Proto:Pokémon Gold and Silver/Spaceworld 1997 Demo/Minigames
This is a sub-page of Proto:Pokémon Gold and Silver/Spaceworld 1997 Demo.
A handful of minigames are present in this build of the games, with them either tweaked or removed entirely in the final versions.
Poker
Poker, but with a Pokémon twist. The deck is made up of 50 cards grouped in five different suits: Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Poliwag, Oddish, and Porygon, each ranked between 1 and 10. The player first chooses whether to bet either 10 coins, 5 coins, or 1 coin. After having a 5-card hand dealt, the game will display the payout and offer you the choice to replace some cards or keep the hand. If the player wins, they're given the option to play Hi-Lo. Two cards are drawn from the top of the deck: one face-up, one face-down. The player has to guess whether the face-down card is higher or lower ranked than the face-up card. If they guess right, their pot is doubled. If not, the pot is set to zero. In case of a tie, the pot stays the same and they play the game again. The player can continue playing Hi-Lo (using the former face-down card as the new face-up card) until they either guess wrong or quit.
Of note is that cards aren't added back to the deck unless the deck is empty, making it very easy to count cards in this minigame. Once the deck is exhausted, the game pauses briefly to build a new randomized deck, then one of the upper border's pink bulbs lights up. Lighting the entire border doesn't seem to do anything, though, and on the next shuffle all of the lights go back out again. In the final games, this minigame was ultimately replaced by Card Flip, and the light mechanic was reworked. A light turns on after each turn playing, and the board (and lights) resets after they all turn on.
Payouts
| Hand | Payout |
|---|---|
| Two pair | x1 Bet |
| Three of a kind | x2 Bet |
| Straight | x4 Bet |
| Full house | x10 Bet |
| Flush | x20 Bet |
| Four of a kind | x40 Bet |
Sliding Puzzle
A set of sliding puzzles which lets the player rearrange tiles to assemble pictures of Pokémon based on their menu/overworld sprites. One of eight puzzle sets is randomly selected when this minigame is chosen. There is no way to exit the minigame until its completion. In the final games, this minigame was ultimately replaced by the stone puzzles found within the Ruins of Alph.
Shinkei
A memory game with a 9×5 board where, at the start of each game, the player is able to bet either 10 coins, 5 coins, or 1 coin. This game is seemingly unfinished, as the game only gives you 5 turns to play, and deducts a turn from your total whether your guess was correct or not. Moreover, the game doesn't actually seem to give or take any coins from playing. Interestingly, this minigame still remains in the final game, albeit still unused and in a less complete form (the cursor graphic was commented out, and the option to chose a bet at the start of each round was removed).
Icons
- Poké Ball
- Great Ball
- Moomoo Milk
- Medipack
- Rare Candy
- Star
- Poké Doll
- Console
Picross
A scrapped predecessor to the Pokémon Picross game that was planned for the Game Boy Color in 1999, which also ended up getting cancelled. Given how the screen layout seen here is very much in line with those of Mario's Picross and Picross 2, this could suggest that Jupiter may have contributed to this minigame. Interestingly, an error handler also exists for this minigame at 38:6B40.
Each 16×16 Picross board has the player rebuild pictures of Pokémon based on their menu/overworld sprites. One of four board sets is randomly selected when this minigame is chosen. Much like with the sliding tile puzzle, there is no way to exit the minigame until its completion.
Interestingly, the top-left corner has a view of the player in front of a wall, which is reminiscent of the puzzles found within the Ruins of Alph in the final games. Moreover, there is no timer or penalty system in place, so it's possible this minigame was purely focused on completing the puzzle, much like the aforementioned Ruins of Alph puzzles.
Slots
Virtually identical to final, even containing the unused Bulbasaur slot icon still found in the final games. The main difference comes in the fact that after the player stops a slot row, its icons will animate, a behavior that was later removed, though the graphics for it still remain. Interestingly, the cursor is also placed inside the text box, which matches its behavior in Gen I, whereas in both this build and the final games its placement was changed to be one tile lower, now sitting on the window frame.
A debug display is also present in the upper left corner, with it displaying the current round's state. It sits at 00 during most instances, but will change when a combo is obtained.
State
| Number | Effect |
|---|---|
| 00 | Standard |
| 04 | x3 Poké Balls |
| 08 | x3 Cherries |
| 10 | x3 Squirtle |
| 12 | x3 Pikachu |
| 14 | x3 Staryu |
| 65 | Unwinnable |
Note Chasing
This scrapped minigame can be played after waiting for an extended period of time on the title screen. The game takes place in the forest area from the introduction cutscene, and consists of Pikachu running to the left, with the player asked to collect as many music notes as possible. This can be done by using A to let Pikachu jump on platforms. There is a total of 306 notes, though it's worth noting that collecting them all does nothing. The game ends when Pikachu catches up to Jigglypuff, or if Start is pressed, both options returning the player to the title screen.
As a cute touch, from there the embers flying across the screen will be replaced with music notes. It is interesting to note that, whether intentionally or not, these notes also appear after backing out of the main menu, regardless if the minigame had been played beforehand. Backing out once again afterwards will return the title screen to normal, and so on.
