ZFGC
Projects => Recruitment => Topic started by: Caomicc on August 05, 2010, 03:26:27 am
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For one, this may not even be possible, and its going to be at least a lengthy project.
Pokemon is a game that I assume most of you have played at some point in your life. Maybe even some of you have played hacked ROMs or attempted to make your own.
I have an idea.
A Pokemon game should be made that has all of the worlds in one, in a connectible with a plot as realistic as the Nintendo made ones.
It has been a dream of mine to be able to play a game like this, and I feel as if I am not alone in wanting to play this game.
I myself know nothing of how to make a ROM, but I am willing to learn. Moldorma and I want to create a team to make this game, as we believe it may be a bit more work than 2 people are cut out for.
I'm not talking ROM editing people, this game will most likely need to be built from the ground up... Unless someone has an idea.
Anyone willing to help out at all, even post some plot ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Hopefully this game could be possible. Who's with me?
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I'm in, as mentioned. I've played with Rom hecking before, its no easy road, but I'm game.
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Won't be possible
would be way too hard to even try to combine the 2D and 3D worlds in all the games
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I believe the idea is to retile all the maps in a single style. I can see it being possibly being impossible in a rom due to limitations of the device, but maybe rebuilt up in Game Maker or somethin
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Even if you did it as a Game Maker game it's a ridiculously large project even for a team to tackle.
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Wouldn't be a game where you combine worlds. It would have to be built from the ground up. Revisions could be made to compromise graphics and stuff.
We would just need a way to build the map using a games preexisting graphics.
I favor emeralds engine.
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Oh kids, it's not as easy as you think. Even if you guys use Game Maker, which apparently people are very interested in using on this forum, it seems very very tough. However, if you guys have the stamina to do it, go for it.
What I suggest is to split your team up into 4-5 groups where each of you work on a different Pokemon world map (e.g. one team works on Sinnoh, one team works on Hoenn, etc.). Before this is done, you should of course work on the maps as a whole in terms of design; that way you'll know how to connect them, blablabla.
In terms of the engine, I would suggest to start simple and then build it up as you go. Start with the simplest engine and then build it up progressively. Trust me on this one as words of the wise.
I would join this but I am too busy with my career, and I have a strange feeling you'll use Game Maker, which I have no knowledge whatsoever of. If I were to join, it would have to be in either C++ or Java, and I'm routing on DON'T USE JAVA. C++ would be pimp though.
EDIT: I thought about it more on my way to work and FISSURE has a point. How are you going to combine the different maps? Do you plan on making everything in Pokemon Red/Blue style? The Pokemon Pearl/Diamond/HG/SS style seems a little overbearing for something like this unless you want to kill yourselves.
If you want this to be even remotely possible, I'd take a team of minimum 10. No joke.
Good luck.
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For the love of pokemon, get a design document with every feature you're going to need first. Categorise it all, work out what part of the engine will handle the routines etc. And use bulbapedia's game mechanics section to get all the experience formulaes etc. http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Category:Game_mechanics
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The map making wouldn't really be a cut and paste ordeal, we would have to pick a games base graphics and rebuild the worlds from that set of graphics and sets.
Like I said, I think we should use the R/S/E graphics. It seems that we may be able to squeeze the most out of this.
Also, there is a total of 10 HMs.
Cut - in all games
Flash - discontinued in D/P/P and HGSS
Strength - in all games
Rock Smash - in all games
Fly - in all games
Waterfall - in all games after RBY
Whirlpool - in G/S/C, and HGSS
Dive - Only in R/S/E
Rock Climb - Only in D/P/P and HGSS
and Defog - only D/P/P
So, to me, it seems like dive would be the hardest element to recreate, as all the others are basically road blocks or way to transportation. I don't know, thats just me and I'm open to ideas and such. None of this is set in stone.
Whats really got me wondering is how are we going to get this plot going? Is the elite four not going to be after until you beat all the gyms?
Even then, thats 32 badges. Wouldn't most people level up all their pokemon half way through the game? Then it just gets easy.
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It wouldn't be that hard to make a Pokemon fangame detailing every region. It would be at least easier than recreating Ocarina of Time in 2 dimensions.
