Introduction
King Arthur and the Knights of Justice (KAATKOJ) is an old 90's cartoon show whose premise is a unique one. It takes place in a sci-fi/fantasy feudal England in the time of King Arthur, and where the castle of Camelot, Merlin and his magic, Arthur and the Knights- are all real. King Arthur and his knights are encased in a glass cave by the evil sorceress Queen Morgana. Merlin is left to defend Camelot all by himself. He is perfectly capable of doing that, but he cannot keep it up for all hours of the day. He needs to free King Arthur and his knights, but how?
In comes the VERY science fiction part of it. Merlin searches all through eternity for a suitable "temporary replacement" for King Arthur and his knights, and conveniently finds a team of football players from the future (presumably college football players, based on context clues given throughout the series) who seem to "fit the bill" for playing heroes in feudal times- I don't know what Merlin was thinking! Let me warn you, this is a cheesy children's television show from the 90's.
The name of the football team: Knights
The name of the team captain: Arthur King
Yeah- I know how cheesy it is. I warned you.
They are tasked with collecting the Keys of Truth (12, one for each Knight of Justice). After they successfully collect them, they would be able to use them to free the real King Arthur and go home to their own time.
Amazin' Adventures
When I was little, I was introduced to this show while channel surfing for Saturday morning cartoons. Nowadays the only channel surfing you do is on youtube. There was this program called "Amazin' Adventures" which didn't have its own programming, but introduced various shows (all within the realm of action/sci-fi/fantasy). These shows included, but were not limited to "Mighty Max", "Street Sharks", "Around the World in Eighty Dreams", and Saban's "Gulliver's Travel."
I liked KAATKOJ. There was a lot of action, different knights with powers, and the show made me think (aspects of time traveling and logistics of magic). So, for a young child with an imagination, it was quite fun. I find that the Knights having different powers provide something similar to what I call the "Power Ranger Effect." This is the effect of popularity of a children's television show based on similar attributes or characteristics across characters or creatures of a show, but they behave in a consistent way within the universe it is set up in. Examples: Ronin Warriors with their elemental attributes and virtue associations. Pokémon with their type classifications and attacks. Power Rangers with their colors and their large mechs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with their colors and weapons. For some reason, kids REALLY love this sort of thing.
Recent Acquisition
I recently obtained the entire series of this show, KAATKOJ, from Amazon. I wouldn't have even known it existed if I didn't exchange Child's Play Charity donations with my friend Duy (we do it as Christmas gifts, because gift exchanges aren't very easy across three time zones).
So, I buy it because it's the entire series and I have always wondered if the knights ever make it home... and I watch it all. There were 2 seasons of 13 episodes each were broken down into 3 DVDs, and even at the end of all those episodes, the series is unfortunately incomplete. Despite the terrible cheesiness and possibly low production values, I was genuinely sad about this discovery.
Drinking Game
Despite the conclusion of the series, I can't end on a depressing note. There are quite a bit of terrible and cheesy things about this show... and that is why it would make an awesome drinking game!
Basic Rules (simple to catch)
- Every time Arthur says "Excalibur, be my strength!"
- Every time the knights suit up from the round table
- Every time they find a Key of Truth
- Every time Arthur goes to do something bold and/or stupid by himself
- Every time Merlin mentions turning something into a toad
- Every time a character's voice doesn't sound like it did in the previous episode
- Every time someone makes a football reference on the field of battle
- BONUS: Chug when all the characters are chanting "Knights, knights, knights..."
Expert Rules (requires more brainpower while drinking)
- Every time you see text in a different font
- Every time there is a visual plot discontinuity (but Arthur's cape is currently ON him)
- Every time there is an editing mishap (no music during the transformation scene)
- Every time there is an illogical personality quirk (why does Arthur call his friend "Sir"?)
