I am the author of Pokemon Prism

Deo · May 10, 2017

First off, thank you for posting this.

Your thoughts and insights into what went on have been a really interesting read, myself and many more greatly appreciate that you were willing to take the time to write this up. Needless to say that not many people have been in your position, nor with the level of integrity that you've shown about the situation. I've personally been following your work since 2006, so it's been pretty crazy to see all of this unfold. Your attitude and optimism for the future are very admirable!

I do have a few questions if you're willing to answer them:

Looking back on Prism (the game itself), is there anything you would have done differently? I think I remember you mentioning the Magikarp puzzle once, but I'm curious to see if there's anything else you feel strongly about.
What was your favorite part of developing Brown and Prism? (eg. mapping, spriting, etc)
If you're able to share, what are you currently working on?

Once again, thank you for taking the time to talk to us!

Jephed · May 10, 2017

Hi Adam. After everything that happened I'm glad that you were willing to post about it here. I personally see your message as an eye opener and a warning. It really inspires me how you manage to look back positively on your project though.
Now that I really pay more attention, I can see that many game devs including myself tend to be too enthousiastic about showing their fan game to the world. I'll be sure to learn from everything you said.

NoodlesButt · May 10, 2017

Woh, there were quite a few things I didn't know until I read your post. It's pretty nice to see Nintendo look at you as a fan and not a thief as some people claim fan game developers are. I'm glad you took something positive out of this because the recent take-downs of Pokémon fan games made me worry about what would happen to the community but you have definitely reassured me that what we're doing is just for fun and experience! I'd also like to know what you're currently working on, if possible?

Evan · May 10, 2017

Hey Adam-

You've got a great attitude on things. I've seen this kind of thing go down with a very different outlook, and it's honestly quite inspiring to see how understanding you are of all parties and how it hasn't killed your drive to make games at all. Keep up the great work dude.

Shgeldz · May 10, 2017

Hey man this was a great read, and really quite inspiring.

Its always helpful to get insight into what not to do.

This is may be too much of an ask, but would it be possible to get a copy of what the C&D letter was, with redacted personal info? Could be helpful as a "don't do this" list. Totally fine if you're not comfortable or able to do that.

Darius_Oak · May 10, 2017

We decided to cancel our game because of Uranium's C&D, and Prism's sorta bolstered that decision, but that's specifically because we knew that if our game got big (and if things went as planned it definitely would have), we'd get the same deal. We're working on original projects now, and I'm poking at making smaller-scale fangames again.

But I did want to say that, while I'm not much for Gen II and probably wouldn't have played the game proper, I became something of a fan after listening to this. I think Prism was the first fangame that ever caught my attention, long before I started writing Pokemon music. And then I started writing fangame ideas in 2013, go figure.

I never did publish anything, but at least I've written a lot of cool stuff.

Koolboyman · May 10, 2017

Deo said:
First off, thank you for posting this.

Your thoughts and insights into what went on have been a really interesting read, myself and many more greatly appreciate that you were willing to take the time to write this up. Needless to say that not many people have been in your position, nor with the level of integrity that you've shown about the situation. I've personally been following your work since 2006, so it's been pretty crazy to see all of this unfold. Your attitude and optimism for the future are very admirable!

I do have a few questions if you're willing to answer them:

Looking back on Prism (the game itself), is there anything you would have done differently? I think I remember you mentioning the Magikarp puzzle once, but I'm curious to see if there's anything else you feel strongly about.

What was your favorite part of developing Brown and Prism? (eg. mapping, spriting, etc)

If you're able to share, what are you currently working on?

Once again, thank you for taking the time to talk to us!

- Not that much, there were a few things I wanted to add but couldn't be done by the Christmas release and I thought about the possibility of adding them in post-patch updates if the C&D didn't happen.
- Developing and breathing life into the Naljo region. I'm very happy how that turned out along with the variety of NPCs with conflicting views on the world. The region was divided, but I did my best to keep both sides neutral, and let the player decide for himself which were the "good guys" and "bad guys".
- It's an augmented reality game. I got fascinated with the technology last year when the company I work let me do some R&D with it. I knew I had to do something with it after trying out all the demos. It's not that big, but I will be working on a bigger afterwards targeted for Steam.

Jephed said:
Hi Adam. After everything that happened I'm glad that you were willing to post about it here. I personally see your message as an eye opener and a warning. It really inspires me how you manage to look back positively on your project though.
Now that I really pay more attention, I can see that many game devs including myself tend to be too enthousiastic about showing their fan game to the world. I'll be sure to learn from everything you said.