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I think the first step would be creating the map.
if we want to get official,
http://i419.photobucket.com/albums/pp275/rubiks-cube/Pokemon_World_Map_by_Cadellin.png
is how it should play out.
How would we get the players to transport themselves among the map?
Planes?
Cars?
Boats?
or could they actually walk through all of Japan to get there? That seems very far.
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I think boats between the regions would be good. As for the Elite Four, just make it 4 from each region all at once, like an Elite 16 after you get all the badges.
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But still, 100 levels is too small of a number.
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/late
Sounds interesting enough. Granted, it would take eons to finish (if it ever is), but it would be pretty boss in a perfect world. If you happen to be using GM, throw me a bone if you need any help. I know my way around in GM, so I can be of some use.
Okay, I'm done. Go back to... doing whatever it is you do.
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It wouldn't be that hard to make a Pokemon fangame detailing every region. It would be at least easier than recreating Ocarina of Time in 2 dimensions.
I'm reasonably positive the issue isn't going to be designing the regions. The problem's going to arise when it comes to in-game mechanics :P A lot of people half ass it or guess proper mechanics, which pisses off fans due to it throwing the balance WAY off.
The way I see it; if you don't know how the game handles the technical aspects of the game, then you're probably not the one who should be trying to remake it. Not saying the OP doesn't know the mechanics; but that's going to be the most difficult part :P
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Honestly... I think that if it was so simple, Nintendo would have already done it... plus that most projects at ZFGC don't reach even 10% of development...
About hecking the ROMs... as far as I know, the ROM files won't give you useful information considering you're recreating it in game maker. It's not as if you could copy and paste the data inside the ROM into your game, so you'll actually have to type every single pokemon information (how many are them? 600?) - their level upgrading data, move learning data, evolving data, their behaviour on attack/defence/speed points and etc., plus all the stages data (which pokemon appear where, with what level and characteristics, which pokemon each trainer has, which pokemon each stadium leader has, their AI data)... anyway, pokemon games may seem easy to create, but actually they take you a lot of work generating that data (specially for Nintendo, who made it from scratch). [BTW, that's why I personally prefer making action games than RPG games...] Also, you wouldn't be able to just copy that all from Nintendo, because since it is a bigger game, the pokemon of the other regions would have to be stronger so that the game could be fun enough. So anyway, what would probably happen is that after some months of development everyone working on the project would get tired of it and will have only entered some 10% of all that data...
Maybe if this was a community project it would be possible, but considering that ZFGC has been losing activity recently, it's still quite difficult... anyway, good luck with your project.
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Game mechanics isn't what I'm worried about. I know how the game plays out, and that they all follow the same idea. Get your Pokemon, battle up to the first gyms. Learn how to catch Pokemon from your ally or some old guy in Viridian City. You get a potion early on in the game and before you know it there's some Rocket grunts, or lookalikes like Team Magma and Galactica. I know how the game works, and Moldorma knows that I'm a bit of a perfectionist in what I create. If something is even a pixel off I'll spend the next hour trying to fix it.
Pokemon has been something I've played since I could read. But even still, I've never made a game, I've never coded in any format, I'm merely a fan but I want to see this happen, and I want to learn how to do this.
I know it would be a lot of work, it would be a terrible amount of data that would need to be entered, but Nintendo hasn't made this game because they are lazy, its because there would be no reason for fans to buy all the older versions. They would buy the complete set, play 8 games in one.
Nintendo wouldn't go for that.
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Game mechanics isn't what I'm worried about. I know how the game plays out, and that they all follow the same idea. Get your Pokemon, battle up to the first gyms. Learn how to catch Pokemon from your ally or some old guy in Viridian City.
That's already alienating the demographic though. That's also what I was talking about when I said it was half assing it :P Unless you understand what exactly is going on in a battle; what variables are being checked, and what value is being compared to another... It's not going to work. You're going to run into balance errors, and simply !@#$% off people who play the game habitually :p
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Game mechanics isn't what I'm worried about. I know how the game plays out, and that they all follow the same idea. Get your Pokemon, battle up to the first gyms. Learn how to catch Pokemon from your ally or some old guy in Viridian City.
