Spork Episode 8: Smoothie + Delicia's Delicious Dreamland

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

Postgame rematches are done (aside from the Frontier Brains)! That means it's time for the Battle Frontier info announcement, but first, I reuploaded with the following fixes and updates:

-in Gina and Aretha's gyms, put pots/trees in front of the black spaces near the entrance that don't lead to the exit, so now there's just the exit unblocked

-reduced size of Pokemon Fan Club and Trainer Fan Club

-can no longer walk through the bottom of walls at the last room of the vitamin factory

-rearranged level up movepools of Pokemon that learn Leech Life to their Gen 7 learnsets. I also kept Acrobatics on the Zubat line even though it's no longer a level up move for them in Gen 7

-can no longer walk through walls near the entrance of Aurora's gym

-Pokemon that evolve by stone have their pre-evolution's level up moves (learned at the same levels)

 

BATTLE FRONTIER

To start with, in the official games there were silver and gold symbols(Emerald)/prints(Platinum and HGSS) given for defeating Frontier Brains where they used a different team for each. But in Spork, the battles against the Frontier Brains are 6 vs 6, and they just use their one team. There's no symbol/print equivalent for defeating them, so you're battling them just for fun (and the BP which can be exchanged for prizes and move tutor moves). 

 

The Battle Tower is as straightforward as it is in the official games, where you battle your way to the top with no gimmicks. You'll reach the Frontier Brain after 20 battles. Every 5th battle is a miniboss. 

This is the Battle Factory. I'm not really sure I know what I'm doing here, to be honest ^~^ My plan is to set it up similarly to the starter selection at the beginning of the game, with rooms where you select the Pokemon you want to use in the factory. I think this one will take the longest, and I'm saving it for last. 

This facility doesn't have any normal NPC trainers. Only the Frontier Brain. 

I probably can't say anything about this one without spoiling something major in the story. 

This one's my favorite! It focuses on battle and exploration in equal amounts. 

This small building is the Strategy Showcase. Here you can battle normal NPC trainers that have strategies not covered under one of the facilities. As an example, one of them only uses the move Metronome. 

 

Working on the Battle Frontier may be a little slower. For the past few days, I've had issues where for about an hour it feels like there's a lot of pressure in my chest, and during this time I feel like if someone were to speak to me I wouldn't be able to respond. After that goes away, I feel physically exhausted for some time. I don't know whether this happens because I'm overworking myself or if it's for another reason. But I don't want to hurt myself, so I'm going to slow down. I still plan to work on it every day, but I might set limits for how much I do in a day. 

[Finaltaleof]

Just a minor thing but one of the questions about abilities in the trainer school is wrong as gengar no longer has levitate. Btw loving the game so far 

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

Just now, Finaltaleof said:

Just a minor thing but one of the questions about abilities in the trainer school is wrong as gengar no longer has levitate. Btw loving the game so far 

It's still correct in Spork because I chose to have it keep Levitate instead of giving it Cursed Body. I'm glad you're enjoying the game!

[Finaltaleof]

1 minute ago, Ice Cream Sand Witch said:

It's still correct in Spork because I chose to have it keep Levitate instead of giving it Cursed Body. I'm glad you're enjoying the game!

Sorry did not know its my first time playing Spork so i have not seen a gengar yet

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

Reuploaded with the following fixes and updates:

-you can now see the number of Universe Fragments you have in the key items pocket

-there's now a black screen transition after Emily leaves the hotel room instead of her just disappearing (she's supposed to walk out the room, but for some reason the game skipped the walking in this scene)

-changed (and removed) some dialogue relating to the Butterfree pun when Chelsea talks to Quinn at the BCC. The new dialogue:

 

This will probably be the last reupload of the public release until Palletite comes back. At this point I'm confident that I've fixed and updated almost everything I'm capable of doing (I could be wrong about that, though). I also don't have plans to change any more music at the moment.

 

I'm halfway through the Battle Frontier. Mostly I've been following a "do one task a day" routine, for example the first day of working on it was updating move tutor data to USUM. But the second half will be less structured, because I don't think I'll be able to do any of the remaining facilities in a single day, especially the Battle Factory. I've done the Strategy Showcase, the facility that just has the Frontier Brain, and the Battle Tower. 

 

Once you've cleared the trainers and/or obstacles of a facility and beat the Frontier Brain, if you choose to do the facility again you have the choice of either starting it over from the beginning or going straight to the Frontier Brain. 

 

Updated Battle Factory plan: players will be able to choose seven different rooms to select rental Pokemon from (one for each gen). All of your opponents, including the Frontier Brain, will use Pokemon from the gen you chose. 