I wanted to give off a warning to other developers because I don't want to see this happen to someone else.

I can either be bitter about the whole situation, or I can look at what I've learned from the situation and Prism's whole development process and use that to help me move forward. "A life with no failure is a life with no experience."

NoodlesButt said:
Woh, there were quite a few things I didn't know until I read your post. It's pretty nice to see Nintendo look at you as a fan and not a thief as some people claim fan game developers are. I'm glad you took something positive out of this because the recent take-downs of Pokémon fan games made me worry about what would happen to the community but you have definitely reassured me that what we're doing is just for fun and experience! I'd also like to know what you're currently working on, if possible?

Yeah, this clarification was also not meant to clarify my actions regarding Prism, but also Nintendo's. Many people attacked Nintendo when Prism was taken down, but they were attacking the wrong people who had nothing to do with this decision. Nintendo is not just one person, there are thousands of employees, it's just that one of them felt from a business perspective it might be best to shut down Prism which makes sense. As I said above, I'm doing an augmented reality game and I'll be doing a PC/Steam game afterwards. For the latter, I'm going to really let my imagination run wild and take a lot of risks. I created a cast of characters that I'm really excited to deal with. It's the kind of characters that no matter what situation you put them in, it'll be fun with them just being themselves.

Evan said:
Hey Adam-

You've got a great attitude on things. I've seen this kind of thing go down with a very different outlook, and it's honestly quite inspiring to see how understanding you are of all parties and how it hasn't killed your drive to make games at all. Keep up the great work dude.

Thanks. I was demotivated from the event for sure, but I did want to move on from Prism for years and do something else. But I wanted to create a completed product which is a huge undertaking that I wanted to achieve, and the only alternative was to throw away years of hard work and start from scratch with something else.

Shgeldz said:
Hey man this was a great read, and really quite inspiring.

Its always helpful to get insight into what not to do.

This is may be too much of an ask, but would it be possible to get a copy of what the C&D letter was, with redacted personal info? Could be helpful as a "don't do this" list. Totally fine if you're not comfortable or able to do that.

Thanks. I dont want people to repeat the same mistakes that I and other game devs did. I actually have it somewhere online, I cant remember where it is at the moment though.

Darius_Oak said:
We decided to cancel our game because of Uranium's C&D, and Prism's sorta bolstered that decision, but that's specifically because we knew that if our game got big (and if things went as planned it definitely would have), we'd get the same deal. We're working on original projects now, and I'm poking at making smaller-scale fangames again.

But I did want to say that, while I'm not much for Gen II and probably wouldn't have played the game proper, I became something of a fan after listening to this. I think Prism was the first fangame that ever caught my attention, long before I started writing Pokemon music. And then I started writing fangame ideas in 2013, go figure.

I never did publish anything, but at least I've written a lot of cool stuff.

Sorry to hear that game stopped, but I'm happy you're continuing to work on games. I'm really proud of how the music turned out too, we had some amazing composers for the project. I wish you the best of luck in your future projects and hope you publish something great!

Shgeldz · May 10, 2017

Koolboyman said:
- Not that much, there were a few things I wanted to add but couldn't be done by the Christmas release and I thought about the possibility of adding them in post-patch updates if the C&D didn't happen.
- Developing and breathing life into the Naljo region. I'm very happy how that turned out along with the variety of NPCs with conflicting views on the world. The region was divided, but I did my best to keep both sides neutral, and let the player decide for himself which were the "good guys" and "bad guys".
- It's an augmented reality game. I got fascinated with the technology last year when the company I work let me do some R&D with it. I knew I had to do something with it after trying out all the demos. It's not that big, but I will be working on a bigger afterwards targeted for Steam.

I wanted to give off a warning to other developers because I don't want to see this happen to someone else.

I can either be bitter about the whole situation, or I can look at what I've learned from the situation and Prism's whole development process and use that to help me move forward. A life without failure is a life without experience.

Yeah, this clarification was also not meant to clarify my actions regarding Prism, but also Nintendo's. Many people attacked Nintendo when Prism was taken down, but they were attacking the wrong people who had nothing to do with this decision. Nintendo is not just one person, there are thousands of employees, it's just that one of them felt from a business perspective it might be best to shut down Prism which makes sense. As I said above, I'm doing an augmented reality game and I'll be doing a PC/Steam game afterwards. For the latter, I'm going to really let my imagination run wild and take a lot of risks. I created a cast of characters that I'm really excited to deal with. It's the kind of characters that no matter what situation you put them in, it'll be fun with them just being themselves.

