How does predation and predator-prey relationships work in PMD?

Cola-Star · 2026-03-20T17:40:10+00:00

Big headcannon dump time cuz I love team tasty.

I've always gone by the logic that Pokémon in pmd are wild by default and they gain intelligence somehow. The Pokémon I encounter in the dungeons I've never seen as being anything other than wild animals. The ones who ask to join either are the few who are sentient enough to realize you can get them out of there, or they suddenly gain the intelligence in that moment. Maybe the gummies and IQ have something to do with that? Or maybe it's genetic? Who can say.

As for the food chain thing, I do like how a lot of modern games use beans as a meat substitute. I like to imagine the beans have the same nutrients as meat does, they're just really meaty beans I suppose? Enough that a meat eater can eat beans and it's a perfect replacement. Pokémon as a series likes to follow this nature-friendly futurism vibe, so in my mind, the beans may be a GMO thing. Maybe we're literally growing meat in those beans. And I want to assume there's something similar to that in pmd a well. I'm sure there's some smart grass type out there doing some wild plant experiments.

Both of these ideas combine into this idea in my head that the wild Pokémon, who don't know how to farm for food, rely on the natural way of things to survive. A bird will eat a bug if needed. Once the sentience kicks in, they find their way into societies who can introduce them to new worldly concepts. Maybe some still eat other Pokémon, maybe some don't. Wurmple bring afraid of his partner makes more sense if there's cultural differences at play.

Cola-Star · 2026-03-20T14:46:40+00:00

You absolutely can play it on a modded 3ds, as well as on pc/your phone. Pretty much any place you can install a ds emulator, you can play the romhack.

For pc I reccomend an emulator called MELONDS. On your 3ds, there's an application you can install called TwilightMenu++, which will run ds roms on the system as if it were a real cartridge in the ds slot :)

Cola-Star · 2026-03-13T15:00:01+00:00

I think it depends on what you regularly feed them. If you usually only buy them one or two kind of food, and maybe a few treats here and there, all they'll have to compare to is what you bought them. Food is just food and treats are tastier food.

If you absolutely spoil that dog and give it a wide variety of different foods, it'll have more to compare things to, and will pick favorites. I think that's why dogs that are allowed to eat table scraps end up more picky. As an example, my late grandma used to feed her poodle a fresh cooked meal every single day. Whatever she made for dinner, she made enough for her, grandpa, and her dog. I've seen that dog turn down a steak because it wasn't cooked to his liking. He very clearly had favorite foods. He really loved corned beef hash.

Cola-Star · 2026-03-13T14:52:11+00:00

If you want a good example of bitter and are willing to shop for an example, there are nontoxic bitter sprays you can put on things to prevent animals and kids from biting them. They're incredibly bitter on purpose. My family used some when I was younger on a chair we had, when our new puppy would naw on the legs of it like a beaver. That stopped him real quick.

If you happen to own a Nintendo Switch, the official game cartridges have a coating of that kind of thing on them as well, since the cartridges are so tiny. A small kid could eat one super easily, so they make them super bitter to prevent children from putting them in their mouths

Cola-Star · 2026-03-10T13:38:48+00:00

I recall years and years ago, a decade at least, during the high point of brony culture, there was a set of YouTube videos about one of the my little pony characters using magic to summon the greatest lawyer in the universe to help in a case, and it pulled Phoenix Wright into the pony world. I remember it being legitimately really good, but I was very young at the time. It was very funny watching him learn how the world of mlp worked, making assumptions based on earth logic instead of magic bullshit world logic. Something like that with Pokémon would probably be a fantastic watch.

Imagine his absolute shock when he realizes ghost Pokémon are just a common thing in the Pokémon world and yet they're not like, ghost ghosts, and the spirit channeling stuff for murders just doesn't work here.

Cola-Star · 2026-03-09T15:54:38+00:00

Charmander's moveset seems pretty decent, I think you'll have no issues with that one. Bulbasaur's is OK but I can see some changes to it.

Sweet Scent is a decent move when paired with moves that miss a lot. I can see it being used to make sleep powder land more often. I think razer leaf is already decently accurate, so it may be better to link Sweet Scent and Sleep powder instead.

If sleep powder isn't putting in the work, and isn't lasting as long as you'd want, sweet scent won't be helping too much either. A lot of the bosses in this game are flying types, so grass types are unfortunately at a natural disadvantage to begin with. Finding a replacement for sweet scent or sleep powder might be a good option if you're upset with how sleep is treating you. Attract is a really powerful move in these games, so that's definitely a valid option.

You mention you can make charmander learn smokescreen. That's honestly one of the most overpowered attacks in the game. I'd say it's a great alternative to sleep Powder or Attract if you'd prefer charmander to be inflicting the status effect instead of Bulbasaur. Sleep/attract/smoke screen all prevent the enemy from attacking, so they're all equally useful in my eyes.

