State of the Game #6

Game Development: Testing the Waters, One Tile at a Time

Development Phase: Early Development

Progress on Pokémon TestFlight continues at a steady pace. While I haven’t yet built a full playable demo, a lot of foundational work is happening behind the scenes — especially in the database and testing space. I’m still experimenting with features, mechanics, and how best to use PSDK. It’s been a mix of discovery and trial-and-error, but I’m enjoying the process. Here's a breakdown of what I've been working on:

🔹 Mapping

I’ve been iterating on the test map I shared previously. Mapping with Tiled through PSDK is still a little confusing at times, but the flexibility is fantastic. The ability to mix and match tilesets is incredibly powerful — and honestly, mapping has become one of the most enjoyable parts of development so far.

🔹 Pokémon

I’ve begun expanding the Pokédex by adding both Fakemon and regional variants that aren’t included by default in PSDK (like Galarian Farfetch’d and Galarian Slowpoke). Tools like Bulbapedia have been indispensable — basically my survival guide. It's time-consuming to manually enter stats, abilities, and evolutions, but the reward of seeing them function in-game is totally worth it. Once a new Pokémon is added, I create a test event in the HUB to receive and battle with it, ensuring everything works properly.

🔹 Moves & Abilities

I haven’t added any new moves or abilities yet — this part is a bit outside my current skill set. I plan to watch some tutorials soon and take a stab at adding two original moves and two from the mainline games that aren’t pre-installed in PSDK. Same goes for abilities. This will be a learning curve, but I’m excited to give it a shot.

🔹 Items

At this stage, I haven’t added any custom items. PSDK seems to include most of what I need already, so I haven’t prioritized this yet. That said, I’ll revisit items later when the core systems are more fleshed out.

🔹 Trainers & NPCs

This has probably been the most fun part of development so far. I’ve created tons of trainers and NPCs — everything from Gym Leaders to meme characters. Red, Blue, Elite Four members, and more have been recreated for testing and fun. It’s a great creative outlet, and helps populate my test environments while giving me scripting practice.

⚙️ Using the Technical Demo — A Copout?

I’ve been debating whether to build everything from scratch or build on top of the PSDK technical demo. I really like the demo as a learning tool and potential base — especially since it already has tons of examples I can reference and modify. While I plan to replace most of the maps (especially in the Tower), I’m not sure it’s worth redoing everything from zero just for the experience. For now, I’m leaning toward using the demo as a base and gradually replacing/expanding from there.

❌ No Playable Demo… Yet

I’m not quite at the point of having a playable build, but I’m trying. Right now, development is focused on:

• Expanding the database
• Creating test events
• Learning PSDK's systems more deeply

It may not look flashy yet, but the groundwork is slowly being laid. I appreciate your interest and patience!