That's already alienating the demographic though. That's also what I was talking about when I said it was half assing it :P Unless you understand what exactly is going on in a battle; what variables are being checked, and what value is being compared to another... It's not going to work. You're going to run into balance errors, and simply !@#$% off people who play the game habitually :p
Well obviously it hasn't ben put together yet, and its not going to be a one man project, I hope. Besides, game statistics are available online everywhere lol
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I would like to help. If you are planning to make a 2D game, it would be nice to use GM, so if you need me I can also show you some of my work using GM.
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Game mechanics isn't what I'm worried about. I know how the game plays out, and that they all follow the same idea. Get your Pokemon, battle up to the first gyms. Learn how to catch Pokemon from your ally or some old guy in Viridian City. You get a potion early on in the game and before you know it there's some Rocket grunts, or lookalikes like Team Magma and Galactica.
That is story mechanics not game mechanics. Game mechanics is what the engine is all about. The battle systems, leveling systems, EV points, item system, AI systems. Even the more simpler things like showing text, inventory, walking and buying stuff. Just like Mammy said, you will need to know exact formula's and variables to use. What language you use doesn't matter GM, C++, C# and Java are all good to create games.
About the maps, I wouldn't be to worried. If you focus on the games: RBY, HGC, RSE, DPP and remakes of the previous ones. Map making would be relatively easy as these games convert relatively easy to one style. Pokemon has not changed much in that manner. And only Johto and Kanto are actually connected. For the rest take a cue from the series and just use a boat. Story should not be to difficult either, but you should have someone that is a good storyteller and has a lot of creativity. The story could be about that various groups are terrorizing each region, but unknown to even them (maybe not the leaders) there is a small group of elitist badguys who control everything.
For the Pokemon training another easy answer is possible. Each trainer that starts in a new region has to go to the foremost Pokemon researcher of that region to get himself that region's starter Pokemon. Older trainers are not allowed to use Pokemon captured in another region until they have 5 or 6 badges from the new region. Each region has its own Pokemon league and thus there own elite four (5). Trainers that successfully have completed all the Pokemon leagues are allowed to participate in the National league. This could be another elite four (5) battle or you could actually make a tournament or something. The Battle islands are just fun sidequests.
When your engine is correct you need to add all the data for all the Pokemon, items, trainers and gymleaders. And like sjegtp mentioned before, this is boring and tedious work. Nintendo has a team of employees paid to do this. They probably start by importing all the data from the earlier games automatically, add open data, change the things they wanted to change anyway and than test everything to balance out the Pokemon. Nintendo does not do it for the feeling of accomplishment afterwards, but there is money at the end of the tunnel.
Well, I wish you good luck in making this.
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Okay, I'd like to bring up that when I say 4-5 teams to work on a map, I mean with the code and everything guys. Not just pretty graphics. I mean working on the specific regions. You'd also have a team for the battle engine, blablabla.
It seems like what I said earlier was overlooked or not even read. So I'm not even sure this is going to be read, but take it from experience, something like this will be a headache and will take long, no matter how many people join your team. No offense, but Caomicc, you don't sound like you have any experience whatsoever and hence it sounds like you're overlooking something such as game mechanics as "easy", which is bothersome to a coder. Overlooking an engine is dangerous.
Like I said, no offense, but I have a feeling you're being a little too eager or optimistic.
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We're not trying to discourage you or anything, just trying to get you to take a step back and plan it all.
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Nothing is being overlooked, and Caomicc has told me that she expects this to take a long time with a large team. I don't think anybody's getting too eager, but maybe this attitude is why nobody ever finished anything around here.
Also, everyone keeps mentioning getting this and that just right so as not to !@#$% off pokemon fans.. this just seems silly to me. A fan game doesn't have to have every single variable and bit of logic identical to the original to be good. But I digress, plenty of people are pledging their allegiance, so lets get back to planning.
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Personally, I don't care if you are making it exactly like a Pokemon game or not. To me it is important that the game is balanced and that still requires carefull consideration of variables and stats. It would be the easiest to just copy it from bulbapedia or something.
My advice is to get your base engine for the game ready first before committing to content. With a working base it is a lot easier and motivating to create content.
I won't be helping with the programming, because I'm focused on the CP. But I am always ready to give advice.
