Interview with Amethyst - Pokemon Reborn

Onmi - Today at 3:02 PM
Sure, let's get a quick introduction then, name and role.
Amethyst - Today at 3:07 PM
Hi there, my name's Amethyst Liddell. I'm the owner of the Reborn community, and main developer of the Pokemon Reborn game.
Onmi - Today at 3:08 PM
Reborn the game was born from Reborn the online community. Besides you, are any of the developers formerly apart of the community?
Amethyst - Today at 3:12 PM
All of the current ones, basically, and almost all of the past ones as well. Reborn was a solo project until around E13 (Charlotte's gym battle) and so when I did start accepting outside help, it was pretty much solely from within the community at some point or another.
Onmi - Today at 3:13 PM
I see, are any of them represented in the game like Ame represents you? If so, who?
Amethyst - Today at 3:14 PM
Marcello, our scripter, has an easter egg character as somewhat of a joke hidden late in the game. And in the upcoming content, one more of the other developers has named a sidequest NPC after herself.  But that's about it, and neither are really involved in the story.
Onmi - Today at 3:14 PM
I see. So the old gym leaders aren't also on the development team, or characters like Fern?
Amethyst - Today at 3:17 PM
It's worth noting that even characters like Fern were gym leaders in the online league; they just didn't necessarily get slotted into that role for the game. But to the point, one promise I've upheld since the beginning of the league itself is to not reveal any information that could identify the leaders' personal accounts. So I can't properly answer that question, since if one or more of them were on the team, that could lead to them being identified.
Onmi - Today at 3:18 PM
That's perfectly fine. I guess this does sort of cross over into that. Are there any characters in the Reborn game who were created wholesale for the game?
Amethyst - Today at 3:21 PM
Sort of. Several of the Team Meteor characters were given to me on my request. The goal of this project was to create a game based on our league and community, and Team Meteor as a concept was something that came out of some of the users just roleplaying in back channels on our Pokemon Online server for fun. When I started making the game, I asked the person who had been running those roleplays for a few characters I should use to represent Team Meteor.  That person gave me Taka, Solaris, Sirius, ZEL, Aster and Eclipse. So I ran with those from there.
Onmi - Today at 3:22 PM
Okay, so characters that are rivals and gym leaders came from the gym leaders of the Online league and Team Meteor came from side-RPs involved within Reborn. What about Cain? I can't seem to find any reference to his character having been a gym leader.
Amethyst - Today at 3:24 PM
He was one, briefly. After the incident with Corey, Cain took his place. Then Cain got kicked out because of his uhh encounters with boys, so Aya took his.
Onmi - Today at 3:26 PM
I think I'll save everyone and just let that incident speak for itself. In regards to the character of Fern... frankly to be blunt is the reason he's such an asshole due to the players own actions reflecting on him? Or what is the reason he's... not pleasant?
Amethyst - Today at 3:31 PM
He was that way in the online league, unfortunately. He was the kinda dicc who would just happen to have his internet "accidentally" disconnect him during a match if he was losing, which because of how the simulator we used worked, meant the match had to be restarted. Super annoying, and his attitude really didn't help.
So when it came to putting him in the game, I thought he'd be a great addition as like a Gary Oak ^2 type rival. I've probably embellished on some of his jerkishness a bit for that effect... but really he gave me plenty to work with in the first place.
Onmi - Today at 3:33 PM
I see. So what inspired Reborn as a decrepit cityscape full of... frankly not very nice people?
Amethyst - Today at 3:49 PM
That's a little difficult to say because I actually wasn't there for it. It was pretty early on in the league's life, like maybe the first week or so. My understanding is that after I had signed off one night, some of the users there made up a story about Reborn (as a server) falling into ruin because I was gone. In their story, Reborn was a city, and I was gone for a long period of time rather than over night. And that somehow is what caused the city to fall into ruin. Later, one of those users started drawing a webcomic based off of that premise. The comic didn't get too far, but it was what started the Team Meteor stuff, and the artist was the same one I got the Meteor characters from. So basically, that was all his bit.