- Every time Arthur yells something illogical during the heat of battle
Showing posts with label Pokemon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pokemon. Show all posts
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Collectible Card Games: Helping the Community with Basic Strategy
The Beginning
For those of you who couldn't tell, I've been playing collectible card games for a long time (sometimes referring to them as "children's card games" thanks to Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged). Back when I was 8 years old in the year 1993; Magic the Gathering came out and it immediately became a popular hit. I had heard all about it but I had no idea how to play. All my friends had cards and I felt left out for a while. It wasn't until later that year or early the next year (around winter~ish time), would I get to go to a mall where they held a card show (not a large one- but it would be the one that changed my life). I bought my first starter deck of Magic cards (well before the advent of "Theme Deck" packaging) at this particular show. It was $9 I think for 60 Ice Age MTG cards. Later that week, I proceeded to teach myself how to play by reading the fine print in the small rule booklet. Most young 8-year-olds wouldn't do any reading, much less learn how to play, what was then, a very difficult game. Since then, I was fascinated by card games.
The Present
Once a week, usually on a Thursday, I go play children's card games at my local anime store (called HammerGirl Anime). There's a larger, more dedicated hobby shop nearby (seriously less than a mile away) called Millennium Games and Hobbies. Millennium is everything you could ever want in a hobby shop. It's big, plenty of play space, plenty of product offerings, cool people and weekly events (daily if you play all the games they hold events for!). However, the one large reason why I don't like playing there- it's because of the player base. The people who go to Millennium are hardcore gamers that fall into the typical demographic of male between the ages of 15 and 30. You'll see some deviation to that, but not much. I don't really play much at Millennium.
Millennium's Environment and Community
Most of the guys who play there, they've been playing strategy games since they were young. So to say that they're hardcore gamers (not necessarily of the video game variety), is quite an understatement. Some of them even participate in the extremely high profile gaming tournaments there. This type of environment breeds intense competition, and even though there are many nice players with great sportsmanship- there are those players who certainly are not great sportsmen. You can't really blame the establishment, because it's a great facility. These type of people are really just a by product of the type of environment they have have come to foster there. Because of the experience and nature of this environment, basic strategy is generally taken for granted. Everyone knows what to do given a set of situations for (relatively) optimal game play decisions. It's a good challenge to play there- but I would never want to play there with random people casually (tournament fee or otherwise).
Hammergirl's Environment
Cut to the Anime store. Currently the big game I play at the Anime store each week is Pokemon: Trading Card Game. It has had a long and changing history (a topic of another essay perhaps- one that I will not write because I am not completely familiar with it), but eventually it came to the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl expansions which made the game good again. The environment here is a little different. A long time ago when it was first started (by a friend of mine), there was one two hour session on Wednesdays. After so many months of running- the word spread and it got much more popular. The store's quarters were much smaller- so it ended up becoming so crowded that they created another session on Thursdays. Why did it fill up? Well, there are college-aged students who play- and run the events each week. But the similarity to Millennium really ends there. There are young children who come to play (as young as 5-years-old), and event some of their parents play too! This environment is much more casual and relaxed- where the attitude to have fun is much more prevalent than winning. We also wouldn't want to se a bad example for the kids, would we?
Hammergirl's Community
The community of Pokemon players is much more diverse, as you tend to see young kids, their parents, girls and boys. But since the atmosphere is more general, the average player tends to have less experience and less knowledge of general "best practices" than those of seasoned gamers who either learn it themselves, or learned from others playing games in the past.
Deck Clinic
These are the general best practices that apply for many collectible card games, but it is not evident to the casual gaming community. I recently have earned a reputation for "Deck Clinics". I stole the phrase from an old column called "Deck Clinic" from my favorite, old (and dead) CCG magazine called Scrye. The purpose of the article was to improve a Magic deck sent in from a reader. So basically what I do is sit down with the "patient" and look through their deck. I try to give advice to improve the deck for the casual player. I'm not the most familiar with the available card base and cannot provide specific card names that would be "perfect" because of that unfamiliarity. However, I have found that it tends to help the patient's deck if you give them general advice and tips/tricks for constructing and playing their decks- it usually ends up being better because their card pool is limited. Kids and college students don't have money, and parents are reluctant to spend money until they have all the card for decks- so I find that general advice is the best.
Basic Collectible Card Game Strategy
There are many general concepts for collectible card game strategies, and even more specific ones for each CCG. But most of these principles will hold true for most CCGs with a direct objective and straight forward play styles.
Card Advantage
The first and most basic thing all CCG players should understand is card advantage. It doesn't necessarily mean that you should have more cards than your opponents- that's not what it means. It means that you are able to have more options at your disposal. This is usually maximized with a combination of card drawing and deck thinning.
