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Hi all, my name's Adam AKA "Koolboyman". I am the author of Pokemon Prism.
I came here, hoping to answer your questions and offer some insight on my experience. My hack Pokemon Prism got well known for reasons I wanted to avoid. I'm glad more people are playing it because of it, but I did not want this kind of baggage to be attached to my game. I hope to get this out of the way and clear up any misconceptions regarding Nintendo's involvement with Prism.
I partnered with Twitch Plays Pokemon in order to complete the game, because for the longest time I wanted to finish Prism and move onto something else. The developers there worked on other ROM Hacks for the stream and the project manager and crew offered to help to finish the game in exchange that Twitch Plays Pokemon gets to play it before the release. I have very little time to ROM Hack these days and I didn't want to drag this out even further. I was ashamed that this was taking so long to finish. So for me it was either get TPP to help out or cancel the game. I accepted TPP's help along with the possibility that Nintendo may notice and not like what I'm doing, but with TPP's numbers not what they used to be 3 years ago I decided go forward. Working with the TPP devs as project manager the project came out better than I could've ever dreamed of and the stream helped me get a better perspective of the game from a player's standpoint and iron out a lot of notable flaws.
I got a takedown(a C&D, not a DMCA) notice days before it was supposed to be released, when I was least expecting it. My twitter and email exploded, I was getting comments from everyone, from those feeling extremely sorry for me and threatening to boycott Nintendo, from others with comments like "Good! Don't make fan games, make your own stuff you thief. Or is that too hard?", "Idiot you wasted 8 years of your life lol.", "Nobody feel sorry for these people, they got exactly what they deserved." and interview requests which I all declined. News sites everywhere were writing about what happened and I couldn't help but look at the comments. I was addicted to seeing everything everyone was saying, while filtering out the good and focusing on the bad. It was a huge shit storm circulating the internet and I felt awful being one of the people responsible for it.
During that day, I convinced myself I made a horrible mistake by spending 8 years of my life working on a fan game and this event would give me negative reputation which would follow me for the rest of my life. Even ridiculous claims were spreading, like "he started a Patreon" or "He faked the C&D" or "He can't make anything original himself so he has to piggyback on a successful franchise to get known". My goal in life is to become a professional video game developer, and Prism was meant to be a stepping stone? Sure, I knew Prism might get me fans, but that's not why I made it. I wanted to craft my own kind of Pokemon experience and educate myself with the development process. What about my fans too? They've waited so long for this and I'm no longer allowed to release it. I've been called a coward by some of my former fans by just "giving in" to Nintendo, but I will not have a legal battle with Nintendo which if I lost, would ruin my life.
People close to me felt it would be best if I disconnected myself from the internet, since I was miserable during that day. So I did for a few days. Little did I know, that the game was leaked and I didn't even know about it until later.
As time went by, everything settled down. People were playing the game, I complied with Nintendo's resolutions and now we're on good terms with each other, and I've moved onto another project.
The times I spoke with Nintendo, they stated that they knew I wasn't trying to "steal their IP" and they understand my reasoning for making a fan project in the first place. The problem was, that it got way too popular to the point that it may have threatened the official Pokemon games and they had no choice to shut it down, which I fully understand. If you look at the C&D I received, they even understand that I am a fan and that they appreciate it. I still plan to buy Nintendo products and I might even develop an indie game for the Switch.
As long as you keep your game on the down low and don't profit off of it, your fan game should be fine. That means no Youtube trailers or any pieces of promotional material. The Youtube trailer for Prism got over 1.4 million views, and I only expected maybe 2%-3% of that, so even if you think your promotional material will be fine, you should be better safe than sorry.
We go into this knowing that we won't be able to make a cent. We have a passion for the Pokemon franchise and want to provide our own take on it. Many people, including me, go into fan game development without knowing anything, but come out as a competent game developer, ready to take on original projects. I've moved on from Pokemon and I'm developing two projects right now and the experience I gathered from developing Prism made it possible. If people don't like fan games that's fine, but to me it's a very useful learning too which has proven time and time again as a way for people to enter the professional industry. If anyone makes a fan game out of my future games, I would feel honored and encourage them to see their take on what I did. You should be proud at what you're able to accomplish and don't let other people say otherwise.
I've even spoken to AAA game developers who have said that there's nothing wrong with Prism, and some of the hacks/mods and free fan games done on their games were cool. Not everyone's going to have that response and I can't speak for all game developers, but from my experience, the people who develop these games are usually fine with fan created content and games based off of their work. The notice I also got was from Nintendo and Nintendo only, not Gamefreak who develops the games. As a test I submitted an application for a job to Gamefreak with Pokemon Prism on my resume and cover letter, and they responded thanking me for my submission and resume, but I have to know Japanese if I want to continue the process. There's no guarantee that they'd hire me even if I knew Japanese, I may have been unqualified. But the fact that they replied a week later to what I submitted at all (which I made sure wasn't just a stock copy/paste response), made me feel a hell of a lot better about myself. Also, read where the developers go on record regarding fan games: https://gamerant.com/pokemon-producer-fan-games-reaction/ again, I am not saying all developers will be OK with fan games, but based on my experiences and that public statement, Gamefreak doesn't seem to mind them.
While that situation was really tough on me, I can say that I came out of it as a better person. A person with a new perspective on the world. It's only made me stronger and more prepared to face the inevitable hardships I'll face in the future.
Now that that's out of the way, let me just say I've put my heart and soul into Pokemon Prism. My main goal was to provide my perspective on what Pokemon is and what Pokemon could be as a game that I would love playing myself, and it's helped educate and kickstart my career in game development.
So, feel free to ask of any questions you might have, whether it's about Prism, Brown, or what I've been doing.
