People, Pokémon and signs
Villagers, nurses, shop clerks, the Day Care, Pokémon standing on the map, wild battles, raid dens, signs, items, berry trees and obstacles.
Select the People layer (8). At the top of the panel, Add to the map has five tabs:
| Tab | What a click places |
|---|---|
| Person | A villager, trainer, nurse, Poké Mart clerk or Day Care lady. |
| Pokémon | A Pokémon standing on the map, to talk to, to battle, or as a raid den. |
| Sign | An invisible sign visitors can read. A sign post is drawn on the tile if nothing is there yet. |
| Item | An item ball, an item hidden on the ground, or a berry tree. |
| Obstacle | A small tree, a cracked rock or a boulder, cleared with a field move. |
Pick a tab, then click an empty tile. The new one opens for editing right away. Click anyone on the map to edit them, and drag to move them. On this map lists everyone with a tag for their role, like trainer, nurse, Poké Mart or wild · Lv 30.
While editing, the arrow goes back to the list and the trash button removes them. The tabs also turn someone into another kind: they keep their place and story settings.
Players talk to anyone by facing them and pressing Space, Z or E.
People
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name | Shown with their dialogue, up to 24 characters. |
| Looks | A character sprite from the Hoenn games (the em_ ones are every Pokémon Emerald overworld character, gym leaders and Elite Four included), or your own: press + to upload one. See Custom sprites. |
| Facing | The direction they look. Matters for trainers, who only see in front of them. |
| Role | Talks, Trainer, Nurse, Poké Mart clerk or Day Care. |
| Movement | Stays, Wanders or follows a Path. See Movement. |
| Walks up to talk | The first time they see the player, they walk over and talk, like a rival or a friendly neighbour. See Small cutscenes. |
| Dialogue | What they say. An empty line starts a new page. Preview shows it in the game's dialogue box. |
| Gives the player | An item and how many, handed over the first time they talk. Once per player. |
| Role | What happens |
|---|---|
| Talks | Says their dialogue, then completes their story step if they have one. |
| Trainer | Battles the player. See Trainers and gyms. |
| Nurse | Says their dialogue, takes the party to the healing machine behind them (the Poké Balls glow on it, like in Emerald) and heals it, conditions too. In a town without a Poké Mart, they also top up Poké Balls and Potions to at least 5 each. |
| Poké Mart clerk | Says their dialogue, then opens the shop. Sells picks which items they have, grouped as Poké Balls, healing, travel, evolution and held items; without a choice, an early Mart's stock. |
| Day Care | Raises one Pokémon for the player. See Day Care. |
Small cutscenes
Turn on Walks up to talk and someone acts like a trainer who spotted the player, without the battle: when the player walks into their line of sight (up to 4 tiles in front of them), a ! pops up, they walk over, say their dialogue and give their gift. It happens once per player, and afterwards they're talked to normally.
Use it for a rival who stops you on the road, a mum who catches you at the door, or a Professor who runs after you. Combine it with the story so they only appear at the right moment.
Pokémon
A Pokémon on the map can be any of the 1,025. Click its image to open the Pokémon picker, where you can search by name or number and filter by generation and type.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Pokémon and level | Which one it is. The level matters for wild battles. |
| Look | The species' own look, or a custom sprite used on the map and in battle. |
| Name | Defaults to the species name and follows it until you change it. |
| When the player talks to it | Makes its cry, Wild battle or Raid den. |
| Movement | Stays, Wanders or follows a Path, like people. |
| Message | Its cry, or what's said before the battle. |
Makes its cry says the message, like a Pikachu going “Pika pika!”.
Wild battle starts a battle against it as a wild Pokémon, like Snorlax or a legendary. The player can beat it or catch it with a Poké Ball. Once beaten or caught, it's gone for that player. If they run away or lose, it stays. Wild battles stay where you placed them, and are never shiny.
On the map, a ! marks Pokémon with a wild battle.
Raid dens
Raid den puts the Pokémon in a glowing den, like the raids of Pokémon GO and Sword and Shield. Its boss has 5× the HP of a normal Pokémon of its level, so it takes a strong team, or friends:
- Players face the den and are asked whether to challenge it. Poké Balls can't be thrown during the fight.
- In a live room, everyone fighting the same den shares its HP: each hit anyone lands takes HP off the boss for all of them, and a message says who hit it. The boss can go down between your moves.
- Once the boss is beaten, each fighter gets one throw to catch it: their best ball, with double the odds (or a ball from the den when their bag has none).
- The den stays empty for that player until the next day, then the boss is back. Raid bosses have a 1 in 64 chance of being shiny.
On the map, a pink ◆ marks raid dens.
