Crystal hack: Pokémon Polished Crystal (update 3.1.1!)

[Rangi]

Will you add these ítems for 3.0?
- Smooth Rock
- Light Clay
- Damp Rock
- Heat Rock
- Zoom Lens
- Icy Rock

Yes. :) All of these items will eventually be implemented. A few exceptions: without the Safari Game, Honey Trees, or Alolan Forms, the Safari Balls, Sweet Honey, and the Odd Souvenir are useless (maybe they'll be in 4.0); and without a 510 EV limit, the Power items and Berries are unnecessary.

 

[JasonPK]

I just realized that having Alolan forms might actually be really cool (for example, normal Rattata in Kanto and Alolan Rattata in Johto), but to do it the right way it would involve being able to have more than 255 (?) Pokemon species in the game in order to not replace any more Pokemon, which iirc would take a ton of work.

I just like the idea of finding Alolan Vulpix and Alolan Sandshrew in the Ice Path. :P

 

[Rangi]

I just realized that having Alolan forms might actually be really cool (for example, normal Rattata in Kanto and Alolan Rattata in Johto), but to do it the right way it would involve being able to have more than 255 (?) Pokemon species in the game in order to not replace any more Pokemon, which iirc would take a ton of work.

I just like the idea of finding Alolan Vulpix and Alolan Sandshrew in the Ice Path. :P

I'm pretty sure it can be done without >255 species. There's already code to change a Pokémon's sprite based on its personality value, which allows for things like 26 Unown and different Arbok patterns. I need to make certain other routines also "aware" of personalities, specifically the routines for looking up base stats, types, etc. This is not trivial, but still easier than expanding species IDs everywhere. I'd be willing to skip the alternate Pokédex entries, but even they should be possible. There are few enough Alolan Pokémon that I can special-case them, for example when you catch Alolan Sandshrew it sets a flag, and when you view Sandshrew's Pokéxex entry it checks that flag and has an second entry option.

And yeah, I have plans for where they'll naturally fit.

• Persian as a one-time trade from an Alolan tourist (you can breed it for more)
• Rattata+Raticate in Kanto
• Grimer+Muk in Goldenrod City (Celadon's Muk are a sign of its pollution, Goldenrod's Alolan Muk would be a sign that they manage pollution better)
• Sandslash+Ninetales in the Ice Path and/or Seafoam Islands
• Diglett+Dugtrio on Cinnabar Island (right now I replaced all Diglett with the Alolan ones, with the explanation that the volcano affected climate everywhere, but I'd rather have the ones in Diglett's Cave be normal)
• Geodude+Graveler+Golem in Rock Tunnel (the Lodestone there is already used to evolve Magnezone)
• Marowak, Exeggutor, and Raichu evolve while holding the Odd Souvenir

 

[HeroesAndCons]

Is an expanded dex a possibility in the future? I'm not expecting anything lik that soon, certainly not this year, but a >255 hack containing some of the better gen 3 / 4 / 5 mons would be great. Especially Numel / Camerupt - a Flannery favourite - and mons that expand limited typings such as Steel, Ghost and Dragon (Metagross, Duskull / Spiritomb and Flygon come to mind in particular) for example.

Even without that though, Polished Crystal is one of the best hacks I've ever seen, thank you for everything you've done already.

 

[Rangi]

New trees for the Battle Tower (based on the Battle Frontier), Yellow Forest, and Noisy Forest.

Spoiler:

Is an expanded dex a possibility in the future?

It's possible. If a team effort to expand Crystal's dex gets going I can help with that, and incorporate it into Polished Crystal. But it's not a priority.

 

[WorldsBoss]

Wow, Yellow Forest is bigger than I expected!

A few more questions though:
1) Were you planning to incorporate the Kimono Girl appearances around the map from HG/SS? Culminating in their event for Ho-Oh later in the game?
2) Once you catch Celebi (presumably by taking the GS Ball to Ivy, then Kurt, then visiting Azalea Forest), were you thinking of including any other time travel sequences? The ones that were included in HG/SS were really awesome for helping to explain a few things and providing an awesome backstory, but I can't help feeling as though there's one more rather dramatic event that the player never got to see: The eruption of the Cinnebar Volcano. I'm not sure how much setup Mateo plans to put for this in Red++, but maybe an event could be scripted to have the player go back with Celebi, evacuate all the residents of Cinnebar by talking to them all, then visiting the volcano to discover what caused it or something? I dunno exactly, but it could be something to consider.
3) Kind of related to the last point. As far as I remember, the room in which Giovanni can be found in Tohjo falls can't actually be visited by exploring the cave normally. Would it be possible to include a way to get into this room and discover the radio still there, or maybe a Team Rocket-themed item on the floor? Or a mysterious unsigned letter addressed to Silver apologising for past mistakes? The first time the player goes through here to get to the Elite Four, the Celebi time travel event won't have happened yet. Therefore, it could be foreshadowing for players unfamiliar with this sidequest, and provides a recognizable room once it does happen.

