We make Pokémon Reborn. Ask Us Anything.

[Amethyst]

where is eviolite

why is shelly best

ame what is the biggest problem you've encountered when working with the team

where are the audino trainers I'm lazy :c

how bad was the first episode of reborn

it's somewhere between porygon2 being usable in OU and chansey

because kawaii desu ne??

uh the biggest problem for me is the 'soon' deadspace. without trying to call anyone out (and it's been the case with a few people here and there) i can get pretty annoyed when i'm continually assured that something is going to be done "soon", or regularly, or by a certain date, and it just doesn't because reasons

au-dunno. you must be at least this team-varied to get on this grind.

it wasn't really bad tbh, just unpolished. and parts of the game still are frankly, but it was recognizably the same game minus some features that made reborn stand out like the level cap and field effects.

The finished plot's in a text file? ...is it by chance labelled DontReadme.txt?

the sad part is it's not too far from that

Are you guys (and girls) currently not sick?

I'm not sure I would call the issues I had a 'sickness' even though I saw others were. Frankly nothing like a cold is going to stop me from doing stuff. But when people were saying I was sick it was because of my hands. My hands were totally fine for a spell, though the past few weeks they've hurt on and off. Nonetheless, at this point i'm 100% sure it's not due to overuse like I originally thought it was so I ignore it as best I can.

What is your favorite in-game moment/scene?

Good question! Reflecting on it a bit, I think mine has to be freeing Heather + the entire chase up Ametrine mountain. There's a few things that I think are done pretty well here.

• First, the audiovisual component of Ametrine is pretty much on point to what I had built up in my head for it.
• Second, keen players will notice that I've adopted a pretty distinct pattern in the last few episodes of having segments that continually alternate battles and story scenes, as opposed to earlier parts of the game where it's usually like, battle-battle-battle-battle-battle plotlplotplotplotplotplot. Modern game design is able to seamlessly blend story and gameplay elements because in games like Borderlands you aren't stopping to read text boxes-- the characters are just talking to you while you're shooting stuff. In a game without voice acting this is entirely impractical, but alternating battle-plot-battle-plot-battle-plot takes it as close to that modern integrated feel as I think we can get. The chase segment exemplifies this.
• Third, we get to see some pretty clear development in all of Heather, Shelly and Cal. But more than that, in the case of the latter two, that development is expressed in ways besides just dialogue (referring to the changes in the teams they use). I like to think that most players pick up on the significance of Cal sending out that Medicham, or the fact that Shelly goes from having a Pokemon named after her one friend, to a whole team of Pokemon named after friends she's made. This will probably sound dorky since I made it that way, but that makes me tear up, even now. That is what I believe really sets this section apart.
• Finally, it has replayability in both story and gameplay between the two routes in that section (and I happen to think the variance in the gameplay is pretty clever since either way everyone has the same teams, just it ends up being more difficult one way because of the order your partners come in).

Runner up would be the scenes you're travelling with Titania in the WTC for many of the same reasons + it has a pretty interesting puzzle (the one major thing ametrine lacks) ++ it's I think the only section in the game so far where you're cooperating with another character not just by battling, but in solving puzzles too.

It was a bug actually that was fixed. Would be pretty cool if they made it a feature, but oh well.

What is your favorite soundtrack for the game? This also includes the Animation Team if they feel like answering :]

Confirming the bug thing.

In line with the above I think my favorite is the music in Ametrine, which was a remix of Snowbelle City, a song I loved in the canon games too.

Other days I might say it's the wasteland music though.

EDIT: ah, i was ninja'd. took forever, deserved it.

Are any of the devs taking part in the Redemption League?

Any plans for what you may do in the future, you know, after Reborn is finished (The year is 20XX)

I'm keeping my distance from Redemption because I have this urge to nitpick everything based on my experience with Reborn's League.

