Pokéwars (working title)

[zchin]

Hello all!

It's been a while and I'm hoping that I'm posting this in the right section because I remember there being a concept development thread you post very new and underdeveloped threads...

But here it is! I'm developing a Pokémon fangame that revolves around the Kanto War Theory. If you don't want to watch the 9 minute video it's pretty much about a war that ended before the first Pokémon game started (evidence points at the lack of middle aged adults). I thought that it would be interesting to rework a Pokémon game and mix up the story to be very dark, survival based, as well as a different working battle system similar to an action battle system mixed in with Castlevania's card system but with you know... with Pokémon.

I was brainstorming and I wanted to have a middle aged male lead along with actually military tactics included in the story. Maybe the protagonist would turn out to be Gary's dad and kill Red's father or something... As far as plot I'm not too sure.

So for this thread I was hoping, while I set up basic game functions, there would be people/Pokémon fans that wanted to help contribute and brainstorm plot ideas and story concepts as long as they aren't related to defeating the 4 evil generals and the emperor while learning from the 8 or so master trainers of each town...

For development I also chose Pokémon because of the abundance of graphics floating around such as RIPs (Battlers, Sprites, and Environments) already made and ready to go. I will be using Unity 2D to create the game along with C# (not java) to script most of... well everything in the game.

As a team I'd be looking for a spriter (for some original graphics that would be needed throughout the story) as well as some story writers (preferably more than one). The game will be free and I have no intention of making any money off of it. The game will be developed at a casual hobbyist rate so don't expect many updates.

I believe that is all I've got to offer at this time, please don't hate me if it's in the wrong section and send me a PM if you're interesting in helping out however little!

Screenshots of progress so far (kinda bland, nothing you haven't really seen already)

Spoiler

A list of what I want to add and what I've completed will be put below to mark progress.

• Fade in transitions
  Walking
  Running
  Stamina and HP HUD
  Pokémon HUD
  Action button (interacting with things)
  Smart scene change (switching cities and routes without loading times)
  Pokémon Inventory
  Enemy AI
  Player Pokémon behaviors
  Pop out damage numbers
  Text boxes
  Plot beginning
  Plot middle
  Plot end
  Opening graphic
  Start menu
  Saving and loading
  Pokédex
  Items
  Environments
  Custom graphics (characters, Pokémon, cities)

 

[ZenVirZan]

I noticed you don't have battle scenes on the list of things to do; will there be any battles?
If so, how are you planning to handle battle animations? That was the part that always killed developing Pokemon fan games for me.

 

[Ellie]

This actually sounds really interesting. There's even something enthralling about seeing military marches in such a cutesy setting - it's a good juxtaposition that makes you think about real life and that it's real people that go to war.

 

[zchin]

@Zen
You have a point with battles. I'm planning on using the ripped sprites from the mystery dungeon series to animate the pokemon as they attack, get hurt, and move. The graphics are all there but there are a few custom ones I wanted to make or have made. As I mentioned in the original post I plan on having it as an Action Battle System (ABS) which shouldn't be too hard if I can get colliders and animations down. The real challenge I think is the functions that I make, and how I make them as they really make a game "feel" good when you play it. I'm not too worried about working on the battle system however I'll have to work hard or consult someone on the enemy AI pathfinding and behaviors. I've looked around and there are a few tutorials as well as pre made scripts ready to incorporate the pathfinding.

@Amy
Yeah, I was thinking that you could steal your enemies pokemon if you kill the trainer without killing his pokemon.

As a general question how would you guys feel about having a one hit kill on the main character? It would match the realistic facts of war and how destructive pokemon actually are... But I think that would make the game too hard so maybe make a challenge mode after the game is done or something?