 

Also, an update on this: "For the past few days, I've had issues where for about an hour it feels like there's a lot of pressure in my chest, and during this time I feel like if someone were to speak to me I wouldn't be able to respond. After that goes away, I feel physically exhausted for some time. I don't know whether this happens because I'm overworking myself or if it's for another reason."

 

I don't experience the pressure in my chest or the feeling of not being able to speak anymore. But I still feel a lot more tired than normal at the end of the day.

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

Hi. I've kind of been taking a break since I've been doing other things, but I plan to get back to work on Spork this weekend. 

 

I do have information to share during this intermission, though! A lot, actually.

 

There's actually going to be something else in Spork that I'm going to work on after the Battle Frontier. For a long time during development I've had a few "side projects" that I considered adding to Spork. There were some I decided against, and some still in consideration, but this is one of the ones that I've really wanted to do. I don't want to spoil what it is. At the moment, I'm not sure if I'll work on it immediately after the Battle Frontier or do it sometime later in the year. 

 

An example of one "side project" that I decided against in case anyone's curious is adding all the TMs from previous gens. I decided against this for two reasons. 1) since some of those moves haven't been TMs for a while, I'd need to consider which moves would fit which Pokemon from later gens, and even after that some players may disagree with certain Pokemon getting or not getting certain moves, and I'm not sure whether I'd have the energy to do all that. 2) there's some overlap with move tutor moves and old TMs.

 

The project I decided on isn't anything technical like that, though.

 

In regards to two other features that've been mentioned in the thread before but that I haven't said anything about in a long time:

 

someone here once asked if I'd consider adding a randomizer, and I did consider adding one, but I actually lost interest in adding one around the time I was working on episode 4 (not for any specific reason)...I hope no one is upset about that ^^' 

 

Legend Mode: SPB/Kirbie has Internet access again as of October, but at the moment is taking a break from online activity for reasons I was asked not to share. She does still come online occasionally but I haven't brought up the topic of Legend Mode. 

 

From this point, here are the scenarios I've considered going with:

 

1. After I finish the Battle Frontier, I start working on the next thing immediately. I'll announce when I'm finished with the Battle Frontier, and when I'm finished with the next thing, that will be the super emotional post where I thank everyone who's helped with the game and also the players for playing. 

 

2. After I finish the Battle Frontier, I take a break of undetermined time before working on the next thing. If I take a break, then the super emotional post will be after the Battle Frontier. I'm currently leaning towards this scenario. 

 

A few other things to note:

-if Palletite comes back before the Battle Frontier and/or the other thing is finished, then the next public release will be once the sprites are finished, even if the Frontier and other thing aren't finished. But I will ask whether she'd rather go with the previous episode structure and just finish ep 4's sprites first, or if she's okay with doing all of them. I don't want to overwhelm her if she doesn't want to do the rest of them immediately, especially since she's already overwhelmed with university. 

-if Palletite isn't back when everything is finished, I'll continue to wait for her instead of uploading the release then. But I may consider updating the public release to just before the 13th gym battle, since the characters battled between the 12th and 13th gyms aren't ones being battled for the first time. 

 

I've also considered doing a once a week series in the thread where I go into more detail about the inspirations for certain parts of the game. Specifically in reference to this: 

 

 

Topics I could go into include Ocean Coast (and Serenity), the Data Vault, Rogues, and the Guardian. 

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

WEEKLY SERIES 1 - OCEAN COAST AND SERENITY

 

The weekly series I mentioned will start today, and will be on Saturdays. Not at any specific time, though. Currently it's 3:17 AM for me, but I'm not always awake at this time. It could be anywhere within Saturday. 

 

As mentioned in the screenshot in the post above this, Ocean Coast is the capital city of a country called Serenity. The Sea Stars are from a short story I wrote, and Kirbie told me about Serenity after I showed her the story about the Sea Stars, because they reminded her of it. That's why I chose to include Ocean Coast in Spork and put the Sea Stars' civilization near there.

 

The primary language of Serenity is Serenian. I do think places near water (as well as water itself) are beautiful. I wouldn't be surprised if I spent a lot of time in Serenity and if I can speak Serenian. 

 

Although Cerri has countries that Earth doesn't have, some countries you're familiar with from Earth also exist on Cerri. I know that Japan, Scotland, England, and Egypt exist on Cerri. I used to know a few more, but unfortunately, they were on a paper that I'm not sure what I did with. That paper had a lot of info that I was given at once and chose to wrote down, but I don't remember all of it x . x 

 

This entry was pretty short, since there isn't much I remember about Serenity itself, but future entries will likely be longer. Next week's will be about guardians (singular in Spork, but plural on Cerri)! 

