The fourth generation of Pokemon marked a monumental moment for the series. For the first time somebody in the UK could trade with somebody in the US without needing to plan an expensive trip, physical and special moves were no longer dictated by their typing, and the legendary champion Cynthia saw her debut. For everything that was added though, you might forget just what was removed.

As of Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver, or as early as Diamond and Pearl for certain regions, the Game Corner as we knew it was stripped away from the larger series. Pokemon wasn’t the only game to be doing this, with changes to the PEGI rating system dictating any titles that “contains elements that encourage or teach gambling” be rated higher. This was further changed in 2020 to restrict new titles with these elements to be rated 18+. If you were playing DS games in the late 2000s, you might remember titles like Harvest Moon DS and its weird casino that only seems to offer a matching game three times, while Pokemon Platinum in the EU and South Korea just forced you to scavenge for coins as the slot machines never seemed to work. By the time HeartGold and SoulSilver came around, Game Freak had come up with a new minigame to play in Voltorb Flip, though even this was short lived with no newer regions including a traditional Game Corner building at all.

In recent years we have seen some efforts to bring minigames back into Pokemon, with Pokemon Emerald being at the forefront of this thanks to the popularity of its disassembly project. Pokemon Pinball had been added to the Game Corner in Emerald Seaglass, and Voltorb Flip had even seen a playable third generation port in Emerald Rogue. But what if you wanted more? What if you wanted a full gambling establishment right in the heart of Mauville City to lose hours of your life to? Well do I have news for you.

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The Game Corner is back and bigger than ever thanks to the work of creator Chris Piché. Unveiling the finished project today in a YouTube video, they show Mauville City in an entirely new light with a total of nine new ways to gamble on top of the basic slot machines already present. You can expect to play Pinball, Flappy Bird, Block Stacker, Snake, Blackjack, Voltorb Flip, and Plinko. On top of these, you also have Ponyta racing to bet on in the Mauville Derby, and Gacha Machines to spend your winnings on, rewarding you with random Pokemon of varying rarity each time you throw your coins at it. It’s a marvellously ambitious project with such incredibly limited scope in terms of what’s changed in the larger game.

The rest of Hoenn remains unchanged in the hack, with you needing to reach Mauville City to really enjoy what’s on offer. The code behind the project is also available via GitHub, allowing anybody to use their work as a base for future hacks. It is worth noting however that this project is not currently compatible with the popular Pokemon Emerald Expansion codebase.

Those interested in playing for themselves can find the patch on the creator's Discord server, or compile the game themselves directly from its repo.

Discord Server
GitHub Repo

 

[LuminousGaze]

Oh hey this looks neat, maybe I'll check it out-"Those interested in playing for themselves can find the patch on Piché’s Discord server". Nevermind I guess.

I'll always have some scorn for anyone locking their shit behind a Discord server like this.

I know compiling it myself is an alternative. It's a dumb alternative though.

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

Not my cup of tea for a ROM hack. I do enjoy some of the game corner games in some of the original games, but I can't really say I've ever wanted those aspects expanded upon personally speaking.

Side note, it's a bad move to lock stuff like this in a place like a Discord server, especially if your objective is to make stuff accessible. Probably a bit extreme, but considering I've seen enough of it over time, this always comes off to me like a means to gain a massive head count like a view baited YouTube video. This isn't a good way to garner a good crowd of people to back your stuff. Stuff like this should be optional, not mandatory.

 

[Tex_McBladeSword]

Scarlet please there are other games besides Pokemon Emerald /s

 

[Flame]

oh nice, blackjack and hookers and pokemon?

Edit: in fact forget pokemon.

 

[SDA]

PEGI not be proud of this.

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

Uhhh, I think you’re 10 years too late for complaining about this. Nowadays a lot of hacks are locked in discord server because even the “traditional” forum is not reliable anymore since they closed all the time (for example what happened to the dark website)

Not true, there are a lot of fan forums specifically for Pokémon alone that have remained active for years. Two of which are still very prominent and reliable today, especially so for ROM hacks. Not to mention, we are talking on a forum as we speak that has also lasted for years and is also still very prominent and reliable, its ROM hack section still very much active too. I can't buy the "unreliable" argument considering the popularity of these places still being alive and well. If you want to talk more obscure and or foreign locations, then we can talk about being "unreliable." Even though technically that has more to do with low traction, low income, overall obscurity than it does reliability. That's to be expected though.

 

[LoggerMan]

I remember playing the slot machines in the original gameboy version while sitting in the family area of the gaming room of the local hotel, while my grandma played real slot machines around the corner.

 

[Scarlet]

Scarlet please there are other games besides Pokemon Emerald /s

I talked about Leaf Green recently!!
https://gbatemp.net/threads/pokemon...h-take-on-kantos-original-151-species.669494/

In general though the reality is that most of the notable Pokemon hacks at the moment are based on Emerald, and the only ROM hacks I play are pretty much Pokemon ones and randomisers lol

 

[CoolMe]

is this guy dealing there? if not, im not interested

 

[Greninji]

I might try this out... I hope my Emerald save file is compatible with this ROM Hack, but I don't have Discord, so I guess it's time to learn how to compile source code ...

 

[4d1xlaan]

this guy should be banned from github for putting all the changes in one single commit

 

[Arithmatics]

Oh hey this looks neat, maybe I'll check it out-"Those interested in playing for themselves can find the patch on Piché’s Discord server". Nevermind I guess.

I'll always have some scorn for anyone locking their shit behind a Discord server like this.

I know compiling it myself is an alternative. It's a dumb alternative though.

I must be old but isn't this just limewire but with extra steps?

as in you need to use a platform to download it, so then just leave after you've done so? whats so wrong about a developer putting a pre-compiled version in a forum where anyone can join, leave feedback/criticism, and get support if something goes wrong?

 

[Darth Meteos]

Got a candid picture of Scarlet when there's any kind of Pokémon news worth reporting

 

[Scarlet]

Got a candid picture of Scarlett when there's any kind of Pokémon news worth reporting
View attachment 498139

You’ve got the rest of the team for other ROM hacking news, I stick to what I know lol

 

[SDA]

is this guy dealing there? if not, im not interested
View attachment 497919

Dude, you're making me remember all the times I played Picture Poker on NSMB.

 

[ChronoCrossfangirl2002]

I've seen this guys work a lot, one of the things i admire is that whenever he creates a project the art style in battle and other areas stays in line with gen 3 but with his own unique flair to it, i dunno how he does it but i admire it a lot!

may check this out and play it whenever i wanna play something a bit more unwind friendly if that makes sense.


Edit: i played a bit last night and for those wondering, with the patch active the game still works when connecting to the GCN games as i know some rom hacks like the pokemon sapphire recolor patch breaks GCN connectivity, so yeah more content, yippeeee