Part 48
Well guys, I had alot of fun doing this LP. The game was pretty bad at parts, but I had alot of laughs, and alot of surprises too. This was a blind playthrough, so I had as little a thought of what was coming as you guys, but previous experience with both Pokemon and the original game this was hacked off of made it so I didn't make TOO much of a fool of myself, I think.
This ending is pretty much perfect towards how I imagined it. Me and RedChocobo came up with this idea actually right after the first gym. He commented that this game was simply too terrible to actually exist in the "same world" as the real Pokemon games, and that maybe it's some sort of really bad dream Roxy was having. Somehow my mind came up with the whole "Ludicolo is pretty much the most Spanish-speaking of the Pokemon... let's have it be that", and the details ironed themselves out with a couple updates.
To be honest, I don't get how people wouldn't see that this thread would end badly. My little side story for RedChocobo's Crystal thread should have been a good indication that I liked a good plot twist/ bad end, and the little "nightmares" (or should I say, "realities?") Foxy experienced in Corna should have given some hints that things weren't as they seemed.
As for the fate of Foxy...? Well, I am a fan of tragedies but who knows? That lies to your imagination.
I'm not really sure what I'm going to do Let's Play-wise after this thread. I've gotten a bunch of suggestions (mainly of bad games because my suffering is apparently the driving force of this thread). I'm not really sure if I'll take a break for awhile and focus on my schoolwork, or maybe I'll jump right into something new sometime. I'm not really sure. I'm tempted to use the fact that my computer has a video capture card now to do a Video LP of maybe Red Steel, but I get the feeling my forte seems to be with screenshot threads. I'm open to suggestions, I suppose.
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Credits/ Acknowledgements:-RedChocobo: Great consultant and help throughout the thread. His art made the updates increase in quality by hundreds fold. His name suggestions were pretty much the best too and tended to be the oens that got in the most, so I think he probabally won in terms of "Glory Points" too (I'm not checking though). RedChocobo pioneered the whole "Pokemon LP" idea, and I hope I was able to at least get somewhere near the quality of his threads with this one. Can't wait to see what he's got coming up
-Drake Lake & Amber: Drake Lake and his girlfriend, Amber, provided alot of the art in my updates as well. Drake and Amber both were willing to do random stuff within short deadlines when I needed it, and the pieces that came out worked masterfully. Awesome stuff
-The Sezza & Amaya: You two provided some of my favorite random art in this thread. Sezza's drawings of Foxy and the gang are my favorite renditions of them really, and Amaya's cute-ifying of Baro's creations is awesome.
-Baro: I have to acknowledge the man simply for having created this, I suppose. It was quite the ride, no matter how you look at it. I remove my non-existant hat for you, sir.
Annddd since you've been waiting for it...
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Behind the Let's Play: Baro, The Inside Story
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Exclusive Interview yay! --This interview was something I had long wanted to do, but I didn't know how to actually get in contact with Baro. All attempts made through his emails on "Whack a Hack" lead to dead ends. However, it ends up that #pokegoons member LeftEddie found Baro's youtube account, featuring a few previews of Baro's upcomming hack and sequel to Quartz, called Pokemon Marble. Youtube accounts have a messenger ability, so I wrote a little request for an interview as 'forums writer'
This was my initial message to him:
I had the impression that, if Baro found this thread and the 'somewhat' mocking atmosphere we hold for his hack, he'd be opposed to such an interview. That notion was misguided; Baro agreed to the interview, even after connecting the dots (apparently we're one of the first results on google for "Pokemon Quartz" and "Baro"quote:
I am an interviewer/ writer for a series of articles located on a website group known as "SA". We recently discovered (somewhat late) your memorable hack, Pokemon Quartz, in our community. We are quite interested in meeting the man "behind the hack", so to speak, to see the influential process that went into it. We would like to conduct an interview if at all possible.
We are incredibly eager to see what makes you tick, and what ideas and work went into the astoundingly unforgettable hack you created. Please respond if you are interested. We have been working on a series of articles on the game, and would greatly like to include your personal details in it
I can be reached back here via YouTube messaging, or more directly contacted via AIM at TheCaptainAhab
- Awrfey "Zorak" Somethin,
SA Platinum Member and Forum Writer.