Deck Thinning
The more cards that you use to remove cards from your deck during gameplay- the better. Why? The simple answer is statistics. This is good because it will reduce the number of cards in deck. The cards that are taken out of your deck are usually put in hand, played or removed and are typically less powerful cards (as being able to search and remove powerful cards isn't as easy/prevalent in CCGs). This leaves all the good/more powerful cards in your deck. Combine this with Card Drawing to increase the odds of drawing that next card you need to win.
Card Drawing
The more cards you draw- the more options you have because you could draw more resources or useful cards. It also acts as a less directed form of deck thinning. General rule of thumb- card drawing is good.
Resource Acceleration
Whatever mechanisms in the game exist for cost- there might be a way to increase your resources and/or card plays each turn. The usual flow of the game will follow a typical path/number of card plays per turn as the game progressing (depending on play style and card mechanics available). If there is a way to increase the available resources and/or card plays per turn as the game progresses (especially if it deviates from the normal "tempo" of gameplay), that buys you significant advantages against your opponent(s) who cannot match or counter your strategy.
"Tempo"
This is a phrase that I coined myself for describing the state of the typical flow of the game. The general idea, is if you are doing something to maintain a position to have more usable options than your opponent(s) at any given time, you are increasing your tempo. Idle time, unused resources and other similar inefficiencies, lower your tempo. If you are more reactive to your opponent, you tend to have low tempo because you are waiting to use your options against something. If you are proactive (or even pre-emptive) towards your opponent, you have high tempo because you are presumably playing something that either gives you more options and/or increases your position/decreases your opponents' position. If each turn you can play something, that keeps your tempo high- where if you have renewing resources that go unused, that's undesirable wastefulness. The more you apply pressure on your opponent and make them be reactive, you are dictating the tempo of the game ("tempo" can be seen in other games such as chess). This is a controlling factor that isn't easily measurable, but any card player can admit that it is a part of many CCGs.
Card Quality
Each card has specific mechanics that interact with the game state somehow. The more mechanics it interacts with, the more options you'll typically have with it. Examine the mechanic(s), and see how much it affects the game. If it's some obscure card that affects one other card- it's pretty useless unless it's in a deck that abuses a combo. Look for cards that are strictly redundant- cards that are useless because there is a better card that is completely better than it in any way. In which case- only use the better card if possible. Basically the more options, abilities, interactive mechanics a card has, the better quality of card it will be. If it supports one of the above strategies, it is also a decent card. Each card is functionally unique, but can be classified with other cards that provide a similar function. But the more interaction and versatility, the better it is. Use these guidelines to determine which cards are good, and which ones are bad.
Deck Construction
First thing about this, is keep the deck slim and trim. Because the more cards you have, the less focused your strategy is. Just put the cards that are the cream of the crop- and card drawing/deck thinning will work its magic (pun intended!).
The next thing to think about in deck construction is card quality. For most casual players, they will only have their own limited card pool to work with. You must determine which properties of cards are valuable in your deck building strategy (this will change with game and deck play styles). Any cards that are mediocre and/or has limited options for its cost should not be considered if better options exist. Problem with this is that sometimes you must consider some lesser options to be able to give the deck the ability to balance/maintain the other strategies (tempo/card drawing/deck thinning).
Constructed Deck "Synergy"/Troubleshooting Your Own Deck
All of the above strategies to combine to provide something I refer to as "deck synergy". This is the ultimate measure of performance for a deck. How consistently well does it play? You can evaluate for yourself by asking yourself any number of questions about the deck.
- Do you have enough cards to play? Do you have too many cards you can't play?
- Do you have enough resources to play cards at the right time? Do you even get the right cards at the right time?
- Do you notice the deck doesn't do anything early/late in the game?
- Do you always find yourself trying to "keep up" or "catch up" with your opponent?
- Do you see a card (combination) that doesn't work so well or just sticks out like a sore thumb in your deck?
If you answered negatively to any of these questions, you can improve your deck. But remember, there's no such thing as a "perfect deck" because if there was, the game wouldn't be worth playing. You could rectify the problems with your deck with any of the above concepts. It's usually a trade-off to balance all of these strategies. You just have to pick and choose which works best for that deck.
