Pokemon BDSP: Play Like A Designer Episode 1

[Music] Good time zone, internet. Hello and welcome to
Is this still design club? I guess it kind of is, but like it's a subseries. It's like its own special thing. It's like a special room in the design clubhouse.
It's a room in a house, Will.
Yeah. Right.
This design club we've gone into. Let's play like a game designer. Yeah. Which is I would think the gaming not the gaming lounge but the actual like
Yeah.
Oh, it's the work office where you go to actually get stuff done.
Correct. I feel like that is that is correct. I feel like that is the most accurate way to say this. Hello to all of our friends here on uh the Twitch and the tubes of you. Greetings and salutations one and all. I hope you all are hyped because I know I am. So, um

I don't
This is your humble design hug.
Oh, yeah. That's right. Who the heck are we? Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Right.
Your line. Say your line.
Oh, I am your humble design 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 Zack in the studio director of Extra Credits. But more importantly for this series of episodes, I am a longtime game designer. uh 25 years professionally is man more than that now.
By the way, the the longer we do this show, the more fun it is to watch Jeff just like have middle distance flashbacks to like his history of game design, which I assume is set to like an 80s synth ballad. I just assume that that's what Jeff's like
I'm in love by The Cure.
Oh, okay. Great. Awesome. Yeah. is what it said to importantly in all of that I have played a lot of games but because of my age and when different deadlines were hitting for games I was working on I have never

actually played any Pokemon game with the exception of Pokemon Go right
which I have played a good bit of and Will and I were talking about kind of combat and encounter design a couple of episodes ago and after listening and hearing a little bit about Pokemon series. I said, "Okay, Will, one. We're gonna play one Pokemon game on stream. Pick the one." And so Will and chat have had some fun.
Yeah.
Choosing which will be the one.
Yeah. Uh
and today we're going to start the scrum.
Oh boy. Uh yeah. So we're starting Pokemon Shining Pearl now. Mhm.
I'm going to disclaim because we're gonna I'm sure it's the first episode and a lot of people are going to come in and be like, "Why are you playing Shadow of the World?" Okay, so real quick, we talked a bunch about this in episode zero, which
is an episode zero if you want to go see, but this is the one we're actually going to start playing the game,
right? Um the the short version is it does everything I wanted to do and

nothing I don't. Um and I think that a lot of the critiques I was actually uh talking with a friend over breakfast about this. A lot of the critiques that the Pokemon community has of Shining Pearl are in a context that I think Jeff's gonna lack, right? Because you all expect certain things because they were in Platinum and didn't make it into Shining Pearl, but Jeff's never played Platinum. So, we're going to talk about it like without that context and see see how far we get. Um, we've also talked,
this is one of the interesting things, by the way, that Pokemon has to deal with
is because there have been so many Pokemon games over so long and because their target demographic can skew young. This isn't like some other franchises where you'll come in and you're like, "Oh, cool. We're making a sequel, you know, to the game we made 5 years ago. There's one of them." There's a lot of them. And there are people playing Pokemon who've been playing for 25 years. There's people who have been

playing for 10 years as people who've never played a Pokemon game,
right?
And so every new game they put out has to address a larger demographic of previous players as well as saying, "Hey, you're a new player. Let's not have eight-year-olds come in and playing a game that requires, you know, them to have played 15 games before and understand 18 different systems going in,
which does limit the upper end total complexity,
right? Like Pokemon can get pretty complex in a single game. Um,
and we'll talk some about that as we dive into systems here, but uh there is a limit, right? It can't be Dota complex, right? If you've never seen Dota,
you're bad at Dota for like the first thousand hours. I'm not kidding. Like, you are bad at Dota for like the first thousand hours of Dota 2 and then you start getting okay because Dota 2 has a bunch of design decisions and it's it's

designed to be one game that you continuously get better at. And because Pokemon is broken up and fosters that restart thing, it never gets to that point,
right?
And it also Pokemon can never be like Destiny, Destiny 2, Final Fantasy, Wow. You can't come in and start playing and have a decade of backlog where the game has changed 14 times during its actual release, but they've never updated the tutorials or other things. Like
each of these are instanced games as opposed to a continual saga of a live game that just keeps getting updated and becomes unintelligible for new players eight or 10 or heaven forbid 20 years in.
Yeah. Uh PS, I'm going to put one penny on the tracks. Uh we'll address that. We're probably going to talk about this next week. Uh and then we'll dive into the game.
Um I I'm going to I'm going to address this because you're a longtime league player.
Mhm. I think next week we need to talk

about League introducing WD.
Whoa.
Yeah, League is introducing WD movement. So, there's your teaser for what we're probably going to talk about next week because this won't be every week. This will be we'll play
Oh, yeah.
This is a ongoing series that will last a while.
Sorry, my mind is just having played a lot of League of Legends, including last night. Yeah.
Where I'm like trying to climb up the ranks before they end the rank season in like a week and a half in August. Um, really w
Okay, I'm going to take that. I'm going to put it out of my Put it for a moment. And now we're going to go. All right, so let's um let's jump into uh Pokemon Shining Pearl. Let me see if I can do this in a way that looks cool.
By the way, well, I got to hear our intro music for the first time in a long time since I have the
Oh, yeah. Since you have the the Yeah, you have a different audio channel today. Yeah. Yes, I have a different audio channel today.
All right. Uh, so without any further ado, Pokemon Shining Pearl.

Well, I got smaller.
You did. You were.
We should pitch change our voice up through the backend system every No.
No.
All right. We're gonna pick the language you want to play in. G chat. We're playing in English.
Would you like to start the game in the chosen language? Yes.
Oh, actually I had one question there.
Too bad. I was curious if you switched to like Japanese, if they switched the yes no to Japanese.
That's a very interesting question. Uh,
sorry. Minor edge localization thing. Carry on. Carry on. That is not worth in any way going back.
All right. Okay. Hello there. It's so very nice to meet you. Welcome to the world of Pokemon. That line begins like most Pokemon games.
My name
I thought his name was gonna be Professor Mustache.

No, his name is Rowan. All of the professors are named after trees.
Really?
Oak, Elm, Rowan, they're all named after trees.
It's one of like the weird continuation things that like happens across the entire thing.
Uh, however, everyone just calls me the Pokemon Professor. So, another aside, there's a lot of people who are just called the Pokemon Professor, like singular. Do they like routinely meet and duke it out to see who's actually the Pokemon professor, or is there sort of like an amicable like sharing of the title? Anyway,
actually, having literally just started watching the anime with my um youngster.
Mhm.
I noticed that they reuse assets. Like the police lady in every town is the same one and they're all sisters.
Same as like the lady that works in the Pokemon hospital. Officer Jenny and Joy.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, I think they're okay. Like, I think it's an in joke at this point that they just repeat. At least he got a different name. He's Rowan. Is
Yeah, it's true.
Yeah. All right.

This world is widely inhabited by creatures known as Pokémon.
Oh, quick lore question for you since I'm curious about this.
Do regular animals live in the Pokemon world or is it all like I haven't seen dogs or cats or other? No, it's all Pokemon.
Yeah. Um, yeah, it's weird. Uh, we don't
There is a level of just don't think about it at the very core of Pokemon. So, there are some things where we go, That's a great question, Jeff. Next question. Let's not think too deeply about that.
So, what do the carnivorous Pokemon eat?
That's a great question, Jeff. Next question. All right.
Wait, did he just toss a Pokéball? Okay.
Yeah. We humans live alongside Pokemon as friends.
Is that a baby Snorax?
Yes, that is a Munchlax. It is the uneolved form of Snorlax.
Uh, at times we play together and other times we work together.
Some people use their Pokémon to battle and develop closer bonds with them. What do I do? I conduct research so that we

may learn more about Pokémon.
Mhm.
Now, why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself?
All right.
Choose your photo from the lineup. So, there are uh you we're going to get to pick a photo and pick a name.
Okay. So, that's our character customization.
That is the extent of our character customization.
Um Okay. Well, my guess is one of the two on the left looks more like me.
Yeah. I think I think we're going to pick this one just cuz blonde.
Okay.
Um
Ooh, a beret.
Yes. Uh, and then we're gonna name this Jeff. This is Jeff.
Actually, does it ever say the name out loud?
No.
Okay, I do Jeff or we can just do GZ. I'm happy with either.
Yeah. Uh, actually, I it doesn't matter. This is fine. I've already typed it.
Okay.
Name is Jeff. Yes.

And then the confirmation again. Now, I will say at least this is better than in the original one where the relationship between Oak and the protagonist is established in advance that like you've lived in the same town as Oak for years and he doesn't know your name. And what's worse is that the rival in the original game is Oak's grandkid whose name, I cannot stress this enough, you also get to pick. So, he also does not know his grandkid's name in the first one.
So, A fine name that is.
I like how we asked again to make sure, but there's not a uh Wait, I'm not No, that isn't button.
Yeah. Now, this boy here, I believe he's your friend. What might his name be? This is going to be your uh Oh, that's right. We don't get to Well, these are the defaults. Chat, are we picking up the default or is this me? I think this is me. Um,
he looks like Astro Boy.
He does a bit. He does a little bit.

It's There's not. So, one of the problems with Pokemon character designs is that when you shrink them down to sprites, they need to be distinct. So, they need to have something weird about them. And the hair is an easy thing.
Yeah.
All right. Uh, all right. Chad has said that this is me.
Oh, okay.
I was going to name him Astro if not.
Well, is that that's your friend's name? Yep. All right, Jeff. The time has come. Your very own tale of grand adventure is about to unfold. On your journey to find the one known, sorry, no. On your journey, you'll meet countless Pokémon and people. I'm sure that along the way, you'll discover many things, perhaps even something about yourself. Now, go on and leap into the world of Pokemon. [Music] That was a pretty painless like
Yeah, there's entry scene.
Yeah.
Ooh.

old like 80s uh CRT lines.
Despite the exploration team's best efforts, the rare, oddly colored Pokemon eluded detection. The rumored red Gyarados failed to appear, even fleeingly to the Crest fallen team. [Music]
Oh, okay.
This concludes our special report. Search for the red Gyarados brought to you by
I'm cute.
Yes,
I'm chibi cute.
That is correct. Brought to you by Jubilife TV on Nationwide Net. See you next week. Same time, same channel.
I have to wait a week for news.
Yeah.
Yeah. That's a uh that's a red. Is
that a Switch on the ground?
It is. So,
can we play it?
It's the latest game console. A Nintendo Switch.
No.
Okay. So, that also sets the when this is taking place.
Sort of. Time is sort of a soup. That's another great question. Next question.