). The following interview took place shortly after the first "Elite Four" update.
i see london i see france i see baro kissing a bass oh wait that doesn't rhyme fuck
Zorak: Hello! I spoke to you via YouTube about doing an interview; what would be the best time for you?
Baro: Right now
Baro: for example
Zorak: Works for me
Baro: BTW, when you said SA I'd never though it was somwthing awful
Baro: I read the thread and fuck I lol'd hard
Zorak: Haha, well, that thread is all in good fun.
Baro: Yep
Baro: the best thing is that I agree with most of the stuff you say
Zorak says: Haha
Zorak says: I must say, though, people are really eager to hear the idea process behind Quartz
Zorak says: The new hack you're working on is looking amazing, as a note
Baro: It's slighty better than quartz
Zorak: It looks like quite the improvement at least from the clips so far
Baro: at least is not that creepy and my english emproved quite a lot
Baro: *improved
Zorak: Definitely. You can see how much better the language gets just in Quartz
Zorak: Early on it's rather rough but near the end mistakes are only occasional
Baro: After all, it took like 2 years to complete
Baro: The creepyness is less and less as you get to the end of the game, too
Zorak: Definitely
Baro: (although for Foxy, it will get worse )
Zorak: Ah yes, well, my artist compatriots plan on changing the plot a little in the end for our own uses hehe
Baro: hehe
Zorak says: Anyways, to get the basic formailities across, can you state your name (online name anyways), age, and nationality? We know it anyways but hey, can't beat formalities.
Baro: Baro, 18, Spain
Baro: Also, Baro comes from Alvaro which is my real name
Zorak says: Ah, makes sense. Your age is surprising; we thought largely that you were probabally older
Baro: nah
Baro: Me being 15 when I started Quartz explains a lot of things
Zorak: Haha, I suppose so. The hack is definitely well done for your age, in any case.
Zorak: Anyways, I might as well move into the questions
Zorak: What inspired you to start [Quartz]?
Baro: I just downloaded ruby and sapphire and discovered some people were modifying them
Baro: And you know, I'm the kind of person that is always creating stuff
Baro: so I wanted to make one of my own
Baro: at first I started spriting pokemon for another guy's hack, but when he abandoned the project i started quartz
Zorak: I see. What inspired the plot of Quartz? Was there anything in particular that led to Team Ambar's wild affection for electric Pokemon and chaos gods of some kind?
Baro: Nah, it was just something I made up from the original plot
Baro: a team of freaks want to do something for thei favorite type of pokemon's profit
Baro: Then though about what kind of pokémon they would use instead of team magma's fire type
Baro: and I chose electric. the "let's inflate the sun" thing was actually because in the original, groudon made the sun stronger, with the overheat weather in the overworld maps
Baro: So I though n something that would match that.
Zorak: I figured that was probabally the reason. I suppose that several of the game mechanics restrained the plot like that, correct?
Baro: Actually, I could have killed a lot of scripts and rewrite them so the story is something completely different
Baro: but I was learning as I was doing it
Baro: so I didn't want to mess with that
Baro: In fact, in marble, that's what I'm doing. Although I'm recycling a lot of stuff, I'm writing new scripts
Zorak: The two scripts that viewable on your youtube are really quite interesting, a definite improvement from Quartz', to say the least.
Zorak: What inspired you to do the romantic plot involving the female protagonist and J. Akira?
Zorak: Is J. Akira supposed to be anyone in particular? What inspired his design, physical and personality wise?
Baro: The will to add something? I dunno
Baro: And definitively, J. Akira is NOT based on me
Baro: The personality is a mock of Brok from the anime
Baro: but its appearance was totally random
Baro: Although some people have said he ressembles Bono from U2. ̄\(°_O)/̄
Zorak: You know, I was kind of wondering about that, he does look a little like Bono, and I don't even like U2
Baro: Neither do I
Zorak: What inspired some of the Pokemon's designs used in Quartz? They are certainly very unique compared to those used by Nintendo; what was the inspiration behind some of the more odd ones (Babos for instance)?
Baro: Making that many pokemon takes a lot of time, so I had to think about random definitions for pokémon. Babos (BTW I lol'd hard when I saw the nickname swap.bear) was though as "a fat, ugly pokémon with the ability to be very dangerously charming to the opposite gender despite its uglyness". The same for Osoe
Baro: Other Pokemon was just "think on an animal and do something from it"
Baro: For example, reabari is a nightingale, which in Spanish is called "ruyseñor" which in old Spanish would mean "Mister King", hence its crown
Zorak: Ah, I see. We noticed some of the other interesting name puns (Sever for instance), though it seems we missed others. Are there any others you can remember off hand, for instance?