Onmi - Today at 3:52 PM
Okay that's actually interesting. What inspired the balance choice of Reborn, the badges locking level raising, the lack of options, the field effects and the attitudes of the NPC trainers to the protagonist?
Amethyst - Today at 4:08 PM
So, when I decided to make a game based on the league, there were a few things that I knew I immediately wanted to do:

- I wanted the game to simulate the experience of fighting through our online league, including the difficulty of playing against real human opponents. Obviously this is only moderately possible with AI, so the extent to which I planned to pursue this goal was basically "leaders have six pokemon." Fighting leaders in the canon games who only had two or three pokemon always felt super unsatisfying to me, so it seemed like a no-brainer.
-I wanted the player to continue developing their team throughout the entire game. Since our league had eighteen badges, I knew it was going to be a long game if I continued it (and at the time I started making it, I assumed I'd just get bored and drop it after a month or so). That means I had to space out available Pokemon so the player would want to keep catching new things as the game went on, and it meant holding TM and tutor moves largely for the part of the game after which Pokemon stop learning new levels. I always get bored of playing Pokemon games once my team is fully evolved and has all the stuff I want it to have, so this was pretty important to me.
The level cap was added as a direct counter to players who would normally use only one Pokemon, make that singular Pokemon overlevelled, and just sweep through the whole game effortlessly with that single mon. After episode one there were definitely some players who did that and were like "lol i thot u said this game was supposed to be difficult" like -obviously- it'll be easy if you stack all your EXP into one Pokemon. So I created a solution for that problem. However, I liked the effect it had on the game overall to discourage "get more levels" as the primary strategy to beat a tough battle. I don't like grinding; neither do most players, and that made sure that grinding wasn't always the best way.  So I leaned into it heavily.
Field Effects were added much later on. I'm sure I got the idea from the anime since a lot of the more interesting battles in that often involve using the playing field to one's advantage. We had a topic on our forum about what people hoped to see from the 5th gen games before they were announced, and I detailed what would become field effects in that topic just because I got excited thinking about what could be done with a system like that, and I really wanted it to be in the canon games. It wasn't until like E11 (Luna's gym) that it occurred to me "wait. i'm making a pokemon game here. i could add these my damn self." So I did. I know they're hit or miss depending on the player, but the fact that many people do like them, and many other games have adopted them since makes me really happy. My hope is that Gamefreak takes them up properly someday too-- especially since they've already (sort of) started with the Terrain moves.

I don't think the NPCs really relate to balance... But idk what to say about them, I actually hate writing NPCs. Feels super pointless, and a lot of the time the point is just to populate an area or get its mood across. They're written pretty haphazardly, especially at the start.
Onmi - Today at 4:10 PM
What inspired the removal of early game pokemon like Ralts, Gyarados and Gastly? I think there are others, but I couldn't find a series of changelogs to track this. From an outsiders perspective, it reminded me of Absolute Virtue
Amethyst - Today at 4:18 PM
I'm not familiar with Absolute Virtue to understand that, but it's true that many Pokemon like that have been removed. What I want to avoid is situations where there's no reason to use anything but those Pokemon, either because of how strong or how popular it is, or both. The average player is not really going to look at any other ghost type if they have Gengar too early, for instance, so that goes against my goal of having players develop their team throughout the game.
Aside from that, one of the other things I like about this game is how often people say things like, "I  never looked at X mon before but after using it in Reborn I've come to really appreciate it!" Like I'm all for people expanding their horizons and giving the less popular pokemon a place to shine in the early game. But that can't happen if everyone's just gonna use the same set of favorite/OU mons.