For a lot of Pokemon games, uh especially because Ash was 20 or Ash was 12 for like 20 years.
The the every Pokemon game has had a console in the protags room. Like these rooms that you start in, you always start in the protagonist bedroom. This is formula at this point. I think with maybe a very few exceptions, but they always have like certain things like a bed, a TV, a computer, and a game console like almost universally.
Um,
hey Will, for rooms like this
Mhm.
instead of me, why don't you equivalently do the exploration andor grab the things we need? Yep.
Rather than me saying, "Hey," and I'll say like if I really want to see a thing.
Yeah. So, you can go to bed. Uh, but you wake right up and then I believe we can find Okay. Yep. Got it. People live alongside Pokemon this world. The people that battle Pokemon are called Pokemon trainers.

Okay, great. Sometimes best
sometimes uh there's an item in the PC depending on the version you're playing.
Yeah, that's why I was kind of curious if
Yeah. Uh,
is that mom?
That is indeed mom. Hey, Mom.
Jeff Will came calling for you a little while ago. He said something about a stream. I don't know what it is about, but he said it was an emergency. [Music]
Looks like she's watching Pokémon, too.
Correct. Pokémon is like a huge part of everything.
Mhm.
So, um in in true JRPG fashion, of course, we can wander around and interact with like all of the stuff in houses. Um, I think they've mostly moved away from like the you
is it an exploration game where you feel like you're obliged to check every single thing.
You gain some benefit from doing that in some cases, not all.
Mhm.
Oh yeah.
I'm kind of curious because like that also how so as a designer looking at

this, one of the things that a design team does with like the initial environment is they are introducing you to how the game world works. Mhm.
And one of the critical things, if we'd found a thing or two in the first things we looked around, the design team would be telling the player at this point, hey, see all these objects? Your job is to go interact with every single one of these because there's going to be valuable stuff in there, and we expect you to do that. Otherwise, you're going to miss clues andor story andor gear.
Right now, my question.
Yeah. So that's really important on your first couple interactions.
Well, and my question is, uh, does the fact that it's our home, like that it's established that it's our bedroom, our home. Does that change that impression that the player has or not enough?
No. I mean, I've seen a lot of games where you wander up to the desk, it's like, oh, here's your equivalent of like, here's your spell book, your Pokedex, your whatever. You definitely wouldn't want to leave without that,

would you?
Right. like they'll put like a critical thing in there where you're like, "Oh, yes. I wouldn't want to leave as a spell book, you know, my spell book since I a wizard."
Yes.
And you get people who walk downstairs and walk out into their first fight and don't have their spells and they're like, "Why can't I cast a spell?" And somebody on Reddit's like, "You didn't check for your spell book." And the person's like, "Why would I?"
Notably, Final Fantasy 11 does that. Uh, it never tells you that you need to have your black mage spell book equipped. So, it's entirely possible to be a black mage and just bludgeon people with stuff instead of casting spells.
Um,
yeah. So, like that's one of the things I'm always curious about is because that is part of like one of the other ones is part of the design language in here. They're not using actually go back upstairs a second. I want to point out a cool thing. Uh, let me get through this dialog box and then I will lock right now.
Oh yes, Jeff. Don't go into the tall grass. Wild Pokemon might attack you. And this is a mandatory cut scene, right? The trigger for this cut scene is

to approach the door.
It would be okay if you had your own Pokemon, but you don't. So,
Gotcha. So, we're also setting up We need a Pokémon.
That is correct.
Which is good. So, one of the things here, Will, if you notice, everything is equally lit.
Yes. If this was a game where you were supposed to be collecting things, there would be more lighting in the room. Like the desk would be lit and the rest of the room would be dimmer or other things like that because you can't make a modern game like this of at least double A to AAA quality without putting in cues of where you expect the player to go, right?
By having no lighting or standout places in here, we're also saying from a design perspective, we're not emphasizing go here. You're free to wander around, but we're not saying these areas are important.
Yeah,
I see the same thing downstairs.
Correct. Yeah, it's just easier to see upstairs. Okay. Um, so let's get out of here. [Music]
Ooh. Okay. Outside we've switched views

a little bit. We have clouds moving.
Mhm.
And we Oh, we don't have a map.
Correct. Uh, so do you want to do the designer button check now that we're outside of a cut scene?
Sure.
Okay. So, we've got nothing on plus, nothing on minus, nothing on L or R. Okay. X is this menu. Make sure. Yeah, that's X. So, we have a this is what we're doing. And then we have two uh menu options, bag and options in a space that looks like it's going to contain more. And then behind you, we have a save option. will save Dave.
Oh, so when you brought that up, it just told me my next quest, which was go find Will.
Correct. Uh, and
and I also noticed actually want to see an interesting one you most people don't think about. Do that again. Look at the font size. This is roughly telling you how much information you're going to be expecting to see in the

message below. If you look at that and the size of the dialogue box,
Mhm. What it's setting up is you're going to be getting short messages
about what to do because that looks like it's going to have two lines of text total and maybe 10 or 12 words per
Yeah.
line.
It's not going to be a novel. It's going to be a short reminder.
The the design team's job also when they're deciding this is to decide, can we get the information the player requires into the space? Yeah, like this is part of the one of the decisions where you get like the content team talking to the art UI team as they're designing this
and to localization, right? Pokemon is no stranger to the fact that because it is a textbox driven game.
Mhm.
Character-based languages, uh, Chinese and Japanese specifically are often much u lower count, so higher density of text. And so speedrunners will occasionally though not always play on those just to make the number of text boxes less.
Right. This example
because the one everybody fears is German.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
For those unfamiliar, German German just strings together words to make other words. And so you'll get words that are routinely exceptionally long.
Mhm.
Yep. Uh oh. We can also look in our bag real quick. We have nothing in our bag, but our bag is comprised of a medicine pocket, Pokeball's pocket,
battle items, berries, other items, TMs, treasures, and key items. We also have 8,000 poker dollars. I Chad Oh, I'm going to I'm going to, you know, I'm going to ask Chad for help here. We'll do that occasionally. Um,
yeah. What's the official name for the Pokemon currency? Is it poker dollars? Uh, I don't remember. It's not money.
Okay, so let's go me. But anyway, like those are a couple things I noticed as a designer, like the tech size, the lighting, what we can interact with. I

see that they're basically using trees to make walls in the village. So, I'm hoping that they're going to constrain us.
Uh, yes, we will be relatively constrained. Um, I'm trying to remember. I imagine that it's this one. Yeah, it's this one because this is the only one with an orange mailbox or with a mailbox at all. Right. So, we don't know whose house.
Your house and Will's house. Okay.
Yeah, this one has a mailbox. So, we know which one it is. [Music]
Whoa. That's where you're going.
What was that about? Oh, hey Jeff. I'm going to the lake. You should come too and be quick about it. Okay, Jeff. I'm finding you 1 million polka dollars if you're late. I like how the poked dollars is just a redone yen.
Yeah, it is. Oh jeez, forgot something.
Oh, we could beat him to the lake,
right? Uh
well, that was you in a nutshell.

Yeah, it was. It was. Hey, we got to go. No time to display. Wait, I forgot a thing.
Hey, Will's mom.
Oh, hi Jeff. Are you looking for Will? He was gone for a second, but then he came running right back home. He just can't sit still, that boy. I wonder who he takes after. I did not ask to be called out in this fashion chat. How dare you.
Mhm.
I'm going to take my bag and guy book two.
Oh, good. He has a switch as well.
Yeah.
Oh, hey, Jeff.
Hey, Will.
Like, I'll be waiting on the road. It's a 10 million dollar fine if you're late. [Music]
Oh, we don't get to ransack your room. I mean, we probably could, but there the you'll there is a sprite for overworld collectible items.
Okay, so uh we're going this way and we know that we're going this way for two reasons. One, as you correctly pointed out, we're bounded. And two, when we approach this, we get the camera angle change.
Oh, yeah.
And then we can see Will.
Can you do a quick run through town? I'm

just curious of how much to make sure it is gated.
Yep. So, we uh it it's it is uh
gated for now. You will notice that there's water down here.
Oh, then there are trees on the other side of the water. So, no, we're just stuck here. This is also not uncommon. Most uh Pokémon games, you start in a dead end, middle of nowhere town. That's sort of
It's another design trick like you walk out and you immediately you can't see. Actually, do me one favor and then we'll leave here. Go back to your house. Don't go in. Look at the first step out the door. Notice
we see a little bit of trees, but not a lot. We can't tell if this is the edge. This is the hey, it's a bigger world thing.
Like if you ever notice the first time you step out of a house, what they show you is really important. They're giving you a little bit of safety with the walls where say Elder Ring the first time you stop step out of the mausole the training mausoleum and they give you that vista where you can see all the way to the tree and multiple like signpost

weenies in the way. You see the knight like they give you a lot in that first reveal
to tell you what the game's about. This one is telling you comfortable exploration.
Yep. Yeah. And uh and Nintendo is not a stranger to that either. That is all that style of vista is also the way that Breath of the Wild starts.
You wake up, you go outside and you get the big sweeping vista of all of Hyrule. And you if you can see it, you can probably go there.
Mhm.
Hey, you saw that news report that was on TV, right?
You know, Search for the Red Gyarados, the mysterious appearance of the furious Pokemon in a lake. That is a hell of a title. What? I I feel like they need someone in marketing to like really Dad, maybe in Japanese it's shorter.
Yeah, in in Japanese it's probably shorter. Um, that show got me got me to thinking. I'll bet our local lake has a Pokemon like that in it, too. That's a leap, but

okay. So, that's what we're going to do. We'll go find a Pokemon like that.
In this world, does everybody collect Pokémon?
Collect?
Does mom have a Pokemon sitting in her?
Generally speaking, yes. But they don't all use them the same way. In the OG series, Ash's mom has a Mr. Mime who helps her cook, for instance, and like clean around the house. And like Pokémon are used for other things. Uh, but not everyone does. Many people do. All right, to the lake. Let's find us a red Gyarados. [Music] What's going on, Professor? There isn't anything out of the ordinary on the other side, either. I may have been mistaken. Something appears to be different than it was before, but fine. It's enough that we have seen the lake. Dawn, we're leaving.

