Creating Pokemon Is No Cakewalk

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
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Creating Pokemon Is No Cakewalk



It takes a lot of blood, sweat, and elbow grease to design the likes of Pikachu and Squirtle.

Did you think that Game Freak designed Pokemon [http://www.amazon.com/Pokemon-SoulSilver-Version-Nintendo-DS/dp/B0038MTE7C/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1288806037&sr=8-4]'s creatures by using Mad Libs? Or by throwing a dart at a board covered with various elements and animals? Me too, but apparently the process is more involved. Pokemon developer Game Freak recently talked about the process that goes into designing its creatures in an interview with Famitsu magazine.

Game Freak has a design team made up of 17 people that each draw every sort of Pokemon that they can dream up, and the good and bad are weeded out in group meetings. "There's no particular number that each designer needs to create," Pokemon 3D art director Takao Unno said. "But they come up with far, far more designs than actually get included in the game."

Pokemon themselves have been inspired by everything from electric turbines to circus seals. Game Freak founder Ken Sugimori said that the legendary Pokemon [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100993-New-Legendary-Pokemon-Herald-Black-White-Release-in-2011] gracing the covers of Pokemon Black & White were meant to be powerful dragons, but their tails are "based off of those electric turbines you see, and they give the impression that they're these great big generators of fire or electric energy."

On the other hand, Pokemon Black & White's starters [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103180-Update-Your-Pokemon-Black-White-Starters-Could-Evolve-Like-This] were inspired by things more whimsical. Pokabu, a fire-pig, was designed around the fact that pigs roll in mud. It shoots fire out of its snout to cool off instead of getting all dirty. Mijumaru, a water type, had his final evolution designed according to inspiration from a "trained-seal show at the Sunshine International Aquarium in Ikebukuro," said designer Yusuke Ohmura. These seals seemed extremely powerful, so Ohmura incorporated that power into his design.

Unno and Sugimori both said that while Pokemon might seem like an easy game to create, it's not. There are now hundreds of creatures, and they all need their own individual frames of animation, especially in Black & White's new battle system. Unno said: "Since we have the Pokemon constantly moving during battle, we had to decide how each one would act when executing this or that move, or what they should look like when they were put to sleep or whatever. It was a lot more work than I ever imagined it'd be."

"Since you can bring in your old Pokemon after finishing the story, we also had to add new animation to all of the Pokemon in the book," Sugimori added. "It was just a massive quantity of work, and I really respect everyone on the team for plowing through it." Well, if you want to be the very best, I guess you've got to work hard. I don't think referring to the Pokemon song will ever get old.

Source: 1up [http://www.1up.com/news/how-pokemon-get-made]

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Erana

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Feb 28, 2008
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And before anyone insults the more recent art style of pokemon, I'd like to point out that I went to Tokyo just last Spring, and yeah, that sort of look is used everywhere. Half the mascot characters I saw looked could pass flawlessly for pokemon, and Japan has a Hell of a lot of mascot characters.
Complaining about how pokemon looks so different from what it did a decade ago is like complaining that American cartoons today don't look like they did fifteen years ago.
 

luckycharms8282

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Mar 28, 2009
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Still only like the first 150. After that the pokemon just got weird. But hey, they're pokemon so thats to be expected
 

Legendairy314

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Aug 26, 2010
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I have nothing but the utmost respect for those who are able to take all those hundreds of creatures and redesign them...over...and over...

It's really a testament to how much effort games take to make. No matter how simple they seem on the outside or how bad they're reviewed.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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Well, I still like the dartboard method for character creation.

It does lead to the occasional oddness, though. Mal Calrisian is still a sore spot.

But seriously, it sounds like they're not really doing anything different than I expected. Bunch of people come up with ideas based on common themes, ideas or items and run with them. Would I call it a cakewalk? Maybe not, but it sounds like they're overplaying the work required.
 

mjc0961

YOU'RE a pie chart.
Nov 30, 2009
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Tom Goldman said:
Game Freak has a design team made up of 17 people that each draw every sort of Pokemon that they can dream up, and the good and bad are weeded out in group meetings.
I think they made up that last bit. If they weed out the bad, how come the one with a giant penis on its face and the group that are just floating gears made it into the game?
 

GoGo_Boy

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May 12, 2010
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So even with 17 artists and a huge filtering process the output is 90% garbage? Awesome.
 

Nerf Ninja

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Dec 20, 2008
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well seeing as most of the time the story is exactly the same it's not surprising most of the effort goes into creating the pokemon. I still think they need a legendary bird based on grass though, and for some reason I want them to do to Pikachu what they did with Eevee and have different types.
 

Arehexes

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Jun 27, 2008
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I think Gram Said it best "Whats so hard you take a object and combine it with a animal".
 

