Unfortunately I don't really have anything to blog about just now given the fact that we're coming right up on the community release-- and it'll be available by the time you read this after all. But we'll put it to good use soon, along with the progress bar widget we all know and love right in the top right of the page. 

For now, we're going to wait just a little bit before making the episode public. To restate, the reason we do Community Releases is because it's kind of a second wave of beta testing. Sometimes fixes we make during the beta break other things, but since that group of people has already played through it, it doesn't get caught. So it helps to have more people play just in case!

After a week or two-- hopefully not longer-- when I'm confident the Community Release is stable, it'll be pushed to the main page for the Public Release, and then I can start work on E17! I hope everyone is looking forward to that as much as I am!

Please feel free to leave comments down below; I always enjoy reading what everyone says.

Well it turns out I'm kind of impulsive and I want my Ninetales.

even if it's already too late for me

...among other reasons. 

So yeah Gen VII coming to a Reborn near you featuring all the bells and Wishi's. 

Those of you who were around for the Gen VI update (or who know that I didn't even finish Mega sprites until much more recently) will probably know that spriting is the major hurdle here. Fortunately, I've already gotten quite the jump on that during community release, and with the help of Jan, Zumi and previous animator Koyo, we are fast tearing through them. 

Our plan is to release a Gen 7 sprite pack for all fan games to use. But until then, there's a lot of work to be done, especially on the back sprites.

Have a few of the finished fronts in the mean time.

Gen VII Updates: (we didn't even have a dev blog last time there was a generation update!)

• Sprites
  • We can't use the Smogon set, so we've gotta scrounge up our own. Fortunately many pixel artists list theirs as free use and so I've been able to gather a solid chunk. We'll polish them and make the rest. This progress bar also includes Shiny and Egg spriting. 
• Scripting
  • Marcello is a peach and this will be almost (if not) entirely his domain. It includes updates to old battle stuff, most of which have already been done as of this writing, and the implementation of all moves and abilities. It is a long road!
• Data
  • This is basically everything in the PBS files, such as data, movesets and TM availability, plus details on the new items/moves/abilities. Marcello is actually a peach and a half and is fronting most of this work as well. 
• Field Updates
  • Although I had hoped we would be done with them before, Psychic Terrain will be added. This section will also include adding new attributes to all field for any relevant moves and abilities.
• Gameplay
  • The most generic name possible. This is a catch-all for adding new Pokemon into events/encounters and trainer battles, and distributing new items. Tbh this is the fun part. 

New Content:

• Misc Updates
  • So I lied and this isn't actually new content at all but whatever. In the past we had separate categories for graphic/event/etc updates but there's few enough this time that I'm lumping them all in here. 
• AI Updates
  • A planned renovation to get down and dirty with the AI. Right now most moves have little or no AI coding specifically for them. I won't get through all the moves this episode, but I'll spend some quality time with a good chunk of them. 
• Graphics/Maps
  • Previously these were separate but I put them together since the graphics in question are usually tilesets for new areas, and I prefer to tailor tiles to their maps. There are 7 new areas to make this episode, so this will be the bulk of the content work!
• Eventing
  • Teleport events, area puzzles, encounters, items and special Pokemon. This is sort of a catch-all for everything that is not mapping, but also not part of the main story. 
• Story
  • All story events. This episode will have a branched story, so it will take a little longer. 

Ame informed me that the move animation with id 420 is Magical Leaf.

Both of these appear to be complete coincidence.

That is all. This has been an entirely necessary Development PSA.

also marcello has pretty much done all the new moves and abilities already

zoom zoom motherfluffers

there's a few stragglers here and there and it's hard to show of script work so here, have some blocky-backgrounded sprites instead

huge shoutout to zumi jan koyo and a last minute addition of bazaro for helping me tear through all these. this is super cool since that's the hardest part of spriting and also 7th gen implementation and also the entire E17 cycle overwith in a snapp

but you will notice the spriting part is yet not at 100%, that is because we still have to do canon shinies, custom shinies, and eggs! right now smeargletail is working on formatting these sprites for essentials and then we'll launch into those things. well actually im already working on eggs but details.

im also starting mapping early because fuqq da police

okay thanks bye!