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

WEEKLY SERIES 2 - GUARDIAN(S)

 

Although they haven't made any main story appearances yet in the public release, the Guardian's role has been mentioned - they decide who gets to enter the Data Vault, and they also defeated many of the Rogues' forces in the past. 

 

There's actually quite a few differences between Spork's Guardian and the Guardians on Cerri. On Cerri, being a Guardian is an official role that comes with responsibilities and guidelines. In Spork, the people and Sea Stars call them the Guardian for their help in defeating the Rogues, so in Spork's Guardian's case it's more of an honorary title that was given to them. Their only obligation is to the Data Vault and what they do for the Ceolis region is completely voluntary.

 

How Guardians work on Cerri:

-they work in groups. Each one has a non-Guardian partner, and those partners are called Sentinels. 

-in combat, they all specialize in a specific element. The Sentinels specialize in the same element as their Guardian. Spork's Guardian somewhat follows this, using mostly but not exclusively Bug types. I gave them Pokemon that match their appearance and most happened to be Bug types. 

 

I remember the names of four Guardians from one group on Cerri: Umbra, Maxwell, Tempest, and Khu-Ode. I unfortunately don't remember any of their Sentinels' names. This group has a Guardian for every element except ice, but there are Guardians in other groups that do use ice. (EDIT: also, to clarify, this group has more than four Guardians, I just only remember the names of four of them)

 

Some other info I remember:

-Umbra does stealth and intel.

-Tempest's element is wind, which is pretty easy to remember since his name matches his element (though I'm not sure if it's his actual name or an alias he goes by). He argues with his Sentinel sometimes, because Tempest has a serious personality while his Sentinel is more laid-back. These arguments are just minor though and don't take away from their respect for one another or their ability to do their jobs. 

-I do remember another Guardian named Blake, but she isn't in this group. I don't know anything about the group of Guardians she's from, I just know about Blake. If I'm remembering correctly, her element is wind.

 

For Spork's Guardian, the player will never learn their name. You'll learn some details about them if you look around but some questions will remain a mystery. 

 

(about the sprite being complete, this is another case like with Gina and my ingame character where they were done by someone long ago as individual requests before Spork development was started)

 

Next week's entry will be about Rogues. 

 

Battle Frontier progress: I completed one of the three remaining facilities on Thursday, so only two are left now! 

[TeamPlayerSwampert]

Well this looks pretty dope!

 

On a side note, that looks like the New World field file in Reborn's folder

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

1 minute ago, GreenDecidueyeArrow said:

Well this looks pretty dope!

 

On a side note, that looks like the New World field file in Reborn's folder

That's correct, the battle background there is Reborn's New World. 

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

WEEKLY SERIES 3 - ROGUES

 

In Spork, the Rogues were defeated long ago and moved on with their lives. But on Cerri, their organization exists in the present. They function similarly to the Guardians - each one has an elemental specialization and they also have Sentinels. This is because many of them are former Guardians themselves. 

 

I don't know the specific details of the Rogues' goal, which is why I didn't go into much detail about it in Spork, other than them wanting to take control of Ceolis when it was just discovered by humans and make it into their ideal region. I guess in Spork they could be considered similar to Team Skull - some of them weren't happy with the way their home regions were run, so they were fighting to prevent more rules they didn't agree with or expectations they couldn't meet. Except they were more organized than Team Skull was. 

 

For the Rogues on Cerri, they do want the best for everyone and go to great lengths to do what they see as helping people, but they have questionable methods...Kirbie said they brainwash people. I'm not sure if she meant that figuratively (strong persuasive skills) or literally (something like hypnotism). But it's a scary thought either way. 

 

I was told a little about the leader of the Rogues, but I don't remember his name, or if I was told about any others. What I do remember about him is that he's 1100, which is older than any of the Guardians, and the element he uses is earth (which still exists on Cerri in the elemental sense, even if planet Earth is a simulation). 

 

I imagine someone with abilities like Crolea's could be a major weakness for the Rogues' "brainwashing". If the brainwashing is just strong persuasive speeches, that kind of thing wouldn't be effective against someone who can sense emotions and tell that someone is lying or has some kind of ulterior motive. If it's something more literal like hypnotism, they may be able to help snap the hypnotized people out of it. 

 

Next week's entry will be about the Data Vault~ 

 

Battle Frontier progress: I decided to work on the Battle Factory fourth instead of fifth, but I'm currently experiencing scripting issues. 

