Designing the WILDS of Pokemon
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- Опубліковано 28 сер 2024
- Pokemon Rebooted: How could we best design the look and mechanics of Pokemon in the wild? In this second episode of the study, I show how the answer to some questions can change everything!
Music:
“Multiverse” and “Music Box, Harp & Hammered Dulcimer” by Wintergatan
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Berries. They are pretty randomly spread around and people always forget what they do.
What if the nearby PKMN hinted at the kinds of berries?
Physically strong PKMN near Fire types look for Rawst Berries for burns
Rock and Steel types in Desert areas live near outcrops of Shuca Berries since they naturally repel Ground types.
What if Berries were more diverse flora such as grasses and shrubs to be more reflective of their effects? Eg Passho berries would be a kind of seaweed.
I love stuff like this! It would be a really tricky system to build but it would go a very long way towards making the world feel alive and responsive!
this would also work for things like ores because if you saw a rust colored geodude it wouldn't be that far of a leap to say there is probably an iron vein around there
also agron if you saw this red geodude you would also know their would be a bunch of agron around fighting and eating them
The berries are the fruit, I want to see what _the rest of the plant_ can be used for.
I do like how often the argument "That seems too ambitious, tho" is countered by "but Monster Hunter". XD
The issue now isn't "Pokemon is too ambitious", it's "Pokemon is too ambitious for the development cycle it's locked into". That counters Monster Hunter, which, I understand, has a much bigger development time.
Hell no, you don't see it too seriously.. that's what I wish for. A Pokemon game with a thought through world and ecosystem. Different Pokemon by Night, maybe different behaviours by Day and Night. Timed events, like Pokemon appearing in specific spots once per week. Or that one has to use different catching strategies for different Pokemon, maybe stronger emphasis on special balls, or maybe even other gear. So that one has to think about what's the best way to catch a particular Pokemon. Lots of optional areas to explore. A world that feels open but isn't completely open, more like it opens up the stronger you get, like Elden Ring, or Gothic. I would keep some metroidvania aspects. I know most of that is similarly already in the games, but I really think it has to be rethought.
ALSO so many great Ideas in your videos. Like that maybe one hears about something from a village inhabitant and that hints to something in the world, like the Flower. Give me a lot of that. PLS
Especially as these game become more open world, it leaves a lot of room to have these secrets throughout. I don't expect Game Freak to really take advantage of that in these early days of them working with it, but hopefully they do a few good things like that and then feedback encourages them to really dive in!
As far as a template for the ecosystem goes the anime and the pokedex entries provides a very good basis to build up from. Pokemon are very much integral to the environments they live in, using their abilities to often repair and protect their homes. While pokemon can be destructive they often keep the infected area small because they very much appreciate their homes remaining intact. It would not be unusual to see a Venusaur and some grass types rejuvenate a wasteland using grassy terrain. I do agree that the environments should be as fantastical as the pokemon themselves. The franchise keeps trying to pretend that it is like our world when it isn't.
Yes! This is exactly the kinds of stuff that I would love to see used in the games. It would be nice if NPCs would even just talk about it! Let alone for quests and Pokedex entries to utilize it.
Yeah, instead of walking around randomly, each pokemon should interact with the scenery differently from each other, and these specifical interactions each pokemon has with the scenery should be related to the way you catch them, the best idea I had right now in particular is with Lotad.
The idea: you see a lake full of lily pads, some of them are actually Lotads, so if you want to catch a Lotad, you have to look carefully, after a few seconds observing the lake you will notice that one of the lily pads has risen up a bit revealing Lotad's eyes, he looks around for a bit and then he goes back down again, after seeing this, you already know which lily pad is a Lotad, only thing you need to do now is catch it and there you go, you caught a Lotad.
My inspirations for this comes from New Pokemon Snap and Bugsnax, with Bugsnax in particular, you have many ways to catch a bugsnax like traps, lures, distractions or even using another bugsnax, I would love to see those ideas implemented in the wilds of the Pokemon world.
Yes exactly! It's very simple things like this that can bring a heck of a lot of life into that world and the enjoyment/engagement of that world. Pokemon Snap and Bugsnax are indeed very good examples to draw from!
I don't have a fleshed out answer for how this would work, but I did have this thought while watching the video; how could the jobs of IRL bugs/polinators be replaced by grass-type Pokemon. Like, Grass-types alone function as walking plants in their own right, so their reproductive needs are going to be vastly different than the plants of our world. Further, they have the power to make plants grow- they must have some power over the life cycles of natural, non-Pokemon plantlife. Because of that, they may be able to fully replace IRL bugs as pollinators.
