amount of people who post in this section with new ideas for fangames increases by the day, I think it's about time for me to give them some much needed advice: I am not suggesting that this topic is pinned just because I am an attention-seeking son of a gun, you see. Well mainly for that, but also because I strongly believe people should read this before posting a "hey help me make my Pokemon fangame" topic. Because you see, the fact is that I am probably the most qualified person on this planet to give this kind of advice: oh sure, Ame is the one who knows how things are done, but I, with my years and years and years and years of failed attempts, of projects that started only to go nowhere and fail miserably, of entire new forums created and then left there to die, am the one who knows how things are NOT done. And I think that, for a person who dreams of one day creating a fangame, it would be important to know what are the mistakes that can potentially kill their awesome idea, as to avoid to commit them. And being a guy who has committed all of those mistakes in his life, I take it upon myself to make a topic detailing them. In other words: in a brilliant topic posted elsewhere Hilda told you what you should do. Here I will tell you what you should NOT do. Here goes: 1) DO NOT EXPECT OTHERS TO BE AT YOUR SERVICE Too many times, both here and on pokemoncommunity, I have seen people making topics in which they said "Hey I have this awesome idea for a fangame, I need spriters, mappers, coders". That is a very common, and very poisonous, mistake, which can kill your idea before it even gets started. You cannot expect others to take your already completed idea and just build it for you as you demand, you cannot expect others to put their unpaid efforts into something that is not theirs. You cannot plan out your game, and then look for a team to build it for you: planning is something you need to do WITH the team. And more importantly, you cannot make it so that your contribution to your own project is something separated from the contributions of the other team members: you cannot just throw the idea on the table, then sit back and watch your team members as they build it for you, you gotta do your part, be it writing the dialogues, mapping, spriting, coding, or whatever the heck you are good at. If you aren't good at anything that is useful when making a Pokemon game, you might want to rethink your plans. 2) DO NOT EXPECT A PROJECT TO MAGICALLY FALL INTO PLACE If, as I said in the point above, planning is something you gotta do with the team, it follows logically that you should create, if not a complete team, at least an embryo of a team, a core to build on, before making your topic. Like, before making your topic, you should be sure that at least one crucial aspect of the game is covered, either because you can do it yourself or because you have a reliable team mate who can do it. This leads me to the second point: you cannot, and in fact you must not, expect your project to magically fall into place. You cannot say "Oh well I know I got that part covered, so let's just make a topic and see what happens". Everything that is under your control, everything that you know is covered for by either you or a reliable team mate that you contacted upon first creating the project, must be carefully discussed and planned out BEFORE making your topic, so that you have something you can offer to potential contributors, so that you can provide accurate replies to their questions. Too many times I have seen people interested in helping with the coding posting in topics to ask "what kind of features do you want to implement?" only for the topic starter to provide vague, inaccurate answers. Just to make an example: Pokemon Se7en was born when I contacted Zim, and together we started coming up with ideas for Fakemon. This happened in late february, with Hukuna eventually joining us to help plan the plot along the way. The public topic in which we started looking for help, eventually recreuiting technical staff (spriters, coders ec) was started in late MAY. That's THREE MONTHS of planning, of defining elements, of deciding the setting, of coming up with features we wanted to be in the game: when Nova, Calvius, Azery, Dark and Elly joined us, we were able to immediately tell them exactly what we needed them to do, and the project soon got started. If you cannot be precise in telling your contributors exactly what you want them to do, you cannot expect your project to fall into place. It's simple as that. 3) DO NOT OVERSTEP YOUR LIMITS This is something I have to beat Nova over the head with every day. There are important features, and there are extra features. The style of the sprites and tilesets, the Pokemon available to be caught and the amount of gyms are important features. Field effects and online function are extra features. Important features should be planned before you even make your topic, as detaled in the points above. Extra features should only be planned out AFTER your team is complete and, more importantly, AFTER you have a full grasp of what each member of the team can do. Basically, FIRST you gather a team, THEN you have them explain to you exactly what they are capable of, AND THEN you decide which extra features you will, well, feature. There's no point in deciding "Oh lol field effects are so cool I am going to have those" if none of your coders can actually make them without messing up the PBS. There is no point in wanting an online feature if nobody in your team can host a server. In other words, you should only have what is strictly necessary when you start: extras should be added later, and should depend entirely on the abilities of your coders. If you are aware that something is just too much for you, just don't include it. A well-done Pokemon with a few extras is better than a game with lots of extras that is a complete mess, with lots of bugs and fatal errors. And notice that "abilities" here does not mean JUST what your coders CAN do, it also includes what your coders ARE WILLING to do. Again, coders