awesome pokemon fangames

I *LOVE* derivative works and the pokemon fan community has a whole boatload of awesome romhacks and fangames.

Q: What is a ROM hack? A: It's kind of like a game mod. Someone takes a computer rom ("Read-Only Memory")--basically just a computer copy of an existing, official Pokemon game (usually Fire Red or Ruby)--and makes changes to the code and files to create something new. Like, you could change all the maps in the game and make a whole new region! Or just turn all the Pokemon into cupcakes. :P Pokemon "fangames" may be very similar to this, just not strictly built on an existing Pokemon game. For example, some fangames are built in the game engine RPGMaker.

Screenshot from Pokemon Shuckle     Title Screen from Pokemon Dark Rising     Screenshot from Pokemon Infinite Fusion

    Pokemon Shuckle                   Pokemon Dark Rising               Pokemon Infinite Fusion

games I've played:

games I want to play:

similar stuff

So, sometimes there are formally published games that are very clearly HEAVILY inspired by Pokemon, but are juuust different enough to escape (most) legal boundaries. How much these are "fangames" versus "distinct derivative works that can stand on their own" is up for debate.
Some pretty famous examples that you might actually find on videogame store shelves include Temtem, Nexomon, and Palworld.

misc.



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