Game Bible
The game bible is intended to be an authoritative, up-to-date record of the community's agreed plan for the project. It is not the documentation for the actual game itself.
Auto-generated documentation of the Tuxemon codebase can be found here: http://docs.tuxemon.org/
Plan
To create an open source monster catching, collecting and battling game in Python, to run on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android devices.
Objectives
Tuxemon is ...
Legal
Tuxemon should not breach anyone's copyright, trade marks or patents. It must not use other people's work, including adaptations of other people's work, unless those works in the public domain or are under free and open copyright licences like Creative Commons Attribution, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike, and CC0.
Versatile
Tuxemon should be easy to modify, so people can create their own creatures, items, techniques, stories, music, etc., and insert them into the game. Within the main story, The Spyder in the Cathedral, there is even the Hunting Grounds that make inserting some of these things easier.
Original
Tuxemon draws inspiration from a number of monster battling games, but it is not a direct clone of any of them.
Democratic
As a project by the community, for the community, Tuxemon's creation should be directed by the volunteers who have contributed to its development. This means both respecting volunteers who disagree with a proposal, and respecting the volunteers who made the proposal.
Contributing
Maps
Story
Tuxemon has a main story, but it should be easy to create new stories and add them (see "versatile", above).
Maps
Tuxemon supports maps created with Tiled. There are many major and minor maps yet to be created.
Tilesets
Tiles are 16x16 pixels. You can use any of the many tilesets that we have on the wiki, or design your own.
Main Story
The main story is The Spyder in the Cathedral. It follows a familiar model of the protagonist traveling from town to town, catching and battling creatures. However, the protagonist ends up discovering cruelty and corruption at the very heart of the region, and defeating their villainous scheme.
The main story is set in an unnamed country. There were plans to make the country Ancient Egypt-themed, as can be seen in some of the concept art. However, we have heavily used existing art assets, and therefore there is not currently an observable Egypt theme.
These are the country's locations, roughly in order as the protagonist heads through the game:
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- Paper Town
- Route 1
- Cotton Town
- Route 2
- City Park
- Leather Town
- Route 3
- Route 4
- Flower City
- Route 5
- Timber Town
- Tunnel B
- Route 6
- Candy Town
- Sea Route C
Creatures
Creatures, also called tuxemon or monsters, are the beings that the protagonist catches and battles.
We currently have complete sprites for over a hundred creatures. We do not need to include them all in the game, but the current plan is to try. While more creatures are always welcome, there are only two plot-specific creatures that need to be sprited.
Terminology
A single example of a creature is called an "individual" or a "character". For example, "Beachcomber Harry's level 5 Memnomnom" is an individual creature.
A "variety" or "species" is all creatures of that category. For example, "Memnomnom" is a variety of tuxemon.
A "family" of creatures is a variety and all its morphs. For example, Memnomnom, Miaownolith, Criniotherme and Pyraminx are all varieties in the "Memnomnom family".
Variety
Creatures of a particular variety have a number of things in common:
- Species Stats
- Type or Types
- Body Type
- Sub-Element or Sub-Elements
- ID Number
- Blurb
- Life Stage
- Weight
- Call
- Species Name
- Techniques that are available to learn
- What they morph from and morph into, and the circumstances of that morphing
Techniques
Techniques are discrete attacks, blocks, tricks and other manoeuvres that tuxemon perform in combat. Every tuxemon knows between one and four techniques. Each creature learns techniques based on their variety. Some techniques are learned from leveling up ("nature techniques"), others require training ("nurture techniques"). That training can either come from an expensive, one-use Combat Codex or from another creature that also knows that technique (Technique Teachers).
Types
Every creature and every technique has one or two types. A creature's type determines which type of techniques it is vulnerable towards, and which it is tough against. For example, a Wood creature that is hit by a Metal technique takes double damage. If it were hit by a Water technique, it would instead take half damage.
Techniques can also have the Aether type, which means that they take the type(s) of their user.
Animals, Food and Tuxemon
The question of whether real-world animals exist, and the related question of whether tuxemon are eaten as food by people, has been considered on the forums. Tentative agreement was that real-world animals do not exist, and that tuxemon are eaten at least by other tuxemon, and probably by people as well.
Scoop, one of the villainous corporations in the main story, runs a factory farm, but it is not clear if this is just for milk and eggs, or for meat as well.
Sprites
Tuxemon have four sprite sets:
- Front Sprite: This 64x64 pixel sprite is what appears in the tuxemon's Tuxepedia entry, the individual creature's info page, and when you face the tuxemon in battle.
- Back Sprite: This 64x64 pixel sprite is what appears when the tuxemon faces a creature in battle.
- Face Sprites: These two 24x24 pixel sprites make an animation, which is used in menus to provide a readily-identifiable icon for the tuxemon.
- Overland Sprites: These 16x24 pixel sprites make walking animations, which are used if the tuxemon is ever wandering around the Overworld (i.e. the map). There are generic overland sprite sets that can be used for any tuxemon that need overland sprites that do not have their own.
At this time, there are no palette swaps, like for shiny and genetically engineered Creos in EvoCreo.
Pseudo-Tuxemon
Although not yet fully developed, there is an idea that some entities may be able to be battled, but will not be tuxemon. For example, your tuxemon may fight a martial artist, a killer robot, or a gunslinger. These would not be able to be caught, but would otherwise behave like tuxemon.
People
The humans of the world - the protagonist and any NPCs. These fall into two classes: ordinary people and trainers. These behave differently.
Regardless, all people have a profession, which determines their overland sprite and (if they are trainers) their battle sprite. They also all have dialogue. Trainers will also have a team, which is the tuxemon that they carry with them that they will battle you with.
There are currently sprites for dozens of professions, and while we always appreciate more, there are only three more that are essential for the main story.
Templates
Trainers are written in the following template:
Profession FIRSTNAME:
- Dialogue when first confronted
- Team of tuxemon
- Dialogue when defeated
No dialogue is needed if the trainer defeats the protagonist, because the protagonist just blacks out.
Ordinary people are written in the following template:
Profession FIRSTNAME:
- Dialogue
- If dialogue is different after the first conversation, subsequent dialogue goes here
Items
The protagonist has money, most of which comes from defeating other trainers in battle. This money can be used to buy certain items; other items come from completing quests, or are found by exploring the map.