Play by Post Longform Design-A-Dex Workshop 2-getherness: Generation Nuz

[SprungGeoduck]

DESIGN-A-DEX 2-GETHERNESS: GENERATION NUZ

Remember this idea? Some of you clearly did, as it saw a brief revival recently – and while I think the Weigo region is a beautiful thing that I'm proud of this community for coming together to make, it was also a bit haphazardly birthed. We went into that original thread with no real plan for where we were going.

That changes with Generation Nuz.

Instead of just chucking Pokemon at the wall and seeing what sticks, we're going to draw up a design for a game that would herald brand-new generation of Pokemon. That means fakemon! It means new moves, items and balance changes! It means, potentially, a new or revised battle gimmick! I think we did an amazing job coming together on something kind of like this in the original thread, and I believe we can do an even better job this time around.

(Disclaimer: I'm not going into this with the intention of us having to make an actual fan game or ROM hack as a final product. It's all just a bit of fun.)

Spoiler: Important Information

The Master Document

We're making a region based on the American South and artistic expression! That's... all we really know so far.

Stage 2: Region Fleshing-Out

1. What locations in our chunk of the world (map at the top of the master doc) would be interesting to include in a Pokemon game?

2. What new Pokemon concepts/inspirations would be must-haves?

3. What existing Pokemon might fit into our region?

(Reminder: the Scarlet and Violet spoiler embargo is still in place. Please remember to spoiler-tag any ideas or concepts related to those games!)

Answer these questions in your posts! Let's keep moving!

 

[theCape]

Posting mostly to show interest in the idea.

1) No strong preference on if we base the region on a real world location or not.

2) No theme ideas right now but I like that we decide on that early, so that we can design around it, adding mons that fit the theme.

 

[Norhian Samur]

Neat.

1) I'm torn cause on the one hand, basing off a real world area would be fun since we can pull from a lot of the existing animals that live in that area, but I can also see it being really frustrating for those who know little about an area to work on something based on a place they know nothing about. I'm fine with either option really.

2) Not sure off the top of my head what the best theme would be, Light & Dark is an obvious one but sun and moon kinda already did that, Order & Chaos is another obvious one but I feel like that one could be hard to represent (and also leans into SMT themes probably). idk, if someone else comes up with an interesting theme, I'd love to here it.

 

[Quazoo!]

Long-time lurker, but I thought this seemed fun!

I think basing a region off of a real life place is always neat! Although I do understand it could be frustrating for people who don't know much about it, but quick research is always possible too. I personally think basing a region off of a more rural area that Game Freak is not likely to officially make into a region would be really interesting!

Along with this idea I think themes such as Stability vs Liberty or Expansion vs Isolation would be cool to explore with the concept of a rural area, but could also be used otherwise.
Heart vs Mind are also some conflicting themes I find interesting that could be used for whatever!

 

[SprungGeoduck]

I personally think basing a region off of a more rural area that Game Freak is not likely to officially make into a region would be really interesting!

I don't know why, but this idea grabbed me immediately, especially in conjunction with the themes you thought up. Some kind of rural area where there's just one or two big cities on the fringes... could be large chunks of the US or Canada, but something like Argentina also makes sense to me, should we want to go further afield.

 

[Trollkitten]

Would also be an interesting concept for an open world game in the style of Gen 9, though hopefully with a more clearly telegraphed level curve (or level scaling if you're into that). Not that this will be an actual game or anything, I'm just throwing my two cents out there.

 

[MarkedInStone]

I love the idea of both an open-world region and, also, a more rural region. I don't know too much about Argentina, but I think something along the line of the American Midwest is interesting. Perhaps Michigan would be an interesting place for a region; it's got a major city in Detroit, but said city has been in a bit of a steep decline over the past 50 years. There's a college town in Ann Arbor, and that brings in a possible tie to the college football of the region. There's a possible idea that we could base on Mackinac Island- between the mitten and the upper peninsula; a tourist attraction known for its near-total ban on motor vehicles.

Maybe a good idea is to focus a little further south, bring in Columbus for that good ol' Ohio vs Michigan rivalry. Columbus is a bit of a contrast to a lot of the other places in the region- it's more populous than Detroit at this point, and as inferred to earlier, there's a big rivalry between the two states, largely based around college football (Michigan vs. Ohio State being one of the most storied college football rivalries, in Ann Arbor and Columbus). We might be able to turn it into a bit of a more down-to-earth Past vs. Future- instead of the distant past and distant future, look at the industrial decline of the region. Obviously this isn't easy! There's real lives being affected by this today- looking at the water crisis in Flint, Michigan and the struggle of the community there, there's a lot we could do that might be a bit insensitive. But at the same time, we could both look at how development can destroy elements of a community (highways built on the rubble of (often majority-Black) neighborhoods, for one), and how that affects the people involved.

