Allowing player to encounter Pokemon without a Pokemon in their party?

[kmb]

Can this be done?

Yes, I could just make a Pokemon called MissingNo and add it as homage to the gen 1 glitch, but I really wanted a system where a player could get into a wild Pokemon battle without a Pokemon. I thought about trying to re-tool some of the Safari Zone scripts, but I don't think that alone is going to work, as even the Safari Zones and bug catching contests require players to have received their first Pokemon, even if they don't get to use them.

Well, in my game, I wanted my player to have to go out and find their starter, no hand-holding...

 

[Dragonite]

This is a complete shot in the dark, but maybe you could define "player" as a non-obtainable, non-indexed Pokémon that automatically appears in your "party" if you don't have anyone else?

 

[kmb]

I've kind of made some progress. What I decided to do was add a fake Pokemon called "Poke Ball" to the player's party and then just initiate a Safari Zone event so that it plays like a Safari Zone and the player is not aware of the fake Pokemon in their party. To keep them from trying to fill their party with Pokemon, I also have a parallel process that kicks them out after they successfully catch one Pokemon. It also removes the fake Pokemon placeholder from their party. I think that will work. but I still have a few questions.

How do I change the name of the Safari Balls or allow the player to receive something besides Safari Balls? My event is catching the starter, not going to the Safari Zone...
How do I change the number of balls received? I guess it doesn't matter because I kick the player out after the player successfully catches something, but thirty Poke Balls is still a lot!


At least it's a lot better than what I had yesterday!

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Also, any ideas on what kind of Pokemon I should offer the player? I thought about just offering regular Safari Zone Pokemon, but I'm not sure I want to do that. I wanted the game to moderately challenging. I'm trying to take a little inspiration from Pokemon Toxic Purple (and games that are like it) where the player is at somewhat of a disadvantage. and really has to explore to get ahead in the game. At the same time, though, I still want it to be fun, and the different monsters are the best part of Pokemon.

 

[kmb]

What I have right now works fine, but now I'm wondering, should I include a "revive" feature that actually turns the fake Pokemon "Poke Ball" into a legitimate Pokemon after the player completes a task? At first, I just had it as a placeholder, but... hmm.

I guess I could turn it into a key item like a Pokemon fossil and have the player be able to revive it at some point in the game maybe?

 

[Simeo]

Well, I have a similar beginning and I just give a bidoof while prompting the player to keep it to first position, and after the pokemon is caught, I remove the bidoof via a script, and it works fine.

 

[Obermarschall]

How about you switch into the Safari mode?

 

[kmb]

Yep, that was my plan, and I got it to work pretty well. I set a switch to check for and remove the placeholder Pokemon immediately after a legitimate Pokemon is caught, so, really, I could have gone with anything. I just thought the concept of a defective Poke Ball was kind of funny.