Topic: Pokémon Winds and Waves

As far as the day/night cycle, Arceus and Z-A had the right idea (although Z-A's day/night cycle felt way too short), have a relatively short day/night cycle lasting about 30-60 minutes but provide a way to skip to the next time of day (tents in Arceus, benches in Z-A). That's the most accessible way to handle it, make it long enough that you could accomplish what you need to in that time of day but give you the option to advance time of day if you're waiting on something to change.

That was something that annoyed me about SV, it didn't really have a time advancement option and that made catching some time of day exclusive Pokemon annoying. For example, I had a lot of trouble shiny hunting Cutiefly outbreaks because of this, Cutiefly only appears during the day so once the sun sets the outbreak temporarily disperses (and without any warning as well, perhaps the other issue is that time of day probably shouldn't affect mass outbreaks) and I had to sit there waiting an eternity for morning to return before I could resume hunting. So it wasted a ton of time and there were multiple IRL days I attempted Cutiefly but just couldn't come away with one because the time of day killed my opportunity to get one before the IRL day ended and the mass outbreaks reset.

So yeah, time advancement options are going to be important here. The most accessible thing they can do is let the player retain control over time of day like they did in the Legends games.

And speaking of mass outbreaks, can we get those back too? They made shiny hunting infinitely better.

Isn't this exact thing (and problem) happening in Pokopia?

@FishyS
Yes, Pokopia syncs to your clock and reflects day/night in real time, with different Pokemon appearing every 3 months in the different seasons (as well as weekly events and other things).

One thing I like about Pokopia though vs say, Animal Crossing, besides being less tedious, is that it actually has a storyline quest that can be completed in around 40 hours which takes you on an adventure through various biomes. So it's designed to be replayable as long as you want, but also has a directed focus with clear cut goals for people like me who need that sort of thing to stay engaged.

Not sure Winds and Waves would do that though.

Another possibility of starter final evolution looking based on Indonesia and other South East Asia countries.

Thailand is also part of South East Asia country and I would like to see some Thailand inspiration for Pokemon gen 10 design.
I would like to see new Pokemon with Muay Thai inspiration, the Fighting type.

Not gonna lie, this fan art design of Browt final evolution design looked very convincing.
Muay Thai Plant Rooster.

I found another fan art concept design of the three starter final evolution looking.
Pombon will be likely turned into Barong.
Browt will be likely turned into Garuda.
Gecqua will be likely turned into Legong dancer.

The seasonal events is super common to the genre but sticking day and night as 1-to-1 is less common and a real pain. I once played animal crossing for weeks and couldn't go to the store once because of my real life schedule.

Most people say 'just time travel' but if the response to a basic feature of the game is 'just modify the game or your system', then that is pretty sucky design.

I agree Winds and Waves wouldn't do that; that was purely Pokopia copying animal crossing for no good reason.

@FishyS I mean, Pokémon has had a day and night cycle every now and then since Gen 2. Black & White had seasons too. I don't have any strong feelings one way or another, just saying it's not completely out of the left field.

@Late Maybe, but the last few have had day/night divorced from a 24 hour cycle. As others have said it was far too short in Z-A, but they also let you sit on a bench to change time which was nice. The cycle was a pretty reasonable length in scarlet/violet.

@Anti-Matter I'm a fan of this design, personally!

This is pretty much what I'm expecting Browt to evolve into.

@UpsideDownRowlet speaking of Browt.... I'm not sure how types work. Are there any thing he can't evolve into? Like is it impossible to be a grass/fire type?

@CaleBoi25 Yeah a few types seem to be off limits for starter secondary types. The other starter types (and potentially Electric, because Pikachu was the starter in Yellow and Let's Go Pikachu, and because we haven't seen a starter gain the Electric type yet) aren't going to be used for a secondary type because that would be imbalance the trio. Normal type won't be used because that would just be doing that starter dirty (no offense to normal types). Dragon type is sort of designed to specifically counter the starter types, so it doesn't get used (with the one caveat that Mega evolved starters can have the dragon type, as with Mega Charizard X, Mega Sceptile, and Mega Feraligatr).

The following starter final stage secondary types are available (with counts of how many we have seen of each):

• None; Monotype (10x)
• Bug (0x)
• Ghost (3x)
• Psychic (1x)
• Ice (0x)
• Rock (0x)
• Flying (1x)
• Steel (1x)
• Ground (2x)
• Dark (4x)
• Poison (1x)
• Fairy (1x)
• Fighting (6x)

@UpsideDownRowlet Gotcha. What exactly is "normal" type? Is taht how Pokemon can canonize stuff like a regular elephant or lion or something?

@CaleBoi25 Normal types fall into a few categories:

• No elemental attributes.
• When paired with an elemental type, it's either sort of a dampener on the Pokemon's power over that element or suggesting that the Pokemon is just like that type but not really.
• Sound type.
• They wanted the Pokemon to be every type/Pokemon can be every type so this is just the base form.
• Ironically enough, being abnormal.

While real animals were referenced occasionally in early gens, they never really existed in the games. Newer gens have made it clear regular animals just don't exist.

Should have a clock Pokemon.

We were discussing population ecology in my Ecology lecture today, and that reminded me of the Wallace Line in Indonesia. It's basically a line that cuts through Indonesia where animals on either side simply cannot seem to get a foothold on the other if they attempt to migrate there.

I think it would be really interesting if Game Freak decided to reference this and have an invisible line separating the habitats of a bunch of Pokemon. At the very least, they need something like Gastrodon to be split across this line.

Also, while on the topic of Gastrodon, I would love to see either a regional form of Gastrodon or a completely new Pokemon all together inspired by the Leaf Slug. They're one of the closest things to a real-life Grass type Pokemon and it's crazy they haven't become a Pokemon yet. Leaf slugs live along many of Indonesia's coasts so it's basically now or never.

While I don't make games, I don't see any reason why a modern game with a day night cycle can't offer a stepped slider in the settings to adjust the in-game clock speed, with 'Real time' (or even slower) at one end and something like 1 minute = 1 day at the other. Just let the people decide, damnit.

@gcunit The 'sit on a bench/go to bed to change the time of day' method works well too. This is one of those cases where some people argue against simple optional qality-of-life features just because they personally don't want to use them.

@FishyS Yeh, it serves a purpose, but a slightly different purpose, for me. Changing the clock time is normally because I want to fulfil a specific time-based objective, whereas changing the clock speed is a more general setting I'll probably tweak once or twice until I'm happy with it and then leave alone.

I generally don't like changing the clock time in games (though I am compelled to do it with some games, e.g. Animal Crossing), it feels unnatural, breaks the immersion, like I'm circumventing the proper experience. But clock speed is important to me. It's about enjoying the environment the game is set in, immersing myself in it. The clock speed in Breath of the Wild was pretty good for me. Slow enough to feel realistic but fast enough to be able to stand still for a minute or two and just watch the changes in lighting, weather etc like it was a real place.

I pretty much always hated the day/night cycle in GSC. It was cool at first…but spending 80% of your game time in the dark finding wild hoothoot is no fun. And then changing the system clock just feels like it ruins the whole point of it.

That said i can see the value it adds for some. I would love to see the option of a RT clock vs a shorter daily cycle (tied to in-game time). I would definitely choose the latter.