[celebi23]

Capsule Monsters? "What is that?", you ask. Let's take a trip back to the development of Red & Green....

So, while working on my early Gold/Silver research, I decided to take a look at Red/Green's development history. At first, nothing stood out as too different compared to the final version (unlike G/S's 1997/early 1998 development). All of the artwork was released during the months leading up to R/G's release. And then I found this image



I had no idea where it was from & if it was even official. Turns out it's from a book
http://web.me.com/celebi23/Capsule_Monsters/Books.html that contained a storyboard of the Pokémon catching animation, artwork of Pokémon Center( maybe Pokémart) and some trainers traveling.

In the second book, there is one image. It's some sort of poster/ad design. Turns out, the development really begin in 1990 & it was then called "Capsule Monsters"



It was with this confirmation, it reminded me of a piece of artwork (from the Game On Exhibition) that I saw



I was able to find larger versions of certain areas of that poster

http://web.me.com/celebi23/Capsule_Monsters/Exhibits_2.html

I then was able to locate more artwork. This time it came from a Japanese Exhibition

http://web.me.com/celebi23/Capsule_Monsters/Exhibits.html


With these pieces, I could then try & figure out R/G's early development history
(Not 100% finished yet)

http://web.me.com/celebi23/Capsule_Monsters/Early_Development.html

It looks like development started in the Fall of 1990 & was scheduled to be released in December of 1991. From what I can tell, there was not enough funds to continue development so, "Capsule Monsters" was put on hold in early 1992. They then developed "Yoshi" for the NES & the GameBoy.

The surprising success of that game helped to give GameFreak the resources that it needed. In 1993, it was put to an internal vote as to whether Game Freak should complete the Pokémon games (then still called Capsule Monsters). 80% were for finishing development. In the summer of 1994, "Pocket Monsters" resumed development. While development has started once more, numerous interruptions (all money related) kept popping up. And as such, they developed many other games while still working on Red/Green.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Freak#Developed_games

Game Boy
Yoshi (Mario & Yoshi) (1991, Nintendo)
Nontan to Issho! Kuru-Kuru Puzzle (1994, Victor Interactive)

FC/NES
Yoshi (Mario & Yoshi) (1991, Nintendo)

SFC/SNES
Mario & Wario (1993, Nintendo)
Smart Ball / Jerry Boy (1991, Sony)
Smart Ball 2 / Jerry Boy 2 (1994, Sony)
Nontan to Issho! Kuru-Kuru Puzzle (1994, Victor Interactive)

Sega Mega Drive/ Sega Genesis
Magical Tarurūto-kun (1992, Sega)
Pulseman (1994, Sega)

In the Fall of 1995, Ishihara Tsunekazu was appointed President of the newly founded Creatures, Inc. (formally called A.P.E, the company that produced Mother 2/EarthBound). Game Freak & Creaturs, Inc. joined forces to complete the development of Pocket Monsters Red & Green (for their new release date of 2/27/96). And the rest, they say, is history...

I've got more pictures on my website. Some of them are a bit too big to post here.
http://web.me.com/celebi23/Capsule_Monsters/Main.html

[Carnivol]

Ahah. Nice write up.

So the initial stuff for Pokemon was done all the way back in 1990?


By the way, not sure if it was just deliberately excluded, but I seem to recall Jelly Boy 2 being a game that was never released (although there's a ROM of it floating around + a translation for it too)

Also, it probably shouldn't be too hard to get ahold of copies of those books if you don't have 'em already, but really want 'em.

[KingMike]

Not sure if anyone ever determined if Jelly Boy 2's freezing credits music was a game or an emulator bug (it wasn't a patch bug).
That's the only I think noticed that would've kept it from being a (seemingly) complete game.

[Evan]

I love these Pokemon writeups.

Ever find out what that truck in the ferry area was about?

[Carnivol]

[celebi23]

Sorry about the lack of updates, haven't been able to find much recently. I do, however, have one more update for you guys. Found another picture of that concept art poster thing. You can kinda see the early battle concept art on the left. Looks like Donkey Kong's relative was once a Pokémon


(Click the thumbnail for the full-size version)

Oh & I haven't forgotten about my Gold/Silver research. Still waiting on some email responses. Will let you guys know about any finds as soon as I get the information.