Re-worked Pokemon Fan Game

2025-04-12

When I was younger I made Pokemon Rom Hacks with random tools that I found on the internet. Before I started work on my own personal game, I thought that it'd be fun to make a HD-2D Pokemon Game in Godot.

But then after I finished the first set of sprites, I choked.

As you can see, I had a character creator feature planned. But the amount of sprites I would've had to make was overwhelming for me at the time. I think I made a simple walk cycle for the left and right directions, but then I pivoted.

My thinking was, well, I already know 3D. If I just make a character, I can swap the parts and do the character creation that way!

It's worth noting that by this point, I didn't know that Adobe bought Substance Painter. :]

I promise you, I have gotten WAY better at making characters since then, but they still aren't my strong suit.

This was a common issue with me and my projects for a long time.

I recall reading that Miyamoto made sure that Mario was fun to move around in a 3D enviroment before he made a single level. I internalized that philosophy, and so a lot of my time is spent making characters and character controllers. They aren't my strength, but I do them anyways because I NEED a character to make the rest of the world.

Want to make a door? Well how big is the player? How fast do they move? Where is the camera? 1 million different questions that I can't answer until I do it! It's maddening!

This is why people say don't do indie development alone. Not because it's particularly difficult, but because it's time consuming as all hell.

Anyways, I still haven't given up on this project, and I want to make it come to life eventually, but that'll 100% be YEARS away.