Baro: Spig=speed pig, ayewiraz = zariweya (zarigüeya=some rat species that freetranslation.com translates as "opossum") backwards, Llamayama (from spanish llama=flame and japanese yama=mountain), gritespec from Spanish grito=scream, guiñette from Spanish guiñol=puppet, and some more
Baro: Most of them come from Spanish or Galician words, so in english they're not too obvious
Zorak: We have a few Spanish speakers reading (mainly from the Central/ South American countries so I'm sure there was some dialect issues), and they were wondering about the "Venito Bravecito", as I seem to recall was the title of the Poison gym leader (I apologize if I butchered that, my Spanish is terrible and I can't really remember what the title was); they had a bit of difficulty understanding that
Zorak: Was that a dialect thing likely?
Baro: Venenito bravecito, little brave poison. They may have not got the bravecito part because in south america they would just add -ito to "bravo" and get "bravito", but in Spaniard Spanish it'd be bravecito, although it's not a word that the people uses (nor is bravito). Explaining why would need some spanish morfology lessons and honestly, so I won't.
Baro: Anyways, when I played the hack after completing it I went WTF when I re-read that
Zorak: Haha, gotcha. Okay, more direct question: Why are the gym leaders/ E4 so Full Restore happy? Seriously man, ouch.
Baro: hahaha, because in the trainer data, you can put up to four items and I put four full restore to make the battles a bit harder
Baro: I can't modify the AI, so apart from the poke's levels, that was the best way
Zorak: Are you sure it's only four? I could have sworn these guys were using them more then four times. Though it could just be my memory being clouded by the pain, I suppose haha
Baro: Only four in the data, but god knows how does the game read that.
Zorak: One question quite a few readers asked me to ask you was if the Quartz Pokemon were going to appear again in your new game
Baro: some of them will
Baro: Others won't
Zorak: What ones do you think will carry over?
Baro: marble was first though to be the way to catch them all, so trading with quartz would let you get 386
Baro: but I decided not to put all the pokemon
Baro: because that's a lot of pokemon
Baro: So it'll have like 200~250 pokemon
Baro: And some of them will be from the ones in quartz, others from the ones that are in quartz but you can't see, and others are brand new
Baro: covolts (bugzapper) and its family will be instead of weedle, kakuna and beedrill
Baro: Bubel and scentbird instead of rattata
Baro: awhol and whola are there...
Baro: spingen and duosgen...
Baro: and actually only a few more from quartz
Baro: ah, copykatte and mimikat too
Zorak: Whola has a very interesting design. Am I about right that his design is basically a rather odd looking Duck-Slime with a Snake's fangs? I am pretty sure I'm not seeing things
Baro: It's just a sea monster with lips
Zorak: And snake fangs?
Baro: just fangs. I didn't think on particular fangs for that one
Zorak: Well, those are totally snake fangs and I'm standing by my assessment. Moving on: How did you make the sprites for Quartz?
Baro: Desing in a sheet of paper, paint shop pro and patience
Zorak: An unrelated question that I just remember that people wanted me to ask: is there a reason for the abundance of flying Pokemon in Corna? Is that a coincidence or did you just really like flying Pokemon?
Baro: Just coincidence
Baro: There actually a lot of bird pokemon
Baro: in ruby
Baro: and i added some more when changing the types of some
Baro: like burnco
Baro: but it's just coincidence
Zorak: Ah, I see. What is your favorite type then?
Baro: Dunno. Ice, maybe.
Baro: But actually I'm more fond on hacking pokemon than playing the actual game
Zorak: How many of the mainstream games have you played?
Baro: Red, Yellow, gold, cristal (in japanese, although I don't speak moonspeak), ruby, fire red and leaf green
Zorak: Which of them was your favorite?
Baro: Gold. Fire red was good but since it was a remake i didn't enjoy it as much as if it were a brand new story.
Zorak: Gold was my favorite actually as well. Too bad the additional league was just shoe-horned on without much content in Kanto. Ah well.