Thanks. I was demotivated from the event for sure, but I did want to move on from Prism for years and do something else. But I wanted to create a completed product which is a huge undertaking that I wanted to achieve, and the only alternative was to throw away years of hard work and start from scratch with something else.

Thanks. I dont want people to repeat the same mistakes that I and other game devs did. I actually have it somewhere online, I cant remember where it is at the moment though.

Sorry to hear that game stopped, but I'm happy you're continuing to work on games. I'm really proud of how the music turned out too, we had some amazing composers for the project. I wish you the best of luck in your future projects and hope you publish something great!

Found it thanks to @Deo posting it here for everyone to take a look at! Thanks again KBM. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0f-_m_8on7BLVhuYnV2a2tuR3M/view

Koolboyman · May 10, 2017

Shgeldz said:
Found it thanks to @Deo posting it here for everyone to take a look at! Thanks again KBM. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0f-_m_8on7BLVhuYnV2a2tuR3M/view

Thanks for finding that. It clearly states in the doc about Nintendo's position in the matter.

While it was issued from an Australia law firm who acted in behalf of Nintendo's representative and I live in the US (because the site was hosted in Australia), I still complied because it became clear what Nintendo's position on Prism was and they just thought I lived in the wrong country. It's also mentioned that the breach also extends to the US. I didn't want to dance around the mistake which would've just caused more problems. Nintendo wanted me to stop because they felt it was a threat to their bottom line, so I stopped.

Limesy · May 10, 2017

Hey Adam, thank you for taking time to come and post here!
This whole thing is really fascinating, and I'm glad to hear it has affected you positively overall.

I also have some questions, if you feel like answering them:

Are there any features you wanted to add to Prism, but didn't? (Be it due to your Christmas 2016 deadline, or you just deciding against it.)
What were the biggest challenges or hurdles to overcome while developing?
If you hadn't received a C&D, do you think you would have started a new Pokémon related project - or did you already feel like Prism would be the last?
Have you played any fan games yourself? If so, which are your favorites?
What are your thoughts on Rainbow Devs, who are set out to "finish the legacy of Pokemon Prism"? Do you see any parallels between them updating your creation, Prism, and you making a fan game that Nintendo created?

Thank you and good luck with your future game development, I can't wait to see what you bring to the table!

Involuntary Twitch · May 10, 2017

As somebody who has gone through almost the exact same thing when I received a Cease & Desist for Uranium -- albeit a month after release and not days before, which I realize must have been so much more painful -- I understand where you're coming from here. It's really painful to have a project that you dedicate so much of your time, energy, and creativity to be ripped from your hands. It's a difficult lesson to learn and something that's unique to fan games. While other indie games have to worry about other things, like commercial failure, bad reviews and glitches and bugs, only us fan game devs have to worry about the existence of our games being challenged by the very franchise we're trying to homage.

I still remember our conversation when I reached out to you as soon as I heard the news of the shutdown. I hope I was able to provide support and guidance for you in what I'm certain was a very emotionally difficult time. And I'm sorry your game's legacy became "that game that was shut down by Nintendo" instead of the incredible labor of love that Prism actually is. (I've played it, and FWIW, it's a lot of fun.)

I'm excited to hear you're moving on to become a professional game developer. With your creativity, management skills and work ethic, I have little doubt you'll succeed. And you can count on our support when you do.

manta · May 10, 2017

Thanks for posting this, Adam. The insight onto your thoughts regarding Prism's development and handling of the C&D is interesting. Since you're becoming a professional game developer, I'm excited to see what you'll come up with next.

Koolboyman · May 10, 2017

Involuntary Twitch said:
As somebody who has gone through almost the exact same thing when I received a Cease & Desist for Uranium -- albeit a month after release and not days before, which I realize must have been so much more painful -- I understand where you're coming from here. It's really painful to have a project that you dedicate so much of your time, energy, and creativity to be ripped from your hands. It's a difficult lesson to learn and something that's unique to fan games. While other indie games have to worry about other things, like commercial failure, bad reviews and glitches and bugs, only us fan game devs have to worry about the existence of our games being challenged by the very franchise we're trying to homage.

I still remember our conversation when I reached out to you as soon as I heard the news of the shutdown. I hope I was able to provide support and guidance for you in what I'm certain was a very emotionally difficult time. And I'm sorry your game's legacy became "that game that was shut down by Nintendo" instead of the incredible labor of love that Prism actually is. (I've played it, and FWIW, it's a lot of fun.)

