Released Pokémon E-Reader Minigame Collection [Unity Engine] - Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS

Hey folks! I've been planning this project for a while and what better excuse than the “Beta Contest in 30 days” challenge of the Spanish community to finally put it onto the table. For context, most people have played the third generation Pokémon games. However, not everyone knows that they could run code that was not in the cartridge itself through a device called “E-Reader” that can read special cards. These cards have a band with information that allows you to add battles and what this project comes to, exclusive mini-games. In the same way that I recreate the mini-games of Pokémon Stadium in HD and working for Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS and Nintendo Switch I would like to recreate at least one of the mini-games of the Expedition Base Set of Trading Card Game (TCG) to meet this challenge (since there are so many mini-games that were in GBA) and end this project by remaking all of the minigames and bundle them into one fangame.

Plot & Features:

Pokémon E-Reader Minigame Collection Unity or PEMCU is a fangame developed in Unity Engine for all platforms focused on recreating the games accessible through the GBA E-Reader cards. While replicating the mechanics they are given a complete 3D facelift and support for touch screen, keyboard, mouse and console controller.

Minigames:

Planned TCG Expedition Base Set mini-games:

• Hold Down Hoppip
• Diving Corsola
• Flower Power
• Go, Poliwrath!
• Kingler's Day
• Machop at Work

Minigames planned from TCG Aquapolis Base Set:

• Dream Eater
• Harvest Time
• Jumping Doduo
• Mighty Tyranitar
• Rolling Voltorb
• Sneak and Snatch

Planned TCG Skyridge Base Set mini-games:

• Berry Tree
• Ditto Leapfrog
• Follow Hoothoot
• Leek Game
• Night Flight
• Pikapop
• Ride the Tuft
• Watch Out!

Planned mini-games from the E-Reader promotional card set:

• Fire Hoops
• Wooper's Juggling Game
• Big Fruit Strategy
• Tokotoko Truck

In case these names sound like Chinese to you, here is a video compilation of the original mini-games:



Progress and Screenshots:

As this is a project that might take long even with releases for all platforms, I would like to use this thread as development blog adding the main progress in the OP (to match the rules). The progress so far:

Platforms:

The game runs on Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS and Nintendo Switch. NX is excluded from public release.

Download: Zelda

Credits:

Official Pokémon Resources:

• Nintendo
• Game Freak
• The Pokémon Company

E-Reader OST rip:

• Jeff J

Other:

• Manurocker95

 

[Manurocker95]

From here I will be posting the steps I followed to make the first minigame (Hold Down Hoppip) in case someone is interested. That's why all of them will be presented in first person of the plural :)


| Game 1: Hold Down Hoppip | Devlog:

The first thing we do is making the main menu of the game that will contain the other minigames. We can use the same layout from Stadium Club as well as the logo particles. Then, we focus on creating new buttons and the game logo :)

 

[Manurocker95]

We start with the game itself:

We extract Pichu and Hoppip from Pokémon Ultra Sun and import them into Unity with Pokemon3DSToUnity

We import them into our new project and place them in our game scene with a new skybox.

 

[Manurocker95]

We add a little bit of Post-Processing and some background props so that it is not “so bland”.

 

[Manurocker95]

Now comes a “tricky” part: Adjusting the props polygonage so that the low-mid end mobiles don't die and implementing the rope solver, since in the original the hoppip are tied by ropes. In addition, we can rotate the hoppip and pichu so that they look at the camera when they look at “Frontal”. At the moment we are going to put a Line Renderer and put them at their “minimum” height.

 

[Manurocker95]

With a little help from mathematics we can implement a simple rope solver that based on constraints simulates the physics of a rope. They don't react to the AABB of other objects but the good thing is that we don't need it either. It can be fixed in every end to a transform, rigidbody and even drag them if we want to.

 

[Manurocker95]

Now we only have to make that while the game is started the hoppips go up in Y position until they reach a limit (out of camera). If any of them reaches the limit, the game ends. On the other hand the control of Pichu is simple: If we press A/D, Right/Left on the controller (thanks to the New Input System of Unity) it goes from one waypoint to another based on the position of the base of the rope. In addition, we put a small blink based on texture offset as in the original games to give a better effect.

 

[Manurocker95]

In the original game pressing (A) lowers the Hoppip in front of pichu so when this happens we simply decrease the game manager's array hoppip by 1.5 units while playing Pichu's jumping animation (THANK YOU GAME FREAK FOR MAKING ANIMATIONS FOR EVERYTHING). The good thing is that the rope physics react to the body hooked to the end!

 

[Manurocker95]

Here you have it in motion. It still needs a lot of fine tuning but for now you can “Play”. By adding a timer we can save how long it takes for the player to lose.

 

[Manurocker95]

Mini game logo and menu screen. Simple and functional. I've added a few little particles and hoppip to give it some charm.

 

[Manurocker95]

We can now add the game info, the game over screen and an animation for Pichu when the game ends.

 

[Manurocker95]

We are missing the stump to which the rope is tied. A cube with displaced vertices and a texture will do the job :D

Also, to make it look a little more like the original we add the thickness of the rope as a parameter to our rope script and so the thickness of the line renderer is modified.

In addition we can add now shinies by replacing the textures when the game loads the characters.

With a slight modification in our rope shader we can shade the line renderer and make it look 3D.

 

[Manurocker95]

With this we practically have it ready, we just need to save the best time achieved and put the touch controls.

 

[Manurocker95]

We can also play with the physics of the rope to see how it behaves with "free motion" :)

 

[Manurocker95]

For the music we will use for now the original from the e-reader minigame ripped by Jeff J:

 

[Manurocker95]

And here you have the first build running natively on Nintendo Switch!

 

[Manurocker95]

Added multi-language, trophy system, graphic settings as well as disable post-processing by settings or enabling Snapdragon's algorithm for upscaling (Snapdragon Game Super Resolution), touch controls by swipping and touch as well as game controllers on mobile.

Exported to Windows, MacOS (Intel 64 and Apple Silicon), Linux, Android, iOS and Nintendo Switch