put their UNPAID efforts into making your game: they take away precious time from their studies, from their job, from their families to do so. Therefore, it should be evident that you can only push them that far: if a feature is technically possible, but requires your coders to put more time into the project that they can afford given their current IRL situation, then it is better to leave that feature out. 4) DO NOT EXPECT VAGUENESS TO ATTRACT INTEREST This has more to do with the "marketing" aspect of your game: with 16064 views, Pokemon Se7en's topic is the one that attracted the most attention in the Fangame Exposé section. Do you know why? It's because we have something concrete to offer: there is a very specific trait that defines our game and, as long as we are willing to reveal more details concerning that defining trait, people will come back for more. If your game doesn't have a defining trait, you are better off not posting a topic untill it does: you cannot expect a generic plot with a "I would like to feature this and that" to be enough to attract people's interest. And no, having all the 700+ Pokemon catchable and all the starters selectable is NOT a defining trait, nor is having 18 gyms: both Reborn and Rejuv already are famous all over the internet for these aspects, so there is nothing fresh or defining about them. Sure, you CAN have these aspects in yout game too, but you cannot expect people to flock to your game JUST for them, you need to offer something else too. And this does not apply only to potential customers, it also applies to potential contributors: upon joining said, Azery explicitly said that he had been persuaded by the sheer amount of work we had put in the project before even making the topic. But how could he know how much work we had put into it? Easy: we had a lot of details to provide in the OP of our topic. If your topic has an OP with lots of details, including some juicy defining traits that will keep people coming back, you will be succesful, if your OP essentially amounts to "I want to make a game with this generic plot, I need mappers spriters coders"... Well, not so much. You need to give something to people if you want people to give something to you. 5) DO NOT OVERLOOK THE PLOT (brought to you by Anvilicious) Video games can be a story-telling medium, like films and novels, with some exceptions. Pokemon is not one of the exceptions. It's so easy to get caught up in spriting, mapping, and coding, probably because that's what comes to mind when making a video game. But with all the cool game play ideas, putting effort into a compelling plot and strong characterization is often forgotten. You could come up with two hundred original fakemon, and throw in twenty new and intricate field effects for good measure; this might get the player through a couple episodes. But you can't bury a boring, cookie-cutter Pokemon plot and bland, uninspired characters under a mound of 'features'. After the dazzling glamour of your shiny new things has worn off, people will realize your game has nothing else to offer and walk away. What keeps even the most casual players (those who are frustrated by every gym) coming back to Reborn is because they can't leave the amazing story incomplete; let alone abandon the characters they've grown so fond of. Without it's plot, Reborn is just an infuriatingly hard Pokemon game with a lot of field effects. The number one thing you are doing with a Pokemon game is telling a story. Good quality sprites and maps are essential features to have, don't get me wrong. But fakemon and even Reborn's infamous field effects are also just features. These things are supporting material used to enhance the story, not the driving reason for someone to play the game. And that's the part contributed by Anvilicious, which I merely copy-pasted because it contains many true things. However, allow me to include a thought of my own: a product as succesful as Pokemon, a franchise that has lated two full decades now, owes its success to some specific, easily recognizable core aspects. Like, all Pokemon games begin in a certain way, expand on the plot in a certain way, develop the gameplay in a certain way, and end in a certain way. While innovating the forumula and including new elements is important, preserving these core aspects is also important: making a game with linear gameplay and a cookie-cutter plot is a mistake, but making a game with an overcomplex plot, whose themes deal with stuff that has nothing to do with Pokemon, and overlooking the core aspects that make a Pokemon game a Pokemon game, is also a mistake. For a fangame to be succesful, it needs to find the perfect balance between plot and gameplay, between innovation and core aspects, between flashy features and juicy plot twists, between complexity and linearity. This is probably the most difficult part of creating a succesful game, but most people who venture in this world for the first time tend to adopt a (completely wrong) "For now let me learn RPG Maker and gather some spriters, we'll figure out the plot as we go" mindset. I really cannot stress enough how wrong this is: looking for the perfect balance between all the elements discussed in this point should be your top priority when planning your fangame. 6) DO NOT USE JUST GLITCH'S MUSIC This is a personal rant: Glitchxcity is the coolest girl in the universe, her music is great, and some of her tracks in particular are so good and fitting of certain situations that it is a pity not to use them... But seriously, each and every fangame in this world uses her creations, so be creative, don't use ONLY her tracks. There are dozens of composers out there, try something else for a change <.< Well, this is all. I surely hope, from the bottom of my heart, that this will help you in your endeavors, or at least that it will make you realize that you are not ready just yet: I have made all of these mistakes in the past, so here's hoping that, by putting my personal experience at your service, I will be able to prevent you from making the same mistakes.