Dead_Man

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Nov 18, 2009
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Apparently they never saw this then.

http://www.halolz.com/2010/10/15/the-pokename-game/
 

Gigaguy64

Special Zero Unit
Apr 22, 2009
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Cool!
It must be fun to get to draw all the creatures you want and see some used.

I love the new design, and my first thought when i was the new Legendary pokemon was "They look like dragons with jet engines on their bodies"

And man, they gave us a Crocodile that wears Kamina Glasses.
Friggen A.
 

Brotherofwill

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Jan 25, 2009
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Tom Goldman said:
Game Freak has a design team made up of 17 people that each draw every sort of Pokemon that they can dream up
Wow, seems like we got the problem there. 17 people? That's way too much. That actually explains a lot, like why the Pokemon look like such a mess and look so un-unified (for lack of a better term). Get a small team of 1-3 skilled artist, let them go wild. That way the Pokemon will look like they actually exist on the same planet.

Erana said:
And before anyone insults the more recent art style of pokemon, I'd like to point out that I went to Tokyo just last Spring, and yeah, that sort of look is used everywhere. Half the mascot characters I saw looked could pass flawlessly for pokemon, and Japan has a Hell of a lot of mascot characters.
Well you have a point. Japanese art has changed drastically and Pokemon is following suit but that's not an excuse, atleast for me it isn't. Copying what's popular hardly fares as an excuse, that's like if the new Harry Potter movie featured Vampire romance and someone would try to defend it that it does because it's popular right now.

I don't buy it. If they had real great artist working on Pokemon then they could set the new standard rather than follow some wierd Japanese trend that 3/4 of Westeners seem to be annoyed about.
mjc0961 said:
Tom Goldman said:
Game Freak has a design team made up of 17 people that each draw every sort of Pokemon that they can dream up, and the good and bad are weeded out in group meetings.
I think they made up that last bit. If they weed out the bad, how come the one with a giant penis on its face and the group that are just floating gears made it into the game?
Good question.

The weed out the bad? Yeah, I laughed too.
 

nosafetynets

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Sep 27, 2010
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I think the worst part is their inability to come up with decent names... That would almost make up for the lack of creativity - or over-creativity - in the design of the pokemon themselves.
 

AngelicSven

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Aug 24, 2010
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I understand it's hard to continuously create poke'mon designs after 500+ designs that actually made it through. However, that's why you should stop making them. Get a new concept.
 

greenflash

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Jul 13, 2010
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so then they doun't use the dart board?
that's no fun. it would be great to have a minigame in pokemon with the pokemaker dart board.
 

TomLikesGuitar

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Jul 6, 2010
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You know, I'd prefer if they used a dartboard and didn't waste all their time making stupid looking creatures. Then, you know, maybe the basic gameplay would actually differ from game to game. Maybe the basic plot wouldn't just be about waking up in town A, talking to your mom, meeting a scientist, going to town B (without pokeballs), coming back to town A to get the pokedex, meeting a rival, meeting an evil organization, defeating 8 "gym leaders" who are SOO GOOD that they can't figure out how to make a balanced team, beating some elite squad, and finally beating your rival.

But hey, I looove wasting money on the same game over and over and over...
 

Sporky111

Digital Wizard
Dec 17, 2008
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Oh, cry me a river. It must be difficult making essentially the same game every few years.

Some developers have to make new IP, or even full 3D graphics and animations. But no, you go ahead and try and tell us how difficult it is to squeeze out these shitty characters and their animations.
 

Erana

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Feb 28, 2008
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Brotherofwill said:
Erana said:
And before anyone insults the more recent art style of pokemon, I'd like to point out that I went to Tokyo just last Spring, and yeah, that sort of look is used everywhere. Half the mascot characters I saw looked could pass flawlessly for pokemon, and Japan has a Hell of a lot of mascot characters.
Well you have a point. Japanese art has changed drastically and Pokemon is following suit but that's not an excuse, atleast for me it isn't. Copying what's popular hardly fares as an excuse, that's like if the new Harry Potter movie featured Vampire romance and someone would try to defend it that it does because it's popular right now.
In that case, can I interest you in the
Its the most violent officially lisences pokemon thing ever... >.>
 

AgentBJ09

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May 24, 2010
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Sporky111 said:
Oh, cry me a river. It must be difficult making essentially the same game every few years.

Some developers have to make new IP, or even full 3D graphics and animations. But no, you go ahead and try and tell us how difficult it is to squeeze out these shitty characters and their animations.
If they're getting exhausted at the creation of simple sprites for Pokemon and saying that's no cakewalk, imagine how dead tired the people making BlazBlue, King of Fighters, or any other sprite based fighter/RPG must feel after each work day.