For those of you who couldn't tell, I've been playing collectible card games for a long time (sometimes referring to them as "children's card games" thanks to Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged). Back when I was 8 years old in the year 1993; Magic the Gathering came out and it immediately became a popular hit. I had heard all about it but I had no idea how to play. All my friends had cards and I felt left out for a while. It wasn't until later that year or early the next year (around winter~ish time), would I get to go to a mall where they held a card show (not a large one- but it would be the one that changed my life). I bought my first starter deck of Magic cards (well before the advent of "Theme Deck" packaging) at this particular show. It was $9 I think for 60 Ice Age MTG cards. Later that week, I proceeded to teach myself how to play by reading the fine print in the small rule booklet. Most young 8-year-olds wouldn't do any reading, much less learn how to play, what was then, a very difficult game. Since then, I was fascinated by card games.
The Present
Once a week, usually on a Thursday, I go play children's card games at my local anime store (called HammerGirl Anime). There's a larger, more dedicated hobby shop nearby (seriously less than a mile away) called Millennium Games and Hobbies. Millennium is everything you could ever want in a hobby shop. It's big, plenty of play space, plenty of product offerings, cool people and weekly events (daily if you play all the games they hold events for!). However, the one large reason why I don't like playing there- it's because of the player base. The people who go to Millennium are hardcore gamers that fall into the typical demographic of male between the ages of 15 and 30. You'll see some deviation to that, but not much. I don't really play much at Millennium.
Millennium's Environment and Community
Most of the guys who play there, they've been playing strategy games since they were young. So to say that they're hardcore gamers (not necessarily of the video game variety), is quite an understatement. Some of them even participate in the extremely high profile gaming tournaments there. This type of environment breeds intense competition, and even though there are many nice players with great sportsmanship- there are those players who certainly are not great sportsmen. You can't really blame the establishment, because it's a great facility. These type of people are really just a by product of the type of environment they have have come to foster there. Because of the experience and nature of this environment, basic strategy is generally taken for granted. Everyone knows what to do given a set of situations for (relatively) optimal game play decisions. It's a good challenge to play there- but I would never want to play there with random people casually (tournament fee or otherwise).
Hammergirl's Environment
Cut to the Anime store. Currently the big game I play at the Anime store each week is Pokemon: Trading Card Game. It has had a long and changing history (a topic of another essay perhaps- one that I will not write because I am not completely familiar with it), but eventually it came to the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl expansions which made the game good again. The environment here is a little different. A long time ago when it was first started (by a friend of mine), there was one two hour session on Wednesdays. After so many months of running- the word spread and it got much more popular. The store's quarters were much smaller- so it ended up becoming so crowded that they created another session on Thursdays. Why did it fill up? Well, there are college-aged students who play- and run the events each week. But the similarity to Millennium really ends there. There are young children who come to play (as young as 5-years-old), and event some of their parents play too! This environment is much more casual and relaxed- where the attitude to have fun is much more prevalent than winning. We also wouldn't want to se a bad example for the kids, would we?
Hammergirl's Community
The community of Pokemon players is much more diverse, as you tend to see young kids, their parents, girls and boys. But since the atmosphere is more general, the average player tends to have less experience and less knowledge of general "best practices" than those of seasoned gamers who either learn it themselves, or learned from others playing games in the past.
Deck Clinic
These are the general best practices that apply for many collectible card games, but it is not evident to the casual gaming community. I recently have earned a reputation for "Deck Clinics". I stole the phrase from an old column called "Deck Clinic" from my favorite, old (and dead) CCG magazine called Scrye. The purpose of the article was to improve a Magic deck sent in from a reader. So basically what I do is sit down with the "patient" and look through their deck. I try to give advice to improve the deck for the casual player. I'm not the most familiar with the available card base and cannot provide specific card names that would be "perfect" because of that unfamiliarity. However, I have found that it tends to help the patient's deck if you give them general advice and tips/tricks for constructing and playing their decks- it usually ends up being better because their card pool is limited. Kids and college students don't have money, and parents are reluctant to spend money until they have all the card for decks- so I find that general advice is the best.
