Research on the Cultivating Mechanism of Pokémon Franchise Core Games

Abstract

Since the birth of Pokémon in 1996, after 27 years of development, it has become the world’s second hottest-selling series of video games and is highly influential worldwide. As a role-playing game, the game encourages players to keep exploring, meet more Pokémon, and become league champions through Pokémon battles. The game revolves around four core elements: col-lecting, cultivating, exchanging and battling. This study will focus on the cultivating mechanism of the Pokémon game and explore the specific mech-anism and implementation of the Pokémon cultivating gameplay in the game. As a benchmark in the industry, the cultivating gameplay of Pokémon games has been very mature, and the study of its specific mechanics is in-dicative of related games. This study observes and analyzes the Pokémon ability cultivation, Pokémon offspring cultivation, and Pokémon interaction in three directions: the way players participate in Pokémon cultivation, the results of cultivation, and the experience players get. After analysis, this study specifically divides the Pokémon cultivating gameplay into three as-pects: ability training, offspring nurturing and emotional cultivation, and summarizes the specific mechanisms and related impacts included in each aspect and gives opinions on development.