Wild Pokémon
Encounter zones, Pokémon met walking, surfing and fishing, times of day, levels and rates.
Wild Pokémon live in encounter zones. Each zone is a list of Pokémon and an encounter rate, painted on the tiles where it applies.
Painting zones
Select the Encounters layer (5). Each zone has a color. Click a zone to select it, then paint where it applies with the Brush, Rectangle or Fill tool. The Eraser removes zones from tiles.
The Tall grass stamp does both at once: it paints the grass and its zone. Erasing tall grass removes the zone too.
Zones work on any tile, not just grass: a cave floor, a sandy beach, or water for surfing and fishing.
Zone settings
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name | Shown only in the editor, like Tall grass or Cave. |
| Encounter rate | The chance of a battle on each step, from 1% to 40%. Around 10% feels like the original games. |
| Pokémon | Listed by how they're met: Walking, Surfing and Fishing. Each has a level range. |
Press + Add Pokémon under a list to add one there, and + New zone for another zone, like a cave with Zubat and Geodude next to a grassy route.
Walking, surfing and fishing
One zone painted on a pond can hold all three lists:
- Walking: met on the zone's tiles on foot, like tall grass, caves and sand.
- Surfing: met while surfing on the zone's water. Paint the water with the Surf behavior on the Collision layer so players can surf there (see Collision).
- Fishing: hooked by facing the zone's water and pressing Space with a rod in the bag. Any water tile works, surfable or not.
Each fishing Pokémon needs a rod: Any rod, Good Rod or better, or Super Rod. Players fish with the best rod they have, so a Super Rod also hooks what the Old Rod does. Rods are never sold: hand them out with a person's gift, an item ball or a script.
Fishing gets a bite three times out of four ("Oh! A bite!"), and "Not even a nibble…" otherwise, or when nothing lives there.
Times of day
Each Pokémon can appear at Any time, or only in the morning, daytime or at night. The part of the day is the map's time of day (City settings):
| Map time of day | Pokémon of |
|---|---|
| Morning | Mornings |
| Day, Evening | Daytime |
| Night | Nights |
| Follows the clock | The player's own clock: mornings 4 to 10, daytime until 20 (evenings from 17) |
With Follows the clock, a route changes all day long: Hoothoot at night, Ledyba in the morning.
Pokémon here
In Play, press N (or the paw button in the top bar) to see the wild Pokémon of the current map, like the DexNav: walking, surfing and fishing. Pokémon the player hasn't seen yet are silhouettes, caught ones have a red dot, and those of another part of the day are faded.
Where Pokémon live
While building, Where Pokémon live (under the zones in the Encounters panel, or in the ⌘ K menu) lists every wild Pokémon of the town and each place it lives: the map, how it's met, its levels and the part of the day. Pick a Pokémon to see only its places, and click a place to jump there with its zone selected, ready to paint.
Chain fishing
Fishing up the same Pokémon several times in a row builds a chain: each one makes a shiny a little more likely, up to 20 in a row. Hooking nothing or another Pokémon, or leaving the map, breaks it.
How an encounter is picked
On every step inside a zone (walking or surfing):
- The encounter rate decides if a battle starts.
- One Pokémon of the list for that way of moving and that part of the day is picked, each with the same chance. Add a Pokémon twice to make it twice as common.
- Its level is picked between the minimum and the maximum.
- It has a 1 in 128 chance of being shiny, and gets a random nature and one of its species' abilities.
Players with no Pokémon able to fight don't meet wild Pokémon.
Available Pokémon
All 1,025 Pokémon, from Bulbasaur to Pecharunt, with their real types, base stats and catch rates. Pokémon up to Deoxys use their Emerald moves and Ruby/Sapphire sprites; later ones use the moves of the most recent game they appear in, and the sprites of their own era.
Zones in interiors
Zones belong to the whole city, so interiors can use the same zones as the outside map. Paint them in any interior to make caves, forests or haunted houses.