Professor, how are you enjoying being back in Cinno after being away for 4 years? In Sinno, after being away for four Oh, yeah. Sorry. It must be exciting again. Hm. There is one thing I can say. There are many rare kinds of Pokémon in Cinno. The region should serve us very well in regard to our studies.
Hey, Prof.
Excuse me. Let us pass, please.
I beg your pardon. We'll be on our way. What was that about? Those two. Huh? Jeff, let's go check this out.
Okay.
What's that? Don't go into the tall grass. No problem. No problem. We won't be in there long enough for wild Pokemon to come out. I feel like
that's a setup.
What's that? I hear the sound of check off shotgun loading. I understand. It's

a briefcase. Those people forgot it here. What are we supposed to do with it? We can try to return it, but who are they? I heard them say, "Professor Pokemon.
Those aren't pigeons. Those are
uh pd doves, I think.
What's going on?
Actually, well, was this all on rails? We didn't have any chance to not go in the grass. Correct.
Okay.
Look, these are
familiar with the term rails means do you have a choice or is it like you're on a Montreal or something that follows the track and you have no way off?
Mhm. Look, these are Pokéballs. Let's battle using the Pokemon in them. Which one do you want, then?
So, we're going to look at these.
We choose the Tidy Leaf Pokémon, TW. Okay.
Will you choose the chimp Pokemon, Chimchar? I like it's Tidy Leaf and Chimp. Will you choose the objectively correct Penguin Pokemon, Piplup? So, we've

talked about this a bit and before chat gets all excited, uh the comments and I and Jeff all agree that we're going with Chimchar for this. Um there are a bunch of reasons that we'll get into later. The short version is it's probably the best of the starters for someone for for ease of just going into this. Um
I also independently chose it cuz I like like having a flaming monkey sounds fun.
Yeah. Man, luckily my lineup with that agreed with again going in with no research. [Music] Okay, flaming monkey, you're mine, dude. Hero shot.
Yeah, we Yep, we get hero shots. You encountered a wild Starly.
Starly, that was it.
Yeah, go Chimchar.
Okay, well look, I am ready for this.
Okay, great. Yeah. Um, so
I made a Pokeball out of Legos this morning, so
very nice. Okay. So, uh I am
Look at this.
I am in the wrong spot. So, I'm gonna

move me
come hang out with me.
I'm gonna move me here for now. I don't know that this is going to be perfect. And also, I know my green screen is going to mess up if we're on grass. So, right now we only have one option and it's battle. And we have two options, scratch and lear. And we also have a move info. So,
well, should we just disappear doing a battle scene?
I I think that might be correct. Give me give me a second to work on making that happen uh after this one while we talk. Um because I'm going to need to build something. So
while we doing that from chat, let's see how we decide on a starter so fast. Last week during episode zero, we talked about it a bit and we also had a vote in Discord in the in the comments of last week's um [Music] Uh
cuz I want to see some info and you and I are covering it.

Yeah, that's correct. I'm working on it. All right. Um if I do this, not ideal, but it'll work for now. I'll I'll I'll change it so we better. Um okay, so we have here uh two um moves available to us. And we have this this more info button, right, which I can press Y to open.
So we have
So actually even before we get to that, so like when they gave us the base start here, I I see a health bar. Interesting that the health bars are in diagonally opposite corners.
Mhm.
Um I see one for my sky, one for the opponent. I see we're in a battle.
Mhm.
Oh, so when you hit battle, that's when it actually starts.
Uh okay.
That's when it opens up the move list. Yes. I'm getting a surprising amount of more camera movement than I'd thought.
Yeah. So, uh, if this were one of the original games, it would be obviously much more static, but one of the improvements that they made or quote unquote improvements that they made to

the battle system when they moved to more powerful consoles was to make this more dynamic. This is more in line with Pokemon Stadium where you do get a fair amount of dynamic camera movement as you're choosing.
And so, those are my two moves I get to select from. It looks like
that is correct.
Scratch and Lear. Okay,
so we have uh Lear, which is a uh we have this category symbol, and it's a normal move, and the user gives the opposing Pokemon an intimidating lear that lowers the defense stat. And then we also have scratch, which is a whatever this explosive symbol is category move, and it has a power of 40 and an accuracy of 100, and it does damage.
It's interesting. If I came in with no knowledge, my guess is that a power of 40 would do 40 damage. I do see there's an accuracy which is telling me that some attacks are going to miss.
Yes.
I don't know about the categories yet. And I also see this 35 out of 35 which I have no idea that almost looks like it should have it's going to wear out with

the durability.
Mhm.
But I'm going in blind, but it's also I'm guessing there's going to be almost no way I can lose this.
That that is correct. So, uh let's let's scratch then and we'll Go get him. Okay, Wild Starly used tackle. So, we see now an interesting note that um I just want to draw attention to.
Uh when we did and took damage, we saw that that did three damage to us, right? Because we are now at 17 of 20 and our bar is still green. And if you look at the Starlys, we don't have a number, but we do have a color. the color of the Starly's health bar changed as
I was going to call that out too that they're specifically not showing how much damage I did.
Yeah.
And it's also not 35 and it's not 40 which were the two numbers presented on screen.
Yeah.
Actually, excuse me. It could be. I just don't know that.

Yeah. Uh and by the way, to your point earlier, uh now we've used Scratch once and is at 34 of 35. So, it looks on the surface that your assumption about a move wearing out was correct.
Yeah. And I'm assuming that's bad, but who knows? Maybe it's I have to use it 35 times to power it up.
Yes. Uh, okay. So, let's do it again and get out of this. Uh, now I I I also want to clarify for chat. Um, chat's got a lot of um observations and and helpful little things. Hang off on that. One of the things that we want to be doing here when we're playing like a designer is we're trying to interrogate the game itself about how it delivers this information to someone who's never played a Pokemon game before. So I know that you all know but let us not know till the game so that we can interrogate the game properly about those elements. And so we probably should have even gone a little slower, but I want to keep this will be a trick will of keeping it at a

fun pace while still looking at things like y
most people who this unless this is one of your first games, you kind of know the green is good, orange is medium, red is bad color coding for things like health bars.
Yes.
So they probably felt no need to like get some extra explanation for that.
Yep. They were presenting it in basically the visual language the gamers know.
Yes, I agree. Um, so we have this this screen where it lists Chimchar at the top. It says your Pokemon.
Interesting. He starts at level five.
Yes. Uh, and says we gained some experience points and we got 12 of them.
Mhm.
We got that kind of gives me roughly an idea of how much 12 is because we saw the progress bar fill up.
Correct.
Oh, dude. Will, why didn't you take a Pokeball and fight with me? Uh, that's a really great question. Uh, because I'm bad apparently or I was probably dealing with my own Starly, right? Remember, we were attacked by two Starley's.
Oh, that's right. Are there still Pokeballs in there?

Great question. Uh, we'll find out in a second. Flaw, your Chimchar totally rocked. My Piplop was way tougher than yours.
Okay, so you did take a pip. Okay,
correct. Now, uh, in tradition, the way that the thing, um, is, um, the way that this works has changed over generations, but as your rival, I always take the thing that is strong against you.
Mhm.
Um, it's kind of your first uphill, like the game is like, yeah, you're just going to you're going to have to deal with that. Um, the Yeah, Will gets the pip flop anyways. Challenge successful. Thank you, chat. That's a good point. Um later on you will have cases where another character takes the one that is weak to yours
but that changes on a generation by generation.
And in this case so will is what you're telling me is if I'd played other Pokemon games I would know by you selecting that that you were going to become my rival.
Yes. Yeah. I think that's a yes. That's

a that's a good way of putting it. Yeah. that that now the other important thing is that you were asked my name, right? Which is the other way that the series as a whole telegraphs that I'm going to be your rival.
It at least telegraphs that you're important. Like if you've never played the game, if if I'm taking the time to name an NPC, that means that unless the game is doing something really weird, they're important.
Yes. Right. Um All right. They were other people's Pokémon, but we had to use them. And those people won't mind, will they? Oh, there's the briefcase. The professor would have been furious if I'd lost it. [Music] Oh. Oh no. Did Did you use the Pokémon that were in here? He did. Oh my gosh. What's the professor going to say? This is so not good. I'll take this briefcase for now. [Music] And you notice we do see in there that there's one left, which by process of elimination is turn,

which means that if we see her again, I expect that she's going to have the what was it? A Bulbasaur.
Turwig this generation's Bulbasaur. What was that about?
That's a nice setup, by the way, for giving the three assignments.
They've they've gotten better at this over the years. Like the first one is like Oak just calls you in. It's like, you get to pick one, right? But they there have been more like um wild happenings that bring you together with your starter as the generation.
At least I didn't oversleep and get a leftover electric wrap.
Yeah,
that Pokemon got hurt from that battle. If we get attacked by another Pokemon, we might be in trouble.
Oh, so they don't just heal when they go in the Poké Ball.
That is correct. They do not.
Oh, okay. So, combat moves matter then. Excuse me.
Yes. He's setting up that combat moves matter. We haven't seen like a health bar or summon it again yet.
You go ahead. I know we have to go return these Pokemon. They're not ours,

