I'm a bit surprised to see a patch for the Zig compiler itself in the source tree, though. I thought manually patching Zig bugs was no longer necessary?
The performance numbers for Generation I will not change as other generations get implemented (by design), and Pokémon Showdown will likely fare better as the game logic gets more complex but I would still expect at least a 1000x difference in performance even for modern generations - the things that make Pokémon Showdown slow do not go away as the generations increase, there is just perhaps less irrelevant stuff happening in later generations to slow things down.
The Zig patch in the source tree is optional and for performance reasons... but a ~20% performance boost is hard to pass up. This is not a general purpose patch, it is only relevant to this project which makes heavy use of sub-byte integers and has a very very comprehensive testing suite to ensure that the undefined behavior that could occur if this patch were applied and used to compile arbitrary Zig problems are not an issue.
Once the system is settled, you might implement a simulator to fix balance issues — but more likely, you’ll use the simulator you already have; the game itself, hopefully running in some kind of headless mode.
Also if you’re planning to continuously update the game for balance (unlike Pokémon), you don’t need to be that worried about dominant strategies (excluding those that are caused by the fundamental ruleset, not just balance numbers) because dominant strategies only matter if the community identifies and utilizes it. So you simply watch what occurs in practice, and sand down the rough edges. The potential degenerate strategies don’t matter until they’re popularized.
I can’t find the article now (I thought it was gaffer but I guess not) but you can also avoid degenerate strategies occurring with escape-hatches. In the article I’m thinking of, in a fighting game they gave every character a “get out of jail free card” by giving a once-per-round X second invulnerability. This meant infinite combos could only be so powerful; obvious and easy to use combos are identified and removed by playtesting, and harder to setup ones that get past playtesting can only do so much harm because they can be invul-cancelled at least once. So they’re betting a counter-strategy will be identified to make it unreliable, and making it additionally unreliable by definition with the escape hatch.
This is probably it. As the article says, it’s also a cleverly layered mechanic if a player correctly predicts when their opponent will use it.
Just picking team rosters, no move sets for first gen is 151 Pokémon, choose 6 =~15 billion potentials.
Many submissions get overlooked the first time and then get nominated for a second chance.
> In the case of Pokémon Showdown, only bugs which stem from a misimplementation of specific effects are reproduced in the engine, bugs which are the result of a misunderstanding of the fundamental mechanics of Pokémon or which simply arise due to specific Pokémon Showdown implementation details that aren't replicable without making the same (incorrect) architectural choices aren't.
Very curious what "incorrect architecture choices" refers to but I assume the post-Dexit NatDex clusterfuck is a major part of it, lol. I do think "Assist can call any move it's not explicitly forbidden from calling, even moves that were never present in the same game as Assist" was the wrong choice, for example, and we saw how that played out with ReviveCats :P
A couple of bugs in gen 1 that might be implemented differently than PS, would be bugs that are fixed in ps due to balancing or due to playability:
- multiplayer desyncs, see counter - fly/dig para invuln. - freeze clause, and to a lesser extent sleep clause
Bugs like normal body slam para invuln, amnesia reapplying speed drops, and toxic counter bugs, 1/256 miss chance, focus energy bugs, I would expect to stay. If those get fixed, the project would veer into the terrain of natdex, Create A Pokemon, or Custom Metas, as in made up fan games that never existed in cartridge
ETA: Not directly related, but @ the creator of this tool: if you're planning to implement more gens, you'll be in for a fun time with Sheer Force interactions!
Zig development experience in a nutshell.
I did a solo hackathon project [0] using poke-env[1] and found it to be pretty easy to get started with. Hoping for an easy-to-use API with this as well.
[0] https://x.com/ditzikow/status/1922004651790000521 [1] https://github.com/hsahovic/poke-env
I would also want support for some variants (including custom rules) as well as for standard rules, and for team validation (including custom team validation). (I did have ideas also about the rule sets formats, with many options; for some kind of custom rules, it would be necessary to modify the program, but that is OK; some kinds will not require such a modification.)
I also wanted to support Unown's letter in generation II only, and Spinda's spots in some generations (probably III, IV, and V; they would result in some of the data being revealed to the opponent), and the ability to change the number of PP Up (as far as I know, Pokemon Showdown always has the number of PP Up set to 3 and it cannot be changed; it is probably uncommon that you would want to change it anyways but it does have some uses).
Another consideration to be made is: In a double battle, if your second pokemon is prohibited from switching out due to an opponent's ability that you are unaware of (e.g. since it is a pokemon that can have multiple possible abilities, or if it is actually Zoroark), but your first pokemon is immune to that effect (e.g. due to being Ghost type), then it is possible, if the commands are selected for the first pokemon and then for the second pokemon in that order, that you will not be aware of this right away. If your second pokemon tries to switch out, then you will receive an error message and both of your pokemons can reselect their commands, but if your second pokemon tries to switch out and it is actually allowed, then you cannot reselect your commands for either pokemon. (I don't know if this rule is specific to some generations.)
