Pokemon Gen 2 Style Tilemap

Objectives

1. Similar but different tiles. The kind that when side by side you can't really work out which is the original.
2. Same colour palette

These will be addressed via:

Compiler

There's a crusty compiler that extracts data from the tables in this readme.md file to generate:

1. A tilemap for both the original and custom tiles
2. A JSON output of the tilemap with tile names, the filename, and coordinates: TilemapDetails.json

If there are missing tiles, a fuchsia square is used instead.

This helps me create tilemaps easily by only having to document them here. The tilemaps themselves look like:

Tilemap from original tiles	Tilemap from custom tiles

Colouriser

Also included is a colouriser which turns each tile into the 4 colour GameBoy colours. This is useful to directly import the sheet into something like GBStudio.

Notes

• Gameboy tiles are 8x8 pixels
• However, lots of things (including people) are 16x16 pixels (i.e. 2x2 tiles) or bigger like trees and buildings.
• Inspiration from Pokemon Gold/Silver. This is also the spritesheet the originals come from.
• Slight inspiration from The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
• Full map of Gen 2 Johto and Kanto. Copying this into Aseprite, setup the grid as {X: 1, Y: 6, Width: 8, Height: 8} to align the main map to the grid. Grid toggle is ctrl + '
• Tile naming convention: <Object> - <type> - <index>
  • Object: The thing the tile represents.
  • Type: The type/subclass/description of the Object
  • Index: If it is a multi-tile Object, the index of the tile. From left to right, top to bottom.
• Each tile has a large version. Exported from Aseprite at 800% size with _large in the filename.

Outdoor

Tiles

Tile	Original	Custom	Notes
Path			Hard to make distinct when using the same colours.
Path with gravel			Just some dots.
Grass - flat			Basically a whole bunch of checkerboarding with some bits cut out.
Grass - tall			Couldn't make nice looking grass on my own. Might have to revisit. Maybe get inspiration fron gen 1 or 3?
Tree - short 00			Background is just the grass texture. Followed the same shading style. Ended up looking more bulbus at the top.
Tree - short 01			Background is just the grass texture. Followed the same shading style. Ended up looking more bulbus at the top.
Tree - short 02			Little shadow takes most of the space around the trunk. Ended up not using the same spiky tree look for the lower branches
Tree - short 03			Little shadow takes most of the space around the trunk. Ended up not using the same spiky tree look for the lower branches
Tree - tall 00			I think this also uses the normal grass background as a base
Tree - tall 01			I think this also uses the normal grass background as a base
Sign - metal 00			A taller sign.
Sign - metal 01			A taller sign.
Sign - metal 02			A taller sign.
Sign - metal 03			A taller sign.
Ridge 00			Checkerboard design behind.
Ridge 01			Just lots of light shading on the top.
Ridge 02			Checkerboard design behind.
Ridge 03			This one looks like a dog's breakfast without the context of other tiles.
Ridge 04			Surprisingly, this took a little bit of time to look okay and not overdone.
Ridge 05			Initially looks less defined, but together with other tiles it looks fine.
Ridge 06			Used a basic circle design. Might be worth looking into exaggerating the curve.
Ridge 07			First run of this design looked like Hank Hill's ass.
Ridge 08			I'm assuming the bottom right corner light pixel is the light peeking over the top of the rock at the top of the shadow.
Water 00
Water 01
Water 02
Water 03
Water 04
Water 05
Water 06
Grass - rustle 00
Grass - rustle 01
Flower - Johto 00			Flipped the background pixels. The original did a great job with the space it had.
Flower - Johto 01			Maybe move the flower the other way? Maybe do a V shaped flower like a tulip?
Building - Roof - flat 00			Top left corner. Though there are many roof colours in game and a couple of roof designs too. I took inspriation from my first building.
Building - Roof - flat 01			Top middle. Hard to be different here too I think when explicitly making a flat roof
Building - Roof - flat 02			Top right corner
Building - Roof - flat 03			Left middle
Building - Roof - flat 04			Centre fill
Building - Roof - flat 05			Right middle
Building - Roof - flat 06			Bottom left corner. A skinnier look inspired by Kanto.
Building - Roof - flat 07			Bottom middle
Building - Roof - flat 08			Bottom right corner
Building - Wall 00			Left building wall
Building - Wall 01			Right building wall
Building - Wall 02			Bottom left building corner
Building - Wall 03			Bottom middle building floor. I never realised this had the dots, even when a brick cladding is used. Originally I didn't have the dots, but they ended up providing a unconscious smoothness to the design.
Building - Wall 04			Bottom right building corner
Building - Cladding 00			Hatched design. I'm awful at designs and couldn't come up with anything better.
Building - Cladding 01			Brick. The pink building bricks were also used as the paths in Goldenrod
Building - Window			Window. Similar to the hatched design, couldn't come up with anything better. However in my first building linked above, I did have a nice window design inspired by Kanto, but I couldnt' get it to suit the look here.
Building - Door 00			Top left door. Never realised the door was so highlighted in the top half. I'm assuming this is to show the light coming out of the window. And perhaps this is the same door used in the night scenes, so it would look nicelyl it without having toc hange the tile.
Building - Door 01			Top right door
Building - Door 02			Bottom left door
Building - Door 03			Bottom right door
Outdoor Exit Mat

