Make and Create your own Pokémon game

Intrigued by the image above. Well, if you are reading this hub, then you should be! The image above is a minute taster of what can be done with a Pokémon game. You can change practically anything, required you have the time and patience. You can 'edit' (most people prefer to call it hacking) any of the Pokémon games available for Game Boy Advance, however I find that it is easier to 'edit' Pokémon FireRed or LeafGreen. So, let's begin...

The first thing that you will want to decide is what you plan to change in your current Pokémon game. As I have already mentioned, you can change anything in the game. If you don't have a lot of time on your hands, then I would recommend adding a new map and new NPC's into the game. However, if you have all the time in the world, then you should just go all out and create a virtually brand new game with the starting game (FireRed, Ruby etc.) as a foundation.

Once you have decided what you're going to edit, it's time to get the essential programs. There are numerous programs needed to edit the overall game, so I will provide details about the programs and links to them when they come up. However, you will need a program which you can play GBA files on; I recommend Visual Boy Advance (VBA) or No$Gba (however No$Gba is based at playing NDS games). Also, don't forget to download a Pokémon ROM as it is essential to continue.

• Visual Boy Advance Download
• No$Gba Download

Required programs -

• Advance Map

I am going to start with the easiest part of creating a Pokémon game; editing and adding maps. For those of you that don't know, a map is what you walk on, most of the game is actually played on maps. So, it would be a very good thing to actually change them, if you want to create an entirely new game.

So the first thing you will want to do is to download Advance Map and open it. Once it is open you will want to Open your ROM, to do this either click on File - Load ROM or click on the GBA cartridge with an arrow pointing diagonally right. Once your ROM is open, you will need to find which map you wish to change. As I am using a FireRed ROM directions may be slightly different to Ruby, Sapphire or Emerald ROMs. To open current maps select 'From Header' (from the list below the GBA cartridges), then select whichever area (the area is where there are several maps under one name e.g. Pallet Town has 5 different maps, the town, your house (2 floors - 2 maps), your rival's house and Prof. Oak's lab), for this example I am going to use Pallet Town. After you have opened the area folder, open the first map. To do this, just double click the name. Now you should be presented with your first real map. The first thing that you should take into account is the collection of images on the right hand side. These images are what are currently being used in the map. To change any part of the map just click on an image on the right hand side and click on the map to place it. I would just recommend changing the houses into caves for now, just to let you try out the software. The reason that I am telling you to only change the houses is because an event takes place on the map. If you put an image over the top of the event then the event will just cancel any effects out and will make it look silly and unprofessional (unless used with the right images).