Baro: Yep, they cut out some stuff, like in cinnabar island or the safari
Zorak: One question someone just asked me to ask you was some clarification on a discrepency early on in the game
Zorak: J. Akira lives in the house labeled as the "Kabuchi" house. Is there some reason for this?
Zorak: Or is his full name J. Akira Kabuchi or something?
Baro: Yes it is
Zorak says: What does the J stand for?
Baro: Joseph
Baro: he says so when he introduces himself
Zorak: Ah, I must have forgot then. What inspired his name? Just random?
Baro: just random
Zorak: What is your favorite Pokemon design in Quartz?
Baro: gritespec, or koropul.
Zorak says: What is your least favorite?
Baro: osoe
Baro: That's some fucked up shit, dude
Baro: lol
Zorak says: Was there any reason behind the whole little "Quartztower" flight trick?
Baro: in other games, FLY is an unnecessary HM
Baro: you can finish the game without it
Baro: So I wanted it to be necessary this time
Baro: If i knew a way to enable fly to quartztower without reaching the city first, I'd do it
Zorak: I see. Makes sense. Personally I wish they'd just do away with Flash/ Mist Clear. Nobody likes those moves.
Baro: Yeah, and since ruby flash is just idiocy. you still can see around you and clear a cave without problems
Zorak: Definitely, though it's more time consuming
Baro: yeah
Zorak: What was with the king-wizard-stoner-whatever guy from the Castle in Quartz?
Baro: He's Kawa, a friend of mine on the internet. He's a romhacker/programmer too
Baro: Most side-characters are based on internet friends
Zorak: Which other ones were, out of curiosity?
Baro: José (aka green jacket man), Javier/cutu (from the trick house), guillermo (in polkadot town) and keat (in olimpic village)
Zorak: Do you have any plans on having any trainers/ characters from Quartz reappear in your new game?
Baro: The story of Marble happens 20 years after quartz
Baro: So although there are a lot of new characters, you'll see some
Baro: And now... HORROR, Ran (foxy) and J.Akira are MARRIED
Baro: and they HAVE A KID
Zorak: I REFUSE TO BELIEVE
Baro : which is your rival
Baro: HABEEB IT
Baro: I am there too, but although there are a pair of references, there are not many self-insertions. (although some of the ones you "found" in quartz are not right. PokéBAR, amBAR, garotao)
Zorak: Ehh, it's all in good fun anyway.
Baro: I know, I know
Zorak says: I have to wonder: Are there any big NAMES IN THE GROUND/ references that I've missed?
Baro: Hmmm... none, apart from RAN (the female rival if you chose the boy as your character) which was taken from Detective Conan.
Zorak: I suppose that about does it, as far as I can think of. Oh, one last question: What is your career path ahead of you? What do you plan on doing for a living?
Baro: I'll start a degree on computer science next month
Baro: I also play bass on a band, but I don't think I'd get to do that for a living
Zorak: I see. Well, best of luck to you. I'll probabally contact you again when the thread is done, and hell, maybe I'll buy you an account. It's been a real pleasure talking to you.
Baro: cool, because I'd join but I prefer to keep my ten bux
Postdiction: We've spoken a few times since on and off. He apparently really like the thread's "alternate" ending.
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But Wait, there's more! ---------Now Available: Pokemon Marble, Beta 1.1!
Click the image above to live the dream. The sequel to Pokemon Quartz, set 20 years after the original. Keep in mind, it's a beta, so expect bugs and probabally shortened gameplay (ie, not the whole game).
Coming soon... BARO: The Something Awful Forums Member, at a Let's Play Pokemon Quartz thread near you!Tommorow is going to be fun guys
And, I am happy to say, there will not be a void of Pokemon LPs in the forum... Prepare yourselves for...
Let's Play Pokemon FireRed, brought to you by REDCHOCOBO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
... Here's Baro's posts after he registered.
Baro posted:
Hello everybody.
First, thanks again to Zorak for buying me an account.
I must say, although I've already said it in the interview, that I actually enjoyed this thread A LOT. I know the english language was broken in the beginning of the hack... but all those misinterpretations picturing me as a sexual predatorwere ace. God I lol'd. I dunno what to say about the self insertions... there are many, yeah, but not as many as you "found". I was just for the lulz. But as you can see, the hack shows how I learn through the time. The begining is just shit, the first sprites are shit (I even have older, shittier, monstrous versions of some...), etc, but the end is... better? Better sprites and such.