But, again, this is a very 'off-the-cuff' kind of thought, so I have no idea how it would hold up.
It makes sense, though; a lot of Grass Pokémon can use pollen attacks (i.e. Stun Spore, Sleep Powder), so they could act as pollinators.
Something I just thought of while typing this: plants usually collect water from the air, which forms dew and helps the plants grow. Why don't more Grass Pokémon know how to use Life Dew? 😅 This would be great from both a gameplay and world-building angle, as Grass-types would now have a new support option befitting their type, and it would give Grass-types a way to care for plants, since keeping you and your pals healthy is pretty much what Life Dew is for.
I dont know why but the first thought a pokemon ecosystem gave me was a post somewhere I saw of someone as a kid seeing a pokedex entry for lapras being very rare iirc so they bred and released lots of lapras to raise the population back. It obviously did nothing but it was still a really sweet action anyways
On another topic, this is a really minute thing, but I want every pokemon in a regional dex to be able to be found in the wild SOMEWHERE. Even if maybe your garchomp, dragonite, etc is late game or even post game. The only pokemon that have any excuse for not being found in the wild is trade evolutions and the fossil pokemon in my opinion. Otherwise I think the idea if having to evolve a pokemon to find it really unnecessary
That Lapras story is honestly one of my favorites.
Yeah I would love to see those Pokemon as end game available, or maybe special encounters or tough boss-ish fights. To have them there in the wild and be an actual danger. We are definitely seeing this in the open world games now (even the trade evolutions) but I think they would have been very welcome in the older games too.
Year old video comment I know, but I felt I had something to contribute. I’ve read a bunch of Pokémon webfiction and one thing that pretty much every one of them has to handle at some point is how do you handle meat? It isn’t particularly realistic to imagine regular animals being able to survive long term in a world with pokemon, and pokemon as we know them are, well, capable of sapience. There are several pokemon that just aren’t realistic to put on a vegan diet (you can’t tell me that aerodactyl isn’t an obligate carnivore) and it’s difficult to imagine a society that can regularly kill and eat sapient creatures being at all normal, especially if they have integrated those creatures into their society heavily. Some of the solutions I’ve seen are we just ignore that because the mc is super edgy and that regular animals exist but are like super endangered and have to be farmed extremely carefully, but I think that my favorite method of dealing with it is having multiple kinds of pokemon with and without the “spark” that lets them do magic stuff and get as intelligent as humans or more. It was called “the natural” and I think he called them “wild” and “domesticated” which doesn’t really make sense because the majority of pokemon in the wild were the “domesticated” ones but I digress. I am unsure how this would be incorporated into a game but I found it to be a fascinating world building question and think that it could be an interesting way to explain how the ecosystem can be stable with all of these godlike creatures running around. If a nidoking had to have a huge battle with hyper beams and whatnot every time it wanted a snack, the environment would have to either be unnaturally resilient or get changed in a way that likely wouldn’t be particularly good for the nidoking’s continued survival. It might be the scariest thing in the area, but if you burn down the forest then you don’t have a forest anymore.
Doesn't matter how much time passes, I will always love getting comments like this!
Wolf quest (anniversary edition). is a smaller indie game that is really good at making an eco system feel alive! I have my issues with it, but it dose an incredible job at this specifically. Herds and groups of creatures are constantly doing there own thing, wild elk fight for dominance, you can find other wolfs hunting, eagles fishing, coyotes scavenge for food and foxes moussing in the winter. It is a really incredible system and I would love to see something like this in Pokemon some day.
On the topic of Pokémon categories I bring to the table one of my favorite Pokémon Zangoose, the CAT FERRET Pokémon. Not the MONGOOSE Pokémon, the CAT FERRET Pokémon. Not to be confused with Furret, the LONG BODY Pokémon!
An open world Pokemon game doesn't need to be an expanded Wild Area like PLA is probably going to be. I would love to see a setup like in the Elder Scrolls series; you start at a certain point, and then you can go explore as much as you want. Go to towns, talk to people, start the (optional) gym challenge, join a faction that foils Team Rocket's plans, or become a Rocket yourself. Activities from the past like Pokemon Contests could return if you don't want to battle.
But I think they should also refrain from using Legendary Pokemon in the stories, which is something they haven't done since Gen 3, maybe even Crystal with Suicune. Legendaries should be treated as such, legends, tall tales, who says they actually exist? By following hints and by exploring you can come across them and earn the right to try and capture them. Nowadays, the story of the mainline games demands that you catch these legendary creatures to progress, which I don't find nearly as interesting.