Basic Collectible Card Game Strategy
There are many general concepts for collectible card game strategies, and even more specific ones for each CCG. But most of these principles will hold true for most CCGs with a direct objective and straight forward play styles.
Card Advantage
The first and most basic thing all CCG players should understand is card advantage. It doesn't necessarily mean that you should have more cards than your opponents- that's not what it means. It means that you are able to have more options at your disposal. This is usually maximized with a combination of card drawing and deck thinning.
Deck Thinning
The more cards that you use to remove cards from your deck during gameplay- the better. Why? The simple answer is statistics. This is good because it will reduce the number of cards in deck. The cards that are taken out of your deck are usually put in hand, played or removed and are typically less powerful cards (as being able to search and remove powerful cards isn't as easy/prevalent in CCGs). This leaves all the good/more powerful cards in your deck. Combine this with Card Drawing to increase the odds of drawing that next card you need to win.
Card Drawing
The more cards you draw- the more options you have because you could draw more resources or useful cards. It also acts as a less directed form of deck thinning. General rule of thumb- card drawing is good.
Resource Acceleration
Whatever mechanisms in the game exist for cost- there might be a way to increase your resources and/or card plays each turn. The usual flow of the game will follow a typical path/number of card plays per turn as the game progressing (depending on play style and card mechanics available). If there is a way to increase the available resources and/or card plays per turn as the game progresses (especially if it deviates from the normal "tempo" of gameplay), that buys you significant advantages against your opponent(s) who cannot match or counter your strategy.
"Tempo"
This is a phrase that I coined myself for describing the state of the typical flow of the game. The general idea, is if you are doing something to maintain a position to have more usable options than your opponent(s) at any given time, you are increasing your tempo. Idle time, unused resources and other similar inefficiencies, lower your tempo. If you are more reactive to your opponent, you tend to have low tempo because you are waiting to use your options against something. If you are proactive (or even pre-emptive) towards your opponent, you have high tempo because you are presumably playing something that either gives you more options and/or increases your position/decreases your opponents' position. If each turn you can play something, that keeps your tempo high- where if you have renewing resources that go unused, that's undesirable wastefulness. The more you apply pressure on your opponent and make them be reactive, you are dictating the tempo of the game ("tempo" can be seen in other games such as chess). This is a controlling factor that isn't easily measurable, but any card player can admit that it is a part of many CCGs.
Card Quality
Each card has specific mechanics that interact with the game state somehow. The more mechanics it interacts with, the more options you'll typically have with it. Examine the mechanic(s), and see how much it affects the game. If it's some obscure card that affects one other card- it's pretty useless unless it's in a deck that abuses a combo. Look for cards that are strictly redundant- cards that are useless because there is a better card that is completely better than it in any way. In which case- only use the better card if possible. Basically the more options, abilities, interactive mechanics a card has, the better quality of card it will be. If it supports one of the above strategies, it is also a decent card. Each card is functionally unique, but can be classified with other cards that provide a similar function. But the more interaction and versatility, the better it is. Use these guidelines to determine which cards are good, and which ones are bad.
Deck Construction
First thing about this, is keep the deck slim and trim. Because the more cards you have, the less focused your strategy is. Just put the cards that are the cream of the crop- and card drawing/deck thinning will work its magic (pun intended!).
The next thing to think about in deck construction is card quality. For most casual players, they will only have their own limited card pool to work with. You must determine which properties of cards are valuable in your deck building strategy (this will change with game and deck play styles). Any cards that are mediocre and/or has limited options for its cost should not be considered if better options exist. Problem with this is that sometimes you must consider some lesser options to be able to give the deck the ability to balance/maintain the other strategies (tempo/card drawing/deck thinning).
Constructed Deck "Synergy"/Troubleshooting Your Own Deck
All of the above strategies to combine to provide something I refer to as "deck synergy". This is the ultimate measure of performance for a deck. How consistently well does it play? You can evaluate for yourself by asking yourself any number of questions about the deck.
- Do you have enough cards to play? Do you have too many cards you can't play?
- Do you have enough resources to play cards at the right time? Do you even get the right cards at the right time?
- Do you notice the deck doesn't do anything early/late in the game?
- Do you always find yourself trying to "keep up" or "catch up" with your opponent?
