Ame Takes a Trip Back to 2012... part 1! (Patreon)

so i talked about this yesterday. there was this topic which listed a bunch of places i drew into the map before ever intending to make a game and i wrote down descriptions for them. for the most part I have not looked back at this page while making the game. today I'm going to go through each of them and comment on how the places turned out in-game compared to the original concepts I wrote down.

Reborn City

There were stories of some former citizens waking up with no memory at all, or coming to in some foreign land halfway across the world.

wait, what
wow, that hasn't become a thing at all. see first bullet point and we're already on stuff that i totally forgot. that said, with the direction the game has gone i dont think it would make sense to include this, and also it wouldn't really be apparent to the player unless they met someone who that happened to-- and then they came back ???? idk
description also mentions disease which has not played much of a role itself. the only sickness we see is the oddishweed gal's husband, i think? plus some effects of pollution but that's not really disease. is it?

Opal Ward

i'm actually surprised there's no mention of opal bridge here because in my memory that was one of the key things. i wanted it to be like, a really classy place by night-- you take a walk along the bridge with someone on your arm, look out over the water, with a bunch of lights to speckle the scene-- that was the original idea, so i expected that to be written here. 

in the end the in-game opal bridge is much more boring. for one thing it's square unlike curved in the map which makes it much less elegant, but curves/circles in square tiles are suffering. looking at you, citae. the lights became a thing but not until a handful of episodes in. still not a very nice place until e16.

Grand Hall

 The Grand Hall is the equivallent of the main chat- a crossroads for all trainers, as well as a great hangout, center of the league, and source of information for travellers.

jesus christ these double consonants. kill me.
anyway 'main chat' refers to the server back on PO, but could just as well mean showdown or discord now... frankly with moving so much the grand hall should be empty. but, it was meant to be a lot more important to a player rather than just a starting place. i don't think that's really been delivered on, even though it does hit all of those bullet points.
idk maybe the grinding trainers there help with players feeling like that place matters.

Obsidia Ward

seems mostly correct. being above the railnet is checked off too-- I suppose that was drawn into the original map behind opal ward after all so I knew that much. I may not have referenced these descriptions, but I did (do) look at the map closely when mapping areas.

Silph Co

The Reborn branch of the Silph CO was formerly an economic powerhouse, but the HQ, at the divide between the North and South of Obsidia, suffered the most damage. The companies executives were killed or disappeared, and shortly thereafter, the corporation fell to chaos, and then bankruptcy.

Yureyu Company

Reborn's own business, the Yureyu company was the main competitor of Silph until their destruction. Just recently, as Yureyu managed to get back on their feet, though their HQ also still in disrepair, they successfully opened the Neo-circuit Power Plant, restoring electricity to the city. 

wow, so these two kind of switched roles. silph co's description puts it right where the yureyu building is in-game (and on the map so idk maybe i just mixed that up when writing this?). but also we see that yureyu was funding julia's power plant, whereas in-game they're tied to shade's. in the end it's silph co that's operational and helpful and yureyu gets outright replaced by sweet co

if i had to take a guess the reason this happened was because of devon. lets see that description. 

Devon Corporation

Devon sought to expand their operations from Hoenn to Reborn, but no sooner had they just gotten their feet on the ground than did the city collapse. Their financial investments were almost instantly squandered and since then the project has been abandoned. With the rennaisance of the city, the CEOs consider a second chance... 

mmm so no hints of meteor infesting devon corp here, but i'm preeeeetty sure that's something i had planned from the beginning. so i was thinking if i deliberately switched yureyu and silph co, probably it was because i didnt want to pull a similar trick with both silph AND devon. also, given team rocket's shindig with silph, i may have wanted that suspicious company to go free for once (otherwise would have been redundant that way too)

Obsidia Daycare

A new business, the Obsidia Daycare sits on the edge of Reborn's only park. 

This is one I remember having difficulty with when making Central Obsidia. I explicitly drew the daycare into the map, but when I did, it was on the side of the park. Making an entrance from the side with the camera perspective sucks and although I figured out some ways around that since, I hadn't really done so yet. If I followed the map more closely, the daycare really should've been like, here

...but I didn't.

to be honest, I think I made central obsidia way too small. Had I put more room for it, there should have been room to move the daycare onto the park like intended (the idea was that the pokemon would be allowed to play in the park itself). being one of the largest ward's, it definitely deserved more space.