As for afterwards, check this: http://www.pokemonreborn.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=12032

Will reborn get finished before the sun explodes and Amethyst becomes an immortal A.I. created to torture people with this reborn program?

I mean at the current pace, maybe not.

[Tomas Elliot]

In the immortal words of Shurelia:

On a more serious note: how do you keep balance between your real life and the plethora of duties that come with leading a project like this? I find it atrociously difficult sometimes, and I don't have a forum/SD server/game with online functionality to run...

Also why didn't you answer the last two questions by Felix and Cronos?

[Alchemia Chan]

Will the character battle and vs sprites be updated soon after episode 16? Some of them look outdated despite being well-made. :3

[Hymdall]

Something I've definitely noticed about this game that stands out a cut above most other fangames around, is the music. Most are remixes of main series games, and a couple spin-off remixes as well. I know a few songs have been composed by Amethyst herself(namely the main overworld themes of Reborn City itself, if memory serves). How much time and thought go into choosing the songs for each area, and for the original compositions, how much time was spent on those?

As a side note, I REALLY love how there's an underlying theme for the Reborn City tracks. In every ward, you can pick out a simple rhythm present in all of their themes, and I find that to be VERY cool. Kudos!

[Gaunt]

Are all the major characters of Reborn already revealed? Or there will be some surprises?

[Cinnamon115]

What is your favorite and least favorite field effect?

[pyrromanis]

Has anyone of the current dev team been close to leave the project forever for any reason?

[TRHStatement]

From what it seems, the development for the game takes A LOT out of everyone. So my question for everyone is, what do you guys do to clear your minds and rest?

[BIGJRA]

Suppose this is a good place to put it,

Amethyst, are you planning to update your YouTube channel (or elsewhere) with the themes of the fixed Reborn City before E16 comes out? Gotta get whatever hype we can :]

[Voctrode]

It was a bug actually that was fixed. Would be pretty cool if they made it a feature, but oh well.

What is your favorite soundtrack for the game? This also includes the Animation Team if they feel like answering :]

I'm included!

though this is a hard question to answer :[

Any music related to an actual route (despite how awful route 1 and 2 are ;-; ) are probably a solid answer i won't regret

uh the biggest problem for me is the 'soon' deadspace. without trying to call anyone out (and it's been the case with a few people here and there) i can get pretty annoyed when i'm continually assured that something is going to be done "soon", or regularly, or by a certain date, and it just doesn't because reasons

it me.

What is your favorite and least favorite field effect?

Field effects!!!!!

So a little known fact (maybe) is that Rainbow is the field that has gotten nerfed the most and I'm a good chunk of that given that I immediately did a rainbow run of the game the moment that field effect was create-able using weather and kinda ran the game over. Shout out to poison mist field for being an instant kill on anything with enough effort. honorable mention to glitch field

I don't really dislike any of the fields but the water fields are the most disruptive if anything so i guess i could call them my least favorite

Has anyone of the current dev team been close to leave the project forever for any reason?

laughs nervously

There was drama and i was/am useless so i've thought about freeing up my slot many a time tbh.

happy i haven't, though.

[Samtale]

To the animation team - out of all the move animations you've done so far, which was the worst? Do you cringe every time you see the move now?

If you mean hard to make that would be PetalDance so many cells ;-;

worst in the sense of not happy how it turned out it would be SpiderWeb

What is your favorite soundtrack for the game? This also includes the Animation Team if they feel like answering :]

absolutely 110% it would be Atmosphere-Dramatic

Edited December 13, 2015 by smeargletail

[Marcello]

Are you guys (and girls) currently not sick?

I've got a bit of a cold, but I seem to always have a perpetual one throughout December, every year. No major health issues, thankfully.

What is your favorite in-game moment/scene?

This is a hard one. Either the discussion(s) between Cain & Aya when they meet up, or probably that section RIGHT after the Radomus battle. Y'know, lights cut out, music stops... I'm very fond of that bit.