Indeed, testing things like Disguise, Shields Down, Schooling... It's hard when you don't have the sprites for Mimikyu, Minior or Wishiwashi handy. That is where Exeggutor comes in. Because A.Exeggutor is the only 7th gen sprite I currently have, I test these things by just giving them to Exeggutor. I'm sure you can imagine that that can be rather funny.

Why, might you ask, did I go out of my way to make a whole post about this?

Well, you see, I was working on having pokemon evolve into alternate forms depending on certain conditions, useful for Rockruff -> Lycanroc, and a few Alola form mons and, well...

This last one comes courtesy of our very own Ame:

and since, finished occurring.

have a few. 

huge thanks to jan, bazaro and zumi for helping out with the custom Silvallies! 

as for other things that have since finished occuring, i'll leave that one to marcello up next.

...and i promise it's not more exeggutor memes.

although i can't promise it won't involve them. 

Of course, sometimes, there is a big system, or something that can be shown off well enough, that it can stand up all on its own, without me throwing memes at you. Something I can reveal which won't make you go zzzzzz Yes I know I am trying too hard with this pun it is the only one I have

Like say this:

(Item icons + Icon for the Crystals tab in the bag coming soon)

Or this:

Maybe this?

This one shows me giving Techie Johnathan what he deserves tbh:

Just in case those of you that aren't familiar with Gen VII haven't realised what's going on yet, this is the announcement that after a bit of work, Z-Moves are now fully functional in Reborn and this functionality will be shipping in E17! Just be careful though, because it's functional for both player and AI.

However, that isn't the only thing I'm announcing/showing off here. While I've not made an effort to keep it a secret, I've only really mentioned this to a few people so I have no idea quite how well known it is. Regardless, I am happy to announce that:

In addition to full Z-Move functionality being included with E17, I shall be preparing a standalone release of the system based on the latest version of Essentials. I will make this release available publically , so anyone developing their own pokemon fangame can feel free to include the Z-Move system I've developed in it! I've also done all I can to ensure the system is as customisable as possible for anyone that would like to tweak Z-Move Functionality, add their own Z-Moves, and whatever else you can think of!

Details on when I will release the Z-Move system will be revealed at a later date, so for now, I hope you've enjoyed this look into what I've been doing, I've tried to imitate the system in the official games as closely as possible, as you saw in the screenshots even down to the details of how the Crystals function from your inventory.

So, with that, I shall leave you all because it's about time I got some zz myself.

But what is this I hear? You say you want a full demonstration of the system? You say you feel cheated because my post had no memes?

Well, perhaps we can just get two birds with one stone...

(Currently using the Shiny animation as a placeholder for a Z-Power animation, and the Mega Button as a placeholder for the Z-Move Button, they will have their own things for the release!)

For the record that Savage Spinout is not the animation we will be using, nor is it even a preliminary version of said animation. It is a meme animation I made myself with a little guidance from Inuki.

Anyway, there you go! You've seen Z-Moves in action, you got a meme, and the fangame developers among you have a Z-Move system you can use to look forward to, if you would like to use it! I hope I've whet your appetite for things to come!

I made the entire post just for that line, it's all gonna be downhill from here

Anyway, now that I'm just slogging through Field Updates there's not been much oppurtunity to make memes post quality devblog teasers and content. Luckily, I got to a certain field that is ripe for such opportunities, so I won't miss the chance to show off some of the new toys said field has to play with.

The mountain field, you ask? Why am I showing off the Mountain field?

Because I just turned the mountian field into bestfield I hope you people who like to play by creating your own fields to cause shenanigans are prepared because you just got the best possible thing added to your roster

Now, if I wanted, I could end this post here. You would have had your fill of memes, I would have procrastinated sufficiently long making these memes, everyone would be happy.

But why make a teaser post without any teasing?

I wonder what caused that...?

Disclaimer: Creating the Glitch Field and using it's various effects will not rotate your exeggutors I just have way too much time on my hands and am very easily amused.