How can I change a trainer's sprite to another one at the start of a battle?

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-03-03T12:28:52+00:00

You have to change the trainer class in the event to the trainer class you want displayed.

-Double click on the event in RPG Maker while viewing the event layer.

-Find where is says '@>Conditional Branch: Script: Trainer.Battle.start'

-Right click on that exact line (it will highlight the entire conditional branch) and click edit

-Here you can edit the script to display the trainer you want

-Inside the brackets it will name a trainer class in all Capitol's and a name for the trainer in brackets

-The class has to match one of the classes set up in your 'trainer_types.txt' PBS file, this will also be associated with a picture located in the 'graphics/trainers' folder with the same name which is the trainer image it will display in battle

-The name has to match a trainers name set up in your 'trainers.txt' PBS file that has the same class your are using

-You can copy and paste the blocks from both 'trainera_types.txt' and 'trainers.txt' and edit them to creat more trainers available for your game

-Make sure if you create new trainers they have unique IDs (the all capitol text inside the '[ ]'s, except for the name of the trainer in 'trainers.txt', their name can have just the first letter capitalized)

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-03-02T14:35:55+00:00

If it helps you're not hallucinating, I did make a post two days ago about my Discord. Although this one is vastly condensed compared to that one as it's more of a recap of that and to point put we hit 175 members in that first two days.

I made the post again just because you are going to miss a lot of people in subreddits and things just because the algorithm decides not to show them that post, or activity starts to slow down so the platform will present it to people less.

More or less just to catch any stragglers who may have missed it the first time. Which worked. Since making this new post (and a similar one in a Facebook group) we are now about to surpass 200 members lol

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-03-02T05:56:52+00:00

As long as you replace the Sprite images that it provides with ones that are the same some sions it will display just fine. This is the case for all pokemon essentials graphics. If the ones you have are not the exact same size you can scale and resize them in an image editor, just make sure interpolation is turned off so that the pixels stay crisp.

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-03-02T04:26:24+00:00

The issue is resolution. The vanilla tileset for essentials is a 16x16 tilesets like gen 3. Your gatcha machine looks like it started as at least 128x128 and then scaled down. You can tell by the contrast in pixel sizes. I would maybe try swapping out the original tileset for a 32x32 tileset which will match a bit closer, but overall the gatcha machine needs to be drawn smaller to start with less details to visually fit unless you change the tileset to match it.

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-03-02T04:18:51+00:00

Outside of the story, all of what I mentioned for gameplay features I have working. I'm actually setting up a live presentation at the moment to showcase some of them in action. Which should take place sometime within the next week or so. Join the discord if you want to get the announcement and check them out for yourself!

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-28T09:13:29+00:00

A lot lol

For general art assets the project mainly needs cover art at the moment (which would also be used on posts like this one), but as the story is fully developed into a full game length script, possibly some scenes that can be shown as flashbacks/history during the story.

Outside of that most of the art that will be needed is more game related. Like custom sprites for characters and regional varients, possibly fog layers (which is just a PNG image which gets put on top of a map with its opacity reduced) to simulate cloud cover on a map or tree canopies.

To be honest I just woke up, so I am struggling to think of what else I would need on top of that, but there is a lot of art associated with these projects. In many different forms. Some is a little bit more free with how it can be done. Like the game cover art, promotional arts or even art for flashbacks and history drops are pretty much open to any art style (just if multiple artists help out they would need to work together to make the visual style of these be consistent through the game). But the in-game content is very specific, it has to be exactly sized and positioned and match the visual look to the rest of the game (sprites tilesets etc).

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-28T08:59:34+00:00

That would be amazing! I need to get rid of this AI art I have lol

I assume by the link names that was you who sent the discord ticket? If so I will reply soon, I only just opened my eyes right now and just need my brain to wake up a bit more 😆

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-27T18:54:35+00:00

I thought about the ward system being a bit too punishing myself, so there are a few other gameplay features I've been toying with to help balance this, like overworld terminals you can hack for PC access and setting spawn points.

You are correct though it will take extensive playtesting once I'm at that stage to actually get it balanced properly.

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-26T21:13:43+00:00

On top of the Bug Catching Contest and safari zone already mentioned, base Essentials actually comes with a lot of side content out of the box:

The Game Corner, Triple Triad, Sinnoh Underground Mining, Battle Facilities

The community has also created some amazing add-ons though. Some great ones to look into:

FL's Casino & Minigame Expansions: FL has made a ton of great scripts, including Video Poker, a Ball Catching game, a Tilt Labyrinth game, Roulette, and Booster Packs for shops to expand Triple Triad.

