[ { "title": "thistlehare - Introduction", "author": "thistlehare", "summary": "A summary of Monomyth, and how I fell into it.", "body": "Hello, this is \"thistlehare.\" I directed Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth, along with K. Japonica. \nI'll probably be writing or co-writing the majority of blogposts on this section of the site, so I wanted to introduce myself, and explain my relation to Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth for those who might be interested.\n\nPok\u00e9mon Monomyth started in late 2019. COVID-19 hit shortly thereafter, which you can imagine brought a lot of people together to work on Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth. \nI did not start Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth, or join it with the intention of directing it. The responsibility shifted toward me as the previous co-director who worked with K. Japonica, MissOomfie, was less enthusiastic about the projects direction as more ideas we developed didn't align with her initial goals. Her enthusiasm for Pok\u00e9mon mirrors ours in a lot of ways, and her new project, [Pok\u00e9mon Peach Version and Pok\u00e9mon Lime Version](https:\/\/x.com\/PokemonLime) are a stunning reflection of that. If you've yet to hear of them, you should really lend her and her team your support.\n\nPok\u00e9mon Monomyth has dominated my life since around that time (very early 2022). I've since produced the vast majority of plot writing, character dialogue, maps, quest & cutscene scripting, etc. I stopped playing nearly as many single-player videogames in my free time to focus on developing Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth. I centered most of my schedule around Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth, and spent a lot of times hustling from sun up to sun down to ensure we meet certain targets and milestones. I credit these milestone pushes with helping us push through development hurdles in I think a span of time above average for any feature-complete original Pok\u00e9mon fan-game (or ROM hack, if you'd rather.) None of this is to flex my \"dedication\" or my #grindset, or to claim to be the only driving force. I think K. Japonica would love to talk about their work. Perhaps in a blogpost of their own.\nI only want to communicate to you with sincerity that I have given Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth all of myself for a long time - all of my time, and all of my self. I hope that you love it.\n\nThanks for reading. \n-thistlehare", "date": "2026-04-30", "id": 1 }, { "title": "K. Japonica - Introduction", "author": "K. Japonica", "summary": "Co-Director gives their thoughts on the upcoming launch of the game.", "body": "Howdy!\nWelcome to the world of Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth!\n\nI'm K. Japonica, co-director of the game alongside Thistlehare.\nFor the past six years, I've had a hand in shaping the Athanto Region through writing, scripting, and many other various aspects of development.\n \nTo say that it's exciting to finally be launching very soon would be a huge understatement! Up until now, we've been pretty tight-lipped about the game. We wanted to retain as much of the surprise as possible without spoiling things through too many previews. Additionally, it means that when it goes live this fall, players will be getting the fully completed package all at once!\n\nThere are many more specific things I'd like to write about with regard to the game, its development, and its inspirations...\nBut for now, you'll just have to hang tight!\n\nThe Athanto Region is an incredible place, full of wonderful characters and hundreds of new Pok\u00e9mon to meet. \nI can't wait for all of you to experience it at long last.\n\nSo come on, and heed the call to adventure!\n- K. Japonica", "date": "2026-05-01", "id": 2 }, { "title": "hjk321 - Introduction", "author": "hjk321", "summary": "A bit about myself and about Monomyth.", "body": "Hi, I'm hjk321, one of two programming leads on Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth. My focus for the project has been on developing various overworld features, custom screens, and whatever other odds and ends needed to support the game. I've loved Pok\u00e9mon ever since I picked up my copy of White 15 years ago, but I admittedly don't have the head for the battling aspect of it. As such, the vast majority of battle improvements, including Monomyth's exclusive simulation-driven trainer AI, were done by our other lead luckytyphlosion. He is the senior programmer on the team and I am grateful that he has been able to handle a lot of the technical work that was beyond my capabilities. \n\nFirstly, I'd like to express what a pleasure it has been to work with luckytyphlosion as well as the other talented members of the team. For many years I've imagined game development as a largely solo project, but sticking with Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth for so long has exposed me to a lot of concepts and ideas I would have never come up with myself. The game is truly a product of collaboration between dozens of passionate designers, artists, scripters, and testers, all of which have had marked creative influence on the final product.