Even if you don’t like how it looks, the process is interesting
Fan mockups, whether they’re just still art or a playable build (even for personal purposes), are fascinating. Full-on total conversions are perhaps the king of these types of projects, but even things like the below Pokemon Yellow 3D remake from YouTube channel Pokebro (spotted by Nintendo Life) are on the list too.
Starting with the challenge of “how hard can it be to make a 2D game in 3D in two weeks,” Pokebro managed to scrap this thing together in time. The first thing they did is import existing models for the main trainer (Red) and Pikachu: with the caveat that the latter’s model needed to be spruced up a bit (there was a big hole in its head that was covered by a dome).
From there, they had to program the Pikachu model to follow the trainer around, with an auto-battle system in place. Next comes recreating a select few environments (they reproduced up the first gym battle with Brock), and creating a spherical AI system of sorts that checks to see if there are Pokemon in Pikachu’s radius that it can battle.
The rest of the Pokemon were created by Pokebro (with proper HP bars), which interface with the main Pikachu model with the automatic battle system. Said system has Pikachu latch onto an enemy (denoted by an exclamation point above its head), battle them with electric and tackle animations, then return to the trainer.
Even if you don’t like the visual style, the process of how Pokebro programmed all of this stuff to work in concert is worth checking out at just a short four and a half minute runtime. If you’re interested in taking on a challenge of your own, you can find the trainer and Pikachu models at the aforementioned links.
