[OFFICIAL Q&A] Ask the Rejuvenation dev team!

[MetrololAce]

Am I the only one who feels the story and its characters have gotten a bit convoluted? 

Its something I've been feeling for a while now, but the situation with Nim has really made me feel like characters have gotten out of control in this game.

I feel it is a symptom of the episodic releases, where we are away for some months, then come back to massive character development minutes into the episode.

 

Not that any of this is bad, but how have you managed it? Is the story written to completion already with structured plans and finales for all these characters? 

I worry that introducing so many characters in so many different contexts will be very overwhelming when, down the road, some one tries to play through this fully released game in a couple sittings. 

[Marmalade]

I haven't finished v12 yet, so sorry if these questions are already answered in the current release!

Seeing as the Garufa tried to keep mega evolution locked away in the hidden library, is that mega ring special compared to other mega rings or are characters that can currently mega evolve associated with the Garufa in some way? Also, will we see more Sharon and Eli? 


 

[Cyphre]

Also i have another  question. 

First, considering the events with doctor Isha, is Mosley questline now officially missable unless you do it by the end of v12? Are you okay with quests being missable or do you plan do implement some way of warning players?

 

 

 

[BRS swag]

This thread was a great idea. A bow to whoever came up with this. Now, I have a few questions, just my predictions:

Spoiler

1. Did Nastasia and Madame X decide wrongly about Ren in Blacksteeple Castle about him being one of the dark prophecies (the path of betrayal, if it's called that, cuz that was also there in v8 and v9 in the Hidden Library basement)? Coz Ren seems pretty chill and `Staassia too. Maybe Team Xen was a group of totally misunderstood people, atleast the executives, admins and higher ranking grunts, except maybe Cassandra.
2. I've been playing Rejuv since V8 and it's like totally undergoing rapid metamorphosis every episode. There was a battle with Ren/Nastasia v/s MC/Melia. Is there a possible explanation as to why it was removed? If I remember correctly, she had a Kantonian Ninetales as one of her pokemon.
3. Spoiler

   Since the Normal gym badge is now a key, do we have to fight a new Normal type leader?

    

4. There is a lady in GDC Main Street in one of the buldings near Pokecenter, she says that her daughter and she came from Kanto to Gearen city and then to GDC. Could that be a hint to one of our gym leaders?
5. This question is actually linked to the 4th one. Is Deagan from WLL still alive? Could he still be the Dark - type gym leader? Building onto it, could Alexandra or Nancy (if she is still alive) be a Fairy - type gym leader? Coz, Dragon-Fairy relationship is pretty much like Damien and Alexandra. Alexandra always gets her way, even with Damien trying his best.
6. Are you open to suggstions on Crests? I can totally help you out.....
7. How did you come across the idea of Dimensional Rift Pokemon? I totally love that idea. I can help you there too if needed...
8. Could Jan be the champion in-game?
9. Just for fun, which do you prefer: Milk and then Cornflakes or Cornflakes and then Milk?

 

[Zumi]

back at it again at krispy kreme, lesgooooo

 

Spoiler

 

On 7/14/2019 at 11:01 AM, Generic Gamer said:

Well, i have a few questions here for the devs, if they'd so kindly answer!

1) What was the most frustrating thing to deal with during the development of a new version of Reborn?

2) What is all of your favorite foods?

3) What is the favorite foods of all the main cast?
4) What pieces of Music (could be from any source) would be the Main PC's/The Interceptor's Theme?

5) Out of sheer curiosity....was "Mr. Ren" Nastasia's Childhood Crush? yes, i totally ship them

6) Is the Tournament inspired by a Tournament arc from another videogam/anime/manga? (like the N1 Grand Prix from Megaman Battle Network 3)

 

Sorry for the little bombardment of questions, just wanted to ask a few questions that were nagging me at the back of my head.

