Pokemon BDSP: Play Like A Designer Episode 0

Good time zone, internet. Hello. Welcome to Design Club Live or whatever we're calling this series, which is with tentatively playing like a designer. Uh I am your humble host Will, joined as always by my pal Jeff. Say hi to the people, Jeff. Hi to the people, Jeff. Hey everybody, I am Jeffrey Yohalem, the studio director of Extra Credits and longtime video game designer now 25 years and counting. Joined as always by my voice of the people Twitch overlord Will. Hello. Greetings, salutations. So, uh I Today we have kind of an episode zero for you. So, in the same way that um you might have a session zero for a tabletop game, we're sort of thinking about this as an episode zero for a thing we want to do. Yeah.

And that thing is a playthrough of a a Pokémon game. Now, Jeff and I were quibbling before we began about what counts as a traditional Pokémon game or a main phase Pokémon game, but by uh the Pokémon games that we're talking about regardless are the console releases. So, whether it's a handheld console or a main console, the console released Pokémon games are what we're talking about. And Jeff, you've never played one of those. Is that correct? Right. And Will and I were quibbling because I have played a good amount of Pokémon Go over the years. Um And Will was at first like, "Well, you know, that doesn't count as a traditional Pokémon game." And I pointed out that more people had played Pokémon Go than they probably played the last three or four console released Pokémon titles put together. Sure. But that notwithstanding, Will, I have never played a console Pokémon because I'm a little that 25-year game designer thing like Pokémon wasn't a thing I was playing in my youth. Sure. Like I was older and

making games at that point and so I never got into it. And it's always been a thing I'm like, "Oh, maybe I'll try one day." But there's so many games to play. And I play a lot of games. But since we were talking combat design a couple episodes ago and you brought up how deep the Pokémon Go combat system was, I decided maybe it is time to jump in and actually kind of look at it as a designer and understand everything that they're doing because people keep talking about it. Yeah. So I have a great I have an I already have a great question for chat. Wait, what about Mystery Dungeon? Great question. When we're talking about this, we're talking about the color gem metallic armaments, I guess now with Sword and Shield Pokémon games, the paired Pokémon games. We're not talking about Legends, we're not talking about Let's Go, we're not talking about Mystery Dungeon. We're talking about the core I I guess we could call them the core games of the

franchise, right? Started with Red, Blue, then we got Yellow and so on. And we have after much deliberation between me, Jeff, the mods, some of the community, we've landed on BDSP. Now we've already had at least one person ask. Actually, I'll ask as well. Will is that like some acronym slang? Yes. So it is It sounds mildly kinky with the All right, different different acronym, Jeff. So this is Pokémon Brilliant Diamond Shining Pearl. Brilliant Diamond, okay. So that is is the way that this is referred to. These are the remakes of Diamond and Pearl that are available now on the Switch and Switch too. Um and we'll talk about why we picked those specifically as we go on, but we

did put it to a vote in the Discord because if you're unfamiliar and we're going to assume a lot of unfamiliarity, right? If you're a Pokémon fan and you're watching this get Jeff's thoughts on stuff, a lot of this is going to be like, "Yes, yes, I know already. I know." We're we're going to lay a lot of groundwork. The two versions are for design purposes largely equivalent, right? They have different legendaries that are available to you and a slightly different collection of Pokémon that you can catch inside each game. There might be minor story line differences as well, but they're roughly equivalent. So So So just so I understand this because I was asking a little bit again, I mean pretty new to this. I've not even seen a lot of the paired games come out. Mhm. For for reasons which I think we'll get to, Nintendo releases two Pokémon games at a time that are roughly identical short of different starting Pokémon?

No. No, okay, sorry. Different Pokémon Same starting Pokémon, different Pokémon you can catch. Yes. Or should I say a different pool of Pokémon you can catch. I assume there's some overlap and some non-overlap. Correct. Minor story differences, but otherwise if I played through one of the pair I theoretically don't have to play through the other one unless I'm looking to complete my collection. Correct. If it's a different game, how would I even complete my collection? That's a great question, Jeff. You would trade with yourself or you would That used to be how it was done and now there is an app called Pokémon Home. It's Home, right, Chat? I haven't completely lost my mind. I was like, "I know what I'm talking about." and And my brain like slid. That happens sometimes. I do apologize. Yeah, Pokémon Home. So, there is an app and you can actually use this from Pokémon Go. Which is quite interesting. So, there is an app called Pokémon Home, which exists on your

uh Switch and your phone and there are ways that you can get stuff off of the 3DS assuming you got the download before the 3DS store went down, blah blah blah blah blah, to Pokémon Home and then some games will allow you to pull Pokémon from Pokémon Home. So, you could use that as a bridge. You could also trade with other friends. Interesting. So, it actually works with Go as well? Yes. Pokémon So, you can send Pokémon from Go to Home, but not return Pokémon from Home to Go. I believe it's a one direction and which is very interesting because you can send legendaries, I believe. It has been a hot second since I played Go, full disclosure. I believe Yeah, that that there are some restrictions, but you can you can send Pokémon to your other games. Um So, theoretically, you could farm them up in Go and send them into your console

game. Yes. Yeah. I learned a thing. Which is actually really interesting because uh the the console games have shown a legendary resistance Mhm. pun fully intended to letting you catch multiple versions of a legendary. Like there's one for you. You get one shot at whatever and that's not true in Go. Um which which is a uh Yeah. Um Well, Go is meant to be played literally over years. Correct. And is also supposed to be lifestyle friendly. Yes. Like it isn't the here is your one and only chance and you're like, I'm driving the kid to school. Right. Yes, that's very true. And yeah, Go is its own whole ecosystem animal. So, yes, you would So, if you completed um one version, so in this case we took a community vote, we're playing Shining Pearl. Um

if you if we completed Pearl and you were like, you know, I really want to play Brilliant Diamond, but I want my starters and whatever from Shining Pearl, uh you could trade them across. Now, there are certain restrictions on trading in the console games. I don't know why they still exist, but they do. even have to get into the detail like Yeah, but you can. Yeah. Okay. So, my TLDR is two games. Actually, it's interesting. Like, from a marketing standpoint, and we were talking about it this a little bit pre-show, it gives them two things to sell, it generates community discussion before your game even s- starts of like which to do and probably encourages playing with friends or other people for trading purposes. Mhm. That is That was the original for fanatic fans, makes them buy two copies of the game. Yes. Or competitive players. Competitive players will absolutely buy both games because there's huge advantages to that.

