Pocket Monsters Alpha



Pokémon started development in 1990 as “Capsule Monsters”. It began as a series of concept art designed by Satoshi Tajiri inspired by his childhood years, during which he enjoyed bug-collecting. During the same year, he proposed the idea of Capsule Monsters to Nintendo where it was greenlit. However, Tajiri had trouble trademarking the name “Capsule Monsters” so he changed it to “CapuMon” and then “Pocket Monsters”. According to some concept art, you were supposedly originally going to be able to purchase monsters from a pet-store like setting. Capsule Monsters was scheduled to be released in December of 1991. But due to there not being enough funds to continue development, Capsule Monsters was put on hold in early 1992.



During this time, 80% of the music was already completed and Game Freak Inc. later developed Yoshi for the NES and Gameboy. Due to the success of the game, in 1993, they put a poll within the company as to whether or not they should complete the Pokémon games (they were still called Capsule Monsters, by the way). Most of the votes were cast for finishing development and in the summer of 1994, what was originally called Capsule Monsters turned into Pokémon and the game resumed development.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I will tell you why.

Recently, I received a box packed with Pokémon games, merchandise, manga and basically anything related to Pokémon. Among these items were copies of Pokémon Red and Green. They were essentially the original Japanese versions of the game except there was a note which explained to me (or any receiver of the box) that these copies were the early alpha and beta versions of the games that the writer received in a contest in 1995.

“Neat.”, I said as I took a Japanese Gameboy, inserted the Pokémon Green cartridge and launched the game.

I was met with a bland, placeholder title screen with black text reading, “POKEMON_ALPHA V.10. DO NOT COPY OR REDISTRIBUTE.”

After I read the black text, I pressed the start button and I was given the traditional Prof. Oak introduction. He introduced me to the world of Pokémon, asked me to tell him my character's and his grandson's name (I always chuckle at how he always forgets his grandson's name). However, after I typed my character's and his grandson's name in, the screen froze. When I noticed this, I reached for the reset button but before I could, I began to hear a quiet ticking sound.

It was like an 8-bit version of a clock. After approximately five ticks, a message suddenly appeared on the screen.

“Ughh... my head HURTS.”

The screen then cut to my bedroom. It had a different design and when I walked downstairs, I noticed the house had varied greatly in size and design. It was this big mansion with science equipment, pixelated pieces of paper strewn about the 8-bit floor and a scientist making what looked like pixelated garbles.

“This is my house. I live here with my adopted brother called JOE, who is my rival. My DAD is currently making breakfast. He is also a researcher and scientist who studies Pokémon. But my head still HURTS.”

I looked at the message. The repeated capitalisation of the word “hurts” was very unusual but I didn't think much of it. I talked to my rival but he gave me silence but not in text form, I mean he couldn't even be interacted with. Literally, he had no collision detection or anything at all. He was just a flat, non-interactable sprite with no signs of life at all.

I walked up to DAD but he only gave me the answer of, “Go catch some Pokémon.”

I made my character walk outside and walk into a patch where I presumed wild Pokémon were located, only to find myself in a abandoned town. All of the signs in the town read, “NO TRESPASSERS” and there were no NPCs or any wild Pokémon around. It was just this lifeless town with eerie, sorrowful music playing in the background full of loneliness and dread.

I walked into a small house and I found an NPC looking at my character. He was just standing there, unmoving until he began to speak.

“You're unwelcome here, MAC. You are the reason why this town was abandoned. You murdered your entire family and such a small town wasn't able to handle that so all of its residents except for YOU. YOU put up signs here warning people not to trespass and you even killed all of the Pokémon here! Unfortunately for you, I'm only a mental image to reflect your guilt so you can't kill me. Now, I will HURT YOU!”

The game then emitted a loud, glitchy screech and shut itself off. I don't remember much after that. I didn't try the Red cartridge since my Gameboy doesn't work anymore. But I know that since then, my town has been abandoned, my family is dead and I have to warn trespassers about what I might do next because of that stupid game.