Onmi - Today at 4:23 PM
Absolute Virtue was a boss in Final Fantasy XI that the creatores deemed was near impossible to defeat, however as the player base found methods outside of the intended one to win, they were all patched out, as if the developer was angry that their super boss was being beaten and not in the method they intended it. For the players it felt as if they were being punished for being inventive
Amethyst - Today at 4:25 PM
Oof. I don't like that. It seems better to just give a reward or bonus scene(s) for actually doing it. I can see why people would be upset about that.
In this case, I'd say it rather seems like a lack of inventiveness though :sweat_smile:
Onmi - Today at 4:26 PM
Noted. In regards to Pulse Pokemon...
Many of them seem designed as Walls that snowball further out of the players control. What is the mindset in the development of the Pulse Pokemon and their placement?
Amethyst - Today at 4:43 PM
"snowballing further out of control" is probably the nature of most losses... in Pokemon and many other games, so I think that's only natural. It's true that many of them are walls though-- that's the case to give the player a fighting chance. If you can at least outspeed the opponent, you have a chance to do something, be it perish song, toxic, taunt, whatever. If the other Pokemon is a sweeper, then your entire team might get OHKO'd and you have basically no options to do anything. That's why very few of these bosses are fast Pokemon. I think Abra might actually be the only one, but that has the intended weakness of giving the player turns through Hyper Beam (AI is a little busted for it this episode tho). In short, the slow speeds are for the player's benefit. The tankiness is for the player's challenge.
The original idea for those was because I felt like the fact that all the major battles in most Pokemon games are basically team vs team was a missed opportunity. I thought I could create a memorable challenge by making 6 vs 1 battles as obstacles that the player has to find a way to use their whole team together to overcome. As for placement, that was just dictated by what the story needed.
Onmi - Today at 4:45 PM
Noted. When it comes to the presentation of characters in the game, is your goal to necessarily write the characters as you envision them, or to their natures in the online league?
Amethyst - Today at 4:52 PM
I think the former is a little bit unavoidable since it's only possible for me to write from my perception... but my goal is definitely the latter, in general.  There are definitely some embellishments for the sake of the game's story, but for the most part it follows the league fairly well.
Onmi - Today at 4:53 PM
Onto the tougher questions... Why did you decide to include real events like Corey's suicide and Kiki's death in the game?
Amethyst - Today at 4:59 PM
The original idea of the project was to make the game based on the events of the league... And since those were pretty significant events in the league, it seemed like a mistake to exclude them. Disrespectful, in a sense.
Onmi - Today at 4:59 PM
That said, did you tell Heather or ask her about using those events?
Amethyst - Today at 5:01 PM
Heather was aware from the beginning, especially since we were trying to keep her involved in the community for her own sake after that all happened. It didn't really work, and I haven't heard from her since.
Onmi - Today at 5:02 PM
I see. Why have Fern mock Corey's suicide, is that also based on a real event? Or was that written for the game?
Amethyst - Today at 5:04 PM
Fern wasn't around when that all happened, so no, that's just for the game. It solidifies him as a character people love to hate, and ah, to be honest, whether I did on purpose or not, I probably pulled that from my favorite movie.  There was a similar exchange in there, I realized later.
Onmi - Today at 5:05 PM
I see. What other events were based on real life events. Was Titania and Amaria a case of RP breaking down? Something for the game?
Amethyst - Today at 5:10 PM
The easiest answer is "most things that don't directly involve the player character or team meteor." Shelly nicknamed her Pokemon after challengers, Luna actually disappeared for a while and there was a custody dispute, Bennett was totally creeping on her, Aya and Hardy were a thing, the incident with Fern and Titania was something we heard about, the orphanage issue resulted in an actual arrest, etcetcetc. Most of the game's story was just trying to patch all these miscellaneous events together in the first place.
As for Titania and Amaria... Amy lost her memory due to a car accident, not a suicide attempt. But as someone who's been a close friend of both of them at some point I can pretty confidently say that the rest of the stuff between them is probably one of the most real things in this game. I used a lot of their words directly even.
