I know you love Game Jams and competitions as much as me, which is why I couldn't resist talking about the TARC 3, or Team Aqua's ROMhacking Competition. Submissions have been coming in, and there's one that has really caught my eye with an exciting, slightly mad narrative.
In Pokémon Wild Indigo, gamers play as a space trucker. Ok, that's unusual for a Pokémon game, I'll give you that, but it gets even better. You've been trapped on a mysterious planet and must study all of the plants, secrets, and Pokémon found on the planet in order to make sense of the mystery.
I love ROM hacks with interesting mechanics like these, especially when they're so inventive. According to the hacks creator, dblue, there are both regional Pokémon and fakemon to pick up through this game, and there are lots of changes to the existing Pokémon's stats and types. It sounds like there's a reasonable level of difficulty to the game, with players needing to explore a lot and chat to a 'silly little robot' at intervals.
I get a feel of Dragonyhm from the description in the sense that there are lots of puzzles to solve throughout this hack. Writing on the project's page, dblue says that there's definitely inspiration taken from games like Outer Wilds and of course the golden age of GBA Pokémon games (this is a Pokémon Emerald ROM hack, after all).
I get a strong feel of Pikmin when I see this game too, as if I were playing a GBA demake of the game. I think that's just because the characters look small like Captain Olimar and the subject matter is kind of similar, but it's definitely a compliment and not a complaint!
You can head to Hackdex to patch Pokémon Wild Inigo onto your legally acquired ROM Of Pokémon Emerald.
