Playing
Your trainer, controls, the party, the trainer card and progress.
Press Play in the top bar to play the city you're building, or open a visit link to play someone else's.
Testing while you build
- Play from here: right-click any tile and choose Play from here, or hover it and press P. Your trainer starts on that tile instead of the spawn, so you can test one spot without walking across the map.
- Back to Build: pressing Build puts you back exactly where you were building, on the same map and at the same zoom, even if you walked into a house while playing.
- Preview: next to every line someone says in the People panel, Preview shows it in the real dialogue box, with their portrait, without leaving Build. It shows what you typed even before you click away.
Testing never changes your town: walking around, battles and story progress belong to your trainer.
Your trainer
The first time you press Play, the Professor welcomes you, like the start of Pokémon Emerald:
- Boy or girl: Brendan or May.
- Name: up to 16 characters, typed on the naming screen.
- Partner: if the game has no Choose a starter event (see Events), the Professor lets you pick Treecko, Torchic or Mudkip from his bag. Otherwise you start with no Pokémon and get your first one in the game, from its Professor.
You start with 10 Poké Balls, 5 Potions and ₽3,000. Your trainer comes with you to every city you play.
Starting a game
A new game starts on the map its builder chose in City settings → New game (the starter town wakes you up in your room, upstairs in your house), and plays the game's own welcome speech when it has one. Restart my progress in the Story layer plays the start again.
Controls
| Action | Keyboard |
|---|---|
| Walk | W A S D or the arrow keys |
| Run | Hold Shift (twice as fast) |
| Talk, read, continue | Space, Z or E (Enter continues too) |
| Open the menu | Enter (START on phones) |
| Go back | X or Esc |
| Pick a battle option | Click it, or press 1 to 4 |
| Open the Journal | J |
| Open the Town Map | M |
| Use the VS Seeker | V |
On phones and tablets a direction pad, an A button and a START button appear on screen.
Menu
Press Enter for the menu, like the Game Boy Advance games: POKéDEX (every Pokémon you've seen, caught ones marked), POKéMON (your party), BAG (your items by pocket), POKéNAV (the Town Map), your name (your trainer card), JOURNAL, SAVE and EXIT. Move with the arrow keys, pick with Space, Enter or Z, and close it with X. Your game also saves on its own.
Walk onto a door to go inside. Tall grass hides your trainer's feet, and every step in it can start a wild battle.
Your lead Pokémon walks behind you, like in HeartGold and SoulSilver, with its own Gen 3 overworld sprite (in its shiny colors when it's shiny), and its feet sink into tall grass like yours. Face it and press Space to see how it's doing. It hides while you surf, and towns can turn followers off in their settings (Pokémon follow the player).
Town Map
Press M or the Town Map button to see the whole town and its routes, with a blinking dot where you are. Inside a building, the dot shows the building's door outside.
Party and PC box
POKéMON in the menu (or the Party button in the top bar) shows your party like the Game Boy Advance games: each Pokémon's level, HP and held item. Pick one for:
- SUMMARY: its info (Pokédex number, type, nature), its stats and experience, and its moves with their power, accuracy and what they do. Left and right change the page, up and down the Pokémon.
- SWITCH: swap it with another one. The first one leads in battle.
- ITEM: give it an item to hold, or take it back.
- PC BOX: send it to the box. The PC BOX button shows the box, to bring Pokémon back. You can carry six.
The BAG keeps your items in pockets (Items, Poké Balls, TMs & HMs, Berries, Key Items), with each item's Emerald icon and what it does. Left and right change the pocket. USE a Potion or a Full Heal on a Pokémon, or GIVE a held item. In battle, BAG and POKéMON open the same screens.
Caught Pokémon go to the party, or straight to the box when the party is full.
Journal
Press J or the Journal button to see what to do next in the main story, and the side quests you've started. A banner at the top of the screen tells you when you finish a step or start a quest.
Trainer card
The Trainer card button shows your Pokédex (seen and caught), how many trainers you've beaten, your badges with the city and leader who gave them, and every Pokémon you've caught.
Start over erases your trainer, party, badges and story progress, so you can pick a new partner.
Healing
- Talk to a Nurse to heal the whole party: like in Emerald, she puts your Poké Balls on the healing machine and they glow. In towns without a Poké Mart, Nurses also top up Poké Balls and Potions to at least 5 each.
- Use potions to restore HP, cures for a condition, and a Revive for a fainted Pokémon, in battle or from the bag (see Items).
- If all your Pokémon faint, you drop half your money and go back to the start of the map, healed.
