Does anyone else find it fascinating to look through the Generation 1 index numbers for the insight they provide in terms of the process of creation?
It’s fairly well-known that Rhydon was the first Pokemon ever designed and as such is listed #1 in the index. It’s also worth noting that all the “Missing Numbers” were Pokemon that were at one point programmed into the original games but later scrapped.
I assume that Mew is an exception to the order of creation, because it’s well-known that Mew was added in by programmers at the last minute. So I assume that these programmers likely put Mew in place of what otherwise would have been the first “Missing number” in the index.
It’s interesting to see how the design team made some of the evolutionary chains right at the same time, but at other times there were wide gaps. An example of this is that Ivysaur was one of the first Pokemon to be created, but Bulbasaur and Venusaur were both designed much later. Similarly, Blastoise was designed well before Squirtle and Wartortle. On the other hand, Charmander, Charmeleon, and Charizard were all designed around the same.
What else stands out to you guys as interesting about the order the Pokemon were created in?
Is it correct that the assignment of an index number is distinct from the creation of a Pokémon? (e.g., the concept or art or sprites for the Bulbasaur line could have been created all simultaneously, even if those three Pokémon were assigned index numbers separately)
My guess is that the index number roughly matches the order of creation, which is why I find it fascinating to look through.
You may notice that early on the evolutionary chains were more likely to split apart by index number (i.e. one of the Pokemon was designed and they got around to doing the evolutions / pre-evolutions later). Once they got going, it seems like they were more likely to design all the Pokemon of a given evolutionary chain at the same time.
Many of the “scrapped” Pokemon from the missingno slots were moved to gold and silver, either with or without a redesign. I highly recommend looking into the old space world demos if you’re interested.
I think with the design changes between demo and release, and the data we have from the Nintendo space world demos, there’s a lot of evidence that characters were created in a different order than the indices in the game. Putting in the first designed character Rhydon as the first index is a pretty standard way to test implementing something, but after that I think they probably had a different workflow.
Then again, it depends what you mean by “created”. Concept art? Finalized art? Sprite designs? Finalized movepool and evolution line? etc.
Regardless of the index meaning, there’s a deep rabbit hole of info out there that’s really fun to look at (once again recommend the space world demo videos, concept art, data files). It’s super cool to see how different the games were before they were released, and how many ideas we see in the more modern Pokemon games were born back during the original.
For all we know Nyarlathotep, more questionmarkquestionmarkquestionmark and Bird types could be down there. There’s this site I’ve bookmarked for too long that deserves more attention to itself and Pokémon’s greater detail.
Glitch landscapes and sprites are an art. Aren’t they @shizzlemetimbers ?