- Do you see a card (combination) that doesn't work so well or just sticks out like a sore thumb in your deck?
If you answered negatively to any of these questions, you can improve your deck. But remember, there's no such thing as a "perfect deck" because if there was, the game wouldn't be worth playing. You could rectify the problems with your deck with any of the above concepts. It's usually a trade-off to balance all of these strategies. You just have to pick and choose which works best for that deck.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Pokemon Birth, Evolution and Documentation (Case Study: Nidoran)
By: Nam Ngo
Copyright January 2010
(NOTE: This article is food for thought and for entertainment only.)
I recently sat down with my friend Shannon at our local coffee shop- it's become a routine every Saturday- and had our usual random tangent chats. The paths we usually take are related to nerdy/geeky things (of course not limited to that, but that's where they usual go). She and I are fans of Pokemon- not ridiculous crazy fans (well, I'm not- she's played so many more of them that I have!), but fans enough to know what they are, play the card game and familiar with at least the first 150 (or 151!) Pokemon.
Pokemon and Their Birth
Have you noticed that since the first batch of 150 Pokemon there have been a ton more Pokemon? For those of you who have been out of the Pokemon scene for a while, according to the Official Online Pokedex, there are 493 different Pokemon. Yeah. Believe it. There's almost 19 times more Pokemon than letters in the alphabet. And I bet you that there are some little kids out there that must know their Pokemon and probably don't know the entire alphabet yet.
Back in the day, it was simple. "This [Pokemon] evolves into that [Pokemon]" and so forth. Since then, there has been the introduction of baby Pokemon. Pokemon that are found in the wild are considered basic/regular/normal Pokemon. Higher level evolutions are Stage 1 or Stage 2 evolutions of Pokemon (depending on how many evolutions away from the basic one it is). Then there are baby Pokemon. These have been obtained only because of Pokemon breeding.
So my first question is: how do many Pokemon come into existence in the first place if there's a baby evolution form? How do normal Pikachus come into existence? Are female Pikachus pregnant and have a little of other Pikachus? Why are they not born as the baby evolution Pichu?
What about "wild" legendary Pokemon? Many of the legendary birds in the first 150 Pokemon are born from eggs. What put the eggs there in the first place? It's not a mystery to figure out where Mewtwo came from because we all concede that he was a Pokemon created in a laboratory (the motivations for why was to create a living, enhanced replica of Mew- but that's not the topic of this article). Back to the legendary birds, how do the eggs come into existence? It's like the chicken and the egg problem here- except that we suspect our "chicken" eggs started out as an egg of something else and mutated/evolved into the current chicken eggs we know and love today! How did the legendary eggs come into existence in the first place? If there was a previous Pokemon of he same legendary kind, is it still considered legendary? So sure we have theories of evolution in our world- but Pokemon evolution works differently.
Pokemon and Their Evolution
In our world, evolutionary theory basically describes the changes as gradual changes through generations of offspring. Typically it was necessary to mutate/adapt to be able to best survive/use the environment. Why do Pokemon evolve? Some "level up" and become better than they were- in terms of strength, skills and abilities. So that's understandable. Is it because of necessity to survive in the wild or necessity because the people in the Pokemon-world force them to battle each other?
One question on my mind- how did the people in Pokemon know how to evolve certain Pokemon (the ones that required some sort of item, like a stone of some sort to evolve)? What possessed some Pokemon-world person to place a stone next to a Pokemon? I guess as great scientific discoveries occur, I'm sure the initial discovery was probably an accident, but how come all the resulting effects of evolution are inherently considered positive? Why are there not stones that randomly de-evolve types of Pokemon, or make them forget attacks or yield some negative effect? One would usually assume if there's a type of item that grants positive results that something similar could grant negative results as well? It seems to be lacking in the balance between Yin and Yang.
Pokemon and Their Documentation
I recently found out that in the newer Pokemon games that all the Pokemon you capture have a gender. So if you capture a Pikachu- it can be male or female. Okay- awesome. But what of Nidoran? For those even remotely familiar with the original 150 Pokemon, there was Nidoran (male) and Nidoran (female). They each counted separately in the original count of Pokemon (numbers 32 and 29 respectively). However, I feel that the male and female versions of Pokemon shouldn't count as separate Pokemon. No other Pokemon's genders are classified differently as separate Pokemon, so why should Nidoran?