Items
Buy items from a Poké Mart clerk, with money won from trainers. Some people also give you items, and item balls lie around.
| Item | Price | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Poké, Great, Ultra Ball | ₽200, 600, 1200 | Catch wild Pokémon (a Great Ball 1.5×, an Ultra Ball 2× better) |
| Potion, Super, Hyper Potion | ₽300, 700, 1200 | Restore 20, 50 or 200 HP |
| Max Potion | ₽2,500 | Restores all HP |
| Full Restore | ₽3,000 | Restores all HP and cures any condition |
| Revive | ₽1,500 | Revives a fainted Pokémon with half its HP |
| Antidote, Paralyze Heal | ₽100, 200 | Cure poison, paralysis |
| Awakening, Burn Heal | ₽250 | Wake up a sleeping Pokémon, heal a burn |
| Full Heal | ₽600 | Cures sleep, poison, paralysis and burns |
| Repel, Super Repel, Max Repel | ₽350, 500, 700 | Wild Pokémon weaker than your lead stay away for 100, 200, 250 steps. When it wears off, you're asked to use another |
| Escape Rope | ₽550 | Leads you out of a cave or building, to the door you came in by |
Not sold unless a clerk is set to: evolution stones (Fire, Water, Thunder, Leaf, Moon, Sun, Shiny, Dusk, Dawn, Ice), the Linking Cord and the items newer Pokémon evolve with. Only handed out: Rare Candy (one level), Max Revive and the Master Ball.
Clerks can also be set to sell held items (berries, Leftovers, Quick Claw, type boosters: see Battles).
Key items are only handed out, never sold:
| Item | What it does |
|---|---|
| Old Rod, Good Rod, Super Rod | Face water and press Space to fish. Better rods hook more Pokémon |
| HM05 Flash | Lights up dark maps as soon as you walk in ("Mudkip used Flash!"). Without it, you only see around you |
| HM01 Cut | Face a small tree in the way and press Space to cut it down |
| HM06 Rock Smash | Smashes cracked rocks. A wild Pokémon is sometimes hiding inside |
| HM04 Strength | Lets you push boulders, one tile at a time |
| VS Seeker | Press V: trainers you beat nearby want a rematch, with stronger Pokémon. See below |
| Exp. Share | Use it to turn it on or off: Pokémon that didn't battle get half the EXP. Points too |
You don't need a Pokémon that knows an HM move: the HM in your bag is enough, like in Pokémon Unbound.
VS Seeker
Press V with the VS Seeker in your bag, and trainers on the map you've already beaten may raise their hand (!!): talk to them for a rematch. Their team is 4 levels stronger each time, up to 5 rematches. The VS Seeker charges as you walk, and can be used again after 100 steps.
Evolution
Pokémon evolve the ways they do in the games, on the evolution screen (press X while they glow to stop it):
- Level: after a battle in which they grew a level, or with a Rare Candy.
- Stones and items: choose Use in the bag, then the Pokémon. A Dawn Stone only works on male Kirlia, for example.
- Friendship: Golbat, Pichu, Eevee (Espeon by day, Umbreon by night) and others evolve leveling up when they're very friendly. Friendship grows as you walk and level up together, faster holding a Soothe Bell, and drops a little when they faint. The summary says how friendly a Pokémon is.
- Trades: use a Linking Cord on them; those that need an item while traded (Onix and its Metal Coat) must hold it, and it's used up.
- Other ways: holding an item at night or by day (Sneasel and its Razor Claw), knowing a move (Aipom with Double Hit), by gender, Tyrogue by its Attack and Defense, Mantyke with a Remoraid in the party. Nincada leaves a Shedinja behind when there's room in the party and a Poké Ball in the bag.
A Pokémon holding an Everstone doesn't evolve by level or trade. When a Pokémon that knows four moves wants a new one, you choose which to forget, or give up on it. Catching or receiving a Pokémon lets you nickname it.
Berries and the Day Care
Berry trees can be picked again and again, once their berries grow back (a day, or what the town set). The Day Care raises a Pokémon you leave there: it gains experience as you walk, and you pay ₽100, plus ₽100 per level gained, to take it back.
Raids
Raid dens glow on some maps. Their boss has 5× the HP of a normal Pokémon, and when you beat it you get one throw, with better odds, to catch it. In a live room, everyone fighting the same den shares the boss's HP. Each den comes back the next day. See Raid dens.
Pokémon here
Press N, or the paw button, to see the wild Pokémon living on the current map: walking, surfing and fishing, with the ones you haven't seen yet as silhouettes.
When you fish up the same Pokémon again and again, the chain makes a shiny more likely each time (up to 20 in a row). Hooking nothing, another Pokémon, or leaving the map breaks the chain.
Weather and time of day
Some maps rain, snow, have fog or a sandstorm, or are set in the morning, evening or at night, and some follow your own clock. Rain, sandstorms and snow come into battles (see Weather), and some wild Pokémon only appear at a part of the day.
Dark maps, like caves, show only a little light around you until you have HM05 Flash.
Progress
| What | Where it's kept |
|---|---|
| Trainer, party, box, bag, Pokédex, badges | One profile for every city |
| Story steps and beaten trainers | Per city |
Without an account, progress is saved in this browser. Log in to keep it online and play from any device. See Accounts and saving.