1) Don't you mean Rejuvenation? hehe
Also I'd probably say that the most frustrating part is when a game breaking bug shows up that can't directly be alluded to its source, like the window resizing bug or the team replacement bug that showed up in V12. Can't speak for Jan but from my own observations Jan also really doesn't like eventing puzzles LOL

 

2) (i'll have to edit this as time goes on bc i didn't get answers from everyone yet LOL)

Jan - Pizza/Burger/desserts

Zumi - Curry Madras/Stone oven pizza

Azery -

Winter -

Alex - Cake

Inuki -

Sardines -

Icy - Ice Cream

Ramiru - Noodles

Smooge - 

 

3) I think @Jan can answer this one better than i can sdhjsdhsd

4) I guess Painful truth would make the most sense? Both the title screen version and the updated version.

5) Doubt it, it's probably just a politeness thing

6) Nope, very likely just inspired by the world tournament from B/W2!

 

On 7/14/2019 at 12:13 PM, yume said:

Ahh, when I saw this thread 2 days ago I was like "omg this is awesome, I have questions... but I can't remember any of them right now o-o", then I saw that it's only open for a week and was even more like "omgggg", so this morning I thought about some things I'd like to ask. (This could get a bit lengthy.)

 

First of all though, thank you for the opportunity and also thanks for making Rejuvenation, Jan, Zumi and dev team  I fell in love with the game and kinda "marathon-ed" it in a week when I played it for the first time last September (after my bro had recommended it to me ). I also did an intense run in ~Feb/March and boy that was hard, haha. Anyways, feel hugged, you guys, for making such an awesome game! Keep up the good work, but don't forget to take breaks  

 

Here are my questions:

 

Development & technical questions

 

1) So, idk if this was ever mentioned, but who is part of the development crew and who does what? Also, which part is the most / least fun for you while developing the game? I'm kinda curious about that.

2) What was the weirdest or most unexpected bug you've experienced during development until now? And which feature was the hardest to implement until now?

3) Will the in-game menu from V11 come back sometime? I read it was removed because it was laggy for some people, but are you considering to add it again if you can manage to reduce the lag? (I thought it was really pretty, but can't do anything about it if it doesn't work properly, sadly )

 

Characters & story

 

4) I know Zumi said the ages of our main characters are more or less up to our own imagination (or ~18 years), but I've been wondering about the age of some other characters. 

Spoiler

Specifically, Nastasia and Karen.

Guess I can elaborate on this a bit. It's kinda obvious that Nastasia and Anastasia from the past are the same person, so if she aged normally she should be around mid fifties. Am I right about this?

Karen on the other hand - I'm just not sure. From her in-game sprite I thought she'd be around Tesla's age, but her battle sprite (from the sidequest) looks younger and also guessing from her diary entries I'd say she's around the same age as Damien, Alexandra, Ryland and Adam? Talking about those four - am I guessing right that they're a bit older than the main cast?

 

5) Another question about ages: Who is older, Melia or Erin?

6) This one is kind of a weird question, and I might not get an answer. 

Spoiler

Were Alice and Allen the same person? Because when they were sent to us from the toy box I remember one of them saying "so we finally separated completely" or something along the lines. I also remember back in the Unknown dimension we never saw them together on the screen at the same time.

 

7) Will we ever find out Alice's real name?

How many of the Elite 8 have appeared in the game until now? (Just "appeared", doesn't mean "we" / our protag have met them yet).

 

Other 

 

9) This question goes to Jan. Since I've played Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky for the first time ever this year I've been wondering - are you a fan of the PMD series? While playing the game there were so many times when I was like "ohh, I know this song from Rejuvenation :D" 

10) V12 question so I'm gonna put it in spoiler tags.

Spoiler

Was the Texen part planned or was it added in because of all the people memeing Texen in the Reborn discord? Either way I laughed so much 

11) Do you generally like reading the player reactions to story & sidequest content?

12) This one is addressed at all of the dev crew: What's everyone's favourite Pokemon?

 

I think this is all for now, I knew it would get long  

 

Love you guys, I'm out

oogh that's a lot of questions, but i'll answer the ones i know i can answer!

