Harvest Moon (or Stardew)-like Pokemon game?
I decided that Iâm doing this rather the government takes my open internet away to the point where itâs basically unusable or not since my fiance showed a great interest in what I described to him. Of course, this wouldnât play like a Harvest Moon game. It would play like a Pokemon game. (The concept would be similar though which is why Iâm making the comparison) The idea of a casual dating sim Pokemon game is still fun though. (I already started on the graphics because Iâm still going to be making this.)
At this point, I think I want to start development of this game since Accourt Academyâs story is done, and there hasnât been any bugs reported for a while.
If this post does fairly well (in favorites or people flat out saying âI want thisâ) Iâll probably just make a separate Tumblr account for this game.
So while I was making Accourt Academy my fiance downloaded Stardew Valley for the PS4 and started playing it like his life depended on it. And then I remember a post on here that I read a while ago asking for a Harvest Moon-like Pokemon game. And then I was up all night thinking about a Pokemon game thatâs like Harvest Moon. I seriously couldnât sleep because my mind was reeling with ideas.
It would be really different from Distrust, Sanguine, and even Accourt Academy, which is suppose to start out as a casual Pokemon school game where you can date people. Start out. This one would be completely casual if you want it to be, and no teenagers murdering each other. (And I donât think Iâm going to have the date-able people have horrid backstories in this.)
Also, I wouldnât have some collect-a-thon task thing before you can get married. I was always pretty annoyed by those when Harvest Moon started doing them. So instead Iâll just have marriage be a thing you have to work towards emotionally, instead of having it be a tedious chore.
The development would start a bit slow for a few months for⊠Reasons. =3
The goal here, instead of progressing through a story, is to⊠Do whatever. You wanna get married? Great! You wanna become a millionaire? Good luck! Wanna become champion? Iâll root for you! Wanna do all of these things and more? 100% possible!
Oh, and one more thing: I have no doubt in my mind that Iâll get tired of making this at most rated T game (if it were to have a rating) so I would probably start making something else on the side, but thatâs nothing anybody has to worry about until Iâm done with either this or that⊠If I know what âthatâ is eventually.
At this point I already got at 100+ hours into Stardew Valley. Any bold - are ideas that I either took from or was inspired by Stardew in one way or another.
-Instead of veggies, you would be in charge of a berry farm. (Since thatâs already a canon thing that has a code, so I donât have to make a new one.)
-Eleven bachelor/ettes. Probably 5 girls and 6 guys. (Eleven so nobody is alone in the end.) All bisexual so you it wonât matter what gender you are⊠Because I hate myself apparently. (It would mean twice the work for me.)
-âRivals,â as in you can walk into an event between two people⊠Probably three times before they get married. (It would probably be easy to avoid though.)
-Town upgrades. Like, if you do so much, or donate enough money, or whatever, abandoned buildings will be filled with.. I dunno, EV training building, TM/HM buying building? Stones? âŠThings like that?
-Pokemon that can help you on your land by giving you stuff. (Like Miltank giving you Moo Moo Milk.) And instead of a bike, you would ride a Pokemon maybe. (Taurus)
-Gyms and an Elite 4 that arenât technically required, but you canât use certain HMs without the badges. The gyms and Elite 4 are probably going to be run by Accourt/Distrust/Sanguine characters so I can just reuse assets instead of making new ones. (They would probably have slightly different personalities. Think âAccourt Academy AU where shit doesnât hit the fan.â Maybe Iâll make this the âNot Mega Stone universe.)
(The marriageable characters would be 100% new, though. I already have designs thought up for them.) (Also, itâs possible that Iâll reuse adult characters from Accourt Academy for smaller roles. It would take forever for me to make this if I donât.)
-Probably two islands to go to. One with nine cities, including the one connected to your berry farm, and one that has a city. Or maybe one big one with a bunch of little towns and then one maybe medium size with just one huge town. Ooor One small island with your farm and the âmainâ town, and then one big island with the rest of the cities⊠Iâll decide later.
-Babuus, of course⊠Maybe up to two? Maybe the possibility of having twins? Who knows? âProbably will have them grow into adults, maybe⊠Possibly⊠At least kids. Probably teenagers. Iâll try to find a way to name both of them, but itâs possible that you would only be able to name one of them, and the other your spouse will name. (Maybe theyâll give you a choice of three or four names to choose from.) (Of course you can just adopt one, or have one out of surrogate if you choose to marry someone as the same gender as you are.)Â
-Also other married couples can have babuus too. And will. Theyâll probably look pretty similar to each other, at least to start. (Less sprite work for me.)
-Two starters, technically. Like, you would have one Pokemon already (Iâm thinking Tauros, so you can have your âbikeâ Pokemon immediately. Also I wouldnât have to change the Pokemon since it never evolves) and an âeverybody who lives in this town/island has one of these Pokemonâ Pokemon.Â
âWhat would they be? The BETA Pokemon Gold Starters! Iâve been ârevampingâ some of the BETA sprites to look more like they belong in gen 3 and/or beyond. (Well, Iâve been doing my best anyway) and I really want to have the âstarterâ Pokemon the BETA starters. (I dunno if I want to make Chikorita look like the BETA art work since they changed it to how it is now in the demo anyway.)
âWild revamp BETA Pokemon, just because I can. Though I think Iâm going to at least start with only the cut Pokemon, but in the future I may decide to replace the final sprites with revamped BETA sprites, just because.