From a game development stand point, I understand that it was probably easier to have different evolutionary paths separated for coding purposes/etc. But in the Pokemon-world, some could argue that there are different physical characteristics- okay. I understand that. But we have lions. Male and female lions have different physical characteristics- and yet they're both lions still. We don't separate the species of male and female lions. Some could also argue that the Nidorans have different evolutionary paths. While this is true, Eevee also has many different evolutionary paths (at least 8 I think!). You don't count male and female Eevees differently. Okay, you're probably wondering about the consistency in which the male evolves to Nidorino and female to Nidorina. I don't have an answer for this- but let me pose this question to you: perhaps it's the male/female version of the same Pokemon that some professor badly classified? Who knows. But I am essentially arguing that the first 150 Pokemon are actually the first 149 Pokemon, and that the total current number of Pokemon is 492 instead of 493.
The things that bother me about this is that the classification system is arbitrary. In the Pokemon-world, you might not be able to answer those questions about Pokemon birth and evolution that I have posed. However, as new Pokemon "discoveries" come along, they should change the classification system. Right now, the almighty Pokedex has the entire library of known Pokemon. How does it sort them? It can sort them by Pokemon name (which has a lot of usability), and by Pokemon number. If sorting by name, it makes sense, but if you want to see the Pokemon evolutions, the name might not be best thing to sort by. Number is almost useless except in the situation of when you want to see the evolution of the Pokemon- except in the case of baby Pokemon. Pikachu evolves into Raichu and have Pokemon numbers 25 and 26. Pichu, the baby evolution of Pikachu, is number 172. With the Pokedex, you can easily see the evolutionary chain- but why is the number so important? It is all but useless (perhaps except to determine when it was "discovered" in relation to other Pokemon). And you can't even scroll through any organization to see all the associated evolutions conveniently- you have to know which Pokemon you want to inspect! This is more of a criticism of the Pokedex user interface design, but you can only look at one Pokemon's details at a time.
I was telling my roommate Rob about this article, and he thinks that there should be a taxonomy of Pokemon organization to more easily organize/view them. I tend to agree. At the end of the day, if you like Pokemon, you're still going to play- but they can really do a lot to improve the organization of Pokemon.
Copyright January 2010
(NOTE: This article is food for thought and for entertainment only.)
I recently sat down with my friend Shannon at our local coffee shop- it's become a routine every Saturday- and had our usual random tangent chats. The paths we usually take are related to nerdy/geeky things (of course not limited to that, but that's where they usual go). She and I are fans of Pokemon- not ridiculous crazy fans (well, I'm not- she's played so many more of them that I have!), but fans enough to know what they are, play the card game and familiar with at least the first 150 (or 151!) Pokemon.
Pokemon and Their Birth
Have you noticed that since the first batch of 150 Pokemon there have been a ton more Pokemon? For those of you who have been out of the Pokemon scene for a while, according to the Official Online Pokedex, there are 493 different Pokemon. Yeah. Believe it. There's almost 19 times more Pokemon than letters in the alphabet. And I bet you that there are some little kids out there that must know their Pokemon and probably don't know the entire alphabet yet.
Back in the day, it was simple. "This [Pokemon] evolves into that [Pokemon]" and so forth. Since then, there has been the introduction of baby Pokemon. Pokemon that are found in the wild are considered basic/regular/normal Pokemon. Higher level evolutions are Stage 1 or Stage 2 evolutions of Pokemon (depending on how many evolutions away from the basic one it is). Then there are baby Pokemon. These have been obtained only because of Pokemon breeding.
So my first question is: how do many Pokemon come into existence in the first place if there's a baby evolution form? How do normal Pikachus come into existence? Are female Pikachus pregnant and have a little of other Pikachus? Why are they not born as the baby evolution Pichu?