What is your favorite soundtrack for the game? This also includes the Animation Team if they feel like answering :]

And another one. I'm a pretty big fan of all of Glitch's music. Although the tracks I find myself listening to the most often when I'm doing uni work or whatever are actually some of the ward themes, particularly Obsidia, Beryl & Jasper. I think Obsidia is probably my favourite, so kudos to Ame for that one.

Are any of the devs taking part in the Redemption League?

Any plans for what you may do in the future, you know, after Reborn is finished (The year is 20XX)

Now that I'm off Uni, I'm tempted to take part in Redemption because I actually have time. Unfortunately, I royally suck at competitive battling. Just look at how I did in RCBA.

After Reborn's finished... *shrugs*. I'll just continue my life as normal. Keep studying at Uni. Although I'll definitely stick around the community, because from what's been seen, Starlight Divide looks like my sorta game. So I'll be around to get hyped over that.

What is your favorite and least favorite field effect?

I really like the Glitch Field. I think the idea is great, and it's the Field that I think makes you most think about adjusting your strategy to match it. Most fields I just do what I would normally do, to lesser or greater effect. Glitch Field I actively adjust my strategy to fit it, because if I don't, I'll end up seriously regretting it.

I hate Ashen Beach & Murkwater Surface. Both simply because I have seriously struggled with Kiki & Swalot due to the boosts from their fields.

From what it seems, the development for the game takes A LOT out of everyone. So my question for everyone is, what do you guys do to clear your minds and rest?

Honestly, when I burn out on schoolwork, I work on Reborn. When I burn out on working on Reborn, I do schoolwork. I enjoy both a lot, so whenever I'm feeling productive, I just sorta alternate between the two so I don't get too burnt out with it all.

That said, I also play PS4 and 3DS far more often than is probably reasonable, so that's probably an answer too :s

[Amethyst]

On a more serious note: how do you keep balance between your real life and the plethora of duties that come with leading a project like this? I find it atrociously difficult sometimes, and I don't have a forum/SD server/game with online functionality to run...

Also why didn't you answer the last two questions by Felix and Cronos?

dude idk.

I mean. When I was in school I was a very diligent student who brought her laptop to class so she could "take notes" while "paying attention". Classes were sometimes my most productive times for development. I also specifically got a nightshift job so that once everyone at my work is asleep I can keep working on my game. So real life responsibilities aren't so bad.

As for the site and stuff, it's because of that that a lot of stuff on this site has fallen into disrepair. I tend to tunnel-vision onto my game. For the past few weeks I've been trying to keep a weekly schedule though, so hopefully I can be a bit more consistent gong forward.

Will the character battle and vs sprites be updated soon after episode 16? Some of them look outdated despite being well-made. :3

Most were just updated with E10 so I don't really have any plans for them.

Something I've definitely noticed about this game that stands out a cut above most other fangames around, is the music. Most are remixes of main series games, and a couple spin-off remixes as well. I know a few songs have been composed by Amethyst herself(namely the main overworld themes of Reborn City itself, if memory serves). How much time and thought go into choosing the songs for each area, and for the original compositions, how much time was spent on those?

As a side note, I REALLY love how there's an underlying theme for the Reborn City tracks. In every ward, you can pick out a simple rhythm present in all of their themes, and I find that to be VERY cool. Kudos!

Glad you like the city music! For Glitch's stuff, I mostly just listen to what's available and think of how it'll suit the mood I'm going for in each area. I've had a lot of songs for stuff in advance for that reason.

For original stuff idk about actual time spent... I came up with the core city theme that used to play in every ward, some time ago and I just plugged my keyboard into the computer and recorded that and used it for the mp3. From then on I just would play around with the melody on my keyboard from time to time and come up with different variations on it, and then plugging those variations into Fruity Loops to make them sound more polished would only take a few hours usually.

As a side note, in E16 you're going to hear variations of each of the songs... Those were also planned from the start, and I'm pretty excited for how it'll work out. I'm honestly not much for music composition but key shifts are cool stuff.