If we're talking North America, there's a lot of space that's really got nothing much to work off of geographically- not too many large bodies of water, but other areas we could look at might be:

- the Chesapeake Bay area (I've got a bit of expertise in this area, considering I live in Maryland)
- the other, more oft-suggested Bay Area around San Francisco
- Somewhere in the Deep South- New Orleans comes to mind
- Toronto, just because I think Canada deserves some spotlight

I'd say the PNW, but I feel that's been done pretty well by Lockstin's Kaskade region and I don't know if we could make something as interesting without drawing some deeply similar ideas.

But Canada/the US aren't the only places we should be focusing on! We've had two America-based regions in Unova and Alola (although Hawai'i is more its own thing), and three Europe-based ones (Kalos, Galar, Paldea). Perhaps we can do something a little different.

We'd need some people with knowledge about the areas featured- and if not, we might want to consider not basing it on any real-world region. If we want to do the region justice, we have to do our research- or make sure that we have lived experience factoring into our decisions.

 

[SprungGeoduck]

I don't know why, but even before the idea of a more rural region was presented, I was thinking about places I'd like to see and thought "hey, what if you went a bit north of Unova?". Ergo, I had the idea for something based on a mix of the Northeast US (Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine) and eastern Canada (Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia). Would definitely be wilderness-y enough for an open world, but with a different feel to Paldea.

- the Chesapeake Bay area (I've got a bit of expertise in this area, considering I live in Maryland)
- the other, more oft-suggested Bay Area around San Francisco
- Somewhere in the Deep South- New Orleans comes to mind
- Toronto, just because I think Canada deserves some spotlight

I also like literally all of these.

Perhaps we can do something a little different.

Also super down for this, a strong advocate of something like an Asia-based region that isn't Japan (me and people I know have tossed around ideas like Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea), but we'd have to do it justice and I think for a collaborative project like this we'd want something the most people would be comfortable with, so sticking to North America would make sense based on the demographics of the forums.

 

[Sparklepop]

1) All of the regions of the past have been based on real-life locations, so I think we should follow suit. As for a region concept, I would like to either go somewhere close to my home (Southeast or Southern United States) or something that has never been done such as a country in South America or Africa, or Australia.

2) Hmmmm, there could be some interesting ones. The region I'm sorta doing (when I have time) has Love VS Hate, so that could be cool. Order VS Chaos would also be nice. I would like something more abstract or spiritual since those are the themes I find most interesting.

 

[SprungGeoduck]

Okay, this might be a lot of ideas at once, especially coming from the thread creator, but I was just struck with a flash of inspiration on how to potentially handle an open world.

though hopefully with a more clearly telegraphed level curve (or level scaling if you're into that

I come back to an idea I had for an open-world Pokemon game way before ScarVi were even announced, based on a game I've been replaying recently – the original Forza Horizon. In that game, the whole map is open to you from the start, but you only have a limited selection of events. Completing and winning events earns you points towards your next Horizon Festival wristband, and leveling that up unlocks a new swathe of events across the map.

Having new battles slowly open up as the player levels up some kind of progression item would, I think, more clearly telegraph the level curve. I think you could also have each tier have a 5 level or so range between its lowest and highest level challenge, since a level advantage like that can usually be overcome with clever enough strategy.

Hell, you could even fully roll with the festival theming and maybe lean it into the Order vs Chaos theme that @Norhian Samur and @Sparklepop suggested – maybe it's a rebellious upstart festival kind of thing that goes against the stuffy, established Pokemon League in the region?

 

[Trollkitten]

I come back to an idea I had for an open-world Pokemon game way before ScarVi were even announced, based on a game I've been replaying recently – the original Forza Horizon. In that game, the whole map is open to you from the start, but you only have a limited selection of events. Completing and winning events earns you points towards your next Horizon Festival wristband, and leveling that up unlocks a new swathe of events across the map.

Having new battles slowly open up as the player levels up some kind of progression item would, I think, more clearly telegraph the level curve. I think you could also have each tier have a 5 level or so range between its lowest and highest level challenge, since a level advantage like that can usually be overcome with clever enough strategy.

That makes a lot of sense, and I kind of wish ScVi had done something similar, although if I'm honest, there is a certain feeling of power in somehow bullshitting your way through a challenge that you clearly aren't supposed to be strong enough to face yet. I just, well, if I'm going to do that, I'd like to at least know going in that that's what I'm gonna be doing.

 

[SprungGeoduck]

if I'm going to do that, I'd like to at least know going in that that's what I'm gonna be doing.

