Interested in a Pokemon game with a bit of a darker twist? Enter today’s Fan Game Showcase: Pokemon Evoas. Evoas tells the story of a Pokemon world in which trainers and Pokemon go a bit too far. A Meloletta has been hypnotizing the residents of the world with a mind virus that makes them vicious and ruthless. Not content to fight until their opponents faint, these new “infected” Pokemon and trainers fight to the death.

The game picks up where a more typical Pokemon game would end. You have recently triumphed over your home regions Pokemon Champion, claiming your spot at the top of the Elite Four. Unfortunately, there is no time for ceremony as Meloletta and her infected Pokemon attack, brainwashing the Pokemon League. Strangely, she seems incapable of hypnotising you, though she does manage to steal your winning Pokemon team. Left without any Pokemon and trapped in a world where your former allies have turned against you, it’s up to you, a self-proclaimed rival, and an up-and-coming Pokemon professor to scour the foreign region of Godell to find a cure for this Poke-plague.

Pokemon Evoas isn’t a hack or a quickly cobbled together RPG Maker game. It’s a fully independent game being made in Flash and ActionScript from the ground up. This has allowed the creator, who goes by the handle th3shark, to make some pretty drastic changes. For example, you can now see Pokemon move around the battlefield, rather than just viewing them from a behind the back perspective.

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The basic battle engine follows the same Pokemon mold you have come to expect. Each Pokemon can learn up to four moves and can use one move per turn. However, Evoas allows you to keep more than one Pokemon on the field at a time, like the 2v2 battles we have seen in official poke-titles. Pokemon can also perform powerful Chrono Trigger style duo and trio attacks, provided that they know the correct prerequisite techniques.

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Perhaps the biggest change to the standard Pokemon formula is the addition of “brink mode.” You can choose to put a Pokemon into brink mode any time it would faint. When in brink mode, a Pokemon restores some HP and all of its stats are increased. Brink mode can also change up a Pokemon’s move-list, unlocking hidden potential. In short, your Pokemon becomes supercharged for one last assault on the enemy. However, if your Pokemon’s HP falls to zero while in brink mode, it doesn’t just faint, it dies. No revives. No Pokemon Centers. Your Pokemon is gone for good.

Note, that there are some situations in which you cannot enter brink mode. For example, you cannot enter brink mode in battles against wild Pokemon. You also cannot enter brink mode in battles against friendly trainers, such as gym battles. However, any infected trainers can and will force their Pokemon to go into brink mode against you, so you should likely respond in kind. You can completely ignore brink mode, if you like, instead opting to play the game as a more traditional Pokemon title, but it will make the game slightly more difficult.

If you want to check Pokemon Evoas out, you can play a working 30 minute demo hosted at the creator’s Deviant Art Page. Note that art assets are not final and many sprites in the demo are being reused from other Pokemon games. If you like the demo, you can keep yourself updated with the development of the game on the official Pokemon Evoas Reddit. Give it a try and tell us what you think.

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