Underground Railnet

In the past, this served as aquick subway system for the busy commerce of Obsidia, but the lack of ground support was the un-doing of the city. The hollow spaces gave way, tunnels collapsing, separating the North from the South, and blocking off the Chrysolia Region. 

btw in case anyone thinks i'm always posting the full descriptions here, i'm not, go follow along with the topic tbh, i'm only copying the specific parts i want to speak to
anyway
so this happened for the most part but not very explicitly. that's not the worst thing but i think many players don't really connect the dots like this. oh well. as for 'blocking off the chrysolia region', that kind of happened, but also this is the way to get to it, so we kind of did the opposite. oops.

i feel like i had intended the player to get to chrysolia through the wasteland somehow? not sure.

 Obsidia Park 

most of what i said above about obsidia being too small applies to this. at first it's like just a small square, but i wanted it to be more like central park. that said i think E16's version of this is much closer to what i should've just gone for in the first place despite using the same amount of space. then again, it wasn't what it looked like on the map. so bleh.

those of you who played older episodes might remember the unique obsidia park map that i cut out. a lot of people were upset by that decision. that map was my attempt at compensating for the size (thinking) but it really just felt weird. it was way too bigger on the inside. further, although it was good for tension, that area was like..... literally the least inspired place i made in the entire game. i spent a long time figuring out what would be the best/most interesting way to lay it out and honestly even the final product didn't deliver on my concept at all. i felt rusty in terms of dungeon design as i was making it (same with slums/first factory) since it had been years since i actually designed a dungeon, and i think it definitely showed. it was just very boring to me, and felt out of place, which is why i eventually decided to remove it. i think a map like that might have survived if i had had a bigger park to begin with. 

to the effect of feeling rusty with dungeon design: i'd say that remained true up until around the time of doing the caves beneath the grand stairway. i think that was around the time i started to really feeling it again.

Obsidia Slums 

 From its poor upkeep, something else may have invaded in the time away. 

so i guess i had imagined something like the scrafty gang from the start. to be honest i actually vividly remember my original mental conception of this area. the pokemon i was going to use before scrafty existed was mankey. i still have a very clear mental picture of mankeys skittering about over shanty rooftops. i knew i wanted this to be a hub for fighting types. 

similar to the effect of feeling rusty above, the slums have never lived up to my original concept for them. they should not have been a primarily indoors location. even after their redesign in episode 10, they're just fundamentally not what i imagined. if i were going to make them now i'd go find some videos of brazilian favelas and sprite those. those are very dynamic, often have winding alleys and multiple interesting levels of elevation, they just seem great.
conceptually; not to live in. 

when im talking about feeling rusty, i think it's a matter of lacking experience (or at that point moreso lacking practice) in terms of design... and how it feels, is a matter of control. i didnt like how those areas like the slums and the park came out. that kind of feeling and phrasing implies a lack of control. i didn't feel like i had that control when i was doing those. for contrast, in most cases by now i can cleanly think, yes, i can make this area how i want it to be, and if it's not how i want it to be, then i can change it until it is. i feel like it's shown. there are some areas in the game that have ended up almost exactly how i imagined them. ametrine city, the water treatment center, and E16's city are good examples of that. i had enough control to make them how i wanted.

Grand Stairway

 A massive staircase in the north of Obsidia, ravaged by fissures leading up to the Grand Gates of Reborn City. 

it seems like i hadn't planned to have a dungeon there, but at the same time the citae arc d'astrae being below the city was part of the original concept so mabe idk. i feel like i just drew the cracks in so it wasn't so clean and boring lol and maybe made it a Thing later

Grand Gates

 However, no one has been able to open the doors as the machinery was destroyed in the armageddon. 

well that's a nice clean explanation compared to them being inexplicably timestuck because of adrienn's fairy ring syndrome. i feel like i remember that i expected them to not be open before getting to aventurine tho so shrug.