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Makes sense, just remember, she might not have any experience, but I certainly do.
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Man, I wanted to do this kind of stuff where you could choose all of the main characters from the games, i still have the sprites on my computer... somewhere.
But good luck.
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Just throwing in simple words of advice. Get your planning done right and we'll see what comes out of this. All I'm saying: don't get ahead of yourselves.
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Moldorma and I are working on it right now.
We have a bit planned, and have an engine for walking and biking. I have recreated Littleroot Town and Route 101 in game maker on 16x16 tiles. The .exe runs and has been tested.
I have recolored a sprite, but they may not be final, and we may just see if we can find someone who wants to sprite the main characters, male and female.
So far, the plan is for the game to start in Hoenn, in Littleroot Town and work your way through to a town on the east coast (Mossdeep I think?) and take a boat to Johto, work your way into Kanto and then though Kanto and taking another boat into Sinnoh. Getting to Sinnoh should be the goal of the game to defeat Team Rocket/Galactica/Magma etc.
This is what we have planned at the moment.
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I'd like to see a pokemon game that can be played out in a less linear way, maybe parachute in to the pokemon world and start where you land XD?
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I'd like to see a pokemon game that can be played out in a less linear way, maybe parachute in to the pokemon world and start where you land XD?
That would be pretty awesome actually. Or any way to choose where you start and just be open-world from there really.
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I'd like to see a pokemon game that can be played out in a less linear way, maybe parachute in to the pokemon world and start where you land XD?
That would be pretty awesome actually. Or any way to choose where you start and just be open-world from there really.
Yeah, anyway would do, I've just been playing too much just cause 2 :P
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Possibly, but how could the plot go? I personally don't know exactly what were doing story wise.
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That's the best part. Open-world Pokemon has no plot really. It's non-linear which is something I'd love to see in a Pokemon game really.
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That's the best part. Open-world Pokemon has no plot really. It's non-linear which is something I'd love to see in a Pokemon game really.
Actually a nonlinear game can still have a deep plot. But because the game is nonlinear the story elements are episodic and not sequence dependent. You have a great number of single events that take place, which are unconnected. Once in a while a (number of) bigger plot event(s) can take place that does refer to previous plot events, but these events need to be broadcasted in other parts of the world, giving the player a cue that he/she can find something interesting in that place. And after that you can do some more episodic plots which all lead to the or one of the climactic events.
Things to design:
- The state of each area before a plot event (unless the player encounters a plot event at the first entry)
- The state of the world during, between and after plot events.
- The AI's strength reflects the strength of the player (maybe connected to the number of badges)
It could be that you will design things that the player will never encounter, especially all levels of the AI. But start with the beginning and plot the final climactic ending. After that put some bigger plot events somewhere in the middle and finally a shitload of unconnected little plots. Remember that in a Pokemon game you have 2 storylines, one fighting the bad guys and the other is becoming champion. And both might influence the other, like having some other guy as gym leader when one small plot has not been resolved. Or that one plot event alters (definitely the dialog) when you have passed a certain gym.
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I disagree on the open world, for a few reasons.
1. In the beginning of this topic people were stating about how I would need to "stay true" to the idea of the game.
An open-world game would not be "staying true."
2. As we (should) all know, Pokemon requires the players achieving HM moves to continue travels about the world.
If it was an open world game, this would not be possible. We would have to rather rule out surfing, using cut, strength, rock smash and fly OR give them all to the player in the beginning. I don't see how this would really be fun, as people will be expecting to achieve these items.
3. People will probably still play it in a linear way, anyways, unless you can't, which would be contradictory to it being open world. The point of the game will still be to get gym badges, as that what the game always is. We would have to make it in some sequential order, unless all the gyms were the same difficulty, which would be redundant. You would have to train an extravagant amount before going to the first gym, and then by the 8th (or the 32nd) you would be leveled so outrageously it would be downright boring.
4. The way I see an open world game, is it would just become what the game is after you beat all the gyms and the elite four. The part where you wonder around aimlessly battling random pokemon. I don't know many people that stick around and play there game hours on end just wandering, I personally find it boring and restart my game around this point.
