[INDEV] Pokemon Card GB Expansion | New Sprites 06/22/12 - Reconstructing OP

[Plino]

OK!!! So I finished expanding the main dueling screen, and I'm fairly comfortable with it. The base makes it seems cluttered, but when you put it into "practice,", it looks roomy enough. The only thing I need now is to add a spot for Stadium cards, and I'm not sure if that would be better off on the main dueling screen or the "Check whole play area" screen, and a spot for any counters that are placed on Pokemon (like Quilava's Char counter that is placed on opposing Pokemon).

So, here's the base-



The expanded size is 208x152, so it still follows the 8x8 tile style. Let me explain things.

For the small marked grey outlines with pink outlines within them, those are for energy and status icons. The main grey ones are for placing those sprites that are 8x8, and the pink ones are for placing 7x7 sprites. In general, anything smaller than 8x8 is placed in the bottom left of the tile, but I marked it like that anyways.

The large outlines with slightly smaller ones within them are where the active Pokemon are placed. For cards whose art goes outside of the frame, I've set the limit to 88x56, so it's still a multiple of 8. This doesn't mean that an 88x56 border should be created; the border should still stay at 64x48. It just means that the pieces of the art that stick out shouldn't exceed the new limitation. You'll see what I mean if you scroll down a bit.

The marked grey outlines near the little cards below/above the HP counters are for indicating each player's amount of benched Pokemon/remaining Prize Cards. The number sprites deviate quite a bit from the lower left rule, so I didn't bother marking internal outlines.

The marked outline to the bottom left of the player's active Pokemon is where the sprite for its type goes. After that sprite, the name goes in the tiles right after it, with a space of one pixel between each letter (actually, the game stores tiles of two-letter and one-letter combinations. So for "PIKACHU", the "PI", "KA", and "CH" are grouped on the same tile. "U" gets its own tile, since there isn't another character with which it can be paired). After the name is finished, the "Lv" sprite or any other special sprite (such as the golden star for Pokemon star; it's part of their names) goes on the tile right after the last letter tile. This looks fine for single-letter tiles, since there is still a space of seven pixels. However, in GB2, this is still followed for double-letter tiles, resulting in there being only a one pixel space, and the "L" in "Lv" looking like it's part of the Pokemon's name. So for the mod, an empty tile should be allowed between final double-letter tiles and level/other name tiles. Finally, the numbers are also stored as double-digit tiles, and the tile goes right after the level tile.

The marked outline to the top right of the opponent's active Pokemon is the digit tile. So it would be like the "17" in "Lv 17". After that, just follow the rules outlined above to get the Pokemon's name looking right.

The marked outlines above the HP counters are for placing Energy sprites. In GB1 and GB2, I believe you can attach up to seven Energy to your active Pokemon before the eighth Energy sprite would be cut off and replaced by "+". Since the highest HP in GB1 and GB2 is 120, it would be six Energy (one for every HP counter on the top bar) plus one more which hung off, then the plus sign. Now, the highest HP is 200, so I added four counters to each bar, resulting in eleven visible Energy before the "+". Even for Pokemon with HP lower than ten (a full top bar), the Energy display stays in the same spot.

The marked outlines next to each active Pokemon are for indicating Special Conditions. In GB2, there is Asleep, Confused, Paralyzed, and Poisoned. I believe Paralyzed, Confused, and Asleep go on the bottom, and Poisoned goes on the top. That means that any of the bottom Conditions can be stacked with Poisoned but not with each other. I still haven't decided where counters will go, nor have I made a sprite for Burned.

The marked outlines directly to the right of the HP bars are for attached Trainer Cards. In GB1 and GB2, there's only PlusPower and Defender. They can be stacked with themselves and with each other (that is, you can attach, say, 2 Defenders and 3 PlusPowers to your active Pokemon). The wording on these cards doesn't prohibit them from being stacked with other Trainer cards, since there were no others at the time. However, the Neo expansions introduced Pokemon Tools like Balloon Berry, whose wording explicitly states that they cannot be attached to a Pokemon that already has a Pokemon Tool attached to it. This creates a loophole, since Defenders and PlusPowers are not identified as Pokemon Tools. Even so, I don't think that the mod should allow stacking of PlusPowers/Defenders with Pokemon Tools. The order for PlusPowers and Defenders would be Defenders at the bottom, and PlusPowers at the top. The marked outlines to the right of these would indicate how many of each are attached to the Pokemon in question.

Finally, you'll notice that I created sprites for each option on the bottom menu. I did this because expanding the screen left a lot of empty space, so I thought that those would make it look nicer. Instead of an arrow pointing at the currently selected option, though, I thought that the sprite next to it could blink instead. The arrow would make it look really cramped on the leftmost side.

Well, I think that covers it. So now, here's an example I made.



Yo-Yo Boy's Pikachu * versus my Steelix! Don't ask me how either Pokemon got statused, I don't know.

Hope you guys like it! Any feedback on how to improve it would be greatly appreciated.