Are all the major characters of Reborn already revealed? Or there will be some surprises?

All are revealed as of E14, particularly considering we now have all of the older league leaders in.

What is your favorite and least favorite field effect?

I think my favorite is also the Glitch Field. The concept is both cool as hell and pretty funny I think. I'm super proud of how the visuals for it turned out. And like was alluded to before, it forces people to change how they approach battles pretty radically-- not only that, but in a way that many players were once already used to thinking about, so it doesn't feel like too much of a loop.

My least favorite........ okay. Spoilers. My least favorite is one of the fields coming up in E16 because it is literally 5x as much work as every other field, and making the backgrounds for it was a particular hell that I had to try to do like 8 different times (times 5!!). The coding for it, which I'll be doing in a few days, will not be much easier either.

It'll be pretty clear which field this is when it's announced though.

From what it seems, the development for the game takes A LOT out of everyone. So my question for everyone is, what do you guys do to clear your minds and rest?

Amethyst, are you planning to update your YouTube channel (or elsewhere) with the themes of the fixed Reborn City before E16 comes out? Gotta get whatever hype we can :]

Yep!

Field effects!!!!!

So a little known fact (maybe) is that Rainbow is the field that has gotten nerfed the most and I'm a good chunk of that given that I immediately did a rainbow run of the game the moment that field effect was create-able using weather and kinda ran the game over. Shout out to poison mist field for being an instant kill on anything with enough effort. honorable mention to glitch field

TEAM PLAYER's rainbow-charged heabutts were responsible for making me notice how weird that was, but I really wasn't nerfing it because of you. Just things for the sake of consistency/making sense/etc.

Quite frankly I'm totally on board with Rainbow being a little OP because firstly any player who takes the time to build a rainbow team and set it up in battle deserves the power boost, and secondly being able to win a game with literal rainbow is baller af

[Daann]

what are your favorite pokemon and generation?

[Leon99]

How do you all decide which moves are acceptable in each area?

like... for instance, you gave out TM X from the most recent Gym leader but it seems like it could have been of more use earlier on or TM sludge wave from XXX which seems to be a tough one to use overall thanks to the field changing ability. judging by sludge wave it seems to be in prep for the next portion of the game (as to me it seemed sludge wave changed the grassy field the most)

so do you go by which move will get powered up in the following areas? or something else that doesn't require me to over analyze this to hell and back

EDIT: i'd also like to add (after reading some of the replies ame made) that i loved the field for little ms. Waterrawr erm... T3RR4. The first time i sent out my musharna and used psychic and saw "Too OP... Pl34s3 N3RF" (i think thats how it went, the gist of it anyways) i had to stop playing for a minute to crack up X D

to me its just the small things like that, the things that most creators would just think to be nonsense that give me the most entertainment

Edited December 13, 2015 by Leon99

[Darth Luffy]

First off I'd like to say thanks to all the developers for making this game, I've never played a pokemon game I've enjoyed this much and I love it.

Now onto an actual question..... Have any of the developers considered adding a New Game + type feature to the game, maybe after all the the episodes are released? I doubt I'm alone in having certain pokemon I really like and would love to have a chance to begin the game with say six non-legendary lvl 5 pokemon of my choice(bonus points if we could choose shiny or not, ability, 1 egg move, nature) While some would probably try to create super powered teams from the start I would just love a chance to see how my chosen team could stack up against all the challenges Reborn poses, the level cap and field advantages create some unique matchups that would be interesting to try again, afterall this is the first pokemon ever where I found it necessary to have a dozen pokemon trained up so i could sub in for specific matchups. Finding out how I could do with my chose team from the start would be a tiny dream come true

P.S. I know nothing about programming so have no real Idea how difficult any of this would be, just thought it was a cool idea. And if it got implemented before the final update I doubt anyone would complain

[Gaunt]

All are revealed as of E14, particularly considering we now have all of the older league leaders in.