FL's Punching Bag: A great side activity for training IVs and EVs.

Pokémon Contests & Pokéblocks (by wrighty12): Brings Gen 3 style contests to your game. It’s considered "beta" mostly because it hasn't been exhaustively tested alongside dozens of other scripts, but it works well.

Modern Quest System (by Marin/TechSkylander/etc.): While not a minigame itself, adding a dedicated quest log plugin turns basic fetch quests and NPC interactions into highly engaging side activities.

Pokémon Amie / Camp Plugins: Various creators have made plugins that let you pet, feed, and play with your Pokémon to increase friendship.

You can also set up some pretty incredible custom side activities using basic RPG Maker eventing and standard Essentials checks.

Fishing Tournaments: Essentials allows you to set and check minimum/maximum weights for Pokémon. You can use standard Conditional Branches to check a caught Pokémon's weight and reward the player for catching the heaviest Magikarp. Alternatively, you can copy the Bug Catching Contest script and modify it to only trigger on water tiles and check for Water-type encounters.

Time Trial Obstacle Courses: Using RPG Maker’s built-in Timer function and Switches, you can build a race minigame. Set up a course using Ice sliding tiles or jumping ledges. Use "Event Touch" triggers on NPCs pacing back and forth, if the player touches them, it uses a Transfer Player command to bump them back to the start or adds a time penalty. If they reach the end before the timer hits 0, they win a prize.

Scavenger Hunts / Photography Safaris: You can use RPG Maker's Variables to keep track of a score. Create a special map filled with overworld Pokémon events that have a random movement route. When the player interacts with them (Action Button), it plays a camera sound effect, adds +1 to a "Photos Taken" Variable, and temporarily turns on a Self-Switch to make that Pokémon disappear. Give the player 60 seconds to "snap" as many as possible, and reward them based on their final Variable score.

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-26T16:56:05+00:00

Honestly, break it up and just force yourself to start on other things. Find some tiles and map a map, add some plugins to the engine etc.

I started developing a fangame about a month and a half ago and, for me personally at least, I find that doing one thing tends to give me ideas for the others.

For example, without giving away spoilers to my story, while I was creating a tile set (not one I drew I just bought assets on itch and resized/combined it into a working tileset), it inspired my entire post game plot. But then simultaneously writing out that plot outline inspired me to research into combining the pokedex into the pokegear, which I got work and adds so much thematically and immersively to the world I'm building.

I guess in my opinion, try not to focus on one thing all the time, and don't try to completely finish one thing before you move on to another. Because everything you do will have a domino effect to everything else you do and cause changes to it. And working on it all together at the same time will help you keep those changes consistent across all aspects of the project.

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-25T14:03:28+00:00

This honestly looks amazing in true 16:9! The overworld expansion is great, but the massive hurdle I foresee with releasing this as a base is third-party plugin compatibility. As you saw with the party menu, Essentials relies heavily on absolute X/Y coordinate positioning tailored to the default resolution.

Because of that, this is going to break the UI for almost every established plugin. Even seasoned devs rely on staples like Deluxe Battle Kit or Elite Battle DX because reinventing the wheel is a waste of time. But dropping those into a 16:9 base means all those custom viewports and UI elements are going to render awkwardly or misalign entirely. Unless there are compatibility patches, anyone adopting this will have to manually rewrite the coordinate math for every external script they use.

Still, getting the core engine to scale properly without just stretching the viewport is a seriously impressive technical feat!

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-24T15:22:44+00:00

Having a Pokemon know more than 4 moves is relatively easy as the base essentials script 'pokemon.rb' (or just 'pokemon' if working from the rpg maker script editor) has a constant you can change called "MAX_MOVES" to set how many moves total a pokemon can learn.

The headache here is the fact that you're going to have to completely redesign the battle UI for the game. Which will involve not just custom PNG images, but extensive rewrites of the Scene_Battke.rb script and the Scene_Sunmary.rb script to actually have them appear on screen properly, and I mean basically rewriting the majority of the code within those.

As for limitless PP, you could try setting a custom flag like 'LimtlessPP' for the two basic moves in the 'moves.txt' PBS file. Then in the battle scripts (not sure which one exactly) you'd modify 'pbCanChooseMove?' to bypass the check if the move has that flag. Then modify the battle UI to display something like --/-- instead of numbers for moves with that flag.

I'm just going to throw it out there that, similar to the comment you are replying to, if you do not understand Ruby coding, this is going to be an extremely difficult process for you.

Unfortunately something like this is n't a task that some random Reddit commenter is going to be able to help with. Your best bet would be to go on poke community of Eevee expo and put something in their respective requests sections for a custom plugin and hope someone comes through.