Reborn Nightclub

  the Nightclub is an exclusive and popular hangout for the most up and coming of trainers only. 

gotta beat the league isn't exactly 'up and coming' more like 'up and went already'. also not a profitable demographic................ but this probably wasnt planned to be post-game yet, and was just matching the secret ace forum on our site.

Onyx Ward

zzzz not much said but that's pretty much right on

Onyx Trainers' School

The school also hosts a stadium, formerly used by alumni Florinia and student Fern as one of Reborn's gyms. 

That's not incorrect to the game... but on the map the arena is on the roof, not inside. I think I didn't want to make outdoor graphics for it. Cheap. This school is way smaller inside than it should have been made. E16 helps that a little bit. The actual loop of playing through it is not bad, but the layout is subpar compared to my idea for it.

Peridot Ward

description is mostly accurate here too... and gosh this ward was huge. it was the second area i made (first if we dont count boring-ass opal) and i really went ham on it cuz i was just going on impulse. I think for having gotten the basic elements described here down, it worked out fine, but it benefited a lot from visual updates i made to it around episode 9 (adding glass, chain link fences, graffiti, etc)

the biggest problem peridot has is that there's so much more to do in it than there is in every other ward which is iffy. it's the start of the game; i think i should have pulled back a bit. but then on the other hand having a very open start is not a bad thing. definitely a different atmosphere than other games right off the bat. so it's okay-- it just kind of outshines everything else in the city in terms of volume and depth.

Neo-circuit Power Plant 

 Yureyu's new installment to the city, this Power Plant replaces Silph's defunct one. Supervision of the Plant was entrusted to Julia, who upon deciding she disliked its factory appearance, boxed the place up and turned it into what was once Reborn's Electric Gym. 

again we see yureyu and silph having been switched.  honestly this should read "supervision of the plant was entrusted to julia. this was a mistake."

the "boxed the place up" comment is weird-- i think i was trying to justify how boringly i had drawn this building on the map. square building with arena on top. gross. it's another case where i didn't feel like making outdoor arena graphics and you'd think i'd learn-- but honestly julia's gym had no place being outside conceptually. this gym has always felt weak to me but i think with her pink banners all over it with the recent update, it's not so bad. 

Peridot Station

 The Peridot Train Station is the first stop for all incoming trainers to Reborn. Although the railway to the East has been lost and destroyed, the northern route is currently the only effective way in or out of Reborn. 

note it's not called Grandview Station. street names didnt exist until around episode 9 or 10.
you wanna know the real reason i had it blow up at the start? i didnt feel like spriting the inside. 

.
.
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okay that might not be the real reason, i don't really remember, but i feel strongly it was a contributing factor. gotta remember when i was making this part it was just on a whim. why put work in for whims. ugh.

Abandoned Factory

A large factory responsible for much of the dumping into Azurine Lake. Although the entrance has been locked every since the catacalysm, noise, smog and sludge still sometimes pour forth from the depths of the bulding... 

this is pretty much said in game, yeah, by an npc... this one is Blacksteam Factory by the way. it didn't used to have a name cuz it takes its name from the street-- and again, no street names yet. 

this factory was one of the important ones i had to include when drawing the map. Team Meteor RP events occurred randomly on our old server and iirc I only every took part in one of them, but the one I was in took place here. The basement was important to include, as I remember from that RP. But the reason why won't be until post-game. spoilers. to be honest i'm really not the RP'ing type but that kind of event was pretty fun because being on a simulator server, we could actually battle each other as the characters from the scenario and go forward based on the outcome.

kinda similar to the Rocket Game that Savage accidentally made up... maybe a story for another time for those who weren't there for it, although it doesn't have much to do with the game itself. 

Mysterious Factory

this one is Mosswater. rusty rusty rusty. not a good layout. way too many trainers. you call this a puzzle? but it was the first one i did in years so i understand. ultimately this factory mattered a lot less than the other one anyway.

--

yikes, i've only done four wards so far??

well i had intended to get through this entire topic today but i see that was naive since i've already been typing for so long. I'll end it here and we'll pick up on this another time. seems like i won't be hurting for posts for a hot minute.