{"id":89230,"date":"2019-03-18T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2019\/03\/the_pokemon_tcg_was_in_development_before_the_first_games_had_even_been_finished"},"modified":"2019-03-18T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T12:00:00","slug":"the-pokemon-tcg-was-in-development-before-the-first-games-had-even-been-finished","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/03\/18\/the-pokemon-tcg-was-in-development-before-the-first-games-had-even-been-finished\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pok\u00e9mon TCG Was In Development Before The First Games Had Even Been Finished"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n
\"Pokemon<\/a><\/figure>\n

As we know it today, the Pok\u00e9mon<\/strong> franchise is available to enjoy in almost every form imaginable. There are the video games, of course, but we also have the TV show, films, toys, apps, clothing, and more, including the official Pok\u00e9mon Trading Card Game.<\/p>\n

For many, the trading card game holds just as many nostalgic memories as the games themselves – who could forget the jealousy experienced when discovering that some annoying kid at school had that<\/em> holographic Charizard card? If this applies to you, you’ll probably want to read on to hear from Pok\u00e9mon Card project manager Kouta Okamoto and director Atsushi Nagashima from Creatures, Inc, who recently discussed the game in an interview with Famitsu (thanks, Siliconera<\/a>).<\/p>\n

When asked about the trading card game’s development, leading up to its launch, Nagashima reveals that work began on the concept before Pok\u00e9mon Red and Green<\/a><\/strong> (known as Pok\u00e9mon Red and Blue<\/strong> in the west) had been completed. The trading card game first released several months after the games debuted in Japan, but the development team clearly saw the franchise’s potential to expand even at this early stage.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAt the time, I had yet to be involved in Pokemon Cards, so this is what I\u2019ve heard, but it was Creatures founder [Tsunekazu] Ishihara who at the time was studying board games of all sorts. At the time, Pokemon Red & Green were still in development, but from how you could collect 151 species of Pokemon, and the game\u2019s turn-based battle system, it was very compatible with the TCG format. That\u2019s how development began, so I hear.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Elsewhere, the duo discussed the work that goes into sourcing illustrators for the many designs featured on the cards themselves. As collectors will know, a single Pok\u00e9mon may be featured plenty of times throughout the entire collection, but each design has its own personality.<\/p>\n

\n

Okamoto: \u201cCurrently, we request illustrations from about 80 different artists, each who have their own styles and strengths. So, we usually ask the artist who can draw that Pokemon with the most charm as a basis. However, because Pokemon that are often made into cards end up having a similar look when drawn by the same person, we sometimes ask new people to handle it. What\u2019s important is keeping in mind those that are getting to know new Pokemon with these cards.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/blockquote>\n
\n

Nagashima: \u201cPokemon Cards are like each a page of the Pokemon encyclopedia. That\u2019s why the basic direction is to have artists draw illustrations that match the Pokemon\u2019s image. However, sometimes one Pokemon may have several cards in the same expansion, and in these cases we ask artists to show a surprising side to the Pokemon for one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Do you collect Pok\u00e9mon cards? Or have you never caught the collecting bug? Let us know in the usual place.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we know it today, the Pok\u00e9mon franchise is available to enjoy in almost every form imaginable. There are the video games, of course, but we also have the TV show, films, toys, apps, clothing, and more, including the official Pok\u00e9mon Trading Card Game. For many, the trading card game holds just as many nostalgic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}