 

1) Our team consists of @Jan, @Alex, Azery (i still can't @ him because of his username >:^( ), @Ice Cream Sand Witch, @Inuki, @Sardines, @Ramiru, @Winter, Smooge and me!

2) Prooooobably the window resizing bug that happened in V11. that stuff was BAD

3) Possibly, but until we know a method to not have a laggy menu we'll have to stick to the old one.

4) Nastasia's age is [REDACTED], but Karen is much younger than you think! She's around 27 to 28 years old. Alexandra is a bit older than Damien, Adam and Ryland, around the same age as Karen, so the other three should be in their early to mid twenties.
5) Erin is older by one or two years!

6) Perhaps :^)

7) Alice's name is Alice!

8 ) Afaik 6 have appeared so far!

9) I'll leave that answer for Jan in that case LOL

10) 100% planned!

11) Yes :^)

12) This has been answered in a previous post so I'm not gonna list them all again. Try looking up the answer in a post from one of the other devs!

 

On 7/14/2019 at 4:10 PM, Magus543 said:

Now here's something more behind the scenes, how did Kanon go from generic romantic rival to Venam and jerkass to us for some reason from what i can tell off older builds, to literally a magic construct slave? 

 

Also: Was V12 supposed to have a branching route because we were given the option to join Team Bladestar, yet V12 acts like we oppose Flora. Illusion of free will shattered. 

Old concept was meh as Kanon was a pretty obnoxious character in past versions, kinda like a variation of Texen but with an obsession of Melia and being a jackass to anyone else??? and one Texen is more than enough LOL 

The way Kanon is written now gives him more depth, rather than being like "ha everyone but melia is a peasant", he now starts out as a guy with slight trust issues trying to figure out how he can do good in the world (and going about it slightly the wrong way during the events in Kugearen), only to later discover his purpose but also realizing he's but a servant made out of Garufan magic. I think that concept as a whole is more interesting than the holier-than-thou attitude he had before.

 

And nope! No branches. Flora had no intentions of playing friendly.

 

On 7/14/2019 at 4:13 PM, GreatNinja said:

-Is the red-haired girl with the Naganadel called Freya, by any chance? Why has she and Kieran relatively weak pokemon besides their UB? (Stantler, Klingklang... it's almost contradiction how less threatening they are compared to them)

 

-In earlier Versions, we fought Nastasia with her full team. Why was that battle removed? 

 

-Why could Allen easily destroy the Garufa Machines while we, the interceptor, couldn't so easily?

1 & 2) Can't answer that, sorry! The second one moreso because I actually don't know LOL, someone else might be able to tell you that. Probably story reasons tho.

3) he's got the power of god and anime the Unown on his side uwu

 

On 7/14/2019 at 4:34 PM, Winter Angel said:

When I started a new save file, I realize that there is now a personality test option we can do aside from the pick your character. What are the (canon) personalities of the MCs? 

Aevis: Confident

Aevia: Reserved

Axel: A tricky memester

Ariana: Peppy

Alain: Annoyed 24/7

Aero: Studious and cool

 

On 7/14/2019 at 5:20 PM, Canno1i said:

Some questions I have was when creating Pokémon rejuvenation did you

1. Have a storyline/plot already set up for the game like a road map since the beginning and think up more new plot points as you’ve done more versions.

2. Have any unused content that was taken out story wise before the release of any of the versions.

 

1) Rejuv used to have an on-the-fly story, but since V6 it's actually had a roadmap for the remainder of development. The story's already been planned up until V16, the last version!

2) We do! There's a couple of characters that used to be more important as well as a good amount of maps and story points but haven't been used in the modern versions of Rejuv in favor of having a better and more comprehensive story.

 

On 7/14/2019 at 5:22 PM, DarkMaster said:

Spoiler

Okay, here's one. How the heck were you able to make it so that we could swap characters, get their teams in our party, and then when it came time to swap back, we got our team back how it was before the swap? Like, is it all just pure eventing, or is there a script that goes along with it?

 

Pretty sure it's done entirely through eventing and the use of variables and switches!