Can I just say that it really bewilders me to see you barely getting any views? I don't use social media, so I can't really help you there, but I do hope you will find an audience, as I find your views on the Pokemon series very interesting to listen to. Also props to your crew, your videos always look very nice! 👍Keep it up!
Absolutely I would love a more Elder Scrolls approach to Pokemon too as you described... because that is not what PLA will be and I hope not too many people have that expectation going in.
It will be quite a while before I get to my Legendaries episode but you have already hit upon some major points that I will bring up! So now I'm extra looking forward to eventually getting there :P
Thank you so much, I appreciate that a lot. Yes unfortunately the YT algorithm does not care for my team's "effort" but I will continue to do it anyway! Haha
Are you sure Pokémon couldn't fulfill the needs of biomes? You have the likes of Suicune and Shaymin purifying water and land. Outside of them, we have non-legendaries that tend to the land. Bidoof line builds dams, Galarian Weezing filter air, Gogoat line scatter seeds, Roselia line can share pollen, it just works!
I don't hate the tall grass (though I don't love it either), the only problem I had with the invisible random encounters was in caves.
The old pixel art style works wonderfully from both mechanical and artistic standpoints, and is where all of GameFreak's experience actually exists.
I miss the metroidvania aspect of exploring the overworld in the old games.
I like the game mechanics of Oblivion TES IV.
You have a Mapped out Main quest, but you can choose to avoid it all together.
As you level up enemies and loot are Teared to your level.
Geographical regions can hold specific Pokémon.
You can have the common Pokémon in every location: the birds, bugs and rodents of your back yard.
But you should have to travel and search for the uncommon Pokémon.
"You have mapped out main quest, but you can choose to avoid it all together."
Then what else are you supposed to do? Sorry, I'm too narrow-minded for that.
Gosh the way pokemon just pop-up in Sw/Sh is the worst? Those tricks like spawning from behind objects sounds like such a good compromise. It would work for so many environments? Not all of them but y'know.
Also every time someone is like "But your overthinking it!!1" I'm just like "Everything from Pokemon to Zootopia inevitably has people ask 'What do they eat tho' so obviously we gotta start over thinking it at some point!"
Sandslash and Sandshrew are also categorized as Mouse Pokemon. But are they mice? Apparently if their category says so and defines it that way. But Sandslash and Sandshrew don’t look like mice at all, not even rats like Rattata and Raticate look. And therefore it's confusing.
omg they are classified as "Mouse Pokemon"! How did I miss this? I mean, clearly they were inspired by Pangolins the "scaly anteaters" but still... very strange.
The only issue I have with this video is the idea that there are bugs besides the Pokemon. I get that they could be ignored, but it feels a little lame to just have real bugs. There are some things in pokemon that are mostly the same as the real world, like plants, corals and mushrooms (where these forms of life end and pokemon begin is up to semantics), I feel like nearly every member of animalia could easily be represented by a pokemon (corals and sponges are iffy). Even for the itty bitty little bugs, they could exist but work slightly differently to account for a larger size (within reason, bugs are supposed to be small)
I heard somewhere maybe from an official source note I do not know if it was, that real life insects do exist in the pokemon universe
I know that they definitely did in the first season of the TV show. The first time we see Pidgeotto, it's eating something that looks like an inchworm.
I absolutely do not want bug pokemon *_AND_* normal bugs
Accursed
I will continue to handwave the world's continued existence
Hello! I know I am two years late, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on Scarlet / Violet! Love the series so far
This video goes so fuckin hard
Will this video be updated, so now that Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have not only been released, but that development has also been completed?
D&D has magical beasts and mundane beasts, and not all of those mundane beasts are real world animals.
Monster Hunter has complete ecosystems filled entirely with original monsters.
So on, so on.
You don't need IRL cows, pokemon esque approximations of cows that lack the ability to utilize moves and can't be captured is good enough to get the idea of "the separation of mundane and magical creatures" across, and use it as a handy excuse for why people can't be caught. It's the magical aspect of pokemon that allows them to be captured.
I adore coherent environments and discovery like this but the sheer scope of the pokedex makes that not only unreasonable to develop but would also make for a bloated game even if by some miracle it was perfectly crafted. I think pokemon designs shine when a handful are selected and a coherent narrative and gameplay experience can be created around them while deepening their personalities and interactions with the world to tell a more specific message. Fans would obviously be upset at the lack of a full pokedex so maybe a spinoff label would suit them better.
I wish more “jobs” were available in the Pokémon games. Like some people wanna be collectors, some wanna be the best, some Pokémon rangers etc
there is. photographers in Snap, rangers in rangers, warlords in conquest…
I'm not a fan of real animals being present in the pokemon games, especially when it's such a vestigial concept.