Onmi - Today at 5:12 PM
Wow that's... quite a thing to hear, and I think it's important to know to. I've known many who take the events as the writers of reborn personally being insensitive. Framing them in the light of actual events certainly dashes that.
So I guess that leads us to having Lin kill Ame, your own representitive in the game. Was that a reference to something?
Amethyst - Today at 5:20 PM
There probably are some things that have been legitimately insensitive, like the portrayal of some of the children in the orphanage in the earlier episodes, and how white-dominant the cast is. I've tried to correct those where possible. As it pertains to the league's events, I can't change the past, and admittedly I feel somewhat more comfortable dealing with things like Corey's suicide and Kiki's illness since I've personally been suicidal in the past, and chronic conditions run in my family, including myself. I admit one thing I don't have proper experience with is loss of life, so it's a little awkward for me to be writing for characters who lose someone close to them. Which unfortunately, has been a few times now.
As for my character, that had no basis in the online league. The truth is, I really hated having a self-insert in the game. It felt egotistical and made me cringe a little. The only reason I included myself in the game in the first place is because it was originally -just- a community game so everyone who was going to play it should have already known me and already known that I legitimately was the league's manager so it made sense for me to do that... but when it started getting popular and going outside of the community I just felt awkward about it. ^^; And people kept expecting me to play an important role in the story. I was like "No!!! Please forget about me!!!!!!!". So I just did something to solve that problem.
Though, aha, in tandem with the above, I've joked that knocking off my in-game character just achieves my childhood dream of killing myself. How's that for insensitive?
Onmi - Today at 5:22 PM
Personally, it's a little worrying, but I'm happy if you're in a better place now.
I guess an interesting question to ask is this, if Reborn were not bound by the events of the actual RP league, would you have done many of the things you've done story wise or gameplay wise? Or, to put it another way, does Reborn necessarily align with your own personal design philosophy?
Amethyst - Today at 5:29 PM
Yeah, that was a long time ago. I still have my share of things I'm dealing with, but I'm really happy with my life and being able to make games, so I'm definitely not going anywhere.
As for the other thing, I'm really glad you asked that because: absolutely not. To tell the truth, I actually dislike turn based games pretty significantly. I really think Pokemon as a franchise should just update to a real time system and leave this current one back in the 90's where it belongs, right alongside output RNG as a mechanic.
As for the story, my personal approach to writing is to focus on the development of the protagonist. Problem: How 2 do that when silent protagonist???? all of my usual approaches are just useless here. Plus, like I said before, this whole thing was kind of patchworked together based on the incoherrent events of the league; it's not a cohesive story at all. Frankly it's a tangled mess and I'm honestly surprised anyone likes it. But... they do, so more power to them.
The characters themselves are scarcely better. In the first place, the amount of "screen time" they were expected to get in the online league was: a few lines when they sign on, battle start quote, first blood quote, one left quote, half hp quote, win/loss quotes, and a few lines before they left. In other words, one of our original focus when creating the personalities that would be shown online was representing very one dimensional characters who a challenger could come to understand the characteristics of basically in the 5 lines during their battle. So a lot of them are just paper thin.
A lot my work with Reborn has just been a matter of making the best of what I set out to work with. And for all intents and purposes, I think I've done a pretty decent job of that . But one reason I'm super excited to finish Reborn is so that I can start active work on my next project and actually do all of this stuff properly in a way that -does- represent my views.
Onmi - Today at 5:38 PM
I see. Out of curiosity, was each gym leader responsible for the creation of their own character or was it a developed process for the league?
Amethyst - Today at 5:41 PM
Team effort. I gave them an outline of my expectations and various exercise forms to do to boil it down to what would be important and a structure for it to be seen by the challengers in. But as the number of challengers grew quickly, so did the amount of interaction they got (plus more and more users messaging them to chat individually, for instance) so everyone kind of spiraled out of control their own way anyhow
Onmi - Today at 5:44 PM
So what's your feelings on rejuvenation and reborn copy games?
