“I feel that Game Freak’s Pokémon pieces in the last 10 years have been completely unsatisfactory. So I decided to make it myself, not for profit, but to maintain my faith in the franchise.”
As one of the most well-known game IPs in the world, Pokémon has long enjoyed a long and beloved place in the hearts of gamers who love battling, training and collecting.
A large number of excellent independent Pokémon fan games have been produced and developed, with the Pokémon brand becoming a stage where its players can freely express their imagination.
Jason Chow, 21, is a second-year international student studying at the University of Leeds. He is also the creator and programmer of the fan game Pokemon SA (Story of Ash), which is currently under development.
“I have been a loyal Pokémon fan since I was a child. I have played and watched both the games and the anime respectively.
“This brand has a unique meaning to me. I can’t forget the first memories that the Emerald version brought me.”
However, Jason believes that the quality of Pokémon has been declining in each generation across the last ten years, potentially due to changes in the audience and market. This made him determined to create a Pokémon game of his own.
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“I think they’re trying to adapt to the global market, and players of all ages. They need to not only consider the feelings of older gamers.
“Finally, after much thinking about it, I decided to try and create the Pokémon world myself. Because I liked the original animation a lot, I named it SA, which is the hero Ash’s story.”
Of course, the development process can never be smooth sailing. Jason encountered a problem at the beginning – he planned to use the engine of the Gem series as a basis for modification, but he found that the programme needed to be updated, and it could no longer run smoothly on the latest game devices.
Jason says: “So I thought, maybe I really have to rely on myself. The clearest option is to create a game program by myself. The process may be difficult, but it’s worth trying.”
“So, I started designing the programme in my free time while studying. To do this, I built a coding program myself, and made additional modifications based on the code of the original work – this allowed me to put in more code and 300 extra Pokémon than the original work.”
“And what I enjoy even more is that I can finally write the plot myself. Although I mainly restore the plot in animations, this means that I can have more room to play in terms of a couple easter eggs or side tasks.”
Jason showed the screen of the game in development, which has been greatly optimized compared to the prototype Pokémon Gems series.
For this reason, Jason even improved the picture sources of the NDS platform to make the entire three-dimensional effect more beautiful. In addition, he redesigned the characters, scene layout and functions of the game.
All of this was built by him alone. It is worth noting that he did not study any computer-related degree – his skills were acquired solely by developing the hobby in his spare time.
“Although it is very tiring, as a stage for inspired creation, I feel a sense of achievement.”