Good, this narrows the list of possible Champions/E4 but what if Game Freak releases a new "type" before we get to end? Will a new Gym Leader be added? (like with Adrienn)

[Xiri]

What do you think is the most 'evil' (as in making it tough for players) aspect you've put in the game?

[Leon99]

First off I'd like to say thanks to all the developers for making this game, I've never played a pokemon game I've enjoyed this much and I love it.

Now onto an actual question..... Have any of the developers considered adding a New Game + type feature to the game, maybe after all the the episodes are released? I doubt I'm alone in having certain pokemon I really like and would love to have a chance to begin the game with say six non-legendary lvl 5 pokemon of my choice(bonus points if we could choose shiny or not, ability, 1 egg move, nature) While some would probably try to create super powered teams from the start I would just love a chance to see how my chosen team could stack up against all the challenges Reborn poses, the level cap and field advantages create some unique matchups that would be interesting to try again, afterall this is the first pokemon ever where I found it necessary to have a dozen pokemon trained up so i could sub in for specific matchups. Finding out how I could do with my chose team from the start would be a tiny dream come true

P.S. I know nothing about programming so have no real Idea how difficult any of this would be, just thought it was a cool idea. And if it got implemented before the final update I doubt anyone would complain

i agree whole heartedly with you there... Scrafty Magnezone Swampert magmortar Haxorus probably altaria or so as the last one

[Kurotsune]

what are your favorite pokemon and generation?

Lilligant, Gen 3.

First off I'd like to say thanks to all the developers for making this game, I've never played a pokemon game I've enjoyed this much and I love it.

Now onto an actual question..... Have any of the developers considered adding a New Game + type feature to the game, maybe after all the the episodes are released? I doubt I'm alone in having certain pokemon I really like and would love to have a chance to begin the game with say six non-legendary lvl 5 pokemon of my choice(bonus points if we could choose shiny or not, ability, 1 egg move, nature) While some would probably try to create super powered teams from the start I would just love a chance to see how my chosen team could stack up against all the challenges Reborn poses, the level cap and field advantages create some unique matchups that would be interesting to try again, afterall this is the first pokemon ever where I found it necessary to have a dozen pokemon trained up so i could sub in for specific matchups. Finding out how I could do with my chose team from the start would be a tiny dream come true

P.S. I know nothing about programming so have no real Idea how difficult any of this would be, just thought it was a cool idea. And if it got implemented before the final update I doubt anyone would complain

It's an idea.

Good, this narrows the list of possible Champions/E4 but what if Game Freak releases a new "type" before we get to end? Will a new Gym Leader be added? (like with Adrienn)

I'm guessing we'd add the new type in, though adding a new gym leader could make the entire game need drastic changes to every piece of dialogue that references the "18" leaders.

Also, if the new type is Fox type, I call dibs.

What do you think is the most 'evil' (as in making it tough for players) aspect you've put in the game?

Uhh in my opinion the most challenging aspect of Reborn are the gym battles, but even they belie an inherent fault within the Pokémon system as a whole.

When Reborn was idealized, it was so that Amethyst wanted every Gym Leader battle to matter; It wasn't as simple as "Let's go get the badges so we can beat the bad guy!" but each was important on it's own and impactful.

Sadly, very quickly, as the player grows in strenght, the mentality reverts to that; "I need this badge so I can use strenght against team meteor!" or Noel fighting you solely so you can increase your level cap (though I also find that to be a nice little meta moment)

That said, the battles remain difficult and the community focus, since every time a new one pops up everyone immediately talks about it, often leaving the meteor battles to play second fiddle to the gym leader ones. So that's nice, because it means that to at least a certain extent, Reborn is doing what Reborn was meant to be doing all along.

