WHAT!! ANOTHER UPDATE IN SO MANY DAYS?! Wow, who’s Mister Working Hard here?? (Or is it Mister Hardly Working?)
But seriously… while I haven’t moved to Sacramento yet (more deets on that later), I have basically done all of the heavy lifting and hard work that I had to do to facilitate the actual move to Sacramento. And so, I think I now have my free time back to be able to invest it back into the site again. YAY!
I even bought a new ring light as well as a secondary side camera to go with the main camera for video recording. The main camera is a Nikon D7500, while the backup secondary camera is a Sony DSC-HX400V. I managed to get the Sony camera for a real steal: Best Buy had it on clearance or something… nearly $300 off from $450 to$157 (or a shade over 65% off)! Holy crackers!! Of course it lacked basically everything else… no box, manual, battery, charger, neck strap, memory card, pocket egg… y’know, the usual stuff. I however decided that I really didn’t need any of that, and then when I saw a three-pack of batteries plus a charger on eBay for another $20, that sealed the deal for me. Now while the Nikon shoots in 4K, the Sony doesn’t, but that’s OK, it’s just gonna be my secondary “rough-and-tumble” camera, one where I don’t need to worry about it getting scuffed up and junk, so I don’t mind if it’s not in 4K.
Anyways, I’ll get to all my YouTube plans in another post. But for now: fake card brainstorm time!
The Actual News:
I want the whole Space World Fake Card Block project to be a celebration of the obscure and unique Pokémon, which is one reason why I’m including all these non-existent Pokémon in the project. But what I’d also like to do is include other unique forms of existing Pokémon. For example, I discovered @LegacyPsk9999 over at Twitter, and they’re designing Sword/Shield Pokédex-quality artwork of all kinds of unique and obscure Pokémon, like all the different Arbok “belly” patterns, given how its Pokédex entry states: “It is rumored that the ferocious warning markings on its belly differ from area to area.”
So I got to thinking, maybe I could make fake cards of all of THOSE different kinds of Pokémon as well! But which set would they belong to: SW97 Alpha, SW98 Beta and/or SW99 Omega? This is considering that I have very specific plans for which Pokémon are included with each of those sets… and yet all of the Pokémon I’ve listed below seem to fit all three. In that case, maybe I’ll sprinkle them in all three of those sets, in case I need to add more of a certain type of Pokémon in order to balance out the types a bit.
Anyways, the different kind of Pokémon that have appeared in Pokémon‘s history that I’d like to make fakes of include:
- All the different Arbok patterns, as mentioned above
- maybe I can have them represent some kind of special mechanic, like you can swap out for different Arbok with a different pattern which in turn has a different ability
- The different, non-Latin character Unowns seen in Spell of the Unown
- Then there’s also the Galarian Unown I made
- The Pinkan Pokémon from the Orange Island-era episode In The Pink
- Likewise, I imagine I would be giving them some kind of shared special abilities and/or attacks because of their pinkness
- On top of that, I’ve already thought up three different Trainer cards I could make relating to this:
- “Pinkan Berry” Trainer (Item) card: lets you search for Pink Pokémon,
- “Pinkan Island Reserve Gym” Trainer (Stadium): either gives Pinkan Pokémon special bonuses (ie -10 damage from attacks), or the Pinkan Berry Trainer card is shuffled back into your deck after use versus placed into your Discard Pile, or players can’t do damage or otherwise target Pinkan Pokémon on their opponent’s bench
- “Pinkan Island Officer Jenny” Trainer (Supporter): clearly she’ll defend Pinkan Pokémon somehow… maybe it gives Pinkan Pokémon free retreats, prevents all effects of attacks (except damage) during the opponent’s turn, or… I dunno. Maybe when I start designing other cards and I get a common theme going, then I can use Pinkan Jenny to protect Pinkan Pokémon from whatever those effects are
- The alternate Valencia Island forms from the Orange Island-era episode Poké Ball Peril
- These, on the other hand, might just be the designs used on standard cards for those Pokémon, as opposed to if I made them into a “Valencia Form”. Like, I’ll make a standard Vileplume card and its artwork would be that of a Valencia Vileplume.
- Cloned Pokémon, with stripey bits similar to the Pokémon that Mewtwo duplicated from Mewtwo Strikes Back
- This idea has plenty of potential… like, I can make them highly powered Basic Pokémon, regardless of what Stage the actual Pokémon is, BUT you can only play them if its original already exists in play, similar to how it worked in the movie. Like, you can only play Cloned Blastoise (or “Blastoisetwo”) if a Blastoise already exists in play (your’s or your opponent’s).
- I MAY even do something like “Mysterious Fossil” in case I need to balance it a bit, where you have to play a Trainer (Item) card caled “Protomatter” or “Protomon”, where the Cloned Pokémon “evolves” from, such that ALL Cloned Pokémon use that card instead of just being dropped into play immediately. Lemme think about this.
- Seeing as I already did this idea back in the old Fake Edition days—with “Super” forms of Blastoise, Venusaur and Charizard—maybe I’ll do something meta with them… throw in some kind of in-joke referencing the older cards.
- The ancient Pokémon from the Indigo-era episode The Ancient Puzzle of Pokémopolis
- These are ones I also made back in the day, with Ancient Alakazam, Giant Gengar and Jumbo Jigglypuff, but I may instead make new versions relating to them.
- ORRRR I can make Dynamax versions for Alakazam, Gengar and Jigglypuff which resemble these versions.
OK, that’s all I got for now. That said, this list is duplicated—and will be further edited—over at the Space World Fake Card Block project page, so check it out for more flavor and lore that I plan for it!