I know by direct experience that one-Pokemon runs are ridiculously easy in canon games for a simple reason: you end up outleveling your opponents by some 15 levels, so what you lose in coverage/type matchup you gain in raw stats. But in Reborn there is that little thing called "level cap"...

Also if I may... I think that stories that deal with such huge themes (for what I understand, your idea basically deals with post-apocalyptic scenarios) are not that good for Pokemon games, which is a problem that, to MUCH a lesser extent, I have with Reborn too. What I am trying to say: if the story is all about what this human character is doing to that other human character, and/or what the relationship between this and that human is, and/or how humans adapt to a post-apocalyptic scenario and "extend their existance", then their Pokemon end up being out of focus. Like, it's you vs the legendary that is the focus of the story. The Pokemon you use to face it pretty much feel like tools, and not like creatures you bond with. In other words, instead of having a story about Pokemon which just happens to deal with certain themes, you risk ending up having a story about dealing with certain themes which just happens to feature Pokemon. I don't know if I managed to get my point across, but if I did please try and keep this in mind.

(although you probably need to know who Vince Russo is to get the joke)

Everyone don't worry, this is a lie: it is not as bad as he is making it sound. The ace of the second gym leader doesn't have the second highest Atk in the game. It actually has the third highest

Well TBH thw guy did use WoW against a sub... And you are crazy to disrespect Landorus like that, if it was the Scarf vatiant you would have lost Hoopa to inevitable U-turn there and then... But now I am curious, what set do you use to outspeed Gardevoir and Lando, and still be able to take a neutral hit (albeit admittedly non-STAB) without the sub breaking?

You cannot even come close to imagining how much you will regret asking these two things...

The fact is that there is a person with a... Uh... Particularly important parental figure. Revealing anything about their relationship in particular would give away a relevant part of the plot and well, we are particularly proud of what we are doing for the plot (although sensei is still ignoring my latest post on the matter ;-; ), so yeah, this is as far as we reveal. You'll have to wait for the game to know more about parents and whatnot

Too bad I have no free time and a shaky internet connection, this topic actually made me curious about trying the game...

Legal for the Little Cup tier. Which means, a Pokemon that is unevolved and CAN evolve, so no standalone Pokemon and no Pokemon that are evos of something else. This is a tricky question. We have one Pokemon that is draconic, evolves very late, is placed right before the legendaries in the Pokedex and has a BST of 600 (which would be the textbook definition of "pseudo-legendary"). However, we also have a Pokemon that is only found in a marginal area, takes long to evolve and has a monstrous Atk stat (akin to Haxorus, which for a while was mistaken for a pseudo by some), and we also have another Pokemon that, while not a legendary nor a pseudo, is actually on par with both in terms of raw power... So yeah, figuring out what is what might prove tricky at some point PLEASE NOT IN THIS TOPIC. Use private messages ;-; And sorry for not replying myself Red, but I honestly don't remember (I blame the hour and the heat) ;-;

Funny that you would say that... You know how Jericho has been asking for a while that we publicly announce the Pokemon he contributed? Well, that's an Ice-type Pokemon. And as I told him, it WILL get announced, just not now, because it is our precise policy to announce the things that will be possible to see/catch in the first two chapters first. Once we are done with those, we will move onto announcing other stuff, so be patient... Although I am afraid that the strongest Ice-type Pokemon of Graterras is a standalone that does not evolve, so yeah, our policy is to only announce LC-legal Pokemon, which means you will have to wait for the game to see that one :/