but I want to spend just a little more time with this little guy. I'm going to steal Pit Love. That's That's what's going on, Chad. I'm going to steal Piplop. Okay. So, now if I press the menu,
we can see the Pokémon's uh thing has been added. And we can see that for this one, this doesn't do a great job. For this one, Chimchar has been fully healed.
Yeah,
normally.
So, that's actually interesting. So, that's that would be telling me something different than the game wants to teach me later.
Yeah,
I'm assuming, which is that my assumption here is that Pokemon heal after battles, even though my friend Will just told me otherwise.
Correct. Uh, okay. Can I still If I click on that, does it show me anything other than his? Okay.
So, um All right. I'm also fixing one last thing that was bothering me about our setup and I have fixed it. Uh so, um

we can Would you like to do check summary because this is about to be a rabbit hole. If we click check summary, we're going to be here for a second.
Let's get a little further then and learn a little more before we check summary.
Okay, great.
Oh, we have this. So, we have the option at this point.
Mhm. And we're heading back to
Yeah. I also I also like that just when we're walking, it's not like the it's not a
we're not skating, right? We have like a jerky walk animation cycle. It's also very worth noting that we walk differently than All right. Anyway, um that we walk differently than Will did, right? Will uh in the in the tall grass walked orthogonally through tiles and we have sort of full 3D motion which is one of the reasons that we can do this and make the game a little unhappy with us for a moment.
Yeah.
Um
you can tell that Will's using a

pathfinding um
Yes.
statement which goes from tile to tile.
Yeah.
And it kind of tells you how it's constructed.
Yeah. Hey, it's those people. Is that old guy staring at us? I heard from Don that you used our Pokemon. Let me see them, please. Dimchar and Piplop. I see. That's how it is. Don, I'm going back to my lab. [Music]
Does this mean we get to keep them?
Uh, okay. Professor, please wait for me. I think you should visit our lab later. Okay. See you. [Music] So, I'm confused. Didn't he already meet me when he asked my name or was that like a
That's a really great point, Jeff. Kind of. That bit isn't actually part of the story. It's the player's introduction to Rowan, but not the character's introduction to Rowan.

So, there's this split where like Rowan is also the tutorialization and like character customization avatar for the game, but the character hasn't met Rowan yet, which is weird, right? Yeah, that that is like a weird little thing.
I'm sure the designers had a small existential crisis about it, but realized they didn't want to make another tutorial character. Like, it's more interesting and true to the series that the professor is teaching you about it.
Yes. What does all that? wanted to give you a name before you got there.
Correct.
I have seen other games where they try and avoid the name for like the first 20 minutes and you get there and they're like, "Nice to meet you. What was your name again?" And only then do you put in your name?
Yeah. Right. What was all that craziness about? I mean, if he was angry, he could have just yelled at us or whatever. Didn't he want his Pokemon back? Jeff, we should go home, too.
Oh, straight cut scene. Okay. Yep.
So they they're nice. They don't make you walk back.
Correct. When you only have one

potential destination.
Other games absolutely make you walk back.
Yep.
What's up, dear?
Mhm.
Wow. I can't believe that happened to you. Am I ever glad that both you and Will are unharmed? The professor you mentioned is most likely Professor Rowan of Sand Gem Town. I've heard that he is well known for his studies on Pokémon. He's also quite intimidating. Jeff, I think you need to visit him in Sanjemtown. You need to properly explain why you had no choice but to use his Pokemon. Don't worry. I'm sure he will understand.
Mhm.
Oh, I know. Jeff put these on. You received a pair of running shoes and we they're they're highlighted in red, so we know they're important.
Going to Sanjemtown is like an adventure in itself, right? With those running shoes, you can get to far away places much faster. Okay, let me read the instructions. Tilt the left stick firmly and dash about faster than ever before. put on the running shoes and blaze new trails of adventure. Well, isn't that just nifty,
man? A little bit of fourth wall

breaking there. Okay.
Yeah. So, now we move faster, which is nice. Um I do also I'm just going to um real quick I am going to nerd for just the the briefest of moments. If we look at traditional ways that um hero journey hero's journey stories are told, right, we're beginning to like get into the beginning of one, right, where like adventure.
Yeah. Into into an adventure, right? Like you're given a gift from someone, usually a powerful woman in the main character's life, but there's like a bunch of weird European gender norms about the way those stories are told. Um to like kick things off, which I just think is an interesting side note. All right. So, now I've got the zooies or you've got the zooies.
Uh, zoom.
And now,
if I We don't have to, but if I looked for Will, would Will be there?
That's a really great question. I think we should. I think that's worth spending the time on.

[Music]
Mom is not about to aunt Baroo. You stop it right now. So, Will is not in his house. [Music] Okay. Uh, so we can only go north so far. And now that we have a Pokémon, we have this gym char.
We can go through the tall grass.
Visit the research lab,
right? We can go through the tall grass to the right because before we couldn't. We didn't have a Pokémon. But now we do, but we can't. It's the boy. It's the I'm going to chat. We can't even catch the boy. No. Bonuf is my favorite Pokemon. This stupid little thing is my favorite Pokemon. All right. Anyway, um so now we have more options.
Oo, we do.
So, um we could look at Pokemon and we

only have Chimchar, but we can see more information about Chimchar. [Music] We have a bag, but all of our pockets are empty. And then we could run.
Yep.
Um,
and they didn't put run before cuz you need to complete the story part.
Correct.
What was the What was the Oh, and our scratch is back to full strength. Okay.
Correct.
So, this tells me there's some sort of regenerative thing. Our health is back to full. Mhm.
Like all of this is basically resetting to default what I saw last battle.
Yes.
The only thing that's different is my XP bar is increased.
Yes.
Wait, did it show us the level of the bird last time?
Yes, it showed us that it was level two.
Growl.
Has used growl. Uh, which means our attack fell. So,
so far I haven't seen any inclination

that just spamming attack is not the correct uh
correct
thing.
Now, we will see that we did about 50% before and we didn't knock it out in two hits.
And I'm assuming the uh debuff goes away over time.
Uh yes.
Well, we would only find that out on the next one.
Yes. So, this is basically Yeah, we'll talk about set up and downs at some point when we get into stats and we get into moves that influence stats.
Mhm.
I actually Oh, never mind. Let's grab
fainted. No, I'm sorry, boy.
Got XP.
We got 13 this time.
Yeah, 12 last time.
Yep.
But I don't get to catch that guy. Correct. We don't have any Pokeballs. How could we catch him?
Oh, we have a sign here. Trainer tips. Don't

be shy. Talk to anyone everyone you happen to see. By talk to people, get invaluable information and advice. Is there anything interesting this way? I don't remember. Oh, there's nothing that way. All right, cool. These these side tracks are going to be much less annoying now that we have the running shoes, by the way.
So, we just got told to talk to people, so we should talk to this person.
Yes.
Your Pokemon's health, its HP is getting low. You should go home and get some rest.
But Chimch never got hit.
Correct. Okay. And now we see I can't get up here to get to this person because this is a one-way ledge. Do I have to?
Can you talk to them, though?
Oh, that's a great question. No.
Okay. And that's another one, by the way, that's just a common video game conceit. Those tiny hills that people can't step

up.
Yeah.
Like that's part of the design language around this kind of level layout.
Mhm. where it's kind of like the most egregious are in like the 3D games where it's a tiny fence and your big powerful protagonist like can't step over a tiny fence.
Mhm.
And it's funny how you build them into the world means a lot. Oo, there we go. Jump down for a shortcut.
The twin. In this situation, it looks fine, but there have been other video games where I've heard huge feedback that it actually breaks the um lotto narrative dissonance that like you're sold you have this big hero who can't step over like a two-ft fence.
We're rated to stay in Gem Town.
Hey, Don.
Oh, there you are. Please come with me. The professor is waiting.
We skipped one other person, but yeah.
Yeah, this is it. Our
research lab. Let's go.
Yeah.
Oh, Will.
That's That's my new That's my new uh

catchphrase is thud.
What the Oh, it's you, Jeff. That old guy. He's not scary so much as he is totally out there. It doesn't matter, Jeff. Uh, I'm out of here. See you later. Wow. What was that? Your friend sure sure seems to be really impatient. Well, anyway, let's go inside. All right. [Music] Oops. Finally, you've come, Jeff. Was it? Let Let me see that Pokémon again. I see this Pokemon seems to be rather happy. All righty then. I'll give that Chimchar to you as a gift.
Quick thing note here. I find it very interesting that they completely delete your charact. Your character does not have dialogue.
Yes, you're you're a silent person.
That's also an interesting choice because almost every game has your

character saying things and it's both a pro and a con. If you like the writing, it helps you feel more in touch with the character. Leaving it out basically has you internalize it and it becomes you could have said anything there.
Yeah.
You know, you could have been snarky. you could have been friendly, whatever. Like, it's putting all of that into the player's head. And the only downside, excuse me, the downside to this is you're accepting it's it you're accepting the generalization.
Yeah.
Like it is a layer of abstraction on it.
Mhm.
But, um, for this kind of game, it actually matches the art style.
It matches the level of abstraction and helps make it go faster.
Yeah. Uh, now that it's yours, would you like to give it a nickname?
So, we can choose. Yeah, I mean, we're going to say yes to most things.
Um,
so we can give it a nickname. And we finally learn, I don't know if we observed before, but

I saw it. I just didn't comment on it.
Yeah, but for the sake of of uh exposition, it is a male Chimchar because your Pokemon's sex matters in this because your Pokemon can have babies. And we'll talk. Don't Don't worry, Pokemon Die Hards. I guarantee you there'll be like a whole episode where we talk about eggs. Don't worry about it. That
he looks like a mammal.
Yeah, that's correct. I know what I said.
Egg. Uh, so would you like to give uh this uh Pokemon a nickname, Jeff?
Yes. Um, do me a favor. Write Chimchar. I'm going to add something to the end of his name.
Okay.
And capitalize the second C if you would.
It's going to be a pun chat.
Only a little.
Okay. Oh, I I missed I missed the second H.