-Instead of just giving people gifts to make them like you like in Harvest Moon, you have to actually talk to them and say the right things if they ask you a question. Kind of like a typical Newgrounds dating sim game, but without the porn.
âWhich means that you would have to have them like you so much before theyâll go on a date with you. (Theyâll probably ask you to go on the date so you donât have to worry about timing it just right before asking them.)
-I think I want to add a cave where you can either find rarer and rarer things the deeper you go, or rarer and more powerful Pokemon the deeper you go. (This will also probably be the place where you can dig for fossils and what-not.) Or both.
-Iâll most likely keep the player silent. In AADS Iâm trying to tell a story with characters. In this though itâs supposed to be whatever you choose to do, so I want it to feel more immersive by uh⊠Not assigning a personality to your character. Of course this means awkward âOh so youâre \PN and you moved here from blah blah blahâ dialogue, but thatâs a risk Iâm willing to take! (\PN is the placeholder for the characterâs name in the game.)Â
-Portraits⊠I mean this is a dating sim game after all. Youâd probably want to know how the person looks.
-Holidays, of course. It would be too monotonous without them.Â
âThough I would only have one Valentineâs day instead of two to make it easier on me. In Harvest Moon⊠And Japan, they have both âWhite Dayâ as well as âValentines Day.â One day is for men to give chocolate to women, and the other is for women to give chocolate to men. Also, this will make it easier for people to get/give gifts to the same gender. If I had both âWhiteâ and âValentinesâ day, and you were to choose to date a person of the same gender, you would be excluded from one of the two days, rather itâs gift giving or receiving.
-Polygamy, but only up to two spouses. Half of the fun of dating sims I think is finding the person who you want to be with. It wouldnât be that fun if you could just marry everybody in the same file. Buuuut I had this moment when I thought âdamn. I really wish I could marry both Leah and Elliot in the same file without having to get a divorce.â So⊠That.
âI would want to have you have to get the two to like each other enough for that first, I think. How would depend on the couple. If they donât like each other, you would have to work harder than if the two do like each other quite a bit.
-28 days in a month. I wondered why thatâs the case in Stardew before realizing that it was so the weekdays can just recycle and not have to be in an infinite loop. The â1stâł is always a Monday, and the â28thâ is always a Sunday.
Technically all of the ideas are âmaybeâ idea right now. (Besides the main ideas.) These are just more âmaybeâ than the others.
-Iâd like to have character customization, but I think I can only go up to eight different playable characters, so it would have to be very limited.
âI think I would have the player customize their character from inside of their room so they can go back and change their looks if they change their mind. Also because I may want to add some things midway through development. This way you wouldnât have to destroy your file just to look different. Also this would be one of the last things I put into the game. Or middle, or⊠Just not one of the first.
-Replaced Potions and other medicine with food at an inflated price. But food that you can make. Like, say Oran Berry juice would be⊠2,000 bucks or so, OR you can make some with 20 Oran Berries.
-Gifts. It may become way too tedious or even impossible for me to try to implement gift giving, unless I really limit it. Though I will most likely give you the opportunity to give one of four-or-so gift on a date. And Iâll probably (most likely) make it possible for you to give roses and/or chocolates on Valentines Day.Â
-Weekdays. The calendar will have months. How many months? I dunno. In Harvest Moon itâs four, one for each season, so probably four. But I canât actually think of how having week days would be annoying. I could have certain small events on certain days of the week. (Like a traveling sales person.) But I could just as easily make those same events a month thing⊠Iâm not making any sense. (Each month will have thirty days.)
-Maybe a âpetâ Pokemon or two? (Meowth, Growlithe, Chatot⊠One of those.)
-More than two files? Pokemon Insurgence was able to do this so it would be nice if I could in a game like this. I can at least show you how to save save files into a different folder, maybe.
Things I (probably) wonât do.
-Roaming NPCs. I donât think I can do this for reasons that you kind of need one of the RPG Makers to understand. I canât have the NPCs walking around like in a Harvest Moon game. (Or Majoraâs Mask, or Yandere Sim I guess.) I can, however, have them go to different areas depending on the time of day, so expect people to disappear suddenly during different times of the day. I guess there is a way to program a path finding script in RPG Maker XP, but hell if I can actually figure it out.
-An in-game clock, since the maker (or Essentials) makes the game automatically work on your computerâs clock.
âI WILL make sure that the day âresetsâ whenever you sleep, meaning that you donât have to literally wait days for berries, or to talk to somebody. There wonât be a clock but there will be âdaysâ that you can move forward by âsleeping.â Itâs kind of confusing, but this way nobody will have to feel obligated to go back home whenever the actual clock strikes a certain time. This game will have like, at least nine different cities, so it would be pretty annoying both ways if you were forced to go back home.
âClosing hours. Because the clock would just be your own clock, it wouldnât be very fair for night owls to play this only to have the stores closed. The people running the stores will just be generic NPCs. I may have some eligible bachelor/lettes âworkingâ part time though.
-Seasons. It would be really annoying to try to do different seasons, if not impossible. Iâll have to just make this a âtropical, never not summerâ island.
âI could possibly have a winter though.
-Divorce. Or if I do, it would be at the end of development as though itâs an afterthought. (It would make for interesting dialogue if you have at least one child.)
-Different farm types. I think Iâll instead just make thee farm have everything on it, or close by it. (Like a pond for fishing, the ocean to the south of it, a forest to the west of it, et cetera.)
