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Pokémon Academy Life is a non-profit, fan-made visual novel that takes you into an alternate Pokémon world that doesn't send 10-year-olds off to fend for themselves. Here, characters from the core series games are put together in a more realistic high school setting. Rather than the player character leave on a solo journey at a young age, he (in this case based on Red from Pokémon Red/Blue/Green/Yellow) attends school like any one of us and learn about the Pokémon world from there.

Prior knowledge of the Pokémon franchise is very helpful, but not necessary.

The majority of your time will be spent in the Kobukan (koh-BU-kahn) region—name taken from Japanese kanji, elements of 'inspiration' and 'feeling'—located fairly equidistant from the six regions. As Red (or custom player name), you are the dynamic protagonist who will interact with a plethora of characters. The story will progress in different branches depending on who you choose to talk to, who you try to befriend, pursue as a romantic interest, who you choose to help, and much more.

At the core, the game is a social simulator with dating elements. Its content will mainly be slice of life and school life. However, as the protagonist you have your share of opportunities to participate in all sorts of different story arcs with the characters you interact with. I'm going to mainly focus on male characters that the protagonist will be close with and the female character(s) that the protagonist decides to pursue.

Because this takes place in an academy, you will take on the role of a student. This includes socializing with your classmates, studying and taking exams, participating in extracurricular activities and other school-related events. Outside of school, many random and scripted events can occur depending on the characters you choose to engage throughout the story.

Currently known issues (1.0.3a):
- Some sprite animations may split the face up with the body, making the character temporarily look like stuff of nightmares. This shouldn't happen often, but if it does, please report it so we can fix.
- Your Charmander may be immune to super-effective attacks for some reason.
- Audio might sometimes temporarily lower in volume when too many sound effects are playing at the same time.

Holy crap this demo! I've played it (after leaving it on the digital shelve for a looooong time, srry for taking so long and HOW has no one commented on it yet?). Damn, this is a big demo and a complete one. Four routes and even the placeholder battle system felt like it could be a final one.

My thoughts: A lot of effort went into this. There are so many sprites, so many CG's and so many little additions such as the floating effects of flying pokemon, the move effects&expression changes of sprites etc. The addition of Pokemon trainers like Lass just for a few minutes and the burn effects of being electrocuted. That's a lot more detail and attention than a lot of VNs have, and for a demo... What most surprised me where the bg's, which I would think were the good kind of Creative Common/commercial stock image BG's if it weren't filled to the brim with Pokemon references and Pokemonised stuff. Pokemon-anime-style models, taco bellsprout, Abracombrie and Finch etc.

When I downloaded this I was wondering what'd be like, but now I know I've got to keep an eye on this thread and make sure I download the finished version ASAP because this might actually be one of those games good enough for Nintendo to ban regardless of being non-profit and with only intellectual property used rather than any of the assets. That's a compliment by the way. A strange one, but meant as a compliment.

I also like the writing, even if it were for a different story I would've. I feel old for not knowing half these characters, but damn does the characted overload not screw things up. The only character I didn't quite agree with was Blue because I always respected his ability to support his claims of being amazing, but all the others including the ones I never knew (Everyone after Hoenn...) and the ones that gotten a new personality (Such as Lance) are all well-written. And with Blue, that's more a personal preference rather than the writer's fault. I know everyone else considers Blue just the way you guys portrayed him. Leaf (Why is her name not Green?) is a dear and the friends are quite nice, you did real well to both build upon the characters already existing personalities, build them further for the story, and make sure people know what they're like. Surprisingly Cheren's my favorite roomie right now while he had the worst first impression, and Hilbert seems like an interesting role to be.

I loved this demo and will be looking forward for an eventual release! Most curious to see what you guys will do with the actual stat raising program and the mechanic for catching pokemon. Adding all pokemon to be catchable seems impossible as would the regular system of walking around finding them, but personally I'd be fine with something like 2-3 per type with encounters based upon stats, or pre-determined like Charmander. F.e. perception highest stat means catching pokemon that hide away, while appeal will lead to encountering more social pokemon. Or like the most likely Pokemon team that people tend to get playing Pokemon Red/Blue. Considering your writing skills and the plotpoint of Red's trainer talent (nice add of that persistent lore in the games), the latter with personalised stories, such as raising a magikarp to a Garridos, sounds the most promising.

@Mammon - Thanks for the review!

All the art assets in the VN right now are made from scratch, from the characters to the backgrounds, though there certainly are several elements inspired from official artwork.

There's a lot of work planned out, and unfortunately some things we're going to have to script, even if we want players to control everything. Team's too small and we don't have enough time on our hands to grind out every possibility.

Foundation is mostly set. Battling and catching systems are underway... all that's really left is to crank out are the main storylines and individual character side routes.

A quick look at the opening scene after the end of demo 1.0.3, leading up to the wild Pokémon hunt.

New promo poster done by our lead artist! Bonus spoofed ESRB rating.

The free exploration system previewed at the end of demo 1.0.2 is returning!

The battle system and Pokémon catching system are now fully functional!



The following features have been implemented:

- Type effectiveness (all 18 types, dual-types); no more zero-damage Bubble attacks from Blue's Squirtle
- Unique base stats for all Pokémon
- Same Type Attack bonus (STAB)
- Status effects, including flinching
- Stat increases/decreases
- Priority moves (e.g. Quick Attack, Helping Hand, etc.)

For Pokémon catching, the following features have been implemented:

- Catch rate math to match exactly what's in the core series games
- Scripted dialogue to give catching sessions a twist

Still to work on:

- Additional graphics
- SFX
- Inventory system

Wow! This looks awesome! I need to play this ^w^