Jim Char. So, you got four characters
actually. Four. Oh. H. Oh, that's 12.
It can't be Chim Charmander. In that case, get rid of the char part.
Add an I. Capital C.
Chonga,
I think. So,
you can tell how long I've been doing this with Jeff that I know exactly what
a N.
Yeah,
Changa [Music]
with the correct spelling. Jimmy Changa.
All right. Great. Excellent. Perfect. Hm. Okay, I see. And you're happy with that. Ding-dame.
Well, I get to rename him later.
Uh, I don't remember if if you can.
We'll find out.
Fred Will told me what happened at the lake. I heard you battled very well despite it being your first time. And from what I can see, there's a growing bond between you and that Pokémon. Though it is still young. That's why I

would like to entrust you with Chimchar.
Oh, it didn't pull my new name in. Interesting. It did not because it wants to make sure that you
here. They don't want screen caps of I'm so glad that you're happy with um
Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. I'm so glad you're kind toward Pokémon. If you weren't, I'd have to Oh, I just can't say it.
Oh, is he a child murderer?
No. Uh let's move on to the main topic. There's something I want you to do for me.
My name is Rowan. I study Pokémon. First of all, I want to know exactly what kinds of Pokémon live in the Cinno region. To do so, it is necessary to collect data using the Pokedex. This is what I wish to ask of you. I want to entrust you with this Pokédex.
Pokédex.
Will you use it to record data on all the Pokemon in Cinno for me? Yeah, I guess.
Interesting. I would have expected them to have the Pokédex in a different color.
That is the shoes we got.
That's not Oh, you Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Well,

okay.
As an item we're receiving,
right? the there's a difference which is that the running shoes are an actual item and the Pokédex is part of our UI sort of. It's kind of weird. It's also a little weird because some of the information that we should only be getting from the Pokédex we've already gotten for Chimchar.
Again, there there's a lot of handwaving of like the order that we get stuff. It's not like Borderlands where the first thing you do is get handed a HUD by Clap Trap,
right? Yeah.
You want to be an unpaid intern? Yeah, exactly. 100%. Hm. Good answer. Ah, there we go. Now it's
okay.
That Pokédex is a very high-tech device. It will automatically record data on every kind of Pokemon you encounter.
Ooh,
I'm carrying a surveillance device for a nutty professor.
That's correct. Don't again. Again. Great question, Jeff. Next question. Don't think about it.
Okay,
Jeff, I ask
Wait, does it record everything?
Jeff, I ask that you go everywhere and meet every kind of Pokemon in this

region. I've got one, too.
What am I going to be recording?
When you walked up Route 2011 with your Pokemon, what did you feel? I've lived for 60 long years. Even now, I get a thrill when I'm with a Pokemon. Now, you should know that there are countless Pokémon in this world. That means there are just as many thrills waiting for you out there. Now, go Jeff. Your grand adventure begins right now.
All right.
The Pokemon that I used for the first time was Churchwig. If you would have chosen Churchwig, Blake, we'd have the same Pokemon now. Maybe he had lots of them.
Yeah, sure. We'll go with that. Not that it matters, but anyways. I'm Dawn. I also faster. Add pages to the Pokédex. So, in a sense,
I thought it was digital.
That's a great question, Jeff. Next question. So, in a sense, I'm just like you. I just got a little head start on you. That's all. Be happy.
So, she's getting set up to feel more like a friend.
Yes. Will is your well and and that's

one of the that's the other thing is that the person who takes in in some games the person who takes the Pokemon that's weak to yours is going to be an ally
and the person who takes the one that's strong against yours is going to be a rival. Not again not always but happy to teach you things. Glad to meet you Jeff. I'm also kind of curious like they've set up an very interesting game thing at the very very very beginning which is there are basically three choices and they've at least constrained it to three. But all three choices are going to matter in the story based on who gets what. Yes.
Because at this point any of those three Pokémon could be with any of the three of us. So, if they were setting up story lines or other things like if this was a different RPG and they're setting up story lines, the fact that there might be three equivalently main sidekicks to the main charact or sidekicks to the main character

might also mean that there's a whole bunch of quests written that you know your shadow dog would get but that your honey beaver doesn't.
Yes.
Kind of thing in a different game. So, I'm kind of curious to see what they what the differences are as they do it. Like, if they were expecting you to play, if this was a five-hour game they're expecting five playthroughs with, they'd probably light a write a whole line of individual quests per thing. If it's a 30-hour game where they're expecting one playthrough, no, they're just going to name swamp.
Yeah, I can't raid the boxes. That's fine. [Music] Okay, Jeff, I'll act as your mentor. I've got a bit more experience than you as a traitor and as the professor's assistant. Okay, follow me. I want to see a little purple thing appear over her head.
This building with the red roof is the Pokémon Center. It's the place that heals Pokemon that have been hurt in battle. You can find a Pokémon Center in most towns. [Music]

The building with the blue roof over here is the Pokémon. The shop where you can buy and sell items and medicine. Jeff, since you're a novice trainer, you won't. Okay.
Yeah. You won't be able to buy many kinds of merchandise. Don't let it bother you. That's right. Jeff, don't you need to let your family know that you're going to be helping Professor Rowan with the Pokédex? You may need to travel pretty far, so I think you should let someone know. Oh, but before you go, heal up your Pokémon at the Pokémon Center. It'll be a lot less scary that way. Okay, bye now. I like the responsible parenting here. I mean, she's not a parent, but mentoring here of like, go tell your mom where you're going before you set off. Wait, don't I need to heal my Oh, yeah. [Music]
So, this character,
I'm so glad this is not a check every desk game.
Yeah, correct. Uh, hello. Welcome to the Pokemon Center. We restore your tired Pokemon to full health. Would you like to rest your Pokemon, please? Okay, I'll take your Pokemon for a few seconds. Okay, that jingle has remained more or

less unchanged. That is as much a part of the Pokemon game as the concept of Pokeballs. That
that is like deeply ingrained. Thank you for waiting.
Will, can you vamp for 20 seconds?
Yeah.
Be right back. [Music]
Uh, yes, chat. It It's redish. It's not necessarily red. Yep. Uh-huh. 100%. Uh, no. Yeah. No, no, no, no. It's fine. It's fine. We'll get to those in a second. Yeah, you will hear that jingle a lot because we're going to make a lot of mistakes. 1998 called It wants its jingle back. Correct. That is uh that is correct. The Pokemon Center. Yeah. Yep. Yep. That's very true, Aiden. Yeah, the music's great. Chat, uh, I think we're probably going to get through my goal is to get us through the Pokemon catch tutorial. I think we should be able to do that and that'll probably um be it. We will also give Jeff at least a couple minutes to look

at the stats screen. Um but we may need to do an entire episode on stats and natures and everything else. Actually, before Jeff gets back, I'm going to I'm going to check this. [Music]
Yeah. Okay, great. Awesome.
Wait, wait, did I see stats? No, no, no. You didn't see stats. Are
you stating without me?
No, no, no, no. I was checking to see which stats we currently had available. And there's a lot of them, which is why we're not talking about stats right now.
Okay. So, let's see. Was there anything other than healing in that place that we missed
there? There is, but it's not applicable till later. This
or did I have any options other than
No, this will be important later. Um, this little blue machine. Uh, that'll be important later. This is
They're also Oh, go ahead. And then I'll
uh this is important later but not now.
I'm glad they've turned them off. This is also one of the things they're doing that I really like. Town has people. I

can't tell you how many games you wander into a town like all the shops. It's like you're the only person in town other than the shopkeeps.
Yeah.
Like they're doing a decent job of going out of their way to make sure that there are other people wandering around populated areas.
And one of the reasons I like that is because Pokemon's a game about exploration. you're there. They're setting up there are people in the world. If you're going to go off exploring, it's into the wilderness kind of thing. There's a lot of games that don't you wander under town in a lot of other RPGs and stuff and it's some just feel empty.
Mhm.
And it mean it doesn't make it makes it feel like there's a different ex like if the world's already empty, it gives a different feeling to it.
Yep. I'm going to
Is there anything in the store we could have bought or
uh Great question. And the only reason I asked is cuz I saw we had money to start with.
I don't believe we can buy the thing that matters. [Music]
Pokéballs.

You can. Oh, how lovely. Great. Uh oh. By the way, um uh convenience control thing. Uh if I go up or down, that's one. If I go right, that's plus 10. If I go left, that's minus 10.
Nice. So, [Music] we're we're not going to not need them anytime soon. So, I I think we
I'm going to like I I probably would have bought like five just not knowing if I needed to save money. I am happy to have time-saving convenience as well from your previous playthroughs.
Yeah.
Like if there's gear we should buy.
Let's just go ahead and do it.
Here's the other one. Have two Premier balls on the house. Uh, we'll go into the inventory and we'll look at those real quick.
Uh, nope, not that
bag. This.
So, it's a uh it it's just it's another it's a white Pokeball essentially.

Interesting. So, in Pokémon Go, those are the ones you use for special events,
correct? They're the freebies.
Okay, so we got to go talk to mom.
Okay, jump down. Jump over.
Oh, yeah. We want
Whoa. Do you see that hop?
Slow-mo hop. Okay. And now we we could actually avoid all encounters and go this way, right? And then
I don't want to avoid an encounter,
right? Yeah. And I know that. That's why. But that
And there's a person in there. They might be in danger. Will
wild Pokemon lurk in tall grass. They come bursting out at any time. So if you're wanting to battle wild Pokemon, just walk in tall grass. Going to avoid wild Pokemon, then stay out of the tall grass. Okay, we can keep going to mom. I just like Oh,
no, no, no, no. This is important because we have to catch this thing. Give me the thing.
Oh, does that stay in the same location?
No. [Music]
Okay, Jimmy Chonga.
All right. Well, and this one is uh level
level three instead of two.