I'm excited to hear you're moving on to become a professional game developer. With your creativity, management skills and work ethic, I have little doubt you'll succeed. And you can count on our support when you do.

You helped me through that tough time along with the Insurgence developer. Thank you for your help (which you provided after just a few minutes of the C&D announcement). I haven't gotten the chance to play Uranium for myself yet, but you have to remember, that this kind of controversy is drying up. The more time that goes by, the more people focus on the actual products instead of controversies. I'm seeing that with Prism and I'm also seeing that with Uranium. People are making lets plays of our games every single day and they are having fun, and if you look at the comments people are enjoying watching with rarely any discussion about the incidents. Not everyone's going to like what we did and might think that we're morally in the wrong by making a game based off of an IP we don't own, and they absolutely have the right to feel this way and talk about it. But we're not going to please everyone, that's impossible.

I made the mistake on focusing on very specific comment sections from people who knew nothing about the situation aside that Nintendo told me to stop. But I let it get to me anyway that day, which was completely my fault. I know who I am and what my intentions were going into this, but not everyone's take the time to learn or accept them and I shouldn't let them convince me that I did things that I didn't do. The most ridiculous comments I got however, were assumptions I could see into the future and know what would happen to fan games released in 2016 when I first started Prism in 2008, with comments like "Why did you spent 8 years on something like this? Don't you know it'll just get shut down like Uranium?"

Looking back, there was a lot of support, and while I did get people who wanted to kick me while I was down on Twitter, most of it was positive support. Fan games will continue to be taken down (just look at the recently taken down Breath of the NES), but if it happens it's important that you focus on the people backing you up but also understand, you're going to see people who don't like what you do (or make assumptions), and they have the right to say so.

Thanks again for the support, I really appreciate it. Even though the games are out of our hands now, a lot of people love our games and we should both be proud at what we were able to accomplish. :)

Limesy said:
Hey Adam, thank you for taking time to come and post here!
This whole thing is really fascinating, and I'm glad to hear it has affected you positively overall.

I also have some questions, if you feel like answering them:

Are there any features you wanted to add to Prism, but didn't? (Be it due to your Christmas 2016 deadline, or you just deciding against it.)

What were the biggest challenges or hurdles to overcome while developing?

If you hadn't received a C&D, do you think you would have started a new Pokémon related project - or did you already feel like Prism would be the last?

Have you played any fan games yourself? If so, which are your favorites?

What are your thoughts on Rainbow Devs, who are set out to "finish the legacy of Pokemon Prism"? Do you see any parallels between them updating your creation, Prism, and you making a fan game that Nintendo created?

Thank you and good luck with your future game development, I can't wait to see what you bring to the table!

- A couple of things, mostly the post storyline that was meant to wrap up the Naljo guardians storyline that was meant to come in post release patches. Right now it just kind of drops off and Rijon's as barren as Kanto was in GSC, which is what I wanted to avoid. At least Rijon didn't shrink.
- There was several, but the biggest challenge was trying find balance between what I wanted to do while being respectful to the official lore that Gamefreak already set up. It would also give people the thought of "Who knows? Maybe Rijon really is South of Johto in GSC just inaccessible", just like how Johto presumably exists in Pokemon Red's universe as well but goes inaccessible and unmentioned.
- No. Prism was planned to be my last Pokemon game, the C&D just forced me to move on from it and focus on my own game a few months early.
- The fan games I found inspirational was Zelda: Parallel Worlds and very old Dragon Warrior hack from 2003 called Dragoon X Omega. It showed me what could be done with ROM Hacks and motivated me to take that path with Pokemon fan games.
- I'm humbled that a group of people have decided to dedicate a lot of time to finishing Prism in a way that I would have wanted. I didn't tell anyone to continue the game, they decided that they loved my creation so much, that they want to do everything possible to not only keep it alive, but polish it to the nth degree to ensure that everyone will play the best experience that Prism can provide.

Mantager said:
Thanks for posting this, Adam. The insight onto your thoughts regarding Prism's development and handling of the C&D is interesting. Since you're becoming a professional game developer, I'm excited to see what you'll come up with next.

Thanks, I can't wait to tell everyone what I've been up to!

U.Flame · May 24, 2017

How much detail are you willing/allowed to go into about the plans you had for Prism? I doubt you could get directly involved with Rainbow Devs, but would you be able to explain some unfinished ideas in detail to kind of indirectly help them?

Speaking of legality issues, how much are you (and by extension, we) allowed to talk about the content in the leaked version? I would like to discuss it but I don't want to cross any lines.