Constructed tiles

Constructed Tile	Original	Custom
Tree - short
Tree - tall
Sign
Ridge
Water
Grass - rustle
Flower - Johto
Building
Outdoor exit mat type 01
Outdoor exit mat type 02

Observations

• Due to the GBC limitation, only 4 colours per sprite. Often this is a "black", "white", main colour light, and main colour dark.
• I have no idea how shading works
• Checkerboards, checkerboards everywhere
• Weird asymmertry everywhere
• If an object doesn't fill in the entire space of the tile, the empty space is often the blank path without gravel colour

Water

⚠️On further analysis, I beleve this to be kinda wrong, but left here because it's interesting and might be worth picking up in the future⚠️

• I think water tiles are actually only 4 tiles rather than the 7 pulled from the sprite sheet. I say this because

  • The local label(?) .WaterTileFrames points to a 4 frame png
  • Via AnimateWaterPalette, water palette seems to cycle 4 colours - none(?), light, dark, light . I assume this is what changes the shading of the light coloured pixels in the frames. As some of the water frames are the same, just lighter/darker depending where in the cycle they are. Then ultimately the blank and just blue frame is either the palette colours swapping in no or blue value for the pixels. I find it difficult to read Assembly, but it seems to be something like this.
  • An educated assumption might look like this:

  Frame	Visible in-game Tile	Palette cycle	Original animation frame index (0 - 4)	Original frame	Approx number of frames visible
  1		0 (none)	Frame 2		~14?
  2		0 (none)	Frame 3		~14?
  3		1 (light)	Frame 3		~20?
  4		1 (light)	Frame 0		~4?
  5		2 (dark)	Frame 0		~24?
  6		2 (dark)	Frame 1		~4?
  7		1 (light)	Frame 1		~20?
  8		1 (light)	Frame 2		~4?

  • The above is a sketchy understanding at best
  • The tiles except the blank one add to 60 frames, or 1 second (GB/GBC runs at 60fps)
  • Makes sense that the minimum length is 4 frames due to this comment. Maybe 4 frames is a "tick" here.

• However, as neat as these are, I'll probably just be using the 7 frame water animation

• The water animation gif above might be a bit fast

• bgb notes

• More bgb notes

Flowers

• There are Johto flowers and Kanto flowers, But I'll be focusing on Johto.
• I think Johto flowers run at 24 frames per animation frame. Assembly here.
• Also both seem to run at different speeds.