\n\nI started ROM hacking in 2019 while I was still in high school. I had worked with Java in the past but had no experience with C or Git whatsoever. The decomp community was not yet what it is today, so there weren't a lot of guides or beginner-friendly resources out there, besides to pester the wonderful members of pret on their Discord server. But eventually I got better - dare I say good? - and the self-taught skills I picked up from this community have served me well. \n\nI did some minor work for Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth in 2021 before becoming a permanent member of the team in 2024. Working on such a technically-demanding game has kept me sharpening my skills as the hardware limitations of the Game Boy Advance, and I'm quite proud that we have stretched the GBA in numerous ways not previously thought practical. I know that many of you will be playing Monomyth on an emulator, but the knowledge that our 75-hour game can run on a Japanese toy from 2001 is just such an amazing concept to me.\n\nAnyway, more details to come later! We're excited to finally go public with our project announcement. The game is, for all intents and purposes, content complete, and we are now in the \"polish and bugfix\" stage of development. Thank you for being part of our journey, and stay tuned!\n\n-hjk321", "date": "2026-05-01", "id": 3 }, { "title": "hornests - Introduction", "author": "hornests", "summary": "What is all the buzz about?", "body": "This is Hornests, 'Environmental Graphics Lead' for Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth. \n\nA quick glance at the 'Credits' section should suffice to let one know that my contributions went far beyond just making maps and tiles, though. Truth is, I'm very scatterbrained and enjoy meddling with stuff as much as I can, which meant that -short of composing music- I contributed a little bit of everything for this project.\n\nThis 'lack of focus' is a malaise that has affected me my whole life, and as you may imagine, just like I didn't just do tiles for Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth, I also have worked on many many many different projects besides MM. I tend to stick my thumbs in as many pies as humanly possibly, which makes it hard to fully commit to a single one. However, alongside Quarantine Crystal, Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth is the largest project I've worked on, and the one I've worked on for the longest. I wish I could've dedicated more time to it, because I'm never truly happy with a project of mine, but am nonetheless still very happy withe final product the team put together.\n\nI'm very proud to have contributed to such a behemoth of a game, and hope that you 'Gamers' out there can enjoy playing it just as much as we all enjoyed making it.\n\nHornests", "date": "2026-05-01", "id": 4 }, { "title": "Greaseball - Introduction", "author": "Greaseball", "summary": "A look into my Monomyth music and my story.", "body": "How you doing? This is Greaseball\/Slimebox. I am one of the two music\/sound leads for Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth. I don\u2019t have a huge interest in the Pok\u00e9mon franchise, but due to some circumstances, I\u2019ve been involved in Pok\u00e9mon ROM hacking for almost 10 years. During my time in this community, I\u2019ve only come across a handful of hacks that reach my standards for quality, and Monomyth is a prime example of that. \n\nBefore joining the dev team in 2022, CCChiPtunes had already put in an unprecedented amount of work into the game\u2019s soundtrack. Handcrafting high-quality tracks that are catchy, well-composed, and feel right at home within the Pok\u00e9mon franchise. While he was composing these tracks, I really didn\u2019t have too much interest in Monomyth. It wasn\u2019t until my friend thistlehare reached out to me in hopes of finding someone to make an \u201coff-kilter\u201d track. As previously mentioned, I don\u2019t have too much of a connection with the Pok\u00e9mon franchise; due to this, the majority of my music before working on Monomyth is purely just industrial Hip-Hop beats. My main inspiration for my style comes from a mixture of Ye, SAK PASE, and the late Soundcloud era of Hip-Hop. So with that context in mind, I was seemingly a good fit for such a track. Perhaps I took the \u201coff-kilter\u201d aspect literally because the first demos of the track in question were rather underwhelming. It wasn\u2019t until CCCP remixed my track that it was finally presentable and usable. I did however bring one important aspect to this song, sampling. Due to my background, I sample a lot, and I mean a lot. Before a single melody, chord progression, or bassline was written, I had a sample chop and trap drums. I took an old reggea song, pitched it down, and made chops out of some vocals to create a sense of chaos. Of course, in the grand scheme of music, sampling is not unheard of nor rare, but in the relatively small world of Pok\u00e9mon ROM hack music, it\u2019s primarily reserved for joke hacks. Due to this, I like to believe that it makes my tracks stand out and bring something unique to the table. Ultimately, this collaboration with CCCP taught me two things. 1. Collaboration, in some cases, can be much better than solo work. 2. I still had a lot to learn about music. \n\nShortly after this track was completed, CCCP took a long hiatus from Monomyth. During his absence and the lack of confidence I had in my abilities, I needed to find someone else to make music with. I turned to my great friend, Notrisky. In my biased opinion him and I have made some incredible tracks together, and deciding to work with him was one of the best decisions I have ever made. We may argue and bring two different perspectives to the table, but that\u2019s what collaboration is all about. If him and I agree\u2019d on everything we wouldn\u2019t push each other and make such great tracks. \n\nI am excited to see what everyone thinks of the soundtrack and the game as a whole. I have a lot more than a Sinatra cover in store for you guys.\n\n-Grease", "date": "2026-05-02", "id": 5 }, { "title": "Seven Years", "author": "thistlehare", "summary": "A small personal memoir reflecting on the completion of development", "body": "Seven Years\n\nOn November 7th, 2026 - roughly one week from release - Pok\u00e9mon Monomyth will have been in development for seven entire years, exactly. Or, not exactly, since development on 1.0 is ending today. So, 7 years minus a week.\nThe point is, this realization is quite sobering and surreal. \n