Yes. Oh, and then this is a lovely thing below scratch because we've fought a bedoff before. You can see that it was effective. Oh, okay. I'm kind of curious. We've never tried Lear.
Yeah. Uh, yeah, we could try Lear.
Ooh.
So, okay, that looked like the debuff that he put on me.
Correct. Now I will also say that when growl happens it says that our attack fell but when we attacked uh
his defense fell
harshly fell that matters a lot.
Falling and harshly falling are two different stages of the same thing.
Okay. So let's scratch them up. Okay, we're going to get tackled. And we

took four.
Actually, I'm looking at his health level. Oh, it's interesting because he's not level two like last time. It's harder for me to gauge
correct
like how much the lear helped and his debuff on the scratch.
Right. So, because we could do all of the experimentation, I'll tell you that yellow means below 50%.
Or 50% or below.
Um, we could have yellow last time. Yes, correct.
But what I mean is because we were attacking a level two one then
Mhm.
I'm not sure if it didn't go down to yellow because of my the debuff or because it has more hit points for being a level higher.
Also, last time we attacked first and then got um growled. In this case, we leared first and then got growled and then attacked with scratch. So, we had a debuff on us when we attacked as well.
Right. But it also had a debuff on it. Correct.
Yeah. So, interact. Let's see. Oh, okay.

So, now that
So, wait. When did you get the opt? Did you have to know to go into the bag to look for this?
Uh, no. Uh, this is a convenience thing there. If you look above battle.
Oh, okay. The pops. Yeah. When you're in wild battles, it makes it so you don't have to go digging around in the bag. There's just a button for would you like to use a Pokeball?
Is there The weaker it is, the easier it is, or is it a range? like you get into that and that is a you are now allowed to catch.
We could have thrown them when it was at full health.
The game will not do the best job of explaining this because none of them ever do. There is a complicated set of mathematics which I'm we'll I will show you the equation at some point and we'll bring up the equation on stream and we'll talk about it um for the chances of catching something. The short version is that a Pokemon that is at a lower percentage of its health or suffering a particular set of status effects becomes more likely for them to be caught along with other um various factors such as

which Pokeball you're using and whether that Pokeball's special criteria is being met. But we just have base Pokeballs so we just whail on them. [Music] Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle.
Okay.
Yeah, the I believe the third jiggle is is caught, but I'm not sure. Okay, this is also interesting. This is not chat. I'm going to need a backup on this. This is not consistent. This was a change. At one point, you could only gain XP for fainting wild Pokémon. And at some point, and I don't remember when, they did change it so that you got XP for catching wild Pokemon.
Oo, and we got a lot of XP because,
correct,
that looked like that was almost twice what we got from previous ones.
Yeah.

Okay, level up. I grew to six and I see all of my stats went up. Actually, we haven't even looked at stats yet, but correct. They basically every stat got better.
Correct. But they did not get better by the same amount. And we're we're going to talk about it later. We're going to talk about it later cuz I don't I don't think we have time left in today to do the full deep dive on why. Just know that the stats don't increase uniformly. And some of that we can control based on how we battle and what we battle. And some of that is based on this particular chimchar.
Well, it's funny. In a normal RPG, I would always expect hit points to go up at a different rate than like every other stat.
Mhm.
But I would also expect because I've played so many this looks RPGish, so that's what I'm defaulting to as closest thing.
Yes. Like this to me looks like because I chose a Chimchar, I would expect my stats to also go up at different rates

because I'm assuming that this is like fighter versus cleric versus rogue leveling up and that some of their skills and stats go up based on their class.
For me, Chimchar seems like class.
Yes.
Okay. So, it showed me how they went up. It shows me my jungle
finals and I learned a new thing. Yep. Bedoff. [Music]
Number 13.
Number 13. So, we have a bunch of information. We have its height, weight, and a little thing about it. We also get to hear its cry and see its footprint. And it's a plump mouse Pokemon, which is thanks Pokemon for not just naming it the beaver Pokemon, but that's fine. Um, I don't care on these ones as much. I'm assuming we could change it later.
Okay. But I'm going to I'm just going to I'm just going to real quick I'm just

going to
Okay. Cuz I may need names for a while so I actually learn what they are.
Correct. Just know that Bedoff is the boy.
Okay.
Okay. Also worth noting uh that uh if we open this up.
Oh, and he comes in. Okay. And now I see wounded for both.
That is correct.
Yeah. So, um not only is it it's in exactly the state that it was when we caught it, and it's immediately added to our party. We'll talk about what happens with six or more when we get there. Oh, so if I was able to capture a Pokemon at like half health,
that might mean I could use it sooner rather than it being
Yes. And in some challenge runs that becomes incredibly relevant.
Here it's less so. Or play casually it's

it's less so. All right. Um let's go talk to mom. We're here to talk to mom.
Hey mom, I'm home.
Welcome home, Jeff. for you and your Pokémon healthy. Take a quick rest, dear. Okay, so here's a very interesting thing.
Is that a short rest?
Yes, kind of. It's It's a It's a Pokemon Center effect. Anytime you get the Pokemon Center effect,
it will play the jingle.
It's the way that it lets the player know that you've been fully healed without you needing to check. Gotcha. So, oh, so it's a D and D long rest wrist that says, "Let's reset things to default."
Yes, that is correct.
What's up, Jeff?
But actually, speaking about that, like that is a great thing to know that I'm sure I would have noticed for a couple is that that sound means a certain thing.
Mhm.

And that they're training you early on.
Yes.
About that. Because that is an important thing. That means you can just play that sound. You don't have to tell, you know, make the player wonder when does it happen? go digging through their interface, etc.
Yes.
Wow. Professor Rowan asked you to do something that big. Okay, dear. Go for it. Your mom's got your back.
Jeff, I've got something that you'll find useful. You obtain the guide book. It's blue.
You put the guide book in your bag's key items pocket. That's a guide book. Take a look at it when you're curious about something or have questions. During your adventure, you may find an answer. Gee, a journey full of adventure. I envy you, kiddo. Plus, you're not alone. You have your Pokémon with you. I wish I could go instead. I'm just joking, Jeff. I'll be all right by myself, dear. So, you go and enjoy your adventure. When you're exposed to new things and experience new sensations, it makes your mother happy, too. But please come back sometimes. I would like to see the kinds of Pokémon you've got, dear. All right. And then we get this big full screen.
Mom's a retired adventurer.
Yeah, totally. That probably.

I mean, she's got this all ready to go,
right? Yeah. Uh, use of adventure will be added to this guide book. You can check it in your bag's key item pocket. Let's give it a look. Oh,
excuse me. Is my little Will here? Uh-oh. No, he's not. Oh, then he must have left already. What to do? That boy shouted about going on an adventure. Then he bolted. He's so headstrong and reckless. I at least wanted him to take this. Not to worry, Jeff will deliver that to him. Won't you, Jeff? Oh, really? You do that for me? Jeff, please take this to Will for me. You obtained the parcel. Oh,
you put the parcel in your bag's key item pocket. So, key items appear to be blue.
I'm curious to see if this is like a quest item or
Bye-bye, Jeff. Enjoy your adventure. Let me think. Knowing by he probably head straight to Juba Life City. Okay, please take that to my will. Will forgot his lunch.
All right. Funny.
Right as you said parcel,

Pival jumped up.
Yeah. Yeah, that totally sounds like me. Oh, Jeff, you're forgetting something important. the hat.
I've got the Pokemon trainer outfit. Yes, that hat always did suit you well, Jeff. Now, off you go. It's an energy drink. Listen, chat, don't call me out like this.
So, hold on. I want to see the parcel in the um guide book.
Yes.
Oh, and a trainer cart. That's new, too. Note that you look nothing like your little sprite, right? Cuz your little sprite's chibi and whatever. Um, and then we can, you know, uh, we can see this how long we've played, when we started the adventure, how many Pokédex, how many, you know, all this stuff that
the ID number, the number of people who've made trainers.
I don't know how ID numbers work, but I do know that depending on the generation, it is a unique identifier

or pseudo unique identifier. I would have expected more than half a million people to
have bought and played this game.
I think it's just RNG with the hope that two people don't end up with the same one.
Um but I'm not sure.
Yeah, just curious.
Yep. No,
it's little things like that I'm always
Yep.
curious about as well. Okay, so let's see.
So, go to the key items pocket. We have a guide book. Okay. And then we can we can we have like some generic hints, right? New paths will open when you help people in need overcome challenges and solve mysteries. At times you'll be challenged by others to a battle. Other times, wild creatures may stand in your way. By overcoming such hurdles, you will gain great power. However, your adventure is not solely about becoming powerful. Okay. The guide book, the menu. Okay, great. the Pokédex
and Pokemon Centers is all of the stuff

that we have and we could go through all of the pages of that if we wanted to, but we are
So, this is basically your review of everything you've encountered so far.
Correct. With a couple
or game concepts you've encountered so far
with a couple of new things like the PC, which is your storage essentially.
Um, and the parcel is just a parcel of trusted injury carriers supposed to deliver to your childhood friend who left. And then we are
time to go to Jubilive City.
Correct. Uh let me
then of course the other nifty thing is that you have photoal sprites for your team in your save window which is [Music]
okay. Uh so we've got a little bit of time left. Uh, would you like to attempt to make it to Jubil Life City or do you want to go over the stats and information that we have access to now?
I want to do that so I have time to think about it between now and our next play.
Okay. So, these are incomplete for the

moment, right? We will get more.
Should we hold off then?
Um, well, you should probably go over the basics.
Okay.
And then we'll go over like more interesting stuff. Okay. So, for each Pokemon, we have the following information. its Pokédex number, its name, its type, the original trainer, and their ID number. That matters for trading, which
I was guessing for trading because I saw there was a trade option in the menu before this. I'm also noticing that the Pokedex number seems to be a Pokemon concept cuz, for example, in Pokemon Go, I have a Pokedex that goes up to like 900 different Pokemon.
Yeah. And chat, I know this if you missed it last week because in preparation for my young son playing Pokemon Go with me in walking, I've constructed his is cooler cuz it has a neat picture on the front. Each of us a physical Pokedex that lists every evolution in Pokemon Go so that we can see what evolves. Keep this all on screen.

