For a region based off of the Great Lakes Region, what would be a good type spread?
I’m not especially familiar with the Great Lakes region, so I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you much; doing your own additional research on the climates and landscapes around there should give you some good ideas. A lot of water-types would probably be likely, though, as well as a decent number of ice-types since it’s relatively far north.
As mentioned in another recent ask, I don’t think it matters very much as long as all types have some kind of representative. A commenter on said post mentioned that the first two gens had only three and then one new ghost- and dragon-types as well, so you can technically get away with as few as one or two small lines per type if you like; personally I think that was more Game Freak still figuring out what they wanted to do rather than a good idea to emulate nowadays (especially considering those types... couldn’t even actually be used to their fullest potential given their total lack of meaningful STAB in Gen I...), but you can if you want, and you could probably also do it better than GF did in G1/G2 by, y’know, giving them proper STAB and so on. I’d err on the side of at least three lines (of any size) per type—I usually try to get at least ten individuals per type, which easily works out to three or four lines, but that’s me—and then do the rest to taste.
An additional thought I forgot to mention in the last ask: if you already know which types you want for a gym circuit or anything similar, make sure you have at least enough pokémon in the necessary types for them to have the sorts of teams you want. That’ll vary depending on whether you’re doing a traditional gym circuit/similar thing and a few other factors, but for example if you want your final gym leader to use five pokémon and they train dragon-types, try to have enough distinct dragon lines for at least three of their pokémon, or at least five if you don’t want them to repeat anything. That’ll prevent you from having to go off-type for their remaining team slots if you don’t explicitly want to do that. (If you’re not doing anything with a significant number of monotype specialists then this obviously isn’t as big a concern.)
I just wanted to hear your opinion on what kind of areas might appear in a region with an above average number of dark, normal, and grass types, but few rock and water types. (Especially water, with just The starter and a couple of fish PKMN)
I think the truth is that it could be anything, at least for most of what you’ve named. Type alone is not always an indicator of habitat. Some water-types live in salt water and need an ocean, others live in fresh water and could be in a river or lake. Grass-types could be most comfortable in a garden or an open plain or a temperate forest or a tropical jungle... or they could be cacti and be more comfortable in a dry and hostile desert. Dark and especially normal don’t say much of anything about where something would live at all; they’re not really associated with any meaningful “elements” or terrains or anything. Factor in that at least some of those will be dual-types, and the other type may or may not indicate where it should live instead. If your grass-type is also a water-type, maybe it should live in an ocean kelp forest instead of a land rainforest... or maybe not. It could work either way depending on what the fakemon itself is. The creatures and objects your fakemon are based on are going to matter more than the actual types if that’s what you’re worried about.
The only thing I think I can meaningfully suggest is that your region obviously won’t have a lot of rivers or lakes and would be otherwise generally landlocked, if you’re short on water-types. Beyond that? I’m afraid I have no idea, at least based on the specific types you’ve named.
Really, though, I don’t think it matters in the end. Some pokémon may be restricted by general temperature or general climate (hot, cold, wet, dry, etc.), but there’s a lot of variation within those themes, and you could make arguments for almost any type being able to do well in almost any of them. If you already have some fakemon designed that you think really need a specific type of habitat, then make sure you include those specific habitats, and for the rest of the region? Just pick what you want (or whatever makes sense based on the real location you’re basing the region on, if you’re doing that), and then maybe tweak it to fit later. If your region isn’t sent in stone yet then you have plenty of time to adjust it as your ideas and needs develop.
If I were to make a region with 150 pokemon, and it is based of Scandinavia and that basic area. How many of each type should I have?
I don’t think exact type distribution matters too much, no matter what part of your world your region is based on; as long as you have at least two or three lines for every type, you can generally fill in the rest to personal taste, and add more of one type or less of another depending on how much you feel you want or might be overusing. Obviously a Scandinavian region would be a good opportunity for a fairly large number of ice-types, though, especially since they tend to be rare in most canon regions and one of the least common types overall. Out of 150, I think you could easily fit around fifteen or twenty individual pokémon (assuming a good chunk of those are dual-type). I’m no expert on geography in general or Scandinavia in particular, so I don’t know of anything else that might be especially common aside from maybe water.
