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As a developer my self I have been finding it very difficult to really wrap my head around the schematics of building a successful working Pokemon website from scratch. So I have taken it upon my self to provide a rough guideline on what steps you should take when building a Pokemon site. If you are a dev your self feel free to elaborate on any lackluster explanation I may have given.
Phase 1: Planning.
Looks
With any project you have to plan and plot out a theme that you will go with for the long ride (at least version 1).
First sit down and think of a good theme that will captivate your self and find ways to make it come to life. Leave navigation easy to traverse through, for example all links must be within categories clearly visible to your audience.
Feel
When I am on a Pokemon website, I want to feel excited and entertained at every step of the way. Any small bore or chore will inevitably steer me away. Meaning; although Pokemon as a brand is for ages 10+ it doesn't mean that we as nostalgic developers cant build a more mature gaming atmosphere for other breeds like our self's. Most "kids" will play the game on a hand held system while the more mature will most likely play it on their tablets, touch phone or PC while trying to pass time before doing what they were on the device to do in the first place. This means you have to create a small pocket MMO that has all the mature features us older players are used to, such as;
Gambling (Playing lottery's, spinning a wheel of fortune, luck based games that will cost reasonable arms and legs):
This will give your users something they can binge on a whim when ever they feel they should be the top of your game.
Social (chatting with other gamers, forum posts, trading, selling, etc):
This will keep your users involved in daily life's of other members, keeping everyone busy and occupied with what ever they like to dable in.
Player Interactions (clans, alliances, marriage, etc):
Having player interactions will be crucial to keeping older members active because it leaves room for growth and development as a group rather than alone.
Phase 2: Mechanics / Game Play
If you have strong looks and feel to your game, you will surely keep your members active with a strong game play. Don't let people tell you that game play alone can keep your members active and dedicated. This sadly is a false statement, I have seen many games with amazing game play but the looks and feel of the game fell short so it ultimately went stale with non active members.
Events
To prevent loss of members game play needs to be consistent and ever so changing. Meaning you need things like promotional areas, one time, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly events. Traditions and yearly storyline change. THIS will keep members alive and well because content will not stay the same so they will always need to be on their toes when it comes to remaining on the top of everything.
Gyms
All Pokemon games need their gym leaders, its what most people play Pokemon for anyways; unwavering NPC domination. While we steep in our silent glorified victories against gym leaders, we grow a lil closer to the Pokemon that helped us achieve what ever badge we were going for. So please don't be like other sites where each gym is like a walk in the park! I cant stress enough how un-fulfilling it is to be able to go fight against a gym with a few repetitive Pokemon at high levels to literally butt violate a gym leader, its as gross and lame as it sounds. So be different from the rest, make gyms harder than even traditional Pokemon games. Like add rules where you can only bring Pokemon that was originally owned by you, ban certain types from entering, make some gyms open only when the weather or time of day is in favor to them, have some gyms where the leader is a scum bag and only fights Pokemon not evolved. You know the little things.
Exploring
Ok this part I dont even need to mention because you as a player before dever should know that any game that has lame exploration system gets boring quick. So make it to where not all maps are a click away.
Members love the idea of finding out hidden and secret paths to share with others, its your job as their god to provide such possibility's, so do it.
Battles
Honestly I did not come online to click one move over and over till my enemies have reverted to their fetle states of despair.
Make it where a battle is something you want to avoid but if cant be avoided is fun. Meaning have it where using an attack actually takes away from an individual attacks power point (BRING back struggle). Have it where weather, abilities and Pokemon states effect an attack. Meaning if a Pokemon is flying or levitating, earthquake should not work.
Phase 3: Coding
Language Structure (OOP)
The language structure you should build this Pokemon game is object orientated as EVERYTHING about each pokemon is an object that can change on its own depending on other factors.
Some objects to consider are but not limited to: Pokemon (whole creature), Ability (this can hold functions of its own), each attack (each attack is one object because they all do different things.), stats (pokemon stats change and increase based on damage taken or attack / ability effects)
Languages (PHP, JS, CSS, AngularJs)
You can use really any OOP language, but me I prefer PHP for fast production, ruby would be easier and so would c# with delegation and event listeners but Node Js would be the most epic and amazing to use but would cost you allot more, as far as hosting goes. So far only php is cheaper and easier to maintain in my opinion.
I chose JS because we will need to use some innate java script functions.
Make sure when using css you will bundle it with a great responsive framwork. I am using bootstrap with mine.
Also note that you will spend a good first 2 weeks in your css files so make sure you know how to use sass and scss files to code css styles faster.
Angular JS will be your BEST friend for client side manipulation so learn it well.
Here is a check list of things to do for a v1 of your site.
TODO
Phase 1: Planning.
Looks
With any project you have to plan and plot out a theme that you will go with for the long ride (at least version 1).