 

 

The problem here is that the script for receiving a Pokemon won't work if it takes up more than one line in the event page, and some Pokemons' names are long enough to make it go over a line. I tried setting them to level 90 instead of 100 to make a little more space, but some like Butterfree still go over a line. I tried using extendtext and it doesn't work, even though I've used extendtext before and had no problems then. I don't know what to do, so I think I'll go back to my original plan and save the Battle Factory for last...since the starter selection Pokemon all work in the intro scene, maybe I could make the Battle Factory a Little Cup of just Pokemon in the first stage at level 5? I think something like that would be cute and worth considering.

 

I've also finished a sidequest that I abandoned for some time. It's been partially in the game since 1.6, but I don't know if anyone's found it. I wouldn't recommend searching it out because I actually forgot the step in the sidequest that was supposed to be in Tinder Village (which I added when I was finishing it this week), so doing it as it exists in the public release might cause strange things with the variable associated with the sidequest. 

 

I abandoned it originally because the reward was obsolete, but I have a different reward for it now. 

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

Reuploaded with the following fixes and updates:

-finished the previously abandoned hide and seek sidequest (although it goes past the public release up to the postgame, so only some of it is currently doable)

-fixed a typo in the first part of the hide and seek sidequest, where "Once in a while someone will find me" said "Once in a while someone will found me"

-fixed Voltorb Flip table events being out of place due to moving the tables around after reducing the map size a few months ago

-added a hide and seek event to Tinder Village, which I seem to have skipped over before

-fixed incorrect railing tiles at some parts of the Tullborn and Inoset harbors

-added a Pyukumuku to the Pokemon Fan Club next to the girl who talks about Pyukumuku. It says "Squish!"

-added the USUM Pokemon. To evolve Rockruff into Duck Lycanroc, use a Dusk Stone. Poipole, Stakataka, and Blacephalon are available as starters, and Poipole and Stakataka have events in the public release, located in the Pokemon Fan Club and Opaque Valley just outside Belinda's old mansion respectively. The obtainablepokemon notepad file has been updated with this information. Blacephalon isn't currently available outside starter selection as it's in episode 5 content. Since Ame's USUM Pokemon sprite pack didn't include party screen icons, they currently have Lycanroc's icon as a placeholder.

 

Funnily enough, I had the same issue with making Blacephalon a starter as I did with the Battle Factory issue mentioned in the post above this. I had to shorten its internal name to "BLACE" (its public name, which is separate from internal name, still displays as Blacephalon). Theoretically shortening the internal names of Pokemon could also resolve the Battle Factory issue, but I'd have to edit every single mention of those Pokemons' names in every PBS file where they're mentioned, and in any ingame events where they're received. But I've decided on the idea of all the rentals being first stage Pokemon at level 5. I think work on the Battle Frontier will go quicker now that I fully know what I want to do with the Factory. 

 

Hide and seek locations (they have to be done in this exact order):

 

 

 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 

 

[FairFamily]

Sweet, time for an ultra beast run.

[groniack]

8 hours ago, Ice Cream Sand Witch said:

Funnily enough, I had the same issue with making Blacephalon a starter as I did with the Battle Factory issue mentioned in the post above this. I had to shorten its internal name to "BLACE" (its public name, which is separate from internal name, still displays as Blacephalon). Theoretically shortening the internal names of Pokemon could also resolve the Battle Factory issue, but I'd have to edit every single mention of those Pokemons' names in every PBS file where they're mentioned, and in any ingame events where they're received. But I've decided on the idea of all the rentals being first stage Pokemon at level 5. I think work on the Battle Frontier will go quicker now that I fully know what I want to do with the Factory.

 

For your issue try this:

pbAddPokemon(
PBSpecies::BUTTERFREE,100)

You just open the parenthesis on the first line and continue on the next one. It works for me

Keep up the good job!

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

11 minutes ago, groniack said:

 

For your issue try this:

pbAddPokemon(
PBSpecies::BUTTERFREE,100)

You just open the parenthesis on the first line and continue on the next one. It works for me

Keep up the good job!

I didn't know I could do that . o . Thanks! 

 

I'm still set on the Little Cup idea, but knowing this, I'll be able to make them level 100 instead of level 5. 

[FairFamily]

I found a bug (a bit late). Getting pokmeon of the undiscovered egg group doesn't guarantuee 3 perfect IVs.

 

I also got this little thing:

Spoiler

I don't think that this is intended. That sidequest felt like a fever dream.

 

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

2 hours ago, FairFamily said:

I found a bug (a bit late). Getting pokmeon of the undiscovered egg group doesn't guarantuee 3 perfect IVs.

 

I also got this little thing:

  Reveal hidden contents

I don't think that this is intended. That sidequest felt like a fever dream.