I wish I was brave enough to actually talk about my fakemon designs with other people and get feedback from them on how to improve, but well, I'm not. Any advice on how to become comfortable asking for input?
(the "how do I ask for input anon continued) I think part of the problem is that I'm worried that if I ask for advice on a design from someone else, then the monster is no longer "mine" but instead has become a collaboration monster and I'm not sure what that would mean. I mean, of course I'd credit someone if they helped me make it, but I'm not sure on what "just advice" or asking for critique falls under. If that makes any sense. Oh this probably sounds selfish...
Hm... this is a tricky subject, and not one I’m sure I’m qualified to give solid advice on, unfortunately. I’m not sure I know too many techniques for becoming more comfortable with this sort of thing, although I know it’s not fun to be nervous about the kind of criticism you might receive!
Do you have any friends or acquaintances whose opinions you trust, or who you feel comfortable receiving feedback from? Maybe it would be best to start with them first, and work with them to figure out what sorts of feedback are helpful to you as well as get that feedback on specific designs.
Do you have other friends who want to create fakemon? Maybe you could form a little “critique group” with them and agree to help one another with feedback. Again, it would be a smaller group for you to start out with and become more comfortable with, and it’s also a nice way to make sure that you’re getting helpful feedback at all. Sometimes it’s hard to get any useful comments period, as opposed to silent “likes” or comments that are just a generic “hey that’s nice, good job”. (You might be able to do something similar with friends who are creating non-fakemon things, too—say, “you give me useful feedback on my fakemon, I’ll give you useful feedback on your fanfics”.) The important thing is, like I said, getting a friend or two that is willing to help you out, and offering your help in return is a great way to do that.
At any rate, if you’re able to get comfortable with critique in that sort of setting, it will hopefully help you feel more comfortable finding places where there are strangers willing to give you advice. You may want to start off on a Pokémon forum with an art sub-forum rather than someplace like DeviantArt, because you’re a little more likely to get people who are willing to give you advice as opposed to the aforementioned generic “that’s nice” comments; you could also find specific fakemon communities on DA, Tumblr, etc., and explicitly ask for constructive criticism or help. If you’re doing something to get your work in front of people who are active in those communities, they’re more likely to notice and then offer that sort of help.
...actually, here’s a specific link for you: the Fakemon Feedback thread on Relic Castle. Relic is a community that’s primarily meant for fangame developers, but as many Pokémon fangames include fakemon, they’ve got this general thread that’s specifically asking for helpful design critique. All of the advice I’ve seen there so far has been well-intentioned and is generally helpful, so it’s probably a decent place to start if you’re concerned about generic comments or the occasional asshole trying to bite your head off. Shouldn’t be a problem here!
As for the fear of suggestions making your work “partially someone else’s”... I think if you asked most decent people, they wouldn’t think that their giving you advice necessarily means it’s now “50% their idea” or whatever. I mean, I don’t expect the people who ask me for animal or type suggestions to credit me for anything, and I don’t imagine most other people would feel “entitled” to that sort of thing, either. I usually don’t even remember the advice after a while unless I happen to re-read the post, so it’s not like I’m sitting around waiting for an opportunity to use “my idea”. It’s definitely polite of you to want to credit others for their help, but in cases like this I really don’t think anyone would mind, so long as they weren’t actively involved in drawing and/or writing out your final design. (It’s usually pretty clear when you’re dealing with someone who is actively trying to “ride on your coattails”, as it were, and you can largely just ignore those sorts of people.) Maybe it helps to think of it from that perspective?
Another way to think of it is that, you’re probably not getting your ideas from a “primary source” anyway, like going out on a safari and observing an animal yourself, or personally interviewing the person who came up with a new invention. If you didn’t learn about an animal from asking a person, you might learn about it from looking it up on Wikipedia instead, and someone else had to write up that information and make it available for others to read. Would you feel like your fakemon partially belonged to Wikipedia if you looked up your concepts there? It’s... sort of the same thing, I guess? Maybe? I dunno.
...really, it’s not like the person giving you advice owns “dogs” or “lightning rods” or “pareidolia” or “helicopters” or “nudibranchs” or “fire- and grass-types”, any more than you own them or Wikipedia does. Does it really matter where the idea came from as long as it’s not literally someone else’s character or actual work or something? I wouldn’t think so, in most cases, and hopefully the cases where it would matter are obvious.