 

[Rangi]

Wow, Yellow Forest is bigger than I expected!

A few more questions though:
1) Were you planning to incorporate the Kimono Girl appearances around the map from HG/SS? Culminating in their event for Ho-Oh later in the game?
2) Once you catch Celebi (presumably by taking the GS Ball to Ivy, then Kurt, then visiting Azalea Forest), were you thinking of including any other time travel sequences? The ones that were included in HG/SS were really awesome for helping to explain a few things and providing an awesome backstory, but I can't help feeling as though there's one more rather dramatic event that the player never got to see: The eruption of the Cinnebar Volcano. I'm not sure how much setup Mateo plans to put for this in Red++, but maybe an event could be scripted to have the player go back with Celebi, evacuate all the residents of Cinnebar by talking to them all, then visiting the volcano to discover what caused it or something? I dunno exactly, but it could be something to consider.
3) Kind of related to the last point. As far as I remember, the room in which Giovanni can be found in Tohjo falls can't actually be visited by exploring the cave normally. Would it be possible to include a way to get into this room and discover the radio still there, or maybe a Team Rocket-themed item on the floor? Or a mysterious unsigned letter addressed to Silver apologising for past mistakes? The first time the player goes through here to get to the Elite Four, the Celebi time travel event won't have happened yet. Therefore, it could be foreshadowing for players unfamiliar with this sidequest, and provides a recognizable room once it does happen.

No Kimono Girls, no volcano eruption. And Giovanni's cave is accessible in HG/SS, behind the waterfall; of course, I've just added a normal entrance.

 

[WorldsBoss]

No Kimono Girls, no volcano eruption. And Giovanni's cave is accessible in HG/SS, behind the waterfall; of course, I've just added a normal entrance.

Fair enough, I would be remiss not to ask. Thanks for the response :)

 

[Ochoa]

Hey, now that you're implementing berry trees i wanted to help with the sprites for each of them, in the live 3.0 build i see you're making them grow, so i thought you could implement demakes of the gen 4 growth sprites, i could make it but i need you to tell me the bitsize of the current berry trees and the color pallete of the game so i don't go off boundaries, if you also provide the OG berry tree sprite i could modify it for each Appricorn (which shouldn't be hard since it's putting a ball on top of it and changing colors), here i attatched i think it's the Aspear berry and it's tree, let me know if i can help and if it can actually be implemented.

 

[Rangi]

Hey, now that you're implementing berry trees i wanted to help with the sprites for each of them, in the live 3.0 build i see you're making them grow, so i thought you could implement demakes of the gen 4 growth sprites, i could make it but i need you to tell me the bitsize of the current berry trees and the color pallete of the game so i don't go off boundaries, if you also provide the OG berry tree sprite i could modify it for each Appricorn (which shouldn't be hard since it's putting a ball on top of it and changing colors), here i attatched i think it's the Aspear berry and it's tree, let me know if i can help and if it can actually be implemented.

Thanks for the offer, but sprites are 16x16 with a very limited color palette, so I don't think different trees would be all that noticable. Also, regrowth is immediate, with no animation.

 

[Rangi]

And after a bunch of coding, the Town Map looks... almost the same as before!

The difference is, symmetrical tiles use the GameBoy's X/Y flip feature, which freed up enough space for proper water routes and a larger Mt. Silver.

 

[Typh3621]

So forgive me if something like this has already been posted but I didn't feel like digging through 49 pages of text.

Ill first start by saying I like this hack alot, I found it through Mateo's christmas hack thread and this is a really well put together hack of crystal with alot of cool features.
Now the bad part.
I encountered a bug, a strange bug. I was in quiet cave catching pokemon, I filled my box and bill called me telling me my box was full and asking me if I wanted to switch it right there, so I did.
Ever since that happened I havent been able to put pokemon in any of the empty boxes I've had, because the game would simply crash. I managed a workaround for this, because after discovering moving pokemon to an empty box with the move feature caused a softlock, I was able to deposit a pokemon into an empty box and that fixed the bug. I did this just before I went to Kanto. Fast forward to Kanto, head into Cerulean and go to the pokemon center. I checked my boxes and Box 1, which was full. is now empty. I lost all 20 pokemon from that box (Including Suicune :( ) Not sure if this is a documented issue but it's quite demoralizing to lose alot of decent pokemon :( but I figured I would let you know.