He can learn to read reading it.
Yeah. and we can identify which ones we want to trade later.
Um, yes, Chad, there there's a thing. There's national and regional. We're not going to worry about that distinction yet. We'll worry about it when it comes.
Okay,
so we have new pieces of information on this screen. This Pokemon is careful by nature. We met one another on the 14th of August, 2025 at Lake Varity. At the time, the Pokemon was level five. It's strong willed. It likes bitter food.
So, this is a I love how they're mixing a couple of different pieces of information here. Some of this it's easy for them to track like they've already named the regions, the time, etc. So, they can give you a history to look back on.
Yes.
For this as well as mixing in I'm guessing that careful and bitter because they're highlighted are interesting. I'm curious to see if there's a mouse over, but also where it was caught they're highlighting and that makes me wonder if

that is also important information.
So, uh, yes, not always. It matters a lot for this is sort of a thing that does help with Nuzlocke because in Nuzlocke you're only allowed to catch one Pokemon per zone. So, it's a way of saying like, "Hey, look, you can see where I caught all these, right?" Mhm.
Um, it's also nice for like telling your story, right? You'll notice that Go does the same thing. Like Pokemon in Go will tell you where in real life you caught that Pokemon.
Where and when, who you've traded with. No, again, I was just because it was highlighted in red.
Yes.
It made it feel like that's as important as careful and bitter.
Yeah. Um, yes. Uh, and then careful and bitter are indeed important. Um, yeah, it matters in certain contexts, including tournaments. Yes. Uh, Zerif and and Crusher point that out. Yeah.

Um, okay. So, [Music] okay. Actually, skim through the different menus for me. Let's start off with this.
Yeah. And for those of you watching, we are going to spend the next
10 or 15 minutes examining things in me doing the blind look
and telling you kind of designer sense. So, a
they're doing a little bit of VCR design here,
which is they're trying to not overwhelm you with a whole row of in VCR case buttons by putting them all up front. They are giving you the little flip open case to see more buttons and other things by putting them in tabs.
Yes.
And so this is a well doumented or well practiced part of user interface and not overwhelming people with information approach. The downside of course is that the equivalent of a power user has to

tab between things instead of seeing it all at one glance. The upside is it's more approachable.
Mhm. Uh, so we also got a move, Ember, right, that we haven't seen. So we can look at it and see the
What should we start with? You want to start with moves?
I want to start with moves.
Okay.
So, um, I'm actually going to take this away real quick. Hi, chat. [Music]
Okay, so we have we now have three different categories of moves. The game hasn't told us what they are yet. I don't remember if it will explicitly, but there are three different kinds.
And this is the first time I'm seeing there's an element, too.
Well, that's an interesting thing. Normal is a type. It's a boring type, but it is still a type. So, just because this is a normal typed move does not mean that it doesn't have a type. It does. Its type is normal. There are

extremely rare cases of typeless things
which are like their own whole thing. Um, but this one Yeah, this is our first firet type move.
So,
really quickly, just in case this person Yeah. is actually just young. VCRs are the things people recorded um TV on before we had basically instant taping anywhere with toos or YouTube or
ability to find it. So it was the old tape format.
Yep. Um so
I I can explain VCR design later if people are interested.
Yeah. Um
okay. So I'm learning there's types. I wouldn't have thought normal was a type,
but I'm sure that will come out more later.
Yeah. Okay. So we have a category, a power, and an accuracy. And in this case, our description says something important. So our category is this blue concentric rings.
Mhm.
And then our power is 40, just like the power on scratch, and our accuracy is

100. And it says the target is attacked with small flames. This may also leave the target with a burn,
which sounds like it should be some sort of dot.
Uh, it is indeed. Um, it is also a powerful debuff.
Oh, okay.
Um, but we'll talk more about that when we get into like burns and stuff, but my point here is that the whole story of a move's efficacy and usefulness is not told in those top three lines, right? Some of the things that are in the descriptive text down at the bottom are important, so we will need to read that, right? There are also drawbacks to some moves or um other things, but like Pokemon moves are far more complicated than just category power accuracy there is. Um
can we actually mouse over any of the information or is that as far as you can get into Ember? Like you can't go over what category and power.
Jeff, we're on a switch. What's a mouse?

Right. like some games would let you like click on ember which would then put you into the bottom where you can mouse over that information or um move your up and down over that information.
In this case, no, this is as much information as we get. And this is one of the reasons that um uh there are um other why there are so many external sources of information because you can't get them in game. It's not that like it's hard to get in game, it's just not present.
Yeah.
Right. So, for instance, uh I'm gonna look up real quick. Should have had this up. That's my bad.
Ember.
And this is part of their design choices, realizing that you may have eight-year-olds playing this or 30-year-olds playing this is they're trying to keep it so that an eight-year-old skimming through isn't overwhelmed.
Correct. And uh in this case the um burn is a 10%

chance, right? But we don't we are not given that information in game. So there are some things that we will have to look up if we want specific information about them elsewhere,
right?
How do the people figure that out? Um
code dump.
Oh, okay.
Real boring. Real boring. Just ROM dump the whole thing and poke through it with a stick. Um
there. Yep.
So, the oldfashioned way.
Correct. Uh, also,
so do me a favor. Go up and down and get. So, power and actually I've seen everything's 100% accurate. Scratch had also a 40 power
and it has that kind of bam icon on it. Okay.
Yep. So, would you like to know what those are, what the categories are? Okay. So, the categories are the kind of move that it is. So, scratch is a physical move.
Okay. And ember is a special move.
Specials are generally but not always non-physical

attack. So if I punch you, that's probably but not always a physical move. And if I throw if I blast you with a water gun, that is probably but not always a special move.
And those use different stats, which is why it's very important.
And those use different what I'm Oh, stats. Gotcha.
All right. And Lear is a um status move
uh which means that it is subject to specific other
um
rules and restrictions, right? But but it's a this is the symbol for a status move.
This, by the way, is setting up one of the most tricky parts of game design balance for these kinds of things. It's already telling me when um we basically have one character and I know Will, you said at some point we may get two, but like if you're running a party of five, you could have Lear be a medium power

thing and still be effective because you know you're it's the equivalent of having your cleric and D and D cast less.
Yes. like the cleric knows that it's they're affecting three other players with a stat boost more if they're doing an upleled spell and therefore it can be in that case it's very powerful but when you're single player is doing it you're giving up an entire action to do that thing and so you have to balance it accordingly but if you make the buff or debuff too big it also becomes the thing you have to do
like there's some in and if it's too low you feel like it's not ever worthwhile. So, I'm curious to see how they do the balance on this because like when we did it, it felt underwhelming.
Correct. Yes. Yes. We're also weren't in a situation where we could look at it cleanly because we lowered their defense and they lowered our attack.

Mhm.
So, the interaction wasn't something we could examine cleanly in a vacuum.
Yep. worth noting.
I said I was just kind of curious because that is like having done that kind of design and that kind of game balance.
One of the things you're taking into effect is the number of characters in your party because that affects how much or how little each thing has to do. Yes.
Along with the fact of how many how many actions can you take per round equivalently.
Mhm.
And from this it looks like one action per round.
Yes. And that means each action has to be very meaningful.
Yes.
But okay. So I've looked I've seen there's we have three different moves. I've seen they have categories powers and accuracy.
Mhm.
I have a rough guess that more power higher means better. But I've also noticed that the Lear didn't have a power level. Um
status moves are by definition moves that don't have a power and don't do

damage.
Right. But in another game system, the power could have had a interaction with how big the debuff or buff is.
Yes, that is correct. That is not the case here. Lear has a flat effect.
Um, which in this case is one of the unfortunate things that we're going to have to go deeper on another time, which is that Lear lowers the defense stat of the opposing Pokemon by one stage. [Music] And we'll talk about that next time because there's a there's a um
there's an invisible sliding scale and your uh buff moves and debuff moves for each stat will move it a number of stages in either direction with it always starting at zero at the beginning of a battle.
Mhm. Not all stages, I believe, are created equal, but it's a it's sort of

like a token system where like you can counteract them on a one for one basis rather than having like my Lear does 27% debuff, but your Lear does 85% debuff and those are different, right? In this case, it's very it's like token,
right? I said, and that's again just choices like
Yep. It's less fine-tuning, but that sounds like it is actually, if you manage to understand it, a simpler level of understanding.
Yes, correct. Um, okay. Uh, and then let's look at stats.
Okay.
That's right. I have to back out of that. All right.
Actually, just so before we do stats, what were the other two tabs? Uh the other two tabs were uh
Oh,
okay. Is it history?
Yeah. Yeah. History and uh more in depth overview, including um the the XP points

and points needed to level up. Also, Nova pointed this out. You see those six shape tags underneath.
I was actually about to ask on that.
Uh those are self-s categories that we can use to organize Pokemon in the PC when we start getting more than
Oh, cool. So, if I was like, I want my XRun set to be circles, I can tag all those circles. Yeah.
Cool. That's a nice way of doing it.
Yep. Um,
okay. Stats.
Okay. So, so every Pokemon and chat, I'm going to need you to be chill cuz there's more to this later, but we're going to do the brief overview now. Every Pokemon has six stats.
It's HP, stat, attack, defense, speed, special attack, and special defense.
Only one of them is colored. Interest two. I missed the special attack. Okay,
those are related to its nature. So, a Pokemon with a nature.
Ah,
and all Pokemon have a nature will have a um that nature will have an effect on

its um
Gotcha. So, careful means that its special attack, I'm guessing from how I see the arrow down is lower, but its special defense is higher.
Yes. It also means that um yes, it is also linked to its favorite flavor, which is a whole other thing that I forgot existed until we saw it and then I had flashbacks and it's fine. Um so, uh in this case, it is careful by nature. So, it's uh special defense is up and it special attack is down. It likes um bitter things and I know what it doesn't like. Um,
so as a quick question, if I'd caught three different chimchars,
Yes.
other than assume that they all had the exact same nature
Uh-huh.
and the exact same food choice.
Uh-huh.
Would their stats have been identical?