Also, remember that you don’t have to take other people’s advice verbatim. It is still your idea, and you still have freedom to change and tweak whatever you like. When I tag the posts I reblog here—say I might tag a picture of a guinea pig “normal-type”, among other things—I mean tags like that as either simple search aids or suggestions, rather than thinking that everyone who makes a guinea pig fakemon after seeing that post must make it a pure normal-type. It’s there if you need a quick idea or if you happen to like the suggestion, but I don’t care if your guinea pig fake is a normal-type or a fairy-type or a dragon-type; pick whichever one you like. So if receiving advice makes you nervous, try to take that advice and put your own spin on it before implementing it, to make it “more yours” again.
Finally, remember that it’s okay to be inspired by other people and their advice. Everything is inspired by something. Humans are actually really bad at coming up with “completely original” ideas. Credit where you feel it’s appropriate, but don’t worry about situations where you’ve received advice unless you legitimately think the person who offered that advice put as much work into actually putting the fakemon together as you did. If they came up with the base stats you use, if they drew the picture for you or wrote the dex entries for you, yeah, those are things you should credit for. If they just said “Have you considered a baboon instead of a macaque” or “I think the tail would look better this shape”... eh, probably not so much.
I... have no idea whether that was helpful at all, sorry, but hopefully there’s at least something you can take from this?
Hello there. I've got a concept in mind for a sort of alternative to fossil Pokemon - Pokemon from the future. Similar to fossils, you are given an item that you take to a scientist, who then brings the Pokemon back in time. In the same way that all fossils are Rock types, maybe these are Electric or Steel types? I wondered if you had any ideas for future-themed Pokemon? Looking to create a set of two.
That’s an interesting idea! There are a ton of things you could use as a basis for “future” pokémon—both in terms of actual technology and changes that are likely to come in our real future and in terms of wild sci-fi-esque speculation—and I think a bit of searching and research into emerging technology and science fiction would serve you better than me trying to toss out a few ideas (science fiction/speculative fiction isn’t really my thing, sorry). Off the top of my head, though, it might be fun if you looked into 50′s-era pulp sci-fi: Buck Rogers kind of stuff, maybe, with stereotypical rocketships and jetpacks and the kind of ray guns you see in old Daffy Duck cartoons. That’d be a neat aesthetic to play around with, I think!
Hey, I was thinking of making a flying/poison type based off of the "canary in a coalmine" concept, and I'm wondering what to do for evolutions. Any suggestions? Thanks!
What to do for evolutions would largely depend on what you’re doing for the basic stage, but here’s a thought: maybe it could change type as it evolves? Like, say it starts out normal/flying as a regular canary, then eventually progresses to poison/ghost—perhaps it died as a result of all the gas exposure and has become either a vengeful spirit or a spirit that continues to protect the miners after its passing?
Alternatively, if you don’t want it to “die” and would prefer something that’s more outright resistant to the poison, a design incorporating a gas mask might be a way to go. (Maybe you could even riff off of a plague doctor’s mask, which isn’t quite the same thing but is beak-shaped and was at least intended to ward off “bad air”?)
An interesting middle ground between those two would be to make the final evo a living poison/flying, but one that generates a lot of its own gases—it doesn’t “die” from all the exposure but instead evolves to become like the toxic gases, and again would possibly be vengeful and out to poison the people who tried to take advantage of it.
I hope those ideas can point you in some interesting directions, distressingly late as they are!
Do you have any tips for differentiating our regional bugs larval and pupae stage away from the sort of generic forms, your muddlebee and Drillinder are some of the most creative I've seen. Even like a list with a few different pupa would be helpful
I’m not an expert on insects or anything like that, so I’m afraid I don’t know any interesting pupae off the top of my head. For something like that you’ll just have to do some searching on Google or Wikipedia, or perhaps a site specifically about entomology like BugGuide.
