the power that's inside

I made a few adjustments to the Bag page, including the hover over "Masterball" (which is not a key item lmao) operating with the flavor text instead of just the title attribute.

I also plan on writing documentation for the Trick House at some point in the near future, but I'm not sure when yet. I'm not super motivated at the moment, but mostly because I'm sick. Since I also made the Ball Guy clique recently, that will have some documentation at the end. They're a bit related... in a way... I promise.

I also got some ideas for other parts! I thought making the Trick House was inspiring enough, but after launching it and having some friends be my guinea pigs and play through it, it's made me want to make even more fun little side quests on my site :D I suppose the part where my friends have really enjoyed the game helps, hehe :D

Anyway, I updated the documentation with some of those ideas, but I'll talk about them here, too. The Trick House is like a secret game that is fun enough to find and play through once, and that was the exact experience I wanted to make with it. I wasn't trying to make an addicting game, but a very fun and annoying one that really rewards your curiosity and resourcefulness; I feel like that's how I also think of the Trick House in the games, though those puzzles are more simple.

I'm saying this all to primarily say that I *don't* want to emulate this experience with a new section. But some of them are a bit game-y in idea, so they'll just be different types of games:

- Abandoned Ship - This is the main one, since it's also a gen 3 side quest and actually rewards in-game exploration. I don't know what I want to do with it yet, but I'm thinking something like a roguelike + roguelite in conceit. I think it could be fun, and I think I could also really lean into the Abandoned Ship motif and how it works in game and see how I can make it different + new with the roguelike/roguelite features.

- Mirage Island - Not sure what to do about this one yet, but I did get that idea just today, which is funny considering some Trick House stuff. It doesn't have to be big or even a game, but I think I could do something fun with it as a website element.

- Strange House - A B2W2 gimmick, but still one of my favorites. Like the Mirage Island, I'm not sure what I want to do with it yet either. The main difference between the Mirage Island and the Strange House is that the Mirage Island will be more random/impermanent/move around/whatever, but the Strange House will be in a fixed location. So even if they do end up having similarities - because I can see how they would - this would be a key difference in them.

- Dream World - I had this idea last year, because I *loved* the Dream World in Pokemon BW and was devastated when they shut the servers down. I don't think I want to emulate it (but maybe this will change?) but I was thinking it kind of operating like in a "shop" style. It wouldn't be a shop, but you can pick out pixels to "collect," mostly because I want to put gifs together. I already made Pecha Berry tree gifs, so stuff like that. And I was also thinking maybe you'd get a random Pokemon to be your "partner" on your shopping trip and they basically stay there until you clear your caches (or there'll be a button that allows you to.)

But also! There is a lot of stuff in the Dream World I DO like, so I think maybe navigation-wise it may operate similarly, but when you get to the tree you can see all your options and go wherever you want. That might be it, yeah. I think maybe the entry experience would be the part that emulates the Dream World, and visitors will encounter a wild Pokemon and other stuff along the way for their journey... hmm.

Also, the ice cream game. I have to mention it because it's important.

ETA (2): It's official, this is going to be my project for this site's ten year anniversary next year! Mostly because it will definitely take a long time, and will also be when I overhaul a lot of stuff (like my unorganized assets and lack of root styles on my trainer pages LOL). So it'll take a while, haha. But I've decided that these updates can go together since implementing the Dream World will require me to make edits to every page in some way anyway, so they're good goals to pair together. Now to do them...

- Maybe the ghost girl from XY can be somewhere? She could always be a random Error 404 easter egg... actually yeah, I might just add that now LOL. Added!

- ETA (1): The more I thought about it, the more I actually think the Mirage Island would be best for a little graphics section, since I don't really make them much so the amount that it would get updated would be as sporadic as it'd appear in game. This is also inconvenient (but also part of the gimmick, as these things go) but I think I'd only have it be linked from the Map too, not from the home. I'd feel better about it that way as some sort of commitment, I think. Plus, I think it'd be cute as a little sprite on the Map (like the Mirage Island haha get it) instead of just a text link.

The reason I also want to make it this way - and not have some sort of graphics/junk section be accessible directly from the home page - is because this site is primarily focused on my relationship with Pokemon and this isn't a part of it, nor is it really part of my relationship with this website. I just started putting Pokemon gifs together one day and I was like eh I do kinda wanna share them especially somewhere appropriate, so i.e. my Pokemon website. But still, giving things to visitors is not part of the conceit of the site, because that's about my relationship with Pokemon, which graphics have nothing to do with. So.

Anyway, I think I repeated myself like three times LOL but it's fine. I think this is the play, which means I need to do something else with Dream World. A friend did suggest I make a random team generator, so maybe the Dream World can be some sort of game where you encounter 6 Pokemon before you reach the end. Hmm...

- Also, something to do with the Icirrus City music/claps when you get near effect that I like so much.

- Probably something related to Pokemon Contests and PokeBlocks too. I was on that shit as a kid man...

Anyway, so there's a lot potentially in store, which is saying something considering that the Trick House is brand new for public perusal. I'm also, ahem, getting up there in disk space, so I need to keep that in mind...

Guess who got sick an got motivated to finish and publish the Trick House. Yup, that's me.

Thanks a lot to my friend Lanter for being my first guinea pig with the game; I made some very small adjustments during/after their run, which took them a few hours (and six times longer than I originally anticipated at 3 hours haha...) I adjusted the estimated time to be 90 minutes instead of 30 minutes, but I still might be undershooting it so we'll see. Feel free to let me know what you think! I'm not linking it here since finding it is part of the game :)

In addition to that, I have another massive update - after Katsucon this past weekend (where I was not sick... only afterward, and not even because I was traveling lmao) I updated my Secret Base. Of course, with trinkets, but also with new sections - I split up Collections into 2D and 3D collections, and added a new section for Housewares as well. Check them out!

I need to write documentation on all of this, but... I don't want to (yet.) Fun fact, I was going to have art commissioned for the Trick House but decided that my placeholder drawing has a certain charm I'd like to keep for how evidently bad it looks, haha. The original idea I had for the last room I really didn't want to make, so I actually just changed that today (er... yesterday... looks at the time) so it was much easier to code and with a similar-yet-different level of frustration. I think it's more fun than the original idea too, which wasn't meant to be fun in the first place.

Anyway: the Trick House is finally up, yay! It is technically done, but that doesn't mean I don't have more tricks for it planned in the future ;) Be sure to check back every so often to see if there's anything new. Once you've finished it the first time, try speedrunning it too!

ETA: & added 12 new TCGP cards too!

ETA 2: & gave the map a new look!

I'm participating in Petra's (2nd) Indie Web Contest with this site :3 I decided to submit it under the "Most Unique" category since that's kind of what this site is all about. And all of the sites I'd consider submitting for a contest, Masterball is also the most organized/easiest to navigate (lol.)

Check out all the other entrants too! I'm excited to discover new personal websites through this contest :3

Added new clique (my first partner), reorganized and updated links