Djaco75 · May 24, 2017

I feel bad for you. Imaging putting in all that work only to get shut down....

Anyway, I've got a burning question I would like to ask - how did you react to the news you were getting shut down? What did you first feel?

Sorry for taking up your time, but I would really like some form of insight on this.

Koolboyman · May 26, 2017

U.Flame said:
How much detail are you willing/allowed to go into about the plans you had for Prism? I doubt you could get directly involved with Rainbow Devs, but would you be able to explain some unfinished ideas in detail to kind of indirectly help them?

Speaking of legality issues, how much are you (and by extension, we) allowed to talk about the content in the leaked version? I would like to discuss it but I don't want to cross any lines.

It should be fine to discuss, Nintendo never said anything about me being quiet about Prism. I followed Nintendo's resolutions: Shut down the website, remove all downloads, don't release Prism and don't work on other Nintendo fan projects. I'm going to use some of the unused ideas for the next game, so I'm going to keep quiet about them. As far as what Rainbow Devs have planned for post game content, your guess is as good as mine.

Djaco75 said:
I feel bad for you. Imaging putting in all that work only to get shut down....

Anyway, I've got a burning question I would like to ask - how did you react to the news you were getting shut down? What did you first feel?

Sorry for taking up your time, but I would really like some form of insight on this.

I and the rest of the team assumed (and was hoping) it was fake, because other fan projects got fake C&Ds before. I called the law office and confirmed it was real. As I said, the bad comments got to me and made me feel I truly wasted 8 years of my life on a fan game and I spent the next few days wishing I never made Prism after reading comments guilt tripping me and the other devs.

As I said, Prism was for practice to help me prepare for my future projects and it was a fun hobby too that would also help me with my career goals. I have several more decades ahead of myself to develop some great stuff and it'll be possible because of what I learned while developing Prism. I probably couldve made my own game and gain experience that way but that's not the path I chose for my first "huge" game and I don't regret it even if its an unorthodox approach.

After talking to family, friends (including people the game industry and indie developers), they helped convince me that I shouldn't beat myself up to much and that there is a definite path forward for me in my career. Some people who I didnt speak to in years reached out to me as well. My Dad really helped me, he hacked games on the Commodore 64 before I was even born for fun, but felt that making fan game ROM Hacks were a waste of time and was one of the many parents during the late 90's Pokemon craze who thought the franchise was ridiculously stupid. After I told him what happened and he knew I was upset, he decided to take a look and he said he was impressed and that I "Made a lot of people happy" and encouraged me that it's not going to hurt my future just because Nintendo told me to stop. To hear that from him after a decade of him dismissing ROM Hacks as a waste of time was really uplifting.

Sorry if that was too elaborate, pretentious and redundant. But it took a lot of great people close to me to convince me that Im in a good place. If it werent for them I would have quit making games altogether and search for a new career. Im very thankful that I know these people.

U.Flame · May 29, 2017

Koolboyman said:
It should be fine to discuss, Nintendo never said anything about me being quiet about Prism. I followed Nintendo's resolutions: Shut down the website, remove all downloads, don't release Prism and don't work on other Nintendo fan projects. I'm going to use some of the unused ideas for the next game, so I'm going to keep quiet about them. As far as what Rainbow Devs have planned for post game content, your guess is as good as mine.

I really appreciate you taking the time to answer our questions. Prism is a great game, whether or not it's complete, and I think you're a great developer and person for making this all possible. That said, there was a lot I wanted to ask about the content in Prism, but none of it is coming to mind right now. I'll be sure to raise questions as I remember them. I guess for now, I want to know how you intended to finish the Naljo Guardian storyline.

TypicalJalapeno · Jun 15, 2017

Any idea where I can contact this person? Need to inform him about a serious matter.

TechSkylander1518 · Jun 15, 2017

....Well, I hear he has an account on Relic Castle. Have you tried contacting him there?

I am the author of Pokemon Prism

Deo

Ex-Staff

Jephed

Trainer

NoodlesButt

Addicted to Jams

Evan

game director, Pokémon Sea & Sky

Shgeldz

:eyes:

Darius_Oak

The Snark Knight

Koolboyman

Rookie

Shgeldz

:eyes:

Koolboyman

Rookie

Limesy

Rookie

Involuntary Twitch

Pixel Artist & Writer

manta

★★★★★

Koolboyman

Rookie

U.Flame

Rookie

Djaco75

MasterMind

Koolboyman

Rookie

U.Flame

Rookie

TypicalJalapeno

Novice

TechSkylander1518

Wiki Dweeb