There's also a move we tried to implement that was impossible to get to work properly so we gave it a new functionality and now it's a reaaaally good move on a particular pokémon (despite the fact that the original move isn't good at all) and the fact that I'm fairly confident no one will ever figure out what I'm talking about is probably the most subtly evil thing we've done.

((PS: There's actually something far, far evil-er that I pitched in and Amethyst enjoyed, and that'd probably be my original answer, but you guys don't get to see that... Yet.))

[Amethyst]

what are your favorite pokemon and generation?

Gardevoir, and if you mean generation as far Pokemon in it, then Gen 6. If you mean in terms of playing the games at the time, Gen 2.

How do you all decide which moves are acceptable in each area?

so do you go by which move will get powered up in the following areas? or something else that doesn't require me to over analyze this to hell and back

I have a list of TMs ordered by (very very) approximate competitive strength so each time I need a new TM to put in I just pick from the next few things on the list.

Leader TMs are exempt from this, and are chosen per whatever suits the leader best. All of those were selected in advance, aside from a few cases that got changed retroactively (Florinia/Shade/Julia/Radomus)

Also, I'll say this again as I have a number of times: I've been very restrictive of TMs so that there's still team development to be done in the end-game after all Pokemon have evolved and learned their moves. Now that we're at that point and I need to be a lot more liberal with TM distribution, it's entirely possible that I'll find I have too many left to put in, and that some of the present list will have to backwash into earlier parts of the game with coming releases.

That's not a promise though, and it probably won't apply to anything earlier than Agate if it happens.

First off I'd like to say thanks to all the developers for making this game, I've never played a pokemon game I've enjoyed this much and I love it.

Now onto an actual question..... Have any of the developers considered adding a New Game + type feature to the game, maybe after all the the episodes are released?

It's nothing likely to happen officially, but since the project will be open for modding after it's complete, it's entirely possible someone could make something to enable this.

Good, this narrows the list of possible Champions/E4 but what if Game Freak releases a new "type" before we get to end? Will a new Gym Leader be added? (like with Adrienn)

Then we burn everything to the ground and forget any of this ever happened.

What do you think is the most 'evil' (as in making it tough for players) aspect you've put in the game?

The level cap, because it removes mindless grinding as a go-to strategy to overcome obstacles. The goal was to force people to think about how to overcome their opponent by making different choices; not by making the same choices and hoping higher numbers pull them through. I believe if anything is difficult about this game, it's adopting that mindset, because adopting it means letting go of the numerical focus that many of us have taken in the past, and learning to be a little more creative. I also think that's why players have such an easier time on repeat play-throughs-- because they already understand that.

At least, that's the intention. How successful I've been with that will obviously vary from player to player.

There's also a move we tried to implement that was impossible to get to work properly so we gave it a new functionality and now it's a reaaaally good move on a particular pokémon (despite the fact that the original move isn't good at all) and the fact that I'm fairly confident no one will ever figure out what I'm talking about is probably the most subtly evil thing we've done.

Wait, we what??? I don't even remember this...

EDIT: Ohhhhh so it's that move on that pokemon...

[Fumble]

Why hasn't the TM for Incinerate been added??? :c

[Kurotsune]

Why hasn't the TM for Incinerate been added??? :c

Building off of what Amethyst has already said, basically we haven't gotten that far up in terms of move tiers yet.

[Personthing]

Apologies if this has been asked before, but what Episode of Reborn would you say had the smoothest/easiest/quickest development?

What field effects took the longest time to think of an effect for?

Building off of what Amethyst has already said, basically we haven't gotten that far up in terms of move tiers yet.

Not a question, but we already have Flamethrower, so Incinerate would be completely useless if we were to get it in a future episode.

Edited December 13, 2015 by Mighty Kamina

[Kurotsune]

Apologies if this has been asked before, but what Episode of Reborn would you say had the smoothest/easiest/quickest development?

What field effects took the longest time to think of an effect for?

I'm gonna say E14 was pretty quick, at least in the scripting side. It was when I just joined and was pumping new implementations every other day.