Day Care
Give someone the Day Care role and players can leave one Pokémon with them. It gains 1 experience point for each step the player walks (it still stops at the level cap), and may evolve. When the player comes back, they're told how many levels it gained and can take it back for ₽100, plus ₽100 per level. Only one Pokémon can stay at a time, and the player has to keep at least one in their party.
Portraits
When someone talks, a picture of them stands beside the dialogue box. People show their map sprite drawn bigger, and Pokémon show their artwork. Signs have none.
Select the person or Pokémon to change it under Portrait when talking:
- The switch turns the picture on or off for that character. Turn it off for someone who should talk without a face, like a voice behind a door.
- Pick a sprite shows any map sprite instead of their own, including your custom ones, and images already uploaded for others in this city.
- Upload uses your own image. Use a square PNG with a transparent background, between 96 and 256 pixels, showing the character from the waist up: the bottom of the picture sits behind the box.
- Default goes back to the automatic picture.
Portraits up to 256 KB are stored inside the city. Log in to upload bigger ones (up to 1 MB).
To make one with an AI image tool, try this prompt:
Pixel art dialogue portrait for a Pokémon fan game, in the style of the character portraits in Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald (Game Boy Advance).
Character: [describe your character, for example a cheerful ranger with a green cap and a brown vest].
Framing: from the waist up, facing slightly to the left, centered, filling most of the image.
Size: a square image, 128×128 pixels, crisp pixels with no blur or anti-aliasing, limited palette with dark outlines.
Background: fully transparent. No text, no frame, no border.Movement
People and Pokémon have three ways to move:
| Movement | What they do |
|---|---|
| Stays | Stands where you placed them, turning to face the player when spoken to. |
| Wanders | Strolls up to two tiles around where you placed them, every few seconds. |
| Path | Walks a route you draw, over and over. |
Drawing a path
- Select someone and choose Path under Movement. Drawing starts right away.
- Click tiles on the map to add stops, in order. The path shows as an amber line with numbered stops.
- Press Done drawing or Esc.
Between two stops they walk across first, then up or down, which is how the line is drawn too. Edit the path adds more stops, the undo button removes the last stop, and the trash button clears the path. Dragging someone on the map moves their whole path with them.
| Path setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| At the end | Walk back the same way, or Loop to start. |
| Speed | Walk (3 tiles a second) or Run (6). |
| Pause | Seconds they wait at each stop, 0 to 10. |
When someone or something is in the way, they wait and try again. Trainers on a path watch where they're facing as they go, so a patrolling guard can spot the player.
Signs
A sign has only Text: what visitors read when they face its tile. An empty line starts a new page. Signs are invisible and don't block movement, so they rely on the sign post (or any object) under them to stop the player walking through.
Good uses for signs: town names, route directions, hints and a bit of lore.
Items
An item holds one kind of item, from 1 to 99 of it. Players pick it up by facing its tile and pressing Space: "May found 2 Potions!". Each player finds it once.
- An item ball shows Emerald's item ball on the map and blocks its tile until it's picked up.
- Turn on Hidden on the ground and nothing shows: players have to guess where to look. Hide them at the end of dead ends, behind trees, or where a sign hints.
Items have story settings too: one can show up only after a step, and finding it can complete a step.
Berry trees
Choose Berry tree under How it lies and the item grows on a tree instead. Players pick it as often as they like, but the berries take time to grow back: Grows back after sets how many real hours (24 by default). It's Emerald's berry tree for its berry (Oran, Sitrus or Lum): full of berries when ripe, a sprout while they grow back. Unlike an item ball, a tree stays on the map after it's picked.
Obstacles
The Obstacle tab places something in the way that a field move clears, the way Pokémon Unbound does it: no Pokémon has to learn the move, having its HM in the bag is enough.
| Obstacle | Cleared with | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Small tree | HM01 Cut | The tree is cut down. |
| Cracked rock | HM06 Rock Smash | The rock breaks. Now and then a wild Pokémon was hiding inside. |
| Boulder | HM04 Strength | The player can push it one tile at a time by walking into it. |
Without the HM, the player reads what the obstacle looks like. With it, they're asked whether to use the move. Obstacles come back when the player leaves the map, like in the games. Give the HM with someone's gift, an item ball or a script, and use obstacles to close off a route until the right point of the story.
Scripts
People, Pokémon and signs can play a small cutscene when talked to: walk around, talk with others, hand over gifts, ask Yes/No questions and start battles. See Events and scripts.
Story settings
People, Pokémon and signs all have a Story section to show up later, leave, wait for a step, complete a step and hand out a reward. It appears once your city has at least one story step.
| Kind | Completes its step when |
|---|---|
| Person who talks, nurse | The player talks to them |
| Trainer | The player beats them |
| Pokémon with a wild battle | The player beats or catches it |
| Pokémon that cries, sign | The player talks to it or reads it |
| Item | The player finds it |
| Anyone with a script | Their script ends |
See Story and events and the Snorlax recipe.