I'm not done with game development, I'm just getting started, so stay tuned. :)
I came here, hoping to answer your questions and offer some insight on my experience. My hack Pokemon Prism got well known for reasons I wanted to avoid. I'm glad more people are playing it because of it, but I did not want this kind of baggage to be attached to my game. I hope to get this out of the way and clear up any misconceptions regarding Nintendo's involvement with Prism.
I partnered with Twitch Plays Pokemon in order to complete the game, because for the longest time I wanted to finish Prism and move onto something else. The developers there worked on other ROM Hacks for the stream and the project manager and crew offered to help to finish the game in exchange that Twitch Plays Pokemon gets to play it before the release. I have very little time to ROM Hack these days and I didn't want to drag this out even further. I was ashamed that this was taking so long to finish. So for me it was either get TPP to help out or cancel the game. I accepted TPP's help along with the possibility that Nintendo may notice and not like what I'm doing, but with TPP's numbers not what they used to be 3 years ago I decided go forward. Working with the TPP devs as project manager the project came out better than I could've ever dreamed of and the stream helped me get a better perspective of the game from a player's standpoint and iron out a lot of notable flaws.
I got a takedown(a C&D, not a DMCA) notice days before it was supposed to be released, when I was least expecting it. My twitter and email exploded, I was getting comments from everyone, from those feeling extremely sorry for me and threatening to boycott Nintendo, from others with comments like "Good! Don't make fan games, make your own stuff you thief. Or is that too hard?", "Idiot you wasted 8 years of your life lol.", "Nobody feel sorry for these people, they got exactly what they deserved." and interview requests which I all declined. News sites everywhere were writing about what happened and I couldn't help but look at the comments. I was addicted to seeing everything everyone was saying, while filtering out the good and focusing on the bad. It was a huge shit storm circulating the internet and I felt awful being one of the people responsible for it.
During that day, I convinced myself I made a horrible mistake by spending 8 years of my life working on a fan game and this event would give me negative reputation which would follow me for the rest of my life. Even ridiculous claims were spreading, like "he started a Patreon" or "He faked the C&D" or "He can't make anything original himself so he has to piggyback on a successful franchise to get known". My goal in life is to become a professional video game developer, and Prism was meant to be a stepping stone? Sure, I knew Prism might get me fans, but that's not why I made it. I wanted to craft my own kind of Pokemon experience and educate myself with the development process. What about my fans too? They've waited so long for this and I'm no longer allowed to release it. I've been called a coward by some of my former fans by just "giving in" to Nintendo, but I will not have a legal battle with Nintendo which if I lost, would ruin my life.
People close to me felt it would be best if I disconnected myself from the internet, since I was miserable during that day. So I did for a few days. Little did I know, that the game was leaked and I didn't even know about it until later.
As time went by, everything settled down. People were playing the game, I complied with Nintendo's resolutions and now we're on good terms with each other, and I've moved onto another project.
The times I spoke with Nintendo, they stated that they knew I wasn't trying to "steal their IP" and they understand my reasoning for making a fan project in the first place. The problem was, that it got way too popular to the point that it may have threatened the official Pokemon games and they had no choice to shut it down, which I fully understand. If you look at the C&D I received, they even understand that I am a fan and that they appreciate it. I still plan to buy Nintendo products and I might even develop an indie game for the Switch.
As long as you keep your game on the down low and don't profit off of it, your fan game should be fine. That means no Youtube trailers or any pieces of promotional material. The Youtube trailer for Prism got over 1.4 million views, and I only expected maybe 2%-3% of that, so even if you think your promotional material will be fine, you should be better safe than sorry.
We go into this knowing that we won't be able to make a cent. We have a passion for the Pokemon franchise and want to provide our own take on it. Many people, including me, go into fan game development without knowing anything, but come out as a competent game developer, ready to take on original projects. I've moved on from Pokemon and I'm developing two projects right now and the experience I gathered from developing Prism made it possible. If people don't like fan games that's fine, but to me it's a very useful learning too which has proven time and time again as a way for people to enter the professional industry. If anyone makes a fan game out of my future games, I would feel honored and encourage them to see their take on what I did. You should be proud at what you're able to accomplish and don't let other people say otherwise.
I've even spoken to AAA game developers who have said that there's nothing wrong with Prism, and some of the hacks/mods and free fan games done on their games were cool. Not everyone's going to have that response and I can't speak for all game developers, but from my experience, the people who develop these games are usually fine with fan created content and games based off of their work. The notice I also got was from Nintendo and Nintendo only, not Gamefreak who develops the games. As a test I submitted an application for a job to Gamefreak with Pokemon Prism on my resume and cover letter, and they responded thanking me for my submission and resume, but I have to know Japanese if I want to continue the process. There's no guarantee that they'd hire me even if I knew Japanese, I may have been unqualified. But the fact that they replied a week later to what I submitted at all (which I made sure wasn't just a stock copy/paste response), made me feel a hell of a lot better about myself. Also, read where the developers go on record regarding fan games: https://gamerant.com/pokemon-producer-fan-games-reaction/ again, I am not saying all developers will be OK with fan games, but based on my experiences and that public statement, Gamefreak doesn't seem to mind them.
While that situation was really tough on me, I can say that I came out of it as a better person. A person with a new perspective on the world. It's only made me stronger and more prepared to face the inevitable hardships I'll face in the future.
Now that that's out of the way, let me just say I've put my heart and soul into Pokemon Prism. My main goal was to provide my perspective on what Pokemon is and what Pokemon could be as a game that I would love playing myself, and it's helped educate and kickstart my career in game development.
So, feel free to ask of any questions you might have, whether it's about Prism, Brown, or what I've been doing.
I'm not done with game development, I'm just getting started, so stay tuned. :)
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