First sit down and think of a good theme that will captivate your self and find ways to make it come to life. Leave navigation easy to traverse through, for example all links must be within categories clearly visible to your audience.
Feel
When I am on a Pokemon website, I want to feel excited and entertained at every step of the way. Any small bore or chore will inevitably steer me away. Meaning; although Pokemon as a brand is for ages 10+ it doesn't mean that we as nostalgic developers cant build a more mature gaming atmosphere for other breeds like our self's. Most "kids" will play the game on a hand held system while the more mature will most likely play it on their tablets, touch phone or PC while trying to pass time before doing what they were on the device to do in the first place. This means you have to create a small pocket MMO that has all the mature features us older players are used to, such as;
Gambling (Playing lottery's, spinning a wheel of fortune, luck based games that will cost reasonable arms and legs):
This will give your users something they can binge on a whim when ever they feel they should be the top of your game.
Social (chatting with other gamers, forum posts, trading, selling, etc):
This will keep your users involved in daily life's of other members, keeping everyone busy and occupied with what ever they like to dable in.
Player Interactions (clans, alliances, marriage, etc):
Having player interactions will be crucial to keeping older members active because it leaves room for growth and development as a group rather than alone.
Phase 2: Mechanics / Game Play
If you have strong looks and feel to your game, you will surely keep your members active with a strong game play. Don't let people tell you that game play alone can keep your members active and dedicated. This sadly is a false statement, I have seen many games with amazing game play but the looks and feel of the game fell short so it ultimately went stale with non active members.
Events
To prevent loss of members game play needs to be consistent and ever so changing. Meaning you need things like promotional areas, one time, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly events. Traditions and yearly storyline change. THIS will keep members alive and well because content will not stay the same so they will always need to be on their toes when it comes to remaining on the top of everything.
Gyms
All Pokemon games need their gym leaders, its what most people play Pokemon for anyways; unwavering NPC domination. While we steep in our silent glorified victories against gym leaders, we grow a lil closer to the Pokemon that helped us achieve what ever badge we were going for. So please don't be like other sites where each gym is like a walk in the park! I cant stress enough how un-fulfilling it is to be able to go fight against a gym with a few repetitive Pokemon at high levels to literally butt violate a gym leader, its as gross and lame as it sounds. So be different from the rest, make gyms harder than even traditional Pokemon games. Like add rules where you can only bring Pokemon that was originally owned by you, ban certain types from entering, make some gyms open only when the weather or time of day is in favor to them, have some gyms where the leader is a scum bag and only fights Pokemon not evolved. You know the little things.
Exploring
Ok this part I dont even need to mention because you as a player before dever should know that any game that has lame exploration system gets boring quick. So make it to where not all maps are a click away.
Members love the idea of finding out hidden and secret paths to share with others, its your job as their god to provide such possibility's, so do it.
Battles
Honestly I did not come online to click one move over and over till my enemies have reverted to their fetle states of despair.
Make it where a battle is something you want to avoid but if cant be avoided is fun. Meaning have it where using an attack actually takes away from an individual attacks power point (BRING back struggle). Have it where weather, abilities and Pokemon states effect an attack. Meaning if a Pokemon is flying or levitating, earthquake should not work.
Phase 3: Coding
Language Structure (OOP)
The language structure you should build this Pokemon game is object orientated as EVERYTHING about each pokemon is an object that can change on its own depending on other factors.
Some objects to consider are but not limited to: Pokemon (whole creature), Ability (this can hold functions of its own), each attack (each attack is one object because they all do different things.), stats (pokemon stats change and increase based on damage taken or attack / ability effects)
Languages (PHP, JS, CSS, AngularJs)
You can use really any OOP language, but me I prefer PHP for fast production, ruby would be easier and so would c# with delegation and event listeners but Node Js would be the most epic and amazing to use but would cost you allot more, as far as hosting goes. So far only php is cheaper and easier to maintain in my opinion.
I chose JS because we will need to use some innate java script functions.
Make sure when using css you will bundle it with a great responsive framwork. I am using bootstrap with mine.
Also note that you will spend a good first 2 weeks in your css files so make sure you know how to use sass and scss files to code css styles faster.
Angular JS will be your BEST friend for client side manipulation so learn it well.
Here is a check list of things to do for a v1 of your site.
TODO
- Create file structure
- Get resources (Pokemon sprites, Trainer Sprites, Item Sprites and all the data you can get your hands on)
- Organize resources
- Create database
- Create front page / Choose theme
- Create login page.
- Create member page.
- Create Pokemon obtain system.
- Create item system
- Create first promo system.
- Create fighting system (use classes specially for conditions such as weather and terrain)
- Create gym/Elite four system
- Create explore system
- Create Pokemon capture system
- Create storage system
- Create encounter system
- Create trade system
- Create buy / sell system
- Create release system
- Create event systems
- Create gambiling systems
- Create player interact systems
- Create forums
- Review till everything works properly