If you’re looking for “unusual” pupa ideas like drillinder, the best advice I can give is just coming up with other things that can cover the pupa rather than just sticking to the actual exoskeleton/casing. One idea I’ve had for a while was based on the old “worm in the apple” cliche, where the caterpillar (or maggot, apple maggots are actually a thing as well) would start out as a “standard” larva and then the apple itself would be the “shell”/”cocoon” for the pupa, and so on. Is there something about your pupa’s type or concept that might suggest an alternative shell?
Maybe you can technically keep the natural “shell”, but just play with the shapes a little bit. Can you twist the design a bit so that it’s shaped like armor or a shield, or something more out there like a vehicle or a house or another creature? Insects that mimic other insects/animals would be a good starting point for that last one.
Also, don’t forget that you don’t have to restrict yourself to insects that have a larva->pupa->adult life cycle, or even to insects at all—partially because screw the rules, this is fakemon, and partially because canon doesn’t even always bother with that. Consider the venipede line: its “pupal” stage is just another centipede, but rolled up into a wheel-like shape that also serves as a “cocoon”. Maybe you could use a spider and have the middle stage be wrapped up in webbing, for example.
So I came up with a fairly cool concept for my Regions's water starter. It starts out as the somewhat common Water Deer, but it's final evolution is a Qilin/Kirin. Though Its Water/Dragon which is a busted pairing defensively, even with Fairy Type. Now I'm 90% percent sure nothing will come of my designs, gamewise or anything, but how do you balance creativity and metagame?
It is a tricky balancing act, and I’m not sure I’ve got it down pat myself, especially because I don’t play competitively anymore and was not exactly stellar at it even when I did. I do try to keep reasonable stat ranges and movepool diversity in mind and try not to outright break anything, but honestly I have no idea how well I’m doing that. I think I can identify which of my fakemon would probably be “OU” and which ones are garbage, at least when considering a metagame consisting only of my creations, but I’m basing that on outdated fourth-gen-era competitive knowledge, so... yeah. tl;dr I can certainly try to offer general suggestions, but unfortunately I can’t give you any sort of guarantee that you’ll be able to “perfectly balance” this fakemon or any others you create. Sorry!
The easiest way to handle it would probably be to give it lackluster stat distribution, or at least stat distribution that hamstrings the “brokenness” caused by the type combo. If you’re worried about its defensive strength, just give it bad defensive stats, so even neutral hits are threatening to it. Maybe make all of its stats mediocre instead of outright bad or outright good, a balanced jack-of-all-trades like the actual canon non-legendary water/dragon, kingdra. Or maybe just embrace its defensive strength but make it terrible at attacking. You can also make sure that it has a shallow movepool (pokémon with quadrupedal, ungulate-like designs tend to have poor movepools anyway, actually; there aren’t as many TMs obviously compatible with that body shape as there are compatible with, say, bipeds or things with claws), or give it a lackluster or even partially-detrimental ability if it comes to that.
You can also make an effort to utilize the few “counter” types you have (dragon, fairy, steel) frequently enough to give this starter a run for its money in-game. Around the time the starter evolves, make sure it’s running into wild dragon/steel/fairy-types, and NPC trainers who use them. Use one or more of those types for a late-game gym or even an E4 member, perhaps. If you can stick one or both of steel or fairy onto at least one of your other starters, that would probably also help keep the rival challenging, too.
Out of curiosity, does it have to be a dragon? Obviously it should be whatever type would make you the happiest, but just to play devil’s advocate you could probably also go water/fairy or water/psychic or something and still have a solid kirin design. Both of those are decent type combinations as well, but they have more weaknesses than water/dragon so they aren’t as defensively potent.
Honestly, though, “metagame”-wise, meaning considering all of your fakemon and possibly also canon pokémon and how this starter might do “competitively”... well, so what if it’s a good type combination? Sometimes starters are really good (see blaziken)! Sometimes they straight-up suck (see meganium)! It happens! In terms of metagame balance, there’s actually no reason that starters need to be on par with one another. It’d be nice, sure, but it’s hardly a requirement. Some pokémon are just plain better than others, full stop, so there’s no reason to stress about it too much.
Ultimately, if you like your water/dragon starter, just do it anyway. Whether or not anything “comes of this design”, in the end you’re doing this to entertain yourself. If it’s slightly broken as a result, well, whatever! All that matters is that you’ve got a fakemon concept you enjoy.
