Pokémon: Mystic and Might
Tools Used
-GameMaker Studio
-Adobe Illustrator
The First Attempt
A project that started in 2019 as something I thought to be easy, I quickly learned how much I have underestimated the difficulty creating an old but popular game such as Pokémon from scratch would be without playing the game. Despite that, within the first 3 weeks of the project, I was able to develop the narrative of the game, all the sprites for the male and female player characters, the level design from starting town to the first gym, the basic movement program to walk and interact in the overworld, and a simple damage calculation for combat using recent generation 3+ combat formula using a very old version of GameMaker 8.1 Lite. From this point, I have grasp about 40% of the game's fundamental mechanics before putting the project on hiatus due to my lack of understanding of specific Pokémon mechanics, such as encounter rates and catch rates, and the conflict with my school schedule.
Reviving the Project
Grass Starter: Leaffen
In 2022, I decided to pick up the Pokémon project again as my final project to do at the University of Texas at Dallas to showcase my skills, even though I still have NOT played a Pokémon game at this point. At this time Pokémon Scarlet and Violet was announcing their release to the Nintendo switch and some contents of the game. Due to this, I needed to go through my old file and come up with new concepts to be unique while avoiding the possibility of copying Nintendo.
For this, I decided to incorporate Norse mythology and started designing Pokémons to fit this theme, as well as planned out the routes where you can catch these Pokémons.
Rebuilding The World
Because the original project was created in an outdated version of GameMaker, I decided to rebuild the project using GameMaker Studio. And with more research found online by the Pokémon video game competitive scene, I was able to recreated a proper battle system that incorporated proper weakness types, damage types, level scaling, and damage calculations. Additionally, with further planning and research, I was able to program the encounter rate to spawn a wild Pokémon and engage in battle, as well as identification system that makes each Pokémon a unique instance. This allows the catch system to differentiate each Pokémon as a separated entity despite sharing the same name. With this identification system in play, I was able to program a switching mechanic that allows the player to change out which Pokémon they wish to use in battle, as well as a healing system to heal specific or all Pokémon in the player's party base on that specific Pokémon unique stats.
-All art were drawing by me with a few exceptions being the Grass and some of the Trees.
Closing Thoughts
After gaining many more Pokémon knowledge about the details of how the game works, and flourishing the narrative of the game's story in the overworld, my goal was to create a working demo that would have the players play from the beginning to beating the first gym leader. Unfortunately in 2023, my last year at the University of Texas at Dallas, my school schedule became a mess and prevented me from working on the Pokémon project again. As a result, the Pokémon project has been left on hiatus again till further notice. I plan to finish the game as I have come too far to give up on this project. And learning from recreate a big game like Pokémon, that took Nintendo many years to develop, has given more insights how games are develop, while giving me more knowledge and techniques that can be integrated into other game designs.