Amethyst - Today at 5:50 PM
Reborn copy games, huh? I know there are a handful that have been inspired by Reborn but I don't know that I'd call them copies... It's interesting if that's how others see them though.
Personally I'm pretty happy if my game can inspire others to take up development or learn something, since I always think it's great when people apply themselves to a creative project. It's a little bit flattering, and also like I said earlier the fact that a number of these games use field effects is something I really appreciate too.
I haven't really played that much of any other fan game presently though (in large part because of not liking Pokemon's battle system all that much) but I do have some particular affection for Rejuvenation since its creator has become one of my best friends more recently. So I totally hope he succeeds, and I'm looking a bit forward to playing a game like Reborn that I didn't have to make (and therefore don't already know everything about).
Onmi - Today at 5:51 PM
I see. What inspired the route split added recently?
Amethyst - Today at 5:57 PM
There's been a number of branch deviations throughout the game; the one in E17 is just the most dramatic example...  Still, a lot of those splits just kind of happen. For the in-game decision that causes that split in particular, I reached that point and felt like there could be a legitimate moral dilemma, so I just decided to work it in. Kind of built itself. Other cases have been similar to that, for instance the early battle which the player is expected to lose... This is where I'd say Reborn differs strongly from Absolute Virtue , since when people started finding ways to beat it, I just built the winning case that I didn't anticipate into a different story branch.  It just worked out.
Onmi - Today at 6:00 PM
I see. I'd like to see if we could set the record straight on something. A lot of people take Reborn's tone, setting, writing, shinies etc. As a way of 'Sticking it' to existing pokemon games. The story is 'dark and morose' because actual pokemon is campy and fun. But from our own discussions it's been clear that Reborn's tone has more been reflective of what the community itself created of it. Or at least it's my own interpretation. I guess the question is, how do you see Reborn, in comparison to mainline pokemon.
Amethyst - Today at 6:16 PM
It's true that I do think that the main series is really missing out on a lot of potential in its world by continuing to market their games with the same formula and to children still... But like you say, it wasn't really my goal to make a "dark, edgy xd" game as a response to that, that just kind of happened based on its origins, yep.
Ultimately, between all of the other noise that started it, I just try to make a game that I personally would enjoy playing since it's difficult for me to enjoy the canon ones. So if anything, that's how I see Reborn-- just something I can enjoy better.
But in the same vein it may be worth saying that I personally think there's a lot of wasted potential in a lot of published stories and games in general, rather than just in Pokemon, in not dealing with things like suicide, sexual abuse, issues of race and sexuality, etc. That stuff is part of life, and I think omitting it is a disservice both to the people who deal with it and to the writers who would limit themselves by avoiding it. On tenet of traditional pencil art is to make the most of contrast-- bright whites, and dark blacks. The ideal composition uses both ends to their extremes, and I think writing is not dissimilar. So it's likely that my unflinching willingness to color in dark blacks along with the game's original premise probably contributes greatly to the impression of it trying too hard to be dark.
Onmi - Today at 6:26 PM
Well I can't think of any more questions of my own. I will say you've given me a far different perspective on reborn. What plans do you have for future personal projects?
Amethyst - Today at 6:30 PM
I'm already working on a game that I'll actively develop after Reborn is complete.... It's called Starlight Divide, and is an action-tRPG inspired mainly by games like Fire Emblem and Valkyria Chronicles, about the worlds of Heaven and Hell after God has abandoned them. The story features two girls, one on each side of the Divide, who are each driven from their homes for their own reasons.
Onmi - Today at 6:32 PM
Those are good inspirations. Anything you'd like to say as a parting statement?
Amethyst - Today at 6:37 PM
Thanks for talking with me and taking some time to better understand the project! I really appreciate you going out of your way to do that even despite not being a fan of it yourself.