The alternative ending was A-W-E-S-O-M-E. Seriously. I think I'm the person that laughed at this thread the most.
And well, I dunno what else to say about Quartz right now... ̄\(°_0)/̄
___________________
And well, as you know, I'm working on Marble, which is somewhat like a sequel to quartz. Clic my signature for beta 1.1 (if you have beta 1, this is a fixed version) Some of the pokemon are the same, but most are new, blah blah blah.
The most important thing is that it has proper english, although maybe not as muchpotential as quartz.
If anyone has any questions...
(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
Note: Someone bought him a Swap.bear Avatar at this pointBaro posted:
When editing trainers, you can give them up to 4 items. I put 4 full restore. I don't know how this affects the game exactly, maybe 4 full restore in the data means 16 usable full restore, or more frequencyKeyboard Fox posted:
Why have the full restore frequency set so high? Was it intentional to increase the difficulty, or just something you overlooked?
Baro posted:
Zodar posted:
Might I ask, Baro, did you edit any pokemon that weren't obtainable in Quartz (IE, pokemon that you intended to put in Marble)? And on this note, was Deoxys the source poke for Garotao (seeing as how they share a color scheme)?
Watching two year's work in progression was pretty cool, so thanks a bunch for making this, Baro, and for playing it, Zorak! Aside from the prominent creepiness, Quartz is probably one of the most competent romhacks I've ever seen.
There are currently some cool hacks like shiny gold (remake of gold) and naranja (based on the orange islands season in the anime), but before quartz, most hacks were "lol I put squirtle on route 101 ". Also, this was the ONLY pokemon hack to be completed. And yes, garotao is former deoxys.
As for the rest of pokemon that weren't obtainable in quartz, yes: there are 386 pokémon made by me inserted in quartz, and most of the ones you couldn't obtain (the ones I liked the most) are in marble (the starters, for instance).
Mizuti posted:
However, as many others have asked, is there any plan to get some better spriters on board? A lot of your creatures could use new shading, proportions, or even a revamp proper.
I won't. I like how they look (the ones I like, I mean. For example, those you can see in marble). I like the shading: cartoon like, with "no light coming from anywhere". Just shading that gives a little 3d-effect
Volatile Penguin posted:
What are some of your favorite Pokemon you designed for Quartz?
I like plug-oink and Sever.
And thanks to whoever bought me the avatar. I'd prefer not having swap.bear there, but at least is not that annoying stupid newbie thing.
Baro posted:
RiffRaff1138 posted:
Meanwhile, I've only just reached Black Village...
Baro, if you're still around, this has been bugging me for a good part of the game... What exactly did you think "paranoia" meant when you were making Quartz? You kept using that word in strange contexts that made no sense, and I can't figure out what you were actually trying to say.
Also, Jose keeps calling the player "'illo". What does that mean?
Paranoia is used by many people around me IRL (specially Kacho) as "weird stuff", "nonsense".
'llo is because Jose is from Andalusia (south of Spain), and that's something that they say a lot. It's like if someone makes a scottish character that keeps saying "hey laddie!"
... you may have noticed Baro was banned for his first post awhile after he posted it. Reason? Well... a certain word beginning with L and ending in z, which became bannable. It wasn't much of a loss.Baro posted:
Pompeille posted:
So Baro, I can't quite remember if you answered this already or not, but do you have any specific plans for Marble that you'd be willing to give us an idea of? Are you going to be sticking with the basic plot of FR/LG or making one up? Any inflating of the sun? Or perhaps injecting the moon with cherry filling?
No sun inflating.
Where I posted marble I subtitled it "the long life". The glass army (the bad guys) are chasing the source of eternal youth: a Pokémon whose kiss stops [biological] time. Remember baro being hundreds of years old but looking as a 18yo boy? 20 years after quartz, only his hair changed. He isn't immortal, but he doesn't age. The plot is all about that.
Apart from that, the plot won't be built over the original in FR (except that first appearance of glass army is in former MT. MOON, but well...)
And so, this thread, this story, came to an end. I thank you for reading this archived rendition of it. I hope you enjoyed it. Make sure to check out the other archived Let's Plays here in the Let's Play Archive.