 

For the first one, I'm unfortunately not sure where I would go in order to fix that. I didn't know that egg group was tied to IV distribution and I don't know where I could find that in the scripts. But if you'd like the IVs of the Pokemon changed, I can change them if you send me your save file.

 

Reuploaded with the second one fixed. I forgot to add the "Defeated Elite Four" control switch to the event tiles on the stairs. Out of curiosity, how did you beat the

 

 

Queen Bee?

 

There are a few legendary sidequests that are a lot sillier than that one  

[FairFamily]

No need I can change them myself but thanks for the offer.

 

Spoiler

For the queen bee: Primarina with perish song did the trick.

 

[Sr.F]

Spoiler

 

I'm curious about this. It's like a Tri-Attack but fairy type. Is this to replace that error with Purify?

 

 

 

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

31 minutes ago, Sr.F said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I'm curious about this. It's like a Tri-Attack but fairy type. Is this to replace that error with Purify?

 

 

 

I have no idea how this happened, since I didn't give that move to Pyukumuku O . O I checked the pokemon.txt file to make sure, and Pyukumuku can't learn it according to what's listed there.

 

Pix is a move meant for my ingame character's Sylveon, Cynesthesia. Cynesthesia, who the Sylveon is named after, came up with the move herself.

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

WEEKLY SERIES 4 - DATA VAULT

 

I had a dream about the Data Vault before I knew what it was. In the dream, I was accompanying someone there. The person I was accompanying had an orange glow and was wearing a fairy costume complete with wings. Someone stood aside to let her go through. The outside of the Data Vault and the surrounding area was beautiful. There were light patterns similar to the Aurora Borealis surrounding us. 

 

The Data Vault isn't in any specific city, region, planet, etc. It's its own place in the universe. I don't know how accurate the way I portrayed it in Spork is compared to the real thing, but I have at least two* assumptions about how the real one works:

1) (mentioned by Pandora at Norall Mountain) that those who go there aren't allowed to share the information they learned, unless there are people it absolutely needs to be shared with (for example, trying to find where someone went who seems to have disappeared without notice, and passing along the whereabouts of the person to their family and friends)

2) that you're only allowed to go for the information you came for, and can't go looking around in other places

 

And the second isn't at all how it'll work in Spork from the player's perspective. You're encouraged to explore and interact with all of the files. The Data Vault in Spork has five sections, but one that needs to be unlocked through a sidequest (this sidequest also unlocks two other files in other sections). The one shown in the picture above has information on every character in the game that isn't revealed elsewhere, which can include things like how they met their first Pokemon, their favorite food, how they got into their career, etc. 

 

*I actually have three, but the third assumption sort of spoils Barker's reason for wanting to go there, so I'll hold off on mentioning that one

 

The next entry will be the last one. It'll include other small details that on their own weren't big enough to make an entire entry about, but are long enough for an entry together. 

 

Battle Frontier progress: I finished the Battle Factory less than half an hour before I started typing this entry. Only one facility left to go! I saved my favorite one for last. 

[FairFamily]

I also found a bug with the learnsets of the ultra beasts: a lot of tm moves are not available to the new ultra beast including the custom hidden powers. 

 

Spoiler

The hidden power on naganadel is the tm one btw.

I also know that thief falls under this.

 

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

3 hours ago, FairFamily said:

I also found a bug with the learnsets of the ultra beasts: a lot of tm moves are not available to the new ultra beast including the custom hidden powers. 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The hidden power on naganadel is the tm one btw.

I also know that thief falls under this.

 

I'm not sure why that happens, since they're listed to learn their TMs and tutor moves in the tms.txt file...but I tried with Thief and Hidden Power and the same happened to me.

 

EDIT @FairFamily I forgot to ask but were there any TM moves they could learn at all, or could they not learn a single one? Also, where are the party screen icons you have for Naganadel and Stakataka from? 

[FairFamily]

I didn't have many moves to check, I think stakataka could learn smack down but I'm not sure. What is weirder is that they can now learn the moves properly.

Spoiler

 

For the icon sprites: bulbapedia has the icon sprites, I downloaded them and modified them a bit to fit the icon format of rpg maker.

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

22 minutes ago, FairFamily said:

I didn't have many moves to check, I think stakataka could learn smack down but I'm not sure. What is weirder is that they can now learn the moves properly.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

For the icon sprites: bulbapedia has the icon sprites, I downloaded them and modified them a bit to fit the icon format of rpg maker.

I thought maybe if some worked and others didn't that I might have consistently misspelled their names when adding them under the TMs, but their spelling under Smack Down and all others seems to match their internal names. And that they're working now is even stranger.