Um especially because you can So, pre-Home, right? Before Home and Bank, Bank is the 3DS, that's one that went away. Um yes, I I I see By the way, I see the YouTube comments. Yes. Uh RIP 3DS. Um So, uh it would be useful to like have a game that you could store all of your Pokémon you want to keep on and then reset the other one to farm stuff. So, for instance, if I wanted a second copy of a legendary, I could trade it from version A across to version B and then reset version A, play it again, and go get the Pokémon. And that would be hoping to get better stats on the Pokémon. Correct. A a better stat roll. That is correct. Which will which we will I hope you all are ready for this. There is a very real chance that episode one when we do it and also as a clarification, these won't be sequential weeks. We can't We're not

going to do this all the We're probably going to do this once a month for a while. Yeah. Um Maybe more often. Maybe it'll depend actually on what other topics pop up for design club. Right. Um there is a very real chance that episode one is us getting a starter and stopping to pull up all of the complex stats so we can talk about the stats as they're presented in the game. Like that's the kind of play through we're looking for. This isn't going to be like, "Oh, I wonder what starter they're going to pick." It's That doesn't really matter. It's, "All right, Jeff, here's what an EV and an IV is." And then like talking about all of the the design consequences of having randomized starting stats for Pokémon. So, let's actually talk about this for a moment. I wrote in a I don't write many episodes for Extra Credits. We have writers. Give me We have lots of people that do writing. I mean, I'm a pretty good writer, but usually that's not my job at the studio. Yeah. I did write an episode four issues ago called The Four Types of Game Designers. Um And it from designer discipline, there

were four big breakdowns. And I'm going to call this out specifically because part of it is very relevant to what we're going to be doing. Um there are level designers. Level designers are the designers who who conceptualize the space that you will be playing your game in. Mhm. So, and this is very important for different reasons. So, for example, if you're going to go make a side-scrolling platformer, like the level designers who are the are the people who are laying out all your jumps and your bounces and the hidden objects and all of the other stuff in your play environment. If you're playing a game like Halo, they're the ones who are designing the maps and putting the sniper spots in and the cover and every like all of there is a lot of design elements that go into the environment. Yeah. And some games make a lot more use than others of that. You know, if you have a or running the Indian- Indianapolis 500 racing game, your level design team is probably going to be very small. It's

mostly going to be art. Yeah. Because the designer can lay out the loop track and They're making a left turn. They're making a left turn. All right, anyway. So, you know, Level designers basically conceptualize uh the play environment and make it fun. Mhm. Content designers, oh, and uh a lot of level designers might have an art crossover um to be able to actually do some of the environmental art. Mhm. Content designers are the people who think up the story and the lore and the monsters and everything that kind of all of the content in a thing. If you're playing a story-based game, they're probably the writers. If you're playing a game like Magic: The Gathering, they're probably thinking up the different races that are going to populate the cards and the theme of the thing and the little lore quotes and trying to like they're writing the huge backstory so it all fits together and so even when you only see the little lore quotes, you can kind of piece together the world. They're the ones who do all

of that. They make quests and just everything that you would think of as kind of content in a game is done by the content designers. Uh a lot of them have writing crossover backgrounds. The third kind is the kind that is my like I can do the other two, but I am a systems designer. The systems designers are the people who design the game systems. Combat, economy, magic, trade skills, housing, loot tables, economy, just all of the systems that go together. And so, a lot of people like that who which is my again the one I focus on have kind of math backgrounds or spreadsheets or happy looking at all of these different stats that kind of fit together. And Pokémon from what I understand has a lot of that. Yes. And before just for completeness is called an experience designer. They're the ones that if you're doing like the racing game we were talking about before

and you're talking about the feedback of the torque you get when you're going around a bend and how it interacts with your controller and maybe the vibration or when you're playing a shooting game the kick on the gun and how much it bucks in a little bit, you know, the zoom on the scope as it goes in and out. The actual parts the kind of the player experience going back and forth between the controller and how you feel in the game. Yeah. Is the experience designer. Yeah. So, And so, those are the four kind of big disciplines. Experience is the newest only recently has it been like pulled out as its own thing. Yep. So, yes, there I like spreadsheets. Yeah. There don't worry, Jeff. We're going to have a lot of it. In fact, we'll probably have access to a chart that will show Chad and you. Um, when I did my last Pokémon play through uh it became very useful to have the type chart available Oh, I'm I'm interest yeah. Uh just because when we're talking about it, it is very easy to forget exactly what is strong and weak to everything

and then it gets worse when you have dual types. It gets so much worse when you start introducing dual type Pokémon and you're like, wait, so that means that it's this much to that but this resistant to and then you going to those bleed and you black out. It's great. Um, so I'm actually interested to hear cuz I've been playing Pokémon Go like I have like a poison fire actually I'm making that up, but like a dual element thing. And yeah, when I walk around and do battles, I'm not actually engaged enough with Go to go look up Yes. what the thing is I'm fighting and what its weaknesses are and what my strengths are. Yes. Cuz that's a lot of effort in a game where you're walking around. Yes. So, um Okay, so we're going to be we're going to be looking at all of that. So, that's the kind of play through that we're expecting. So, let's um Let's back up to Mhm. sort of to uh a broad question that leads to a specific question. And the very broad question is

Why why are we doing like a play through at all? And I think for me, one of the things that I think we're we're talking about is not only is this filling Jeff's need to play a Pokémon game, right? Um but it also is a kind of thing that we've done in the past that has been sort of disconnect. We've played like individual games to talk about specific systems or other things. And I did a couple weeks of League. Um yeah, we we've done others. Right. I really like the idea of us getting to sit in a game or like a set of systems for a while and to have some continuity and to talk about them more deeply, right? And Pokémon for talking about more deeply is pretty good. Uh the only thing I can think of that would be better is if we were trying to do like Magic Through the Ages and that that is very difficult to do without a lot of time spent in Magic the Gathering Online, which is hideous.