Going back to FH1, in that game when you hover over an event node on the world map, it tells you the class of car you should bring. I'm trying to reason out whether or not it would break my Pokemon Gamer Immersion if I hovered over a gym node on a map and it said "Recommended Level: 22" next to it.

 

[venomous_wario]

I'm going to be partial to my home state of North Carolina for a second... Why not do a region based on it (maybe including some of SC, VA, and TN). It has two major cities (Charlotte and Raleigh; although Charlotte is more populated it is rapidly expanding so it could tie into that). It has a large mountain range on the western border (with Tennessee) and the eastern borders of both North and South Carolina are full of beaches (The Outer Banks, in particular, would be neat as a postgame area). Since the Triad (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill) is known for its colleges, perhaps that could be reflected in the game. There's enough biomes (mountains, beach, farmland, urban, swampland, forest, sandhills, etc.) in the area to allow for team diversity. And, to answer Question #2, I'm not sure what theme (if any) would fit best with this.

 

[Black Viper]

My first thought was to suggest a game based on India. It's a large country, with multiple biomes and plenty of history, having been colonised in the past and a big part of the spice trade. It could easily have plenty of influences from abroad, as well as its own flair, all of which would allow for a few regional types and so on.

I like the idea of a more rural setting, though I don't know a whole lot about Maine and Vermont myself, but I think that's an interesting region to use if you are going to stick with North America. Even without the real-world knowledge, it's not hard to get a feel for a location and start building on it - after all, it's an influence and perhaps a design style, it's not that we're recreating a place brick for brick.

As for a theme, hmm. Order and chaos sounds great for something like South America, I'm struggling to fit it in to North America without it getting political and involving the police. If the area was to be more rural, perhaps with a lot of farmland, then how about theming it around agriculture? It's a tough area, a lot of people working physical jobs, it's generally a low-technology area compared to some regions, and maybe that comes with tradition and history, but now there's a new generation that wants to modernise and take the region in a different direction?

 

[Norhian Samur]

I'm going to be partial to my home state of North Carolina for a second...

FELLOW NORTH CAROLINIAN SPOTTED

I'd be down with it but I also know I'd end up reusing ideas from the fakemon dex I've done for NC. Besides the ones I would change probably. That said Fire Gun Snake is something we deserve.

Anyway the thing with order vs chaos as a theme is that I feel like in general it might lean into some real unfortunate implications if we do a real world country as our basis. Cause there are some very obvious implications regardless of how tactfully we handle it. Like I'm down with order vs chaos as a theme but at that point I feel like we might need a fictional setting for it to work well.

Maybe we could do some sort of elemental theme? Or maybe a seasonal theme? Actually the latter could really work, either Summer & Winter or Fall & Spring, where the version difference ties into the "season" of the region, with like one version having more ice types as common mons while the other has more fire types as common mons? idk I'm kinda spitballing here.

 

[Trollkitten]

I'm in favor of the elemental theme, since the seasonal theme has kind of been done with Lockstin's Kaskade region.

And I definitely agree that order and chaos wouldn't be the best theme for any real-world based region given current events.

 

[SprungGeoduck]

I 100% get the apprehension around order and chaos – to be honest, I don't think it's the sort of dichotomy that really fits with a Pokemon game anyway.

I'm in favor of the elemental theme, since the seasonal theme has kind of been done with Lockstin's Kaskade region.

Elemental... how do we do that, though? I feel like it would overlap somewhat with types which are a core mechanic of Pokemon, and we'd have to be careful not to end up with, say, a rehash of Hoenn's story.

 

[theCape]

What do we mean by Elemental? Are we doing Air, Water, Earth, Fire long ago the four nations lived in harmony...

Do we want to do a different set with Fire/Water/Earth/Metal/Wood?

 

[Trollkitten]

Elemental... how do we do that, though? I feel like it would overlap somewhat with types which are a core mechanic of Pokemon, and we'd have to be careful not to end up with, say, a rehash of Hoenn's story.

I feel like it might be interesting to have different cities centered around different Pokemon types, similarly to how Ransei had different kingdoms based around those types.

 

[estralita]

Hello, everyone! Haven't really been involved with something like this, but it does look interesting, so here's my two cents.

I'm not certain about elementals as a standalone theme. But as a complementary motif, I think it could be really cool. Cities designed with a certain element in mind could be lovely, especially if we can explore the abstract as well as literal interpretations.

As a main theme, though...

What do you all think of an artistic theme? Paldea has "finding your treasures" as a repeated element. Maybe here the goal could be "express your true self" or something along those lines. It could also tie in to a Heart and Mind dichotomy on how people make/engage with art.

I'd say more, but I'm on mobile right now. So, what do you all think?