Pokémon Ikigai: Welcome to Vyraton
Ikigai
Pokémon Ikigai is set in Vyraton, a calm and quiet working town that’s still finding its feet. You arrive as its new Gym Leader. Not a challenger, not the chosen one. Just someone who turned up and took the job. You choose your starter Pokémon and the type of your gym from eighteen options, get settled, and get to work.
Ikigai is a Japanese concept that combines what you love, what the world needs, what you’re good at and what you can be paid to create your reason for being. I hope Pokémon Ikigai captures this, as you jump out of bed every day and navigate the responsibilities between building something, and building relationships at the same time. Vyraton, and the people in it, grow in response to your choices.
Conversations with NPC Residents
Resident characters in Vyraton have a custom conversation system built around them. They each have a mugshot, their namebox is colour coded to their personality, and they may express emotions during conversation based on their current attitude toward you. NPCs also have scheduled locations, so where you find someone depends on the time of day, and you may have to go exploring to find them, as their opinion of you may decay if you don’t speak to them for days on end.
The scheduling system exists because I hope it will make NPCs feel like they actually live there, rather than standing in one spot waiting for you indefinitely. With the attitude decay, I wanted to give relationships the realistic aspect of needing maintenance, not just a single conversation, although not in a tedious way.
Dialogue Options
A lot of conversations in Ikigai involve choices, some of which may have some consequences. Depending on what dialogue option you pick, characters may perceive you differently across two axes, perceived kindness and perceived strength. Those values accumulate across every interaction that produce your overall attitude, but there’s no objectively correct response, as different characters respond to different things.
I didn’t want a simple good vs evil morality system, I much prefer the idea that you can be over or underestimated on the battlefield, regardless of if you’re seen as warm or coldhearted. But most importantly, that different people value different things in their resident Gym Leader.
The PokéSphere
The PokéSphere replaces the PokéNav and functions as a social media device. Characters you’ve been introduced to appear in the ‘Explore’ page, with their ‘Profile’ that includes their mugshot, their attitude toward you, their partner Pokémon, all become available as well. Characters you haven’t met won’t appear at all, and the list fills out as you engage with Vyraton rather than presenting a complete roster from day one.
I’m hoping that this makes the development of relationships feel more earned, rather than just for show. Relationships between characters are also gated behind progression: if you know Edwyn but haven’t met anyone else, the relationships between Edwyn and other characters will remain hidden. The PokéSphere reflects the live state of the world.
The Rotom Phone
The Rotom Phone acts as the new start menu. In the overworld mode it slides up from the bottom of the screen and shows up to six colour coded menu icons. Rotom animates across ten expressions and delivers periodic messages including the time, the weather, or just random small talk. Rotom Reality is the fullscreen mode with up to ten options per page and sliding panels. But more on that in this devlog.
Build Works
Vyraton isn’t fully developed when you arrive. The Build Works system lets you start building structures and improvements around the town by donating resources like items or money. Each build has its own requirements, with you and other residents able to contribute until it’s finished. When a project completes, the new structure will be visible on the map, with the order you prioritise things, almost entirely up to you, and the town that emerges is a result of those choices. I’m hoping this allows players to have different results not only in location, but a difference in the benefits certain infrastructure brings compared to others.
Overworld Pokémon Encounters
Wild Pokémon can also exist in the overworld rather than just being triggered by random chance in tall grass. They can approach you, be snuck up on, be caught, or initiate an encounter sequence. With the difficulty of each option dependant on the species.
Seasons
Vyraton’s four seasons, may play a part in which Pokémon you encounter. Throughout the in-game year, maps, sunrise and sunset times and encounters will all reflect the changing climate. The pool of weather that may occur on any given day may also change, and of course, this can affect the course of a battle. The calendar tracks which season, and any other notable dates within it.
The Forces of Nature
Tornadus, Thundurus, Landorus, and Enamorus play a specific role in Ikigai, each having a title screen to reflect it. Will they be able to be tamed in order to help the world thrive, or will they bring about its destruction.