Um Right. And actually, even the online one is trickier. Well, one of the things that I think used to annoy really old Magic players like me is back before they had definitions. So, it didn't used to to say like if it said first strike, it would explain what first strike did on the card, which meant that through different um expansion pa- or expansion sets, occasionally the wording would be different. And so you didn't you could have the same card with different explanation of what First Strike did before they eventually unified these things. Yes. And so That itself is a whole extra batch of errata. Correct. Yeah. Um Definitions are are wild. Definitions once definitions were fanta- we were and are fantastic for a lot of reasons. Keywords are great. Oh, keyword. There. Yeah. So, okay. So, we're doing this cuz we I feel like there's something unique and special that we can offer in this way.

So, let's talk why Brilliant Diamond Shining Pearl. Okay. So, um So, Will, I've heard there've been a lot of Pokémon games. There have. There have been quite a few Pokémon games. So, I went and whittled down the list pretty quickly. So, we asked for commentary on another one on another episode, and people gave us a lot of suggestions, um and some people were wondering why I had the requirements that I did. Um All the requirements. Um that it be post-special split. So, originally special behaved differ- In the original games, special behaved differently than it did now. Um and so the current version of the way that the stats interact is something that I if we're going to do a deep systems dive is something I want to be in place so we can talk about what it is rather than what it will be, which eliminates Red, Blue, Yellow, um not like the OGs, right? Okay. One of the other requirements, um that I

leveled, was that it needed to have some amount of double battling. So, there are two ways that you can play Pokémon. Well, there are a lot of ways you can play Pokémon. There's two predominant ways, 1v1 and 2v2. 2v2 is occasionally you and a partner and sometimes 2v2 is you yielding two Pokémon. There There are a bunch of reasons for this. Um one of the main ones is that current competitive Pokémon is double battles. And that is because double battles are so much more complicated than single battles. If we're going to talk about the depth and breadth of the system, we're going to talk we're going to need to talk about it in in um the context of double battles because you more than double the number of choices the number of possibilities that you have. Because now instead of I use this move, it's I use this move and I have three potential targets for this move.

If it's targeted move, if it's not like something like earthquake, you're just going to hit the field. Wait, how do you have three if there's it's a two on Oh, because you can get your buddy. Okay. hit your buddy in some of the most clutch moments in competitive Pokémon have been someone knocking out one of their own Pokémon intentionally. I will ask why later because I'm sure it's going to get deep. Correct. So um So there's a uh there's a whole bunch of um complexities there. The next one was I didn't want to emulate this. I don't have anything against emulators, but it does add an additional level of stuff that I just don't want to deal with for an ongoing series if we're trying to emulate this. I just don't want to. means it needed to be switch switch to or Okay, so no or because 3DS games I don't have a capture card rigged 3DS. No.

Oh, fair. Yeah. No, no. No, thank you. I am good. Those are hideously expensive because I believe one person was doing them for a while and they stopped. Capture Capture card rigged 3DSs are an arm, a leg, your firstborn, and a mortgage. Um So, uh the So, that leaves us with the games that are available on Twitch. And then I didn't want to do Sword and Shield or Scarlet and Violet because in my opinion and Pokémon fans, feel free to tell me why I'm wrong in the comments. I think that they are for a systems analysis conversation, there is a lot of not that that they added to those games. That makes them good experiences, but it also means that we're going through a lot of like I don't want to need to make sandwiches on stream to

have a conversation about sandwich making in Scarlet and Violet. There's a whole sandwich making mini-game thing in Scarlet and Violet that I just don't Like those change from game to game. Like that wasn't in Sword and Shield and it isn't Scarlet and Violet and it probably won't be in the have a army of cats that come make them for you? Uh no. Oh, oh well. I'm okay skipping that then. So, um I didn't want to I didn't want to spend a lot of time focusing on that. So, we wanted something that was distilled, that was focused on the current um era of of of uh systems. So, Brilliant Diamond Shining Pearl it was. Put it to a vote in our Discord. If you're a channel member or subscriber, patron, whatever, you can get in there. Uh and Shining Pearl won. So, that's why we're doing Shining Pearl. Someone immediately asked why not Platinum? Can't get Platinum on the Switch in a way that's useful. It also needed to be pretty, but that like is accompanied by being on the Switch. That's part of the no emulator thing. It's hard to make the old games look pretty. They they look

reasonable, but I don't Sure. They're not as eye-catching. Honestly, for me playing, as long as it's one of the good ones, I don't really care. Yeah. And they're all Like I'm probably not going to play another Pokémon game Sure. in the foreseeable future because my backlog of games is still massive. Mine as well. Uh we're we've been debating what I should play on the channel, for instance. Uh and that's that is Cyberpunk. That is a long hm? Cyberpunk. Actually, Cyberpunk might be hard. There may be too much nudity. Uh actually, weirdly, there's a carve out on Twitch for nudity that occurs as part of the game as long as you're not making a huge deal about it. Weird. Really? Twitch has very weird carve outs. We we could do a whole episode on like that, but that's a different episode. But yes, um Twitch's titillating policies. Y- Yep, that's a breakfast episode, though. So, um Okay. So, that's how we arrived at Pearl. Yeah. Okay. Um and uh

some people are saying it's not one of the good ones. I humbly submit that that is uh the bias of Pokémon fans. Hm. I think that they're better than you think they are. In that one of the problems with Pokémon is that we can talk about a wide number of these because the sis- this main series has been relatively frozen for a long time, largely due to lack of competition. The Pokémon company hasn't had a reason to innovate. They're their own competition. Part of the reason that you haven't needed to play Pokémon as a designer to understand it is that it is in a silo. It is in a silo with 10-ft thick walls where they just sit on their giant stack of money and get up and up and up and up and up in the silo. And every once in a while they look over the wall and Pikachu. If you're new here because No, if you're new here, you expect the puns. There will be puns this entire