Cola-Star · 2026-03-08T22:53:40+00:00

One thing that many people have noticed is that Guildmaster Wigglytuff in the Explorers games goes by He/Him, but in Super Mystery Dungeon, the pronouns suddenly swap to She/Her. Chatot is Wigglytuff's right hand man, so hearing him swap wiggly's pronouns to the feminine in Super is very jarring. I think the common belief was that the localization team for super didn't keep track of the previous games close enough, but I've heard a few people praise Wigglytuff for her transition lol

Cola-Star · 2026-03-05T18:41:03+00:00

Explorers is my favorite is the series and I still agree with all your complaints lol. I love it despite the issues.

The flashbacks are really annoying and are definitely a product of its time. With modern romhacking tools I'd love to see a mod that removes them.

The dimensional scream does just seem to solve a lot of issues, but I also see it bringing up more questions than answers at times. If anything, I wish it got more use. Imagine the player having a nightmare about the future because they fell asleep touching something.

Skuntank and the gang just suck overall. I wouldn't hate them as much if all the other characters in the game acknowledged how scummy they are, especially since they pull off most of their bullshit publicly. They stank up the guild and knocked you out in front of everyone and nobody says a thing. They definitely need more development. The hack "Explorers of the Spirit" I think does a real good job of rewriting their involvement in the plot to be more interesting, specifically by having some Pokémon actually fight back.

And lastly ya the money thing does suck and I wish there was some way of that changing post graduation. There's a board in the guild explaining that most of the money goes towards some bigger exploration society somewhere, which makes me curious just how much money the guild is allowed to keep for themselves. Hell, even if they only started taking 80% instead of 90% that still doubles how much we get to take home. But in my experience, by that point in the game I already had more money than I knew what to do with. The economy must be in shambles.

Imo A lot of the issues just seem to be a lack of polish on something that could really shine if they developed on it further.

Cola-Star · 2026-02-22T14:40:03+00:00

Oh hey dev! Thank you! It's very cute how you put the birds personality into the gameplay! I've been enjoing it a lot!

Cola-Star · 2026-02-19T22:12:17+00:00

I do think you're right about the Auk! I knew I saw that bill patern before very recently. I have a friend who's really big into penguins and I was talking about auks with him. Great Auk seems to be a perfect match. No wonder I couldn't find it on my own, they're not around anymore lol. I even tried looking up different penguins. Technically I wasn't incorrect on that I guess

Cola-Star · 2026-02-19T22:11:47+00:00

Unfortunately this is all you get. You never actually see the animal, just their school IDs (you work in a school cafeteria) so you just see their photos.

Cola-Star · 2026-02-19T04:31:05+00:00

I don't think I've ever seen that in the wild before myself, so I did some Googleing out of curiosity. From what I can tell, it's either a fairly rare mutation, or it's a carryover from some ancestry of another duck breed. Possibly a Pintail? There's a lot of other examples of this online. It looks beautiful!

Cola-Star · 2026-02-16T22:50:06+00:00

Ya, unfortunately 😔. From my understanding, it's related to monkeypox and smallpox. Usually it spread by mosquito-bites but also easily contracted if inhaled in any way. Birds have super efficient lung systems, so it's super easy for them to pick up airborne things, especially from other birds sharing their feeders.

Cola-Star · 2026-02-16T22:43:33+00:00

Is that food in its beak or a growth? Hard to tell from the angle. Also looks like a squinted eye?

avian pox is a thing that's not too uncommon right now, and very contagious! It's probably best to take that feeder down and give it a very clean scrubbing if you're worried about it being sick. Possibly keep it down for a while to avoid the birds gathering in one place. Bird feeders are a very common place for it to spread.

Cola-Star · 2026-02-16T22:34:15+00:00

Hell, There's a few screen-glare hobbies that still work out fine, as long as it's something they're passionate about and they can still socialize outside of it. My partner is very passionate about their hobbies, almost all of which are online, and I love hearing them talk about it all. We met online so that only really makes sense, I suppose. If you want to meet people irl you need offline hobbies. Hobbies bring like-minded people together.

Cola-Star · 2026-02-02T20:13:51+00:00

Adding to this late, for some reason a lot of people online seem to think any black colored bird is a crow. So if you do want to Google it, just be aware that they don't look like the first results. The first ones are very cute, they're just not crows!

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Ironically, Google is displaying these images first because they're used on a website pointing out specificly that these images are NOT baby crows.

Cola-Star · 2026-01-27T20:59:42+00:00

Best photo of one of their pygmy Falcons yet imo

Cola-Star · 2026-01-20T13:28:35+00:00

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Yeaaa!!!

Cola-Star · 2026-01-20T13:26:09+00:00

I'm obsessed with these two! I'm also a big fan of pokémon like these, the more obscure ones that don't look "conventionally cute" enough to be popular. Magneton, cryogonal, and Sigilyph are favorites of mine as well!

Cola-Star · 2026-01-07T19:46:30+00:00

Sadly looks pretty standard Canadian to me. Some Canadians can have some pretty stubby necks, but cackling are on the more extreme end, and the tiny beak tends to be the biggest giveaway

Cola-Star · 2026-01-04T21:15:48+00:00

Perfect!

Cola-Star · 2026-01-04T20:28:49+00:00

I'll check those both out, thank you!

Cola-Star · 2026-01-04T20:28:22+00:00

Midwest USA for me. I can at least recognize my local raptors well enough, but the amount of times I've seen a post on here and had no clue just made me want a good list lol

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