Magical Altering Gym Menagerie

This was my entry for Anthroyd's fourth Make A Great Map contest. Just as Naillevaihcam won 1st place in the second contest, this one also won 1st place for the fourth contest as well! For context, Make A Great Map is a sort of Game Jam-like contest where participants have 30 days to make a complete, conceptually single map, with a beginning and end. Besides being from the same series of contests, this game and Naillevaihcam have no connection to each other, they use the same placeholder player sprites because of the time constraints, it was simply easier to do. The theme for this particular contest was Gym Interior, as well as a list of gimmicks to choose from, and so I chose the gimmick: "The move Teleport must play a key role in completing the hack." No spoilers, but that alone should give away what this game will be about. I didn't think I would top Naillevaihcam, but I was so inspired by an idea that I practically self-crunched the whole month to get this done, and I'm proud of how it came out. Like Naillevaihcam before it, this is a relatively short but fully complete game. The only changes between the contest release and this one is some bug fixing and cleaning up. If any new updates like additional fixes come up, I'll update as needed, but I will not be adding any new content. The point is mostly to show off everything I was able to do in a month's time. If you speedrun straight to the credits, you might have a slightly faster experience than Naillevaihcam, but if you take your time and experience all the content, it just may end up being over thrice as long. There's a ton of optional content this time around, and it's up to you to decide when you've had your fill. This game doesn't simply end at the credits, it ends when you want it to, so have fun!

Story​

Welcome to the Magical Altering Gym Menagerie! Or MAGM for short. This is a yet-to-be-approved-by-the-Pokémon-League Gym challenge that should test your wits and your skills! The goal of this Gym is to collect 8 pins to earn the right to challenge the Gym Leader, Sothoth. Note that while there are more than 8 pins available, it is not mandatory to collect them all. I highly encourage you to talk to Sothoth whenever you're unsure of what to do next. She has a lot of helpful and contextual dialogue, and will comment on many, many different things from your progress and accomplishments, to hints on what you need to do next. Just keep in mind the waiver you sign when you get started, MAGM inc. is not responsible for injuries, displacement, lost items, persons, dimensions, or sudden dimensional implosions.

Features​

As this hack utilizes Skeli's Dynamic Pokémon Expansion and Complete FireRed Upgrade, you can expect many of it's included features by default, such as:

• Pokémon, moves, abilities, and various battle mechanics from later generations
• Customized battle-ready Pokémon in both your starting Party as well as the PC
• Improved AI
• Ability pop-ups
• Trainers with EVs
• Fairy type
• And more!

Unbound Cloud Compatible​

It's my pleasure to finally announce that Magical Altering Gym Menagerie can be used with Unbound Cloud! Unbound Cloud is an online storage program by Skeli, the creator of Pokemon Unbound, it is compatible with a select few ROM hacks, this one included. You can store Pokemon across compatible games and save files, and even trade, from GTS to Wonder Trading! Do you want to take your MAGM team with you to other games? Did you want to take the Gym challenge with your own team? Now you can! MAGM is compatible with 898 Pokemon, from Bulbasaur to Calyrex, including all their forms. Currently, Hisuian Pokemon are not compatible, I won't make any promises but I may make them as well as future Pokemon compatible as they come. It is worth noting however, that that the player's starting Pokemon and all opponent's teams are set in stone, they will never change with any updates. As of now, the known compatible browsers for Unbound Cloud are: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Opera, with some mobile compatibility in the works. This feature has basically been ready to go since 1.0, but due to the site's requirements, you will need to be on 1.2 or later (if there ever is a later) to work. There is only one in-game requirement, and that is that your save file must have interacted with the PC at least once.

Unbound Cloud can be found at: https://unboundcloud.net

If you need any assistance using the Cloud, you can find help at Unbound's official Discord server: https://discord.gg/k34Jm4T

Credits

Engine Changes and Tutorials:

Skip Intro - Sierraffinity Skip Title Screen - knizz All Instrument Patch - Alisa180, BlankPoints Dynamic Overworld Palettes - Navenatox MrDollSteak's Rombase - MrDollSteak EV Updater - Bin, Ghoulslash Complete FireRed Upgrade - Skeli, Ghoulslash

Graphics:

Item Icons - thedarkdragon11 Pin Icons - U.Flame MAGM Badge - U.Flame, Jerico Pepino Vanilla FireRed/RSE tilesets - GameFreak Tileset Edits - U.Flame

Music:

Battle Hall - Blank Points Black and White Gym - OfficialBrandix Edited by U.Flame and Jerico Pepino

Tools:

Advance Map - LU-HO Advance Text - Scizz eXtreme Script Editor - HackMew HxD - Mael Horz HexManiacAdvance - haven Pokémon Game Editor - Gamer2020 Gen 3 Tools - Kurapika Tile Molester Alternate - SnowBro Unnamed Trainer Editor - Jambo51 unLZ - loadingNOW, HackMew Free Space Finder - HackMew Sappy - Kyoufu Kawa Nameless Sprite Editor - Link12552 Notepad++ - Notepad++team OverWorld Manager - Kimonas MSPaint - Microsoft Windows IrfanView - Irfan Skijan VisualBoyAdvance - Forgotten, VBA team GBA Intro Manager - Sierraffinity Advanced Palette Editor - HackMew LunarIPS - FuSoYa, Defender of Relm Photoshop - Adobe

Playtesters:

Jerico Pepino Silent Vigil

Misc Assistance:

Lunos Dark Zeta petuuuhhh Joexv FBI twixstixx Tarma BreadCrumbs Zeturic Squeetz AkameTheBulbasaur Darthatron DavidJCobb pheonixbound Sierraffiniity Asith BluRose Fan King ShinyTillDawn Anthroyd Thevenomous Jerico Pepino malgus Metaleviathan The Saltiest Man I Know Silent Vigil

Special Thanks:

Anthroyd - Host of MAGM, (Make A Good Map, not Magical Altering Gym Menagerie) creator of helpful video tutorials, owner of Anthoyd's Discord Server, and all around good friend and cool guy. He helped me actually start to learn ROM hacking for realsies, and always believed in me.

Skeli - One of the creators of CFRU, and one of the greatest GBA hackers I know. From CFRU to personal DMs, the majority of this game and everything that makes it work the way it does wouldn't have been possible without him. Go play Pokémon Unbound, seriously it's amazing.

My IRL friends - Thevenomous, Jerico Pepino, malgus, Silent Vigil, MetaLeviathan, and The Saltiest Man I Know - For their support, feedback, encouragement, ideas, and playtesting. You guys helped more than you know.

PokéCommunity - For years of help and support. Decades at this point. They're the whole reason I discovered and fell in love with ROM hacking.

Finally, a thank you to Nintendo, GameFreak, and The Pokémon Company for creating FireRed, and the Pokémon brand in general. Please support their official releases. This has all been a labor of love for Pokémon, words can't describe how much Pokémon means to me. I hope you can appreciate them too. Pokémon FireRed belongs to Nintendo, GameFreak, Creatures Inc., The Pokémon Company, and many lawyers. I claim ownership of nothing, and I do not condone the sale or monetization of any fangames in any capacity. This is all free, and it should stay that way.