No.
Okay. So, there is some variability. Do stats on level up have variability or do they in other words if if we had three identical ones and then they all leveled up three times would their stats remain identical?
No.
Okay. So there is some RNG both in what it starts and how it goes up. caveat. If we leveled all of them in exactly the same way, they would they would all get the same stats, sort of. If they were all identical to begin with, chat, remember that's like a key thing. However, the practicalities of leveling them means that the odds of leveling three identical Pokemon that you magically got and probably duplicated to level the same level in exactly the same way for the purposes of stats means that it's functionally probably impossible
unless you know exactly what you're

doing and have a very high command of the inner workings of the game that are not expressed to the player. Um,
so could you theoretically through no fault of your own have a series of unlucky RNG rolls and just end up with a bad chimchar?
Yes.
Oh, actually hold on. Caveat to that question. For the stat points that go up.
Yes.
Is there a set number? In other words, like you get 10 stat points every time you go up split between these things or is it each one individually rolls? So therefore, one might gain a total of 10 where another gains a total of 12 and the other a total of 16 somehow like
the god chat I'm trying so hard. We're going to need to like and and I'm going to I'm going to break.
Well, it's okay if you don't know like I'm just wondering because theoretically there's a level up where each stat gets rolled between like a zero to two and there's another one where it's like here's points split between based on

how it's I'm kind of looking to understand some parameters. There is a total pool of available points that can be split on level up that are determined by actions you take with that Pokemon in combination with some of the stats that are inherent to that Pokemon that yield the final value of the level up stats. we can influence some of them more easily than others by using specific items um and choosing to fight specific Pokemon in specific ways. That's the very broad overview because we are running short on time. Oh yeah.
The the the questions that you're asking are um
I'm asking basic these are my designer like this is my system designer like having mentioned previously Chad on the last one by trade I am a video game designer designer part my subd discipline is system design
correct this is the part that
crunchy spreadsheets and balancing out

large amounts of things. So I'm always curious to see how the design is done by different groups
correct
on this because this this once This screen right here, I can think of 20 different ways it might be done that would look identical on the surface but have different background math in 2 minutes.
Correct. So, I could think of more. So,
yeah, I'm going to give you the very
Yeah, give me the
I'm going to give you the very brief version. So, every Pokemon is generated with an IV wi with IVs for all of its stats. Those are its inherent values. Mhm.
Um and then the um as you use it in fights and it g and use specific items on it, its EVs, it's earned values. Either earned values or uh
Oh, so values
change and you get so many up to a specific cap.
He's going to sleep. Sorry. Um, your

level up is a know your level up actual stats are a knowable um quantity based on the relationship between your Eevees and your IVs and the level that I believe that you're going to.
And when you say influence meaning
effort value, thank you chat. Individual individual.
For example, if
And by effort, do you mean like if Chimchar spams attacks for most of his level, he will level up his attack stat more? Uh,
like in other words, based on regular actions I would take or more um
I'm going to pull up I'm going to pull up a hard and I'm going to pull up like an actual full stat example real quick just so that I get don't get this wrong. So it's I'm basically curious how arcane the process is. Like would an 8-year-old playing this have any idea that the actions they took actually or a normal casual 20-year-old player?
They would not. Okay,
this is all

so for them it would appear somewhat random.
Yes.
Okay.
Um the Yeah. Uh yeah. So the IVs are the things that the gym leader tells you about your Pokemon in Pokémon Go, by the way.
Mhm. Um and um so no I believe the chat Eevees are gained by Eevees are dependent on what you fought against not which moves you use correct or am I completely going off the rocker because uh he's asking
we can get more into this in a later like I'm just kind of starting to understand the concepts like the box we're playing in.
Yes. Yeah. So, um yes, what you defeat in battle determines what your EVs are
for that uh what your and then those combined with your IVs to determine that.
And then

uh your nature plays into that as well. Um, and your ability may play into that depend not generally to what your stats are, but when we're talking about the reason we're going to spend a whole episode on eggs is that ability uh, and some amount of stats are semiinheritable maybe some of the time. It's a little complicated. Eggs are probably eggs are probably one of the most complicated parts of the game. Um, on top of one of the most opaque parts of the game which is the Eevee IV system and the way that sads are happened.
Follow-up question.
Yes.
For your regular player, does any of this matter? Like is the game hard enough that you need to be kind of looking at optimizing your poke builds?
Not unless you are doing a challenge run. If you are playing casually, no. because there are no there are no hard and fast guard rails on the game that

will inhibit you from taking this singular Chimchar, right? We could make Chimmy Chong go level 100 and just elbow drop our way through the entire main game.
Okay.
Um
so, okay. So,
that's a little hyperbolic, but like
there's the golden ring or the RPG. These things are hard. But I'm just going to grind for a little bit, raise my level, and then go walk through cuz I'm five levels over where the designers thought I'd be at this point. And
yes,
everything is easier.
Correct.
Okay.
Right. So, it's it's one of those very interesting things where the system is incredibly deep and has these the ability to be controlled in these ways, but you don't need to unless you want to. And that's one of the reasons why Pokémon manages to both be a game that a casual playthrough can happen with an 8-year-old and it have it be a rewarding experience. And
there are full-blown adults whose full-blown full-time jobs is creating content around creating competitive teams that are tuned to the nines.

Cool.
So there like the system allows for both. And that's really one of the strengths of it and one of the reasons why I think it's worthy of this sort of investigation
of the do Yeah. And I said that's why I'm kind of interested in is because again one of the problems Pokemon has is this has to be playable by an 8-year-old
or by a 20, you know, a casual 20 or 30year-old.
Yeah. Correct.
While kind of serving that collect them all stats nerd, let's have fun with this guys and girls kind of thing. I I I think that this is the best way I've seen it put this very nice cool ice cube island ski resort thing that is in fact supported by a massive iceberg. Yes, correct. Um so I think that with all of that conversation out of the way, I think that is a very good place for us to end our first gameplay episode. Uh we've gotten our starter, we've gotten our first our first Pokemon, the boy.

That's my that's my one. I get one this play through. Everything else for Jeff, but the boy mine. Um,
so Will,
yes,
we had a question come up in chat talking about an old design concept, VCR design. Is it worth a two-minute real quick thing or should we just leave that for
that for another time, I think.
Okay. Oh, that's right. That cuts out when I go to the screen. Uh, friends, thank you so much for joining us for our first episode of the uh BDSP designer playthrough. We hope you've enjoyed
second episode. First first episode that wasn't zero.
It's episode one. Either way, it's episode one. Um, thank you so much for joining us. We hope that this has been interesting and different, right? This is what the playthrough is going to be if if that's if you were surprised if you're like, "Wow, I would have been so deep by now." No, no, we're going to stop and talk about everything because there is so much to talk about. Um, again calling off like obvious things like my designer brain just like oh there's no lighting therefore there's not going to be special things
gating areas like color coding where I'd expected that um the Pokedex to be a

color initially because it was a thing added to your like these are a lot of things that we've learned the design language for because we've all played a lot of games
that you may not notice but the fun part is calling them out a little bit so that hopefully as you play other things you can notice some of the intentionality behind the design
that it goes into. And for me, it's a good chance to learn it. But it's also this is this is what a senior game designer on a blind look can tell from a game.
Yeah.
Like just looking through. We actually occasionally at the PAX conference do a show called Design Club live as well, but where we'll put on a game that half of us haven't seen and spend an hour in front of a crowd talking about what we can tell from the game even from like the loading screen. Yeah.
And just what is the game telling us based on the language of design?
Yep.
And it's fun.
Yeah.
And if you have that kind of brain, please show up for some of these and um hang out with us. I promise to see if I can build more Lego Poké Balls or other

things.
There are so many Lego Pokémon things. Don't worry, we'll we'll we'll keep you in those. Uh thank you all so much for joining us. We'll be back next week with a different episode of Design Club. This will not run every week um because there are things we got to talk about next week. I can almost guarantee you I'm gonna be able to tempt Jeff into talking about the change that League of Legends is making that's going to allow for a
You know, I'll talk about League of Legends anytime, Will. Like, yeah, I know.
League of Legends.
I was going to bring this to put it on today for catching, but here look,
that was the drop of a hat. So, we're going to go talk about League of Legends.
We're going to talk about the WD control scheme next week. So, please join us for that conversation. Uh, if you're hanging around, we'll be here on Twitch after this playing some Elden Ring Night Rain with me and Matt. Uh, and we'll be back next week with a whole set of shows here on
Important. Important. Last message.
Yes.
We are currently running a Kickstarter right now for the Extra History Channel. Yes, Will. I know. We should have done that in the middle. We are. Last year we did a really cool calendar. This is our Extra History. History happens every

day. 2025 calendar. It has a cool history effect. Every single page or excuse me, every single day, the QR code scans the days that actually link to episodes we've done on history. And we have cool classical art that inspired us redrawn using our bean art style and using characters from our history episodes we've done. So like this is the inspiration of Joan instead of the creation of man with Joan receiving her inspiration from God. This is there we go for that was January. You know glints the kiss. Um worse moms and dads playing poker instead of dogs playing poker. If you like this kind of thing, we are currently Kickstartering for a little over one more week our 2026 calendar. We have already hit a whole bunch almost every mile or every stretch goal we've put on. Well, this helps support our channel. Yep.
Like us doing these helps keep us making episodes and doing Twitch streams and everything else. So, if you would like a

calendar or maybe to buy one for your kids history class or they make a great Christmas gift, just saying
come check out our Kickstarter links in chat. Y
thank you mods for throwing it in chat and thank you all for watching our show. We will only be talking about Kickstarter for another for one more episode because after that it's going to be over.
It's done. All right. Uh I think that's going to do it for us today. Uh Jeff, that means it is time for you to say bye to the people.
Bye to the people. See y'all. [Music]