I just don't think open world is the way to go. Any other views? I'm curious as to what others think of this.
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I like the idea of choosing your starting region, maybe after you finish your starting region you go to a common center location (brand new mini area) that lets you choose the next area to tackle, or something.
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@Cam, if you are going to make a non-linear game, then it has to stay true to the idea of all the other games. But you shouldn't feel confined to making it like that just because people at the beginning of this topic mentioned that. Creative freedom applies..
My idea is as follows;
When you select new game, you are asked which set of Pokemon games is your favorite. Red+Blue, Gold+Silver, Ruby+Sapphire, or Diamond+Pearl. If you choose Red+Blue as your favorite, your starter Pokemon options will be Bulbasaur, Squirtle, or Charmander. Whereas if you choose Gold+Silver as your favorite, your starter options will be Chikorita, Totodile, or Cyndaquil (you get the idea).
The game begins in a giant airplane where you live with some new Professor, the player can be his grandson or granddaughter or something. There he tells you that you need to go out and see the world, blah blah, there's more to it than the walls of this airplane. He suggests training to become a Pokemon master and gives you your choice of a starter Pokemon.
From there you can choose which region of the world you want to land in and start your journey. Whatever area you choose to start in then has the easiest set of gyms. When you finish all the gyms in that region you'll get picked up by the Professor in the airplane and he'll ask you how everything's going so far. Then you can choose the next region you want to journey to, which will then have increasingly more difficult gyms, etc. This way it's actually kind of linear still, but will feel non-linear in that you can choose where you want to go. As far as HM moves, I'm sure you can spread out where you find them over all the regions. Then once you beat all the gyms, whatever you choose to be your last area will have the hardest set of gyms, you can go wherever you like in your plane and go back to areas with new HM moves to access older areas you couldn't reach before.
Then have some sort of ultimate Elite Four that is on some obscure new small island the plane can go to but you need all the gym badges from every area to go to. It'd be like a Global Elite Four instead of just an Elite Four for each region.
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I just don't think open world is the way to go. Any other views? I'm curious as to what others think of this.
I do agree that for your purpose an open-world is not a good idea, although not for the reasons you mentioned. At the beginning they said that the gameplay should stay true to the original. The gameplay of Pokemon does fit in with a nonlinear game. You would still need to walk, talk, battle, capture and trade, etc. And like I said earlier in an nonlinear the strength of the opponents is determined by the level of the player. For example the strength and team composition of the gymleader is determined by the number of badges you have.
About the HM's they only facilitate the player in either crossing long distances in a shorter period of time (Fly, Flash) or to give access to new areas (Cut, Surf, Rock Smash). Incidentally in the Pokemon games they also obstructed your progress. Although they can still work well in an open world. The city's and some simple patches are connected with roads without the need for HM's. Deeper off road areas would need one or more HM's.
But here is also the reason why I don't think a open world is good for your game. A nonlinear game has a world designed for it. You want to recreate all the worlds from the existing games and connect them. These worlds are designed to play linear. For a nonlinear game your would need to create the worlds from scratch and then they won't be the worlds from the games anymore.
@Breedlove. Your idea has one big flaw. If you would start in 1 place and continue to grow from there on, you will get in trouble with the gyms. With 32 (or maybe 40 by then) gyms you would get to fight a gymleader about every 2 a 3 level ups, starting with the first gymleader at level 1 or 2. And then I have not mentioned the Elite four. This means: 1) you have either little room for story; 2) the gymleaders will be ridiculously easy; 3) you need a ridiculous amount of exp to level; 4) the pokemon become unruly fast; or 5) you get a ridiculous number of levels to level up (lv. 999 anyone?). Or you could keep the gyms as they are in the games now, but then after one world completed, the gyms in the other worlds will be push overs.
My suggestion (as I mentioned earlier) is to place a constraint on the game. That in each new world that you start a Pokemon league trail, you would have to leave behind your old Pokemon. Get that regions starter Pokemon and only if you have obtained the 6th or 7th badges are you allowed to use Pokemon from other regions. Which could make the 7th and 8th gym still pushovers, but you could let each elite four grow with the number of worlds beaten. The elite four in a normal game is around level 60, thus the next one could be around 70, then 80 and then 90.