pokemon-tbje

About

Pokémon is Game Freak's long-running role-playing game series, created by Satoshi Tajiri, that began in 1996 with Pokémon Red and Green in Japan (released internationally as Pokémon Red and Blue). pokemon-tbje (Pokémon Text Based Java Edition) is a from-scratch, terminal-based Pokémon battle game written in Java, covering 241 species with real battle mechanics (type matchups, stat changes, status effects, weather), a full single-player campaign including gym leaders, wild encounters, Team Rocket, a Colosseum mode, and an Elite Four, plus an in-house AI with adjustable difficulty. It renders graphics in the terminal using Unicode braille characters and ANSI color escapes, and was built from scratch over two months.

How it differs from the original

It uses only custom-made terminal ("dot-art") graphics and separately sourced music rather than any original Pokémon assets, and adds its own systems not in the original games, including a bank/loans/stocks economy, a casino with mini-games, and a Colosseum battle-rush mode with a win-streak mechanic for stealing opponents' Pokémon.

Getting started

Downloadable release jars require Java 25 to run; alternatively it can be built from source with Maven. The author recommends a monospaced terminal font with at least about 70 rows for the graphics to display correctly, and notes it works best on Mac/Linux terminals, with Windows users advised to use MSYS2.

History

The author describes this as their first large coding project, built from scratch over about two months; it's currently on hold, though the author has said they might revisit it.

Known issues & limitations

• development: Project is on hold and may not receive future updates.

Media

Additional notes

Trivia

Background music and sound effects are YouTube-sourced audio the author says are used for educational purposes and does not claim to own the rights to.