time. part of Pokémon. I have a Well, did you know having a Japanese wife and having chatted a little bit about that I was going to playing Pokémon, a lot of the names in Japanese are puns. Yes. Or they're um sounds onomatopoeics. Yeah. Like Pika What's the little Pikachu? The one before Pichu? Pichu is Pichu and Pikachu both have are are are Pika and P are both sounds that lightning or electricity makes. Mhm. And the chu, you know, denotes the small Yeah. Um so it's a small lightning sound. Yeah. Which I like. So there there's actually a lot of it built in. And yes, also English puns as well as um Yeah, and and then there are there's the there's the pair, Plusle and Minun, which are the plus mouse and the minus mouse. They are Yeah. But Yeah, there's So me making puns for Pokémon is perfectly on brand both for

us and for the game we're about to explore. Yeah. Okay. And and you know, I think this is I think this is fair, Artemis. Even the worst Pokémon game is still at a minimum good. Caveat, once its tech problems get fixed. They Pokémon Company and Game Freak have had a not great run of some pretty bad tech problems. Scarlet and Violet did not launch well. Um there were a bunch of tech problems. They've largely been fixed now and the game is much more stable than it was. Uh but I saw we were discussing this again in the Discord and someone mentioned that the Switch 2 saves 30 minutes in the speed run of Scarlet and Violet because of lag. Wait, say that again. The Switch 2 over the Switch 1 in the Scarlet and Violet speed run. It saves 30 minutes on a play through because of the lag that is reduced simply by playing on a more powerful system, which means it's an optimization problem. Um, and so that's that is a thing,

right? That that's my main complaint. Um, I have other personal like I don't feel like playing Pokémon stuff, but in this play through, I think I'm going to uh enjoy this quite a lot. So And actually a slower play isn't bad cuz we're going to be talking anyway. Correct. Yeah. It's not going to affect us. Correct. Absolutely. Okay, so we got we've picked our game. Mhm. We're going to be doing something a little interesting, which is because I am on the West Coast and Will is on the East Coast and Will is the one with the capture card for sending a right up the stream and we don't want to deal with the latency of me playing here and capturing it and sending across the country to Will who then broadcast it. It would look bad. Will will have the console and the controls and I will be basically saying, "Will, I would like to do this." Yeah. Because Will has told me that there was a low frequency of input. You're making basically one choice per round. This was the thing we talked about in pre-production. If this was something where I needed to be like flipping eight buttons for everything I do,

Yeah. we would have had me controlling it. That's true. Yeah. That would have been a miserable thing to hear Yeah. me Will, head do this, do this, do this, do this, do this every Yeah. Yeah, whatever. And we're going to talk some about that, right? And in addition, as exhibited right now by Jeff's bit rate falling a bit, the game will still look good even if Jeff's bit rate decides to do this trans console Yeah, right. No, I don't know. That's the problem. That's the other reason why I'm controlling it. So Shining Pearl is actually on its way to me. I got a physical copy because physical games do that thing. how do I fix this stuff again? Uh right click on your face, stats, send key There we go. Thank you. Send key frame. Yeah. And that should that should fix it up. Um Did it just get better or no? It's It is slowly getting better. It will take a second. Uh the way that the way that this works is a bit uh wild, actually.

Um It has Oh, Twitch. It has to do a lot with key frames and difference tracking and the way that it actually sends things and blah blah blah blah blah. All right, anyway, it it will slowly recover. Um Oh, this is another thing that you should know. Tech problems are a uh the thing that will cause my brain to hit a penny on the track and derail, so let me let me get back on track. So, from a tech perspective, we're solving a couple of problems uh that I'm working on in the background, which is that um Jeff and you all need to be able to see and hear the game and the type chart um at a minimum. Uh and that you need to be able to see and hear us over the game because you're not just here to watch the game. If you were just watching the game, you would probably watch someone do a let's play, not a designer play through. So, we're going to have it set up so that the game is lower volume than us. Um

and also, it's a Pokémon game, so there's not a lot of important sounds. Uh and I reserve the right to have a mute button for a low health warnings cuz god, that sound is the worst. Um So, that's part of it. Uh and the other thing is, yeah, we want to we want all of you to know that we'll be uh talking pretty uh freely about what moves we're going to do. Um and at some points, we may ask Chad for help, but that's probably going to be rare. Um I I am a big fan when I'm exploring a game of letting the game speak for itself as much as possible because then we get to talk about the things that the game says, right? So, let's talk about that play like a designer bit. Jeff Okay. When we When we play game better or is it still sucking? It's still sucky. It's all over the place. It is It is doing the thing. I don't know why. It's funny. I feel like this happens like once every 2 months.

Correct. And it's not me. I promise it's not me. Let's see what Google speed test says. The Google speed test That's going to make you look worse for a second. Uh that's okay. I am Google speed test things I'm fine. Yeah. Well, that's also Yes. There is a wide variety of reasons why that's not neces- Hold on. Let me Let me try one thing. Jeff's going to disappear for a second, okay? Do not Do not try licking the internet, chat. Oh. Better? We'll see. Okay. It's fine. Yeah, Cloudflare is probably Well, it's not even Cloudflare. So, this is a peer-to-peer connection. And unfortunately, because the peer-to-peer connection from East Coast to West Coast, any number of arbitrarily nodes that any any number of arbitrarily chosen nodes that the peer-to-peer connection

navigated today Um could be having problems. So, The The peer-to-peer nodes can definitely affect my appearance as we're doing this. And yes. But it seems to be better now. My key frames and your toggle Yep. Okay. So, cool. So, hey, this is just a great demonstration of why we'll Will will be hosting this because we want it to continue to look good. And honestly, for a lot of play, I will probably be Will and I will be small so we can have the big screen up showing what's going on. You could not see us at all and the gameplay would remain. You just need to hear us. So, um when we're talking about playing it like a designer, what are our goals that are different, right? Cuz like normally, you play a video game, you're like, "I'm going to play this game, and I'm going to beat it, and I'm going to get to the credits, and I'm going to feel good about it, and I'm going to enter my team of Pokémon in the Hall of Fame, and that's going to be it, and then I might trade some Pokémon or go for completion or whatever." But what is our What's our objective? What makes this play-through different, Jeff?

Um we're going to poke at a lot of stuff and that um actually, that one was unintentional. Okay. Sure. Anyway, keep going. But um we're going to poke a lot of things. We're going to go through We're going to play, and we're going to make some good and some bad choices to see what happens. Um normally, if I am playing a game for fun, I'm going to win. Just straight up. I'm going to do the thing. I'm going to do it well. I'm going to play the game and say, "Excellent. I am done with this game. The game has been fun. I have played it." Yep. If we are playing like a designer, we are going to do some extra things we would not normally be doing. We're probably going to die on purpose a couple of times or see what happens when you lose. And we're going to look at the design decisions therefore that were made around how the game was constructed that you get a better understanding of it and the choices the designers behind it made, and that will hopefully also lead to some extra understanding about that you might not pick up from a normal gameplay. Yeah.

And then you'll understand in the same way that like watching a movie with some movie cinephiles um where they're really like, "Oh, they were doing this with these cameras, which resulted in this thing." Right. We're going to be doing that. Yep. Well, do you want to just make me disappear for a little bit and I'll do voice only? Uh I can. I could Yeah, I There is how If I get too fuzzy, do that like Yeah. Sure. You're I think you're one of the problems is that Jeff is seeing himself back through the thing, and that can make it look worse. You actually look fine right now. You you were you were a little bad for a bit, but I'm keeping an eye on it. Um Cool. it. But yeah, so we're we're going to poke lots of stuff and hopefully, through watching this, you'll both understand a little more about the Pokémon game even if you played it a lot, but also you're going to understand how and I'll talk about this, how game designers are thinking about making it. So, as you play games in the future Pokémon or other, you'll be like, "Oh,

well, yes. I knew this, but you know, having heard some people talk about it, I now understand more why some of these choices are." And I'm going to be uh One of the things that I want to talk about is onboarding in Pokémon. That's actually going to be a big sub-theme because Jeff has played the most frequent onboarding method Pokémon Go. Right? Pokémon Go is a great way to onboard people into the series. The only other one that's probably in the same category is the TCG. But onboarding people into the into the Pokémon fandom Actually. And then It's tricky, too, because there's all the TV shows, there's the manga, like Pokémon is a multi-generational Right. um multi-format juggernaut. Sure. I will say to the idea of playing with Pokémon as a game rather than merely interacting with it as like a visual IP. Right? Rather than simply watching the shows, right? You've gone through a pretty typical thing. Oh, hey, I enjoy Pokémon as a concept. I'm

playing Go. Now I'm going to play a main phase game, right? Um Though, it's weird. Like, I have a kid who's five-ish. I'm not going to give an exact age, but Yeah. five-ish. young'un He knows what Pokémon is. He needs a new backpack for school. We just bought him a Pokémon backpack. He has played Pokémon Go with my wife and I a little bit. He's seen a couple things pop up on YouTube when he watches YouTube videos. He's not old enough to really have watched a full show. He's definitely not old enough to have really played a game, but he can identify multiple like it is so part of the popular zeitgeist Yeah. at this point. And when he got his Pokémon backpack, it had Pokémon trading cards in the backpack, three of them, including one shiny. The first one's free. That's insidious. Cuz to be clear, just so everyone's on the same page, that means it's a backpack designed for a 5-year-old. That means

that the backpack that is aimed at children is also aimed at getting them collecting Pokémon cards early. And that's a very big first one's free mentality. ended up getting it out of a Staples. And the only other kids backpack that was branded was Minecraft. So, there was a Pokémon backpack and a Minecraft backpack. The Pokémon one had trading cards inside and two little like small bags, like a pencil bag and like a lunchbox bag. And he knew some of the characters. We looked up some of the others, but he is obsessed with this. Like this is well engineered to get kids in. Yeah. Actually, Will, did I tell you what I made for him? Yeah. You you Yeah, we were mentioning the Can I show it on stream? Uh it has his name on the front. I Oh, this is okay cuz I built myself one as well. Ah, excellent. Yes, yes. Show show us this thing. So So, this his has a really nice Pikachu on the cover with his name. Yeah. This is the Whoop. This is my physical

Pokédex. This list Oops. He's falling apart, but that's okay. Was that not in? This list Oh, those were the new pages I printed out. I haven't put in yet. All of the Pokémon in Pokémon Go with all of their evolutions and power stats. And see the little markings? Those are all the lucky ones I have because I've been cataloging in luckies for better trades. Nice. So, I have a physic I and he both have physical Pokédexes. That's pretty great. That I've made actually showing to him it was the first time he ever watched me use Photoshop to like make a thing. Yeah. But, um we each have our own now and he's that engaged that I wanted to give him a physical thing to look at Mhm. rather than having him sit look to asking him to borrow my phone constantly to yeah. All the time to look at it, but Pokémon from the design and everything else is custom built to engage young people and hook them in. Correct. And that's also one of the other reasons I'm interested is Yeah. he and I are probably going to play a

game Right. in the next couple years. It is also absolutely wild to me given that incredibly accurate context how poorly some core concepts of the battle system get introduced to people. Mhm. Which I'm very fascinated with which is one of the things I'm really looking forward to is talking about the onboarding talking about both what we can glean and how someone might reasonably learn this in the course of play. Because Yeah. we must assume that every Pokémon game is someone's first Pokémon game. Right. Mhm. That that that is sort of Yeah. inarguably true. And it's weird for them on the onboarding too since we were talking about it like I would bet a lot of people come in to this game knowing even if you're super casual 10 Pokémon. Like Oh, yeah. They've heard of like super casual they've heard of at least a couple. If you're at all involved with some of these you probably know 20 or 30. I'm going to be able to name

at least a couple hundred I think just from playing go like they have a weird thing with familiarity coming in. Yeah. Just all this like and I'm going to be able to and just from that I'm able to look at them and be like, oh, I wouldn't normally know this, but I know that's a poison type. Right. And Go is really good for that. Go is sort of the synthetic combination of all of the games in a way that none of the games are. None of the main phase games are because Go has Mhm. probably not all at this point, but the overwhelming majority of Pokémon are available in Go at sometime during the year, during some event, or something. Yeah. Um and that's not true. like 900 at this point in Go. Like And I'm guessing that catalog is way bigger than you encounter in most individual games. Correct, because the lift for including a a Pokémon in a game is much higher. In a in a main in a console And honestly, for the play experience. Like if they were if you're like trying to catch all the Pokémon in that game and there's eight or 900 of them, like

that might just start getting like end up feeling way too grindy and repetitive. I also think that um and this this will factor in more as we begin talking about PvP Pokémon. Mhm. Knowing what is possible in the meta game is also a huge deal, right? Which is one of the reasons that I don't quite understand some of the Well, it's tiered. Some of the unofficial Pokémon competitions that the community runs are very broad uh and have very expensive lists of Pokémon from different generations that you can uh include in various websites that run like simulators essentially. Yeah. And it's wild how much more you need to know, right? Just like in Magic how we have formats that kind of like this is the format you're playing. You can like standard is manageable in theory, not really, but in theory it's manageable.

Um Pokémon uh as a PvP game needs to keep its possibility space contained, otherwise you just get analysis paralysis trying to put together a team. Yeah. And but we're not going to be getting into the PvP space other than like the per game PvP space. right. We're going to be We're going to be talking a little bit about how we would think about that probably because some of the later fights in the single-player game are in some ways preparation for PvP. And so there's sort of a natural on-ramping there that we'll probably talk about. Cool. Um okay, so that's like why we're doing what we're doing, what we're excited about. Uh some other housekeeping notes here for YouTube. Worry not, if you if you made it this far and you're like, "Wow, this sounds really cool." Worry not, we've already thought about the YouTube stuff. There'll be a episode All the episodes will be numbered. This episode zero, the first gameplay episode will be episode one. At some point in we'll make a playlist and we'll just stick it there. So, if this is anything of interest, it'll be an easy way to catch up.

Yeah. Um And we'll probably do some amount of community engagement. I don't know Jeff, are you We'll have some cliffhanger votes at the end of episodes. Yeah, it's to like figure out what we're doing next I think for sure cuz we we do want you to you all to be to be engaged and excited. Um Uh Luna, yes, we will probably look at what we will look at the full game. We won't stop when credits roll cuz there's a lot more interesting stuff to chew on in the game after the credits roll. That it's kind of a weird midpoint, um but there's a bunch of systems and stuff that come up after you beat Oh, so there's a You finish the story of the game, but you can keep playing to get them all kind of thing? Correct. And there are other challenges that await you. Um so, we'll we'll take a look at those, too. Um Chat, as we're talking, do you any of you have any questions about what we're doing, why we're doing it, how we're doing it as we're going cuz like we wanted to

sort of lay all of this out for you and um talk about what we're pitching. Um By the way, Will. Oh, the As a Oh, actually, keep going and then I'll bring it up. Most important question, he knows not to consult the Helix. But, we'll teach him as we go. It's fine. Um Yes, Jeff. Can I tell you that one of my favorite Super Bowl commercials of all time was actually the the Pokémon Super Bowl commercial that came out 9 years ago. Have you I think I remember this vaguely, but I also don't to play with sound here, do we? No, that's that's a whole bunch of stuff I need to do ahead of time. Um I'm going to throw a link in. Yeah, throw throw throw Oh, actually, Will. If you get it to me, I can put it in both chats. Here, let me give it to you.

Throw this into both chats for me. This is the closest thing and this was before I had a kid. It was like, if I have a kid, we're going to go play Pokémon. Ah. Ba ba ba ba Um Tim Nace says, "I do think the effect of this text on moves can be helpful to new players." Yes. And I also saw your comment earlier that Champions is going to be an interesting way to onboard. I agree. I think I'm very interested to see what they do with formats in Champions because if they're just like if it's the anything goes Mhm. sort of idea that like this can mega evolve and that can terastallize and that can um What's the imbiggening move, chat? The gets move? Teramax or something? Uh Gigantamax. Dynamax, that thing. Yeah. been catching all these Dynamax Pokémon recently. Yeah, that that's the Sword and Shield core mechanic. Um

Uh the Actually, I'm really curious. Tell me real quick. So, in Go, basically, you find these guys and only in a one of those specific Dramatalex battles, once you've built up your energy meter, you can choose huge and basically just step on the other huge Pokémon. Uh, in the uh, in the console game, you can play you get to uh, Dynamax or Gigantamax once per battle. Okay. Period. Not once per Pokémon per battle. You get one per battle. So, um, you kind of have like a limit break of some sort or Essentially, you you use it on a specific Pokémon and then all of their moves turn into the um, the Dynamax version of those moves. So, a any water move that any water move turns into Max Surf, I think. There's like a Max water move, a Max fire move, a Max whatever. And then you can get a guard move.

Oh god, we're going to have to teach Jeff about protect. Oh god, my head hurts. Oh my god, my head hurts already. when you're playing Pokémon Go in a battle, you can you get two shields per fight that stop every that stop a special attack. Right, except there's Oh man. not not any more complicated than that. Yeah, totally not more complicated. Um, it's a it's a huge thing, uh, actually. Um, now my brain hurts now. Uh, I'm looking for this. Oh, um, somebody who just asked, let's see. Oh yeah, Z-moves. will ask Will if something is dear like I don't think we're going to be able to compare every Pokémon game against the one we're playing. But, it's absolutely like I will at some point, I'm sure, ask him since he's talked about the post split specials. Once I understand specials, I can I can then ask, "Okay, what did they used to be like?" Like, I don't want to hear what they used to be like while I'm still

trying to understand the current one. But, I will be curious to see how they evolved it over time. Yeah, and I'll have all of the stuff. I'll also have um I will probably have Bulbapedia up for stats and other relevant equations when we start talking like we start talking about catch math. The first time we go catch a Pokémon, we're going to need to talk about catch math. Mhm. Cuz that is a absolutely unhinged amount of math that goes into one of the most core experiences. And it's actually the reason Jeff mentioned Let's Go Eevee and Let's Go Pikachu. And so, two things knock that out. One, Jeff can't catch the Pokémon, I have to catch the Pokémon because I'm the one with the controller, so that's less fun. much fun. Yeah, not that much fun. And the second one is that it doesn't involve that math, it doesn't involve that experience. You just hug Pokéballs at things, then it's not So, you throw rocks at animals to knock them out and pick them up and put them in your bag? Yes. Essentially. Yeah, it's fine. Don't worry about it. Um Oh, can I Can I tell you what? I made a