\nMy life is in a very different place than it was when the project started. In my last blogpost, I mentioned how much COVID helped development come together and build up steam. Truthfully, I think a lot of stars had to align to get everyone involved in the right place at the right time long enough for this big beautiful thing to come out of it.\n
\nIt's scary to think that this miracle has concluded, now.\n
\nThere's a lot to the typical \"ROM hack\" and even typical \"indie game\" dev cycle that doesn't apply to us. We haven't released public videos and demos to build an audience or funding alongside development. There was no early access, and there were no Patreon builds. Instead, we worked quietly for a very long time. We finished the game before announcing to ensure that we did not promise something we did not end up delivering, and petering out like so many other promising projects in the scene. We did not release prototypes or demos so that we could have one thing that permanently reflects our entire vision without compromise, instead of having differing versions floating around the internet that someone might pick up. \n
\nAll of this came at a price that I knew I would pay one day; the game - this huge, 7 year old monster baby - is going head first into the world for you all to see, and it's a little terrifying. For all those downsides, a million public demos and dev streams and newsletters would've eased me into the amount of attention a bit!\n
\nIt's scary. Scary, scary, scary. I will get over it... but you can imagine how nerve-wracking it is for me to write this 12 hours before the game is released.\n
\nI'm sure the other core developers will have something of their own to share; their thoughts about the end of development. I will not speak for them, but I will publicly thank them.\n
\nTo the lead developers hjk321 and luckytyphlosion, who have dealt with me for some time: \nTo the character and monster artists Ahab, TC, and many more:\nTo the sprite artists; the tilers, the monster spriters, who number too many to truly name:\nTo our portrait artist, to whom I have trusted so much more than that:\nTo the wonderful and talented musicians CCChiPtunes, Slimebox and Judas:\nTo my cherished friend and co-director of a very long time Kerria: \nTo my insightful albeit wicked and conniving court vizier hornests:\n
\nThank you. This game would be nothing without your contributions to its identity. \nIt takes a village.\n
\nAnd to the dozens of underlings in the Super Wario Club who played this game as long as a phonebook front to back over and over and told me every single thing I ever fucked up with full honesty - thank you. Sorry for being snippy. I'm a naturally defensive person.\n
\nAnd of course, a few more to thank for the road:\n
\nTo Wednesday - thank you.\nTo Oom - thank you.\nTo Coraldev - thank you.\nTo Mike P. and Fredy - thank you. \nTo GMERC - ok\nTo D. - thank you, and see you on the next game.\nTo Fuzzybug - thank you.\nTo Brianna - thank you.\nTo Kevin and his terrible Toyota Yaris, which I mog heavily - thank you.\nTo Yoru - thank you.\nTo Parket - thank you.\nTo my loved and missed family friend who first introduced me to real Mexican cultures and inspired me to draw and write Santana, a character that unflinchingly reflects my admiration and respect - thank you, and rest in peace.\n
\nTo Kahn and Nun who have stood by me for years on end - thank you. I would be nothing without the love and support you've given me. Thank you for loving Monomyth.\n
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\n~\n
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\nMonomyth commanded lots and lots of time and work. So, from here, I have a lot of opportunity.\nI would like to practice drawing more, again. I hope you all love the characters and monsters I've drawn in Monomyth. I'd also like to try urbex, and maybe finish some short-term writing projects that have fallen by the wayside. Of course, I have a few pitches for an indie debut I've been working on that I really want to get moving. But, above all else, I love video games with my whole entire soul, so I'd like to go back to playing, talking about and sometimes writing about good games.\n
\n
\nNone of that is to say farewell, of course - I will still participate in the community server, and might even guide a few game nights or fun little side projects. And I'll always be lurking and watching players' reactions to all of my favourite characters and moments.\n
\nBut it is a farewell to Monomyth, because we finished it.\nIt's done, and now you get to play it.\nFor those of you who do: thanks for giving it a fair chance.\nI hope you love it as much as I do. If that's even possible.\n
\n-Thistlehare\n
\n
\nP.S. Shoutout to GMERC", "date": "2026-10-29", "id": 6 } ]