#a fun thing also is the title of each chapter isnt revealed until the end

[killjoy-prince]

I was reading manga telling myself to go to bed to no avail when my brother called telling me to open the door because he forgot his keys. When I opened the door, I told him he was lucky I was reading manga bc no one else was up right now and so he thanked me and then went to my room and said in a cutesy voice "Thank you manga~!"

[tumblunni]

Miscellaneous thoughts for the 'dark pokemon' game

* it could be cool as an actual hack of firered or something, but it seems that would require more coding knowledge than using apps like rpgmaker. Also there's that kit to make pokemon games in rpgmaker but it only worked for the really old rpgmakers and now its got copyright claimed by nintendo so its not really an option. Itd be easier to make this game in the latest rpgmaker cos its not really an outright pokemon fangame but more of a general mons genre thing that could have different gameplay if i wanted it to.

* or would it work better as an actual pokemon prequel thing? Like 'kanto was actually all dark like this back in ye ancient times' and have a bunch of prehistoric/caveman/400AD/whatever time period forms of pokemon or something? But thatd give me less creative freedom with the idea, yeah

* Not sure if your mons should talk or not? One of the initial inspirations i had for this was the underrated gem Swordcraft Story where your four starter monsters are more like a choice of sidekick! They dont actually fight, they just provide a huge different set of dialogue commenting on everythibg that happens, and its fab! But then the game kinda woukdnt have the collectable aspect and i feel that the long journeys between towns would get boring if theres no incentive to battle enemies. And long journeys between towns is kinda a big plot point and thematic aspect of this idea.

* Also i kinda wanna do Cute Pet Game Gameplay as a fun way of stepping away from the pure pokemon formula. And that'd perhaps be a bit weird if your pet can talk? I dunno? Well maybe itd be more like those baby raising games. But i had a separate idea for literally a monster baby raising game so itd be good to not overlap, lol. Wish i knew how to actually do touchscreen petting type stuff in rpgmaker, i mean its on pc so theoretically you should be able to do an equivalent with the mouse? Maybe try and cheat my way into it with my minimal programming knowledge by basically making a "map" where all the tiles are pieces of this one image of a monster, and then you walk over it to select where to pet...? I dunno lol! Anyway bonding with your mons is VITALLY IMPORTANT TO THE EVERYTHING so i need to DEEPLY THINK ABOUT IT. deeply deeply contemplate huggin some babbu

* maybe the game's title could be something like dark walk/journey/stroll/whatever's a good synonym? Cos the whole 'monster tamers are cursed and must walk the earth forever in search of somewhere to belong'

* i'm not sure how to handle the beginning? Cos of the whole aspect of starting off looking like a cliche poke-clone and then slowly revealing the deep dark lore during the tutorial segments. So we'd sorta have to skip/abridge the day of our hero leaving their village, in order to not spoil it. And have a flashback later on at the most dramatic moment! But that means itd be awkward to give you the selection of starter monster? So i dunno maybe do like kingdom hearts and have a surreal dreamworld opening segment? The protagonist is having a nightmare about that day they had to leave their family behind, and everything can be just as vague and confusing as the plot needs it to be. You cpuld be some sort of vague faceless shadow until you decide your gender, and etc? (Protagonist: wait why did i dream i couldnt remember i was a dude)

* oh and maybe you can choose a custom gemstone for your monster summoning pendant thing! Cos if its gonna be one singular thing instead of consumeable pokeballs, itd kinda suck if you had no choice which one thing youre stuck with for the whole game. Or maybe it could change but itd be more like it evolves as well as the monsters? Start off with one design and it has multiple final forms depending on your moral choices during your playthrough. Oh, or if you choose it at the beginning, maybe it somehow affects your starter mon? Like the simplest idea would just be that each starter mon has its own pendant to live in. But what if the pendant choices were elements and then the starter mon is like a vessel to imbue with it? Like you get three designs that are..i dunno, attack defense and speed? And they each have a fire water or grass form, for a total of 9 unique mon options! That way i could keep it limited to three personalities to write, if i go with the idea of the mons being able to talk. But still have a lot more free choice! Oh or maybe its not even 3 elements but 9 elements? Like the three options change depending on the base mon. Attack mon can be fire, electric or darkness but defense mon can be something entirely else. Or maybe have overlap so there's at least two choices for each element but nobody has the same entire three elements? Im bad at math tho so i cant figure outhow to arrange that to make it work...how many elements wpuld i need...?

* maybe you could choose your rival's gender as well as the protagonist? Thatd be neat if they also looked different in every playthrough. I mean the variety of starters would encourage replays so we wanna have some other stuff that changes too. And if you could choose rival gender then it wouldnt be limited to the "always the opposite gend so thus heterosexuality" sort of thing. Oh and maybe what if other characters had potential smaller changes? Like your family members having similar skin and hair colours, or you have a single parent but whether theyre a mum or a dad depends on what you picked? Or if i cpuld figure out some other more gameplayish things that i could give replay value to? Like maybe you actually have a choice of what town to go to at each point in the story, and you cant revisit the other one without replaying that chapter? And your team options would be wildly different depending on which journey you took, so itd be a nicely large difference! Tho maybe make it so that most mons are still all available on each playthru, its just that some would appear early if you made a certain choice but be at the very end of the game if you chose differently. Oh and maybe the champion would be different depending on your choices!!! Like if you complete certain sidequests you might have just added a new candidate to the potential final boss roster! Itll be whoever's your bestest bestie by the end! Tho i mean with this different setting there isnt really a league or a champion so id just have to think of some other climactic ending thing, lol.