What about "wild" legendary Pokemon? Many of the legendary birds in the first 150 Pokemon are born from eggs. What put the eggs there in the first place? It's not a mystery to figure out where Mewtwo came from because we all concede that he was a Pokemon created in a laboratory (the motivations for why was to create a living, enhanced replica of Mew- but that's not the topic of this article). Back to the legendary birds, how do the eggs come into existence? It's like the chicken and the egg problem here- except that we suspect our "chicken" eggs started out as an egg of something else and mutated/evolved into the current chicken eggs we know and love today! How did the legendary eggs come into existence in the first place? If there was a previous Pokemon of he same legendary kind, is it still considered legendary? So sure we have theories of evolution in our world- but Pokemon evolution works differently.
Pokemon and Their Evolution
In our world, evolutionary theory basically describes the changes as gradual changes through generations of offspring. Typically it was necessary to mutate/adapt to be able to best survive/use the environment. Why do Pokemon evolve? Some "level up" and become better than they were- in terms of strength, skills and abilities. So that's understandable. Is it because of necessity to survive in the wild or necessity because the people in the Pokemon-world force them to battle each other?
One question on my mind- how did the people in Pokemon know how to evolve certain Pokemon (the ones that required some sort of item, like a stone of some sort to evolve)? What possessed some Pokemon-world person to place a stone next to a Pokemon? I guess as great scientific discoveries occur, I'm sure the initial discovery was probably an accident, but how come all the resulting effects of evolution are inherently considered positive? Why are there not stones that randomly de-evolve types of Pokemon, or make them forget attacks or yield some negative effect? One would usually assume if there's a type of item that grants positive results that something similar could grant negative results as well? It seems to be lacking in the balance between Yin and Yang.
Pokemon and Their Documentation
I recently found out that in the newer Pokemon games that all the Pokemon you capture have a gender. So if you capture a Pikachu- it can be male or female. Okay- awesome. But what of Nidoran? For those even remotely familiar with the original 150 Pokemon, there was Nidoran (male) and Nidoran (female). They each counted separately in the original count of Pokemon (numbers 32 and 29 respectively). However, I feel that the male and female versions of Pokemon shouldn't count as separate Pokemon. No other Pokemon's genders are classified differently as separate Pokemon, so why should Nidoran?
From a game development stand point, I understand that it was probably easier to have different evolutionary paths separated for coding purposes/etc. But in the Pokemon-world, some could argue that there are different physical characteristics- okay. I understand that. But we have lions. Male and female lions have different physical characteristics- and yet they're both lions still. We don't separate the species of male and female lions. Some could also argue that the Nidorans have different evolutionary paths. While this is true, Eevee also has many different evolutionary paths (at least 8 I think!). You don't count male and female Eevees differently. Okay, you're probably wondering about the consistency in which the male evolves to Nidorino and female to Nidorina. I don't have an answer for this- but let me pose this question to you: perhaps it's the male/female version of the same Pokemon that some professor badly classified? Who knows. But I am essentially arguing that the first 150 Pokemon are actually the first 149 Pokemon, and that the total current number of Pokemon is 492 instead of 493.
The things that bother me about this is that the classification system is arbitrary. In the Pokemon-world, you might not be able to answer those questions about Pokemon birth and evolution that I have posed. However, as new Pokemon "discoveries" come along, they should change the classification system. Right now, the almighty Pokedex has the entire library of known Pokemon. How does it sort them? It can sort them by Pokemon name (which has a lot of usability), and by Pokemon number. If sorting by name, it makes sense, but if you want to see the Pokemon evolutions, the name might not be best thing to sort by. Number is almost useless except in the situation of when you want to see the evolution of the Pokemon- except in the case of baby Pokemon. Pikachu evolves into Raichu and have Pokemon numbers 25 and 26. Pichu, the baby evolution of Pikachu, is number 172. With the Pokedex, you can easily see the evolutionary chain- but why is the number so important? It is all but useless (perhaps except to determine when it was "discovered" in relation to other Pokemon). And you can't even scroll through any organization to see all the associated evolutions conveniently- you have to know which Pokemon you want to inspect! This is more of a criticism of the Pokedex user interface design, but you can only look at one Pokemon's details at a time.
I was telling my roommate Rob about this article, and he thinks that there should be a taxonomy of Pokemon organization to more easily organize/view them. I tend to agree. At the end of the day, if you like Pokemon, you're still going to play- but they can really do a lot to improve the organization of Pokemon.
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