 

[Rangi]

So forgive me if something like this has already been posted but I didn't feel like digging through 49 pages of text.

Ill first start by saying I like this hack alot, I found it through Mateo's christmas hack thread and this is a really well put together hack of crystal with alot of cool features.
Now the bad part.
I encountered a bug, a strange bug. I was in quiet cave catching pokemon, I filled my box and bill called me telling me my box was full and asking me if I wanted to switch it right there, so I did.
Ever since that happened I havent been able to put pokemon in any of the empty boxes I've had, because the game would simply crash. I managed a workaround for this, because after discovering moving pokemon to an empty box with the move feature caused a softlock, I was able to deposit a pokemon into an empty box and that fixed the bug. I did this just before I went to Kanto. Fast forward to Kanto, head into Cerulean and go to the pokemon center. I checked my boxes and Box 1, which was full. is now empty. I lost all 20 pokemon from that box (Including Suicune :( ) Not sure if this is a documented issue but it's quite demoralizing to lose alot of decent pokemon :( but I figured I would let you know.

Other people have reported this issue, but for some reason I can't make it happen myself, although using one of their save files causes it to happen on my computer.

3.0 has made enough internal changes that I'm hoping (for no good reason) that it's ~magically~ fixed itself. Either way, I'll be releasing a beta version of 3.0 to help find all the bugs.

 

[Ruvaldak]

Spoiler:

If anyone *happens* to want a .CIA Virtual console of this hack, I can PM one to you. I can't post them publicly, so it'll have to be some black market kind of stuff
Edit. I can also build the Git repo, AND put that into a CIA. It'd just be out of date in seconds(exaggeration)

sneaky

 

[Ruvaldak]

And after a bunch of coding, the Town Map looks... almost the same as before!

The difference is, symmetrical tiles use the GameBoy's X/Y flip feature, which freed up enough space for proper water routes and a larger Mt. Silver.

What's that island in the bottom left of Kanto?

 

[Rangi]

What's that island in the bottom left of Kanto?

Shamouti Island, from Mateo's Pokémon Christmas (inspired by the second movie).

(If you meant bottom right, it's just for accuracy with this HG/SS map.)

 

[Ruvaldak]

Shamouti Island, from Mateo's Pokémon Christmas (inspired by the second movie).

(If you meant bottom right, it's just for accuracy with this HG/SS map.)

Sweet! I didn't know that's where it was located

 

[Ochoa]

Thanks for the offer, but sprites are 16x16 with a very limited color palette, so I don't think different trees would be all that noticable. Also, regrowth is immediate, with no animation.

Ah, my bad, well it's not like there's much variation, sitrus, oran and aspear are the same tree with different color, if you don't want to implement them it's fine, knocking on the door is not barging in.

 

[therealzef]

i saw a post from /heg/ talking about adding gold forest above ecruteak, like an additional mt silver. thoughts?

 

[Rangi]

i saw a post from /heg/ talking about adding gold forest above ecruteak, like an additional mt silver. thoughts?

Haven't checked /heg/ in a while. Copying my reply from there in case the thread dies:

While it's on my mind, have you heard that quick WIP I posted of the wild Alola theme?
https://soundcloud.com/mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-1/alola-wild-pokemon-battle-gbc-8-bit-wip
I haven't had time to work on it due to real life and a really, really fucked up sleep schedule making me unable to focus, but I'd still like to hear your opinion on the general feel of it. I've already added a few extra notes to the bassline around 0:08 to make it sound a bit less empty, but don't have much done beyond the WIP sadly. I do want to get at a minimum this and the trainer theme done before you release 3.0; I'm not sure how close you are since I haven't been following the battle glitches introduced by your AI changes and whether they've been fixed.

Good to hear from you! I haven't gotten too much done recently either, and there'll be a 3.0 beta release before the actual one to help clear out the bugs.

Sounds pretty good so far! There are two short but abrupt pauses around 0:03-0>04 and 0:06-0:07 that sound kind of like a record skipping, since there's not even a track playing in the background. Might be true to the original, but it's more noticable with the limited GBC audio.

You should call this Gold Forest and make it an equivalent to Mt. Silver north of Ecruteak city, like everyone thought was going to happen from looking at the hgss map back before it was released.

Not a bad idea, but having Yellow Forest west of Cianwood (in place of the HGSS Safari Zone) is already written into the side plot. And if it were moved, I don't have anything that could replace it (there's already the Safari Zone in Fuchsia).