Pokémon for the OG Generation

I didn't have many video games as a child. I'm not exactly sure why, but my parents wouldn't buy me a Game Boy, Nintendo DS, PSP, Game Cube, Xbox, or PlayStation until I was around ten years old, but I don't think I'm any worse off because of their decision. When I was ten, they bought me a Nintendo DS Lite, and a handful of games; the first one I played was Pokémon Fire Red.

I got stuck about halfway through, and gave up for a few months before returning to the game and finishing. Then I restarted the game and beat it again. Then I restarted the game and beat it again, and again, and again, and again. I played other games, Pokémon and otherwise, but I always went back to Pokémon Fire Red; it's my favorite game. I've played almost every main-series Pokémon RPG since then, but every new game draws my interest less and less.

It's not the fault of Nintendo or Game Freak that a 21-year-old man has less fun playing a Pokémon game than a ten year old boy, but the realization that something I consider a highlight in my life is losing its value because I'm getting older made me realize a fantastic business opportunity: Nostalgic Video Games.

I'm not the first to come up with the concept, and I'm not the first to make a Pokémon clone, but I came up with the idea of my own accord, and I've done the research collecting data to back my idea with facts. The game I want to make is called Engimon.

Engimon is a Pokémon style adventure RPG aimed at gamers aged 16 and up.

Pokémon's sales demographic is increasing in age, but older players are tired of the repetitive formula, and childish structure of the games. Engimon provides the same feeling of a Pokémon game, but adds components to suit the needs of experienced players like more complex storytelling, a more difficult challenge and strategy, and overall more riveting gameplay.

Engimon will be released on PC in two separate versions: one where you play the typical story of starting in a small town, and rising to power as the best trainer in the land, while defeating an evil team, and one where you play as a lowly thief who joins the evil team, and rises to power as the most powerful person in the land.

Engimon also fixes several fairly simple problems that older Pokémon fans have with the games. You will be able to walk around, and have your Engimon follow you, you can catch all of the Engimon in either version, knocking out a wild Engimon doesn't mean you can't still try to capture it, the AI won't do stupid things like try to use an ineffective move five times in a row, and you can have more than one save file for each version.

Engimon will be initially available on Itch.io for $10-$15 for each version. Programmers, game designers, and artists will be paid a portion of each sale; musicians will be paid a onetime fee for their work. Major costs include music production and marketing for the game, once it's either in the beta stage or finished. If we get to a solid beta, and decide we need help to finish the game in a reasonable time frame, we will release the beta for free, and go to Kickstarter or individual investors to fund finishing the game.

An RPG with turn-based combat, and random monster encounters isn't difficult to make;it's time consuming. You probably need at least five programmers, five artists, and two sound designers working full-time to make the game in a reasonable time frame. The bulk of the work is making the thousands of art assets needed for all of the different monsters, and their attacks in addition to all the normal RPG art assets likes towns, items, characters, and buildings.

In 2010, Pokémon Black and White sold 5.5 Million Copies in North America. 1.65 Million copies were sold to people in the 20-years-and-older demographic. Even if we only sell to 10 percent of our niche market for $10 a copy, that's $1.65 Million in sales. If it somehow costs $650,000 to make both versions of the game; that's still $1 Million in Profit (before taxes).

I think this opportunity is too big to pass up, but I'm having trouble building a team who can help me bring the idea to life.