We've been playing with LEGOs recently. I actually made a Pokéball out of LEGOs and it looks really good. Sure. After playing Maybe I'll bring that on next stream. Yeah. Um By the way, the I think the max moves in Go are are the mega evolutions are so weird. You end up spending like two or three or 400 candy on it, and then you guy transforms for 8 hours. Yep. And then goes back to what he was. Yep. Those are designed for candy is like possibly a year's worth of walking. So, so the idea, and this is this is another thing that we'll get into a lot, which is Pokémon Go, while it seeks to capture people's attention as a lifestyle game, still does have a thing which really only a applies most aptly go, which is the idea of an event day. So, there are events in the more modern games. Um there are

raids in Sword and Shield and um Scarlet and Violet. Not in Cool. BDSP, but there are raids where like where like four players take on a giant Pokémon. But, that's a still a governed by like a turn-based experience versus the community-based real-time aspect of like uh of Pokémon GO Fest or like a raid day or something like that. And those differences are like magnified when we talk about like 8 hours versus a turn, right? Or the way that Dynamaxing works or the way that um any of the the special Again, I'm just going to curious to see them because I know they put in super light fluffy versions Yeah. for GO. But, um I did get to years ago when I was in Tokyo, like my wife and I were wandering around like 10 at night and saw a whole bunch of people all with their phones out in like the middle of some huge train station area and ended up joining in what felt

like a 50-person raid against something. Mhm. Like it was just this sea of phones of people playing Pokémon GO Yeah. at like 10 at night all gathered. It was awesome, actually. Well, okay. So, I will remind some people will get nostalgia flashbacks. Mhm. Do you remember the week Pokémon GO came out? Mhm. Like I saw more people walking around in my town just Oh, yeah. like it was an experience and I I do think that there is some amount of the current Pokémon experience that is i- inevitably and inextricably linked to that experience of like comradery and friendship and everyone working together and doing stuff and having a good time. Even though hottest of hot takes Yeah, Pokémon Go stunk on launch. It was not It was not feature complete. It was It was bare It was really quite bare-bones compared to what it is now.

We just had nothing. So, something was better than nothing. Uh I still remember there was a mall we lived near that my wife and I just started going to every evening and you just saw these people like hundreds of people kind of like doing this slow walk around the mall, which was at the speed that the um spins came back. Mhm. Yeah. But, you know, just kind of doing the Big circles, yep. Oh, and it was It was really was glorious. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, yeah, and and when it came out there was no combat. Well, there was kind of combat. There was gyms, but like it wasn't the same. Yeah. Um Okay. it's an $8 billion franchise just on Go. Yes. Actually, not franchise, it's an $8 billion game. Yes. That's correct. Uh-huh. That's right. It's wild. It's absolutely It is the only mobile It is the only augmented reality mobile game that's holding up. Mhm. Every other augmented reality mobile game There was one for Monster Hunter.

There was one for Pikmin. Harry Potter. Yeah, there was one for Harry people that made Go. Right. Which has led to this interesting uh thing, which I I think This is kind of interesting. Niantic seems to think that they are great developer who made a hit game and can make another game. I think they are grotesquely overestimating the amount of work that slapping Pokémon on anything does. Right? Like, it's not that they're bad, but like the widespread success of Pokémon Go is like 60 or 75% Pokémon and 25% this is a playable game with Pokémon in it. Actually, I would say 50% brand or 40 30 or 40% of fantasy, which is in in Pokemon, you wander around the characters in the TV show and the manga and everything else, and even the other video games, wander around the world hunting for Pokemon. Yep. This married perfectly. Look, this is

augmented reality. You're going to wander around the world hunting like it was a perfect match-up Mhm. to match the fantasy of the brand in a way that like Harry Potter wasn't. Harry Potter wizards don't wander around the world Right. looking for Yeah. whatever it is. They go to school and then they all go get sad day jobs. And I don't need a video game for that. Um Right. So like Yeah. And so in the same way that like if you're going to play a cool game on the console, there's certain things you expect out of it. A cool augmented reality game has to incorporate that core fantasy in with the brand. Mhm. And I think that's where like I can't think of another brand like Yeah. that would match Pokemon and on wander around the world and do a thing that everybody kind of loves in the same way. Yeah. Do we have anything else, Jeff? I know this is this has been relatively short, but this feels like the set up. This

feels like all of the set up stuff. We've covered all of our um Yeah. Oh, did we want to do a do we want to let me pick my starting Pokemon? Like Or do we want to make it a poll? I Cuz hold on. You showed me the three starting ones for this is Turtwig, Chimchar, and Piplup. Piplup. There is an objectively correct one, and then there are two other Pokemon. And by objectively correct, I mean I love it the most, which makes it objectively correct. Um because So my favorite is Oh, go ahead. We will also encounter that a lot, by the way, that people will defend certain Pokémon even though they're statistically worse because they're their favorite little guy. Oh, yeah. Um, okay, great. I mean, I know I'm not going to pick the Pokémon that ends up going to rule the world. It's the Yeah. Like, my least favorite is a little blue penguin. Um See, and you're just wrong cuz little blue penguin is the best. From the one screenshot you sent me.

Yeah. Piplup's not Piplup doesn't look great. Yeah. Um, I like Turtwig. I like Chimchar. Um I mean, I like fire. I like plant. There there is a weird amount of and this is kind of an interesting one. The way that they eventually How do I want to put this without like getting too far into this now? The starters have been in a weird triangle that is more than just the fire, water, grass triangle for a really long time. And I kind of do think that this is emblematic of that in that it has felt like, and this is more or less true depending on the game, that the grass Pokémon is more defensive, the fire Pokémon is more offensive, and the water Pokémon is more balanced.

Mhm. That's not strictly true, but it has felt that way for a real long time. We can talk about that when we get started. Um Part of what they're selling, too, like little turtle in picture looks like he should be defensive. Like, he has a shell. Yes. Fire guy feels like he should be the most offensive. He has fire. Like part of the elements Right. sell part of like what you would expect on that. Right. And this is why the water type is best because the water type is neither defensive nor offensive. Therefore, just a little guy. He's just a little guy, Jeff. He's just a little penguin. Mhm. I'm not going to convince you. Um I see a lot of Chimchar in the uh Yeah, we will I I was thinking about polling people. I think for the first one, just to get things rolling, we may let you pick. Um and we'll talk about the process of picking a starter and why people choose different things and um I mean, I would guess every first-time player picks it based on cuteness and every player who's played other things might have takes cuteness into account with other things.

It also depends on how you're playing the game. So, we'll we'll I'll I'll do I'll do this now because it's going to come up in the comments. We're not doing a Nuzlocke. So You talk about that for a second while I get Um Uh there was a lot of discussion and a lot of people have asked if uh about Nuzlocking. I don't want to do Nuzlocke because I feel like the mental load of balancing the Nuzlocke against getting to poke all the systems in their completeness is not great. I will probably be pushing to not gratuitously overlevel, so I will have the um level cap available for like as if it were a Nuzlocke, just so that we're not doing accidentally doing the thing where we're like just steamrolling gyms and not actually seeing any of the interactions between Pokémon. Um So, I'm going to we're going to be uh

doing that. But, one of the things that I would I was going to bring up is that there is a massive difference when you choose your starter between whether you're Nuzlocking or just playing because you want that starter. Um and that is a huge difference, right? Because depending on the gen, some like looking at you, Treecko. Uh no, not Treecko. Um Bayleaf. Little little leaf dinosaur, not good. Um That is That That is correct. Yeah, I am That is 100% Playing Kaizo Iron Man and resetting on the first battle 200 times is not the best way to look at all the Pokémon systems. Correct. Um Right. Like we'll talk about fan formats. more Well, having said that this game is not terribly difficult in the long run if you run the stats. Mhm. Is, you know, does make me interested in the harder version. Like if I played it for a second time, I would probably Yeah. take one of the harder challenges and try and use my knowledge to

One of the things but if we want to poke at things intentionally and make some bad choices for fun. Yeah. Yeah. We need a Um regular system. One of the things that I was saying while you were up and and this occurs to me now is I will probably have available to me the level cap or the the level that the gym leader's best Pokémon is at, their ace, so that we don't gratuitously over level in the course of all of our stuff because then we would get to see fewer systems because if we have a gym leader that's just like, "And then I elbow dropped their entire team straight out of existence." We don't get to see any of the cool interactions, um which is all which also deprives our play through. So. Um Yeah, I think Jeff, I think that might be good for today. Did we Did we miss anything? So I don't know, but Huh. Let Let us know what you're thinking about this play through in the comments below. We're We're really looking forward to this. I'm super excited about it. Um my copy of Shining Pearl is getting here. I'm going to be

working on the tech over the next couple of weeks. Um we will have information available about the state of the team and whatnot probably when we do this. And yeah, that's that's going to do it for Design Club today. I'm uh Uh wait. Yes. One last thing. Yes. Let me take a look. Yeah. Hey, if you didn't know, by the way, we are currently in the middle of running our Kickstarter for our sister channel Extra History and we are Kickstarting a calendar. Sorry, Cat. Which is the sequel to our wildly successful 2025 History Happens Every Day calendar. Which basically we took We did a regular calendar and we took all of the days and we put cool per head per day history facts on them. Took some, colored them in with a light on which said, "We've done an episode that covers dates on this day and you can scan this QR code here to learn about the dates they happen." And then

took lots of famous world art and redrew it in our own bean style replacing the figures in it with people who we've covered in history episodes. So, like this is Liberty Leading, instead of Liberty Leading the People, this one's called Revolutionaries and we have Sun Yat-sen and Simon Bolivar and Benjamin Franklin and like or Let's see. Bull jumping Yeah. Excuse me. Instead of bull jumping, it's elephant leaping with uh Hannibal and Octavius or um Eleanor of Aquitaine done in the cloud in Monet's style. Instead of worst instead of dogs and cats or dogs playing poker, this is our from our series Worst Moms and Worst Dads in History. So, it's Worst Moms and Dads Playing Poker. It is a lovely calendar and this year coming up we are doing another and currently our Kickstarter has been live for Half? About 2 weeks. Yeah. And we are Oh, hold on, number just went up.

We are at $52,737 with 1,074 backers and I'm hoping to get that up to at least 1,500 by the end. Yeah. But Will, if you don't mind linking Yeah. Uh the the mods have already taken care of it. The mods have read your mind. That that's actually a a a perk of being a mod here. Uh is that um we give you telepathy for free. It comes with the territory. It is a fantastic calendar and it's also a great way to support our channel and the history videos and the game videos that we make. Yeah. Because we're actually doing things like the calendar in lieu of taking other sponsorships to basically have less advertisement-y stuff and more things that we can just be like, "Hey, buy a cool calendar you'll actually use to support the channel." And therefore we don't have to do as many ad kinds of things. Which I I think everybody wins there. It's a really great calendar. that's a true everybody wins kind of thing. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. Well, YouTube comments let us know what you think. Uh if you don't have any feedback uh please begin

having a heated discussion in the comments about which starter is the best uh from Shining Pearl um using any definition of the the best that you please. Um the more arbitrary the definition, the better. Um we'll be back with this series in a couple weeks, but we will be back next week with a Design Club that may or may not be this. Probably not this. Um uh so yeah, please look forward to that. Until then, everybody, uh please take care of yourselves. Please take care of each other. Uh and we will catch you all next time. Jeff, say bye to the people. Bye to the people. See you everybody.