Team validation is an an orthogonal problem, and is almost completely solved by PKHeX (https://github.com/kwsch/PKHeX) which already does a better job at it than the original game developers. Pokémon Showdown's custom rules are almost all enforced at team validation time, and the standard clauses/rules which require modifications to the engine (e.g., EBC, Sleep/Freeze Mod, Desync Mod) are all supported already by this engine when -Dshowdown compatibility mode is enabled. Your other requests (Unown/Spinda/PP UPs) are all client concerns and thus would be implemented at a higher level than the engine shared here. Your switching scenario will also be handled whenever the generations it is relevant to get implemented. Pokémon Showdown already supports the concept of "maybe trapped" so presumably handles the scenario you're detailing, though if not I'm sure they would appreciate being made aware of any bugs that might exist.
I probably would not expect to use your program, although I had these suggestions anyways, since it would make sense to be improved even if other implementations also exist. However, I do think that your program does many things better than Pokemon Showdown does (I dislike much of the design of Pokemon Showdown), and the stuff you have written may be helpful when making a different one, if as you say, there are problems with the implementation in Pokemon Showdown.
Having a separate structure for active and inactive pokemons is good that what you have, and is what I had thought should be done also and, reading your documentation, I found out that Pokemon Showdown doesn't do that.
If I write one, I also would want to be more targeted in scope than the official games and Pokemon Showdown, although my scope would be a bit more than you have. What you did may be OK for your uses, although not quite what I wanted to make. I also intended to be more flexible in some ways; this might be slower than yours but would probably be faster than Pokemon Showdown.
> Team validation is an an orthogonal problem, and is almost completely solved by PKHeX
OK, although PKHeX is now another different programming language (C#), and the programs have their own dependencies (in that case, C# 13 and .NET 9.0), while your program also has the dependencies (a Zig compiler, which must be older than a specific version, and also JavaScript code).
> Your other requests (Unown/Spinda/PP UPs) are all client concerns
PP Up does affect the team definition and the game behaviour (it affects such things as e.g. whether or not Struggle is a legal selection). However, at least in the case of generation I, this might not be relevant if you allow starting the battle without being fully healed (if, as you mention, your library does not do team validation). For some later generations, it might be significant if PP can be recovered during battle in some circumstances.
If your program expects the client to decide whether or not teams are revealed, then you could say that my things about Unown and Spinda are client concerns, although I would have the battle engine to specify by the API that some things are exposed, in order that the caller does not have to know what is supposed to be exposed according to the specified rules.
> our switching scenario will also be handled whenever the generations it is relevant to get implemented. Pokémon Showdown already supports the concept of "maybe trapped" so presumably handles the scenario you're detailing
This is OK, then.
You would get the actual fun of Pokémon battles without grinding. And, yes, I know emulators with fast forward and so on, but even Pokémon Radical Red has mechanics on purpose to send grinding to /dev/null with dumb battles against Audinos in order to get EXP like craze.
BTW, Pokémon Unbound might be the best hackrom ever because of the environment and features, but when you just want to fight, an straight offline simulator would be much better.
glimshe•1d ago
Edit: clarified comment on C usage. I wanted to praise the API not the underlying language.
seethedeaduu•1d ago
And why does it matter if it's C?
johnisgood•1d ago
But there is https://github.com/pkmn/engine?tab=readme-ov-file#c.
glimshe•1d ago
malicka•1d ago
In specific cases, they make sense purely practically; but generally? It feels like a huge error for the whole world to leave copyleft and the GPL behind. The reason we can run Linux on everything is because Torvalds chose the GPL, and so vendors are forced to share their drivers if they use the kernel. And that is a truly magnificent achievement.
Joel_Mckay•1d ago
Some groups can get rather fussy over the definition of "free", but one can't assume some personal use-case still makes sense a decade from now. =3
zeta0134•1d ago
Games are a different beast. For one, the dominant revenue model for videogames continues to be to sell copies of the software, and most digital platforms want (understandably) to apply some sort of DRM to those purchases. If I license my game library for GPL it means that, among other things, users are not free to use it in their iOS, Android, Nintendo, PS4, Xbox, or Steam* releases. That makes the library dead on arrival for almost all of the compelling distribution channels. As a result, all of my game libraries are MIT. I want users to be able to sell software that is built using my library, and that means I want to use the most permissive library possible.
There is a place to fight philosophical grounds, and then separately there is wanting to make sure that my actual users (game developers) aren't restricted by my personal philosophies. Thankfully, MIT is itself perfectly copyleft compatible. You can very well include it in your GPL games, and I'd love to hear if you do! But if you are the much more typical developer trying to make a living with your craft, then I want to support the practical realities of your available storefront options, and let you get on with that.
(*Someone much better versed in license legalese informed me that Steam games can be released under GPL so long as they avoid the Steam SDK. I am not lawyer-y enough to confirm this or speak to the details.)
atrus•1d ago
Developers get an unlimited free use trial to try your code, up until release. At which point they can decide to either contribute back with either their code or their money.
tmtvl•18h ago
Aurornis•1d ago
I think GPL is great for certain projects and goals.
There are many times where my goal isn’t to retain control, though. I just want to help and have other people use some of my code some times. I don’t really care if it’s an individual working on a hobby project or a giant corporation putting it in their product. My little 1-person open source contribution isn’t going to be the make or break thing to some megacorp’s success or failure.
I think it’s great for Linux. Doesn’t need to be applied to everything though.
CarVac•1d ago
glimshe•1d ago
Fokamul•1d ago
filmor•1d ago
johnisgood•1d ago