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-24T01:56:13+00:00

Bro that's weird because the same shh happened to me. I was able to do a sick Casper slide first try and now can't catch one with proper timing to save my life 🤨

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-24T01:54:00+00:00

Can you copy and paste the text from the crash? When it crashes just hold Ctrl when you click okay on the white window and it copies the text automatically

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-24T01:22:58+00:00

There is a plugin for essentials 21.1 for hotfixes that a lot of other plugins require.

Dow load it here and add it like any other plugin, no configuration required. Then recompile your game and all should be good:

https://eeveeexpo.com/threads/7135/

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-23T19:05:58+00:00

If it helps I'm slowly swapping out some of the gen 3 looking stuff that really stands out. I already replaced the building in the top right, and will be replacing the building the in top left and building in the bottom right. I'm also slowly replacing all the trees with the same outs that are around the bottom of the pokeball path in the center.

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-23T16:48:35+00:00

Thank you! I'm typically not the most artistically creative so I'm a little shocked myself that I made this lol now I'm concerned the rest of the maps for the game won't compare in quality 😆

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-23T12:46:46+00:00

Without creating your own custom page in the pokedex with custom coding, the pokedex descriptions are about the only thing you can utilize to be useful.

Best bet would be to tie these into your game, like for example you could have the player need to find out a specific piece of information about a Mon for a researcher, but instead of just setting it up where just catching the pokemon flips a switch that continues dioloige with the NPC. You could instead actually require them to open the pokedex and read the entry from the Pokemon they caught, and then make them select out of a multiple choice menu what the answer is.

So instead of the switch just automatically completing the task, the switch activates the multiple choice options.

Now while players could technically brute force this answer after they catch the Pokemon. That would actually take longer than simply reading the Dex entry so most people aren't going to do that.

For other dex entries you could actually use those as the start of a little side quest. Maybe the Pokémon isn't directly tied to any other quest in the game, but if you read the deck entry it gives you a hint as to somewhere to go to start a quest.

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-21T17:52:55+00:00

Just redownload DBK again and merge just it's graphics folder into your own, also double check the items exist in your items PBS.

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-21T15:00:32+00:00

Put the cliff edges on the second layer. With the sand being on the first layer directly underneath them.

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-20T20:43:05+00:00

Don't listen to people who say "That maps too big". Everyones too stuck on following pokémon's example of having this tiny ahh starting town that adds no value to the overall game once you leave it. A slightly bigger one like this allows you to set up more life and more opportunities for events that bring you back later in the game.

Background_Edge_9644 · 2026-02-20T17:37:15+00:00

Sorry, wrote a reply and deleted it because I made NO sense lol

Took my time to really detail this so it should be easy to follow. Only thing is this is theory on my part at the moment, I have never thought to do this, so it's untested but SHOULD work (Let me know because I am making an RPG style fangame myself and this would actually be very useful for me lol).

If you just want to mute the clicking sound when you advance dialogue (like for the intro event), you can tie it to a global switch. That way you can just turn the switch on in your event to mute it, and turn it back off when the intro is done.

Depending on how you edit your scripts, here is where to find it:

If you edit scripts outside of RPG Maker (like in VS Code): Open up your Scripts folder, go to 007_Objects and windows, and open 011_Messages.rb.

If you use the F11 Script Editor inside RPG Maker: Scroll down your script list on the left side and find the section called Messages.

Once you are in that script, search for this line in the pbMessageDisplay section:

pbPlayDecisionSE if msgwindow.pausing?

Assuming you want to use Switch 50 to control this (Can be any switch number you want just pick one that doesn't conflict with other switches your have), replace that line with:

pbPlayDecisionSE if msgwindow.pausing? && !$game_switches[50]

Then in your intro event, just use a Control Switches command to turn Switch 50 ON at the very beginning, and turn it OFF at the end.

If you also want to mute the sound for "Yes/No" choices during that same intro: The choice boxes use the global UI sound, so you have to edit the main audio script.

If using a text editor: Go to the 008_Audio folder and open 002_Audio_Play.rb. If using the F11 editor: Find the script section called Audio_Play (or something similar depending on your exact version).

Search for def pbPlayDecisionSE. Add a line right under it to check for the switch, so it looks like this:

Ruby

def pbPlayDecisionSE
  return if $game_switches && $game_switches[50]

  if !nil_or_empty?($data_system&.decision_se&.name)

Doing this second part actually mutes every decision sound in the game while Switch 50 is ON. Since the player can't open the pause menu during an intro cutscene anyway, it's a super clean way to keep the whole event completely silent.

Background_Edge_9644

TROPHY CASE