 

22 hours ago, Cyphre said:

Have you considered doing "in the next episode" stuff at the end of an episode? Showing a few frames, dialogues or screens to hype future events and so we could keep speculating. 

You do get a title, but it's pretty hard to show frames of content that hasn't been made at that point, now isn't it? Dialogue maybe, but that might just end up being confusing so it's best to wait until stuff is shown off in the dev thread.

 

13 hours ago, 16kims1 said:

Sorry if this was asked already. But, is Jan the only who works on the story/writing, or is it a group effort? Or was the plot already planned out at some point?

Jan does pretty much all of the story/writing, yes. He's the one who planned it out as well!

 

12 hours ago, MetrololAce said:

Am I the only one who feels the story and its characters have gotten a bit convoluted? 

Its something I've been feeling for a while now, but the situation with Nim has really made me feel like characters have gotten out of control in this game.

I feel it is a symptom of the episodic releases, where we are away for some months, then come back to massive character development minutes into the episode.

 

Not that any of this is bad, but how have you managed it? Is the story written to completion already with structured plans and finales for all these characters? 

I worry that introducing so many characters in so many different contexts will be very overwhelming when, down the road, some one tries to play through this fully released game in a couple sittings. 

A lot of it may seem convoluted right now, but that's most definitely the result of episodic release. It's much easier to understand each character's arcs when you binge play the game, but as the game stands unfinished right now, it's harder to give everyone answers immediately. Unfortunately this'll likely remain a problem until the game's complete :^(

 

Most of the characters already have their fates determined for them, though! You'll receive your answers in due time :^)

 

5 hours ago, Cyphre said:

Also i have another  question. 

First, considering the events with doctor Isha, is Mosley questline now officially missable unless you do it by the end of v12? Are you okay with quests being missable or do you plan do implement some way of warning players?

Rn it's still possible to do the Lost Camp post V12, but this will likely be patched out in a later version. The hidden library quest also becomes missable after a certain point, and while a warning would help in some cases, the player does have a good amount of time to do these quests from the time they become available, so on the other hand it could be seen as repercussion for ignoring the quest for too long.

 

2 hours ago, BRS swag said:

This thread was a great idea. A bow to whoever came up with this. Now, I have a few questions, just my predictions:

  Hide contents

1. Did Nastasia and Madame X decide wrongly about Ren in Blacksteeple Castle about him being one of the dark prophecies (the path of betrayal, if it's called that, cuz that was also there in v8 and v9 in the Hidden Library basement)? Coz Ren seems pretty chill and `Staassia too. Maybe Team Xen was a group of totally misunderstood people, atleast the executives, admins and higher ranking grunts, except maybe Cassandra.
2. I've been playing Rejuv since V8 and it's like totally undergoing rapid metamorphosis every episode. There was a battle with Ren/Nastasia v/s MC/Melia. Is there a possible explanation as to why it was removed? If I remember correctly, she had a Kantonian Ninetales as one of her pokemon.
3. Spoiler

   Since the Normal gym badge is now a key, do we have to fight a new Normal type leader?

    

4. There is a lady in GDC Main Street in one of the buldings near Pokecenter, she says that her daughter and she came from Kanto to Gearen city and then to GDC. Could that be a hint to one of our gym leaders?
5. This question is actually linked to the 4th one. Is Deagan from WLL still alive? Could he still be the Dark - type gym leader? Building onto it, could Alexandra or Nancy (if she is still alive) be a Fairy - type gym leader? Coz, Dragon-Fairy relationship is pretty much like Damien and Alexandra. Alexandra always gets her way, even with Damien trying his best.
6. Are you open to suggstions on Crests? I can totally help you out.....
7. How did you come across the idea of Dimensional Rift Pokemon? I totally love that idea. I can help you there too if needed...
8. Could Jan be the champion in-game?
9. Just for fun, which do you prefer: Milk and then Cornflakes or Cornflakes and then Milk?

 

1) Can't tell!

2) Like mentioned above, story fluidity reasons probably.

3)

Spoiler

Nope! the badge is still on your trainer card, so it's still legit

4) Nah, it's not that deep LOL

5) Can't answer that!

6) You can suggest them but it's up to the others to choose if they'll actually use the idea lmao

7) Inspired by PULSE mons, likely. Just a little different!

8 ) Who knows?

9) cornflakes then milk is the only way and if you do it the other way around you're a heaten and should be put in jail for cereal crimes

 

 

By the way, as a little heads up, please understand we will not be able to answer 99% of your questions about future content, as we don't want to accidentally spoil anyone. Please keep this in mind before asking your questions as we'd rather not continuously have to tell you that we can't say!

[enderowl]

I know I said that I'm done with asking questions, but I just want to ask one more.

Has anyone played a Persona game and if so, which one is your favorite?

[Magus543]

I knew Flora was a snake, and so did the dev team. I had a feeling Kanon's character was retconed, though i feel he still has Texen in him, but more bumbling and innocently insensitive than Texen's cruelty, i guess some people can relate. Also WHAAT??? Karen is only 27ish? I think it's because of her overworld sprite, and her general demeanor that made people think she was in Tesla's age range. I still remember the double take i had when i saw her sprite. Also the fact that the MCs have canon personalities both amuses me and horrifies me, if we consider the implications. Hell yeah, Axel and i would get along, no wonder i picked him as my possible meat puppet. 

[Aiko]

Spoiler

If you had to place a canon time for the neo gearen sidequests and the like, is it while we're in gdc or later?

 

[lokighost]

first thing is to you zumi love the art work you put in and to both you and jan on others thank you for a great game and my question is as we all know the new pokenom game is out at the end of the year and i'm guess it would be about verson 14 or 15 befor the new mons are added when do you think you guy would be putting the new mons in?

[yume]

Ahh, thank you @Zumi for answering most of my questions  It's really interesting!

Spoiler

And just so you know I consider a "perhaps :^)" and a [REDACTED] age an answer, too, hehe ;D

 

Btw, reading through this thread is super interesting, too!

Gonna keep it short this time, here's a fun question: If you were to live in Aevium, where would you live and why?

[Raion]

How old is Dylan?

[eternal.irony]

 

1. Every time i heal in certain places or go through a cut scene i revert to the legacy sprites is there a way to fix this?

2. Do each of the Protagonists have a different cut scene for that when we have a memory resurface near the house in Zone Zero

3. Does Lorna's disgust to herself originally being called Nim have anything to do with Nymiera

4. Are Angie and Anju the same person or is Angie a descendant of Anju

5. What was the inspiration for special pokemon like Delpha or Tuff-Puff

6. Who is more of a memester Reina or Axel

 

Thank for creating an amazing game that gets me hype for every new release

Edited July 16, 2019 by eternal.irony

[Generic Gamer]

this may come out of left field, but is there an alternate timeline where everyone is living peacefully and having Slice of Life/Sticom hijinks, and the PC is basically the Kenny/"Lancer Died, you're not Human!" Recurring Joke?

[Dex]

I kinda have two questions. One story related and the other development related.

 

1) So from what I can tell from the cutscenes in Version 11 and 12, the Interceptor some kind of Avatar (or maybe a better example would be the Harbinger from the game Omensight) and the MC is just the latest in the line of them? Or are they just some kind of fusion of multiple beings into one?

 

Because my read in the cutscene where the MC gets knocked out by the surfboard dude in V11 kinda supports either/or. 

 

2) To the development team, Rejuvenation does quite of bit of outside of battle sprite animations (I'm honestly starting to love them, they're pretty entertaining). What was your favorite part to animate and what was your least favorite part?

[Magus543]

Now here's an art question, what exactly is Crescent wearing? Particularly that pink ish line in the middle of her Sprite, is that supposed to be a tie? Also what's that on her hair?

 

 

 

Spoiler

Also during the illusionary fight with Melia and Aelita, if you lose, we are treated to a scene where surfer dude and dudette beat up our companions and us,but if we win, we see the entire group laying down badly beaten up, and the surfer duo behind us which implies they were watching the entire thing and that the Surfer Dudette didn't even help us during the battle. Does that mean the MC attacked all our friends with our Pokemon and beat them up after getting rid of the Pokemon in the way? Because, ow.

 

Edited July 16, 2019 by Magus543

[Bardechia]

Has there been any thought to including a monotype run feature? Particularly to help out types that appear to be lagging in the early game (ie Ice, Ghost, Dragon). Could this be done by a custom starter each of these scarce types or type specific events? 

[HakuryuYukio]

alright, i have 2 questions for each member of the dev team,

 

1. What is your favorite mega evolution ?

2. What is your favorite eeveelution ?

[DerogatoryTrainer]

Might as well take advantage of this.

 

1) So after Maman dies what happens to the orphans? Do we really leave a nine year old in charge of like twelve 5-7 year olds or are we now the co-owner/piggybank? 'Cause I don't see Mosely getting a job to feed those brats.

 

2) I found a book about the Interceptor that said we don't get infinite lives. So how many is there? 7 for the seven character sprites? 9 like a cat?

 

3) How will the Elite 8 work gameplay wise? Is it a brutal gauntlet of 8 Elite trainers one after another and then the champion or is there a breakroom halfway in?

 

4)Will there ever be another tournament that we can win without terrorist interrupting like they do every fun thing in this game?

 

5)Will all 5 star shards combined bring back Hardcore Trainer Adrian from pre-Version 9?

[TjTheKidd]

Would it be possible for us to get a list of all the v12 side quest, I feel like I'm missing out, can we?

[Cyphre]

This one might be a little silly, but how exactly Madame X sees through her helmet? I didnt notice any holes or anything in it. 

Edit: Also during alternative future, the golden ray that split castle in half, was this Yveltal's Decimation or "Father" and his powers?

[nhehvnukl]

Spoiler

Is the spell Karrina used on Karen Risky? If not, why doesn't Karen just gets someone to use it on her once in a while?

 

[Dragonslayer7500]

Spoiler for v12 but...what does dafuaxs ability temporil shift do?

[Alisae]

Will there be more side quests in goomdira?

Also is there plans to do anything more with Oblitus Town?

Also what is Amberette town in the present?

[CrystalKing]

Would it be possible for us to get a solid timeline on when the time-travel segments take place? Further explanation in the spoiler.

 

Spoiler

 

For example, I assume by Indriad recognizing us as having witnessed Anathea's death, the Marianette Gym segment takes place after the first Kugearen segment. I'd also assume the Vivian and Nymiera segments take place before Marianette's Gym as well, considering Anju is not yet jailed by Indriad in those trips to the past.

 

Does the Marianette Gym segment even take place in the same timeline? How about the prologue — does that take place before all this? After? In a different timeline entirely?

 

As you can probably tell, this timeline is the toughest thing for me to wrap my mind around, largely because of Maria/Marianette's shifting identity and name, the repeated changes in the look of the Theolia residence (including when it looks like the house near Zorrialyn Desert), etc. Whatever clarity you can offer would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

[Revok]

1)How big is aevium in comparison of real continent ?

2)What is your favorite region in the game ?

Spoiler

Plot related question (I know you can't answer everything on this subject so I will try to not ask a " Who is Madame X" kind of question lol)

3) So if I understand well the power of the interceptor is that he can see what the player see on screen (and he also can survive multiple death)? For example did the main character see Valarie wanting to dream and dreaming about the attack on the group ?

 

4)What is the timeline ? I thought it was The story of Nymeria's painting ->(long time) Seven Kingdoms ->(long time) The past we are in (Nymeria,Vivan etc...) ->(4-5 decades) Main game, with somwhere in between Miera region events.

I thought there was a long time between the seven kingdoms and Nymeria/Vivians era but with the last sidequest of goomidra kingdom I'm a bit lost (because Nymeria was a friend of Kasumi).

5)Do we know other kingdoms outside of the ones of Kasumi/Iesel/Griselda ?(I may mispell one of them)

 

Thanks for creating this cool game

Edited July 17, 2019 by Revok