Indoor

Tiles

Tile	Original	Custom	Notes
Void
Back wall - painted
Back wall - wood			╚(ಠ_ಠ)=┐ ┌=(ಠ_ಠ)╝
Back wall - window 00
Back wall - window 01
Back wall - window 02
Back wall - window 03
Back wall - art 00
Back wall - art 01
Back wall - art 02
Back wall - art 03
Flooring - type 01
Flooring - type 02
Table - type 01 - 00
Table - type 01 - 01
Table - type 01 - 02
Table - type 01 - 03
Table - type 01 - 04
Table - type 01 - 05
Table - type 01 - 06
Table - type 01 - 07
Table - type 01 - 08
Table - type 01 - 09
Table - type 01 - 10
Table - type 01 - 11
Indoor plant - type 01 - 00
Indoor plant - type 01 - 01
Indoor plant - type 01 - 02
Indoor plant - type 01 - 03
Indoor plant - type 01 - 04
Indoor plant - type 01 - 05
Indoor plant - type 01 - 06
Indoor plant - type 01 - 07
Computer - type 01 - 00
Computer - type 01 - 01			Looks like I drew a rare wide screen old CRT
Computer - type 01 - 02
Computer - type 01 - 03
Computer - type 01 - 04
Computer - type 01 - 05			Uses the bottom of the bookshelf as the bottom of the computer
TV - type 01 - 00
TV - type 01 - 01
TV - type 01 - 02
TV - type 01 - 03
Bookshelf - type 01 - 00
Bookshelf - type 01 - 01
Bookshelf - type 01 - 02
Bookshelf - type 01 - 03
Bookshelf - type 01 - 04
Bookshelf - type 01 - 05
Bookshelf - type 01 - 06
Bookshelf - type 01 - 07
Bed - type 01 - 00
Bed - type 01 - 01
Bed - type 01 - 02
Bed - type 01 - 03
Bed - type 01 - 04
Bed - type 01 - 05
Bed - type 01 - 06
Bed - type 01 - 07
Fridge - type 01 - 00
Fridge - type 01 - 01
Fridge - type 01 - 02
Fridge - type 01 - 03
Fridge - type 01 - 04
Fridge - type 01 - 05
Sink - 01			This custom sink might be my favorite piece of this project.
Sink - 02
Stove - 00
Stove - 01
Stove - 02
Stove - 03
Cabnet - 00			I guess it's a drawer now
Cabnet - 01
Stool - type 01 - 00
Stool - type 01 - 01
Stool - type 01 - 02
Stool - type 01 - 03
Stool - type 02 - 00
Stool - type 02 - 01
Stool - type 02 - 02
Stool - type 02 - 03
Radio - type 01 - 00
Radio - type 01 - 01
Radio - type 01 - 02
Radio - type 01 - 03
Radio - type 02 - 00
Radio - type 02 - 01
Radio - type 02 - 02
Radio - type 02 - 03
Indoor Exit Mat type 01 - 00
Indoor Exit Mat type 01 - 01
Indoor Exit Mat type 02 - 00
Indoor Exit Mat type 02 - 00

Constructed Tiles

Constructed Tile	Original	Custom
Back wall - window
Back wall - art
Table - type 01
Indoor plant - type 01
Computer - type 01
TV - type 01
Bookshelf - type 01
Bed - type 01
Fridge - type 01
Sink
Stove
Cabinet
Stool - type 01
Stool - type 02
Radio - type 01
Radio - type 02
Indoor Exit Mat type 01
Indoor Exit Mat type 02

Indoor Plant Type 01 Attempts

For fun, here are some attempts at the indoor plant. The first two are from the game, the latter four are my attempts.

While what I settled on wasn't perfect (see in the tables above), I did learn:

1. The flooring that is 1px hatched tiles also applies to the green area
2. The shading for the plants really makes it. Having the light, medium then dark greens from top to bottom of each leaf.
3. That the pot looks like it's a plant pot from Zelda.

Let that sink in

Like noted above